CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Angus halted at the sight of the guns turned toward them, as did Zander, though Angus reasoned that they likely weren’t loaded. The ammo had been stored separately, and these guys had been carrying the weapons out like they were firewood.

But who knew if they’d loaded a few as a precaution?

Tiger had no such worries. With enviable speed, he shifted to his tiger form, his clothes shredding behind him, and sprang in silent fury at the men.

One tried to shoot, proving his pistol at least was loaded. The bullet went through Tiger’s hide where his foreleg joined his chest. Blood spattered, but Tiger didn’t slow one stride.

The man who’d fired gaped in fear, and Tiger bore him down.

The other men were yelling, calling to others to get out here. Angus tore off his shirt and kicked out of his boots, loosening his jeans as he started to shift. It took him longer than it had Tiger, but at last he shucked his pants and underwear and sprang to Tiger’s aid.

Angus’s Collar went off, burning his flesh, but he didn’t stop. They had to knock these guys out, contain them before they got hold of more weapons or went running off to report a Shifter attack.

A man went down under Angus’s paws. Angus held back his wolf instinct to savage, settling for trampling the man on his way to the next one.

He saw a streak of red-orange, a small one, and he cursed. At the same time, a man who’d nearly reached a ring of pickups yelped and jumped high. The red streak zoomed away from him and went to attack the kneecaps of the next man.

Angus chose another and leapt for him. This man brought a rifle to bear, but Angus knocked it out of his hands before he could fire. Angus kicked the gun aside, sinking his teeth into a blue-jeaned leg as the man tried to run away.

Out of the corner of his eye, Angus saw Zander quietly disrobing, no frantic ripping out of his clothes. He didn’t tarry but didn’t hurry, to the confusion of two men who’d stopped in amazement to watch him.

Zander dropped his shirt, the last thing he’d taken off, gazed at the two men with his black-dark eyes, and started to smile. “How you doing, boys?” And he became a polar bear.

Zander’s roar rattled the trees, and he rose high, bulking bigger even than Tiger. The men staring at him must have had no ammunition, or else they forgot what their weapons were for, because they threw down the rifles and bolted, Zander charging after them.

The ground shook under Zander’s stride, and then Tiger’s. The red furry thing that zigged and zagged and couldn’t be caught wreaked havoc. Men were screaming and dancing, trying to hit it, but the fox was never in one place more than a millisecond. Angus imagined Tamsin laughing maniacally as she dashed about.

Angus couldn’t see Ben, but he might still be using his glam. The man could take care of himself, so Angus continued knocking over the thieves and stamping on them until they stayed down.

He heard the barking scream of a fox and swung to see Tamsin hanging on to a man’s arm while he swung her through the air. She bit down, and he yelled, blood spurting.

The man gave an extra hard yank, and Tamsin came loose, or else she let go, and landed on her feet. The man tried to kick her, but she was gone, racing to the next goon.

A pickup truck started. Damn. Men sprinted toward it, diving in as it pulled away. Some who were down crawled to the trees, running when they gained their feet. Angus heard motorcycles roaring to life.

The last man dashed desperately from Angus, though Tiger swerved to cut him off. A pickup careened between Tiger and the man, and one of the man’s friends reached down and pulled him on board.

Tiger gave chase, but even he had to give up as the pickup slid around the wet earth, hit the road, and tore out, droplets of mud flying in its wake.

Tiger growled, sitting down on his haunches as though waiting to see if they’d return. Finally he huffed, stood up, and walked slowly to the trailer, his feet leaving giant prints in the mud. He shifted to human as he walked, and as soon as he was upright, began picking up the scattered weapons.

Zander’s polar bear charged back from the woods. He took a few seconds to shift, then growled, “Fuck. Didn’t get any of them. They knew these woods. Guessing they’re locals, stumbling on a lucky find.”

Angus shifted, breathing hard as he climbed to his human feet. “If they’re local boys, probably Ben and then us coming in and out of here tipped them off. Even if they didn’t want the weapons to use themselves, they could sell them for a hefty price. Did we get all the guns back?”

Zander shrugged. “How many were there?”

“I don’t know,” Angus had to say. “We didn’t take an inventory. Tamsin might know . . . Where the hell is she? Tamsin!”

Angus cupped his hands around his mouth as he shouted for her, his heart banging in sudden fear. Had one of those guys grabbed her? Was she racing off Goddess knew where? Or had they injured her, and she was in the woods, her life slipping away?

No, no. She wasn’t gone, and she wasn’t dead. Angus would know. The mate bond told him she was alive, well, and nearby.

The mate bond . . .

When Tamsin, still a fox, trotted easily back into the clearing, Angus’s knees went weak. He wanted to make his way to her, lift her in his arms, kiss her funny fox face, hold her close. He wanted her to shift back to human while he held her, and kiss her lips. Then he’d tell his friends to go the hell away, and take her in the tall grass.

The fact that the local lads might be back, or report that Shifters guarding a stash of weapons had attacked them, didn’t interest him. Angus wanted to be with Tamsin—the rest of the world didn’t matter.

The mate bond wrapped around his heart, an invisible tether between him and Tamsin that had seeded and grown in the last weeks.

The mate bond didn’t always manifest. Angus hadn’t formed it with April. Though a Shifter male might make a mate-claim and he and the female have a sun and moon ceremony, they might never experience the mystical bond that all Shifters sought. It was believed that the mate bond was a gift from the Goddess, and Shifters prayed for it.

As Angus stood frozen in the realization that he and Tamsin were mate bonded, Tamsin, who must have wiped the blood from her fur, sauntered past Zander. Zander put his hands on his hips and grinned down at her.

“Aren’t you cute?” Zander said. “Aw, you sweet little thing. All right, all right, don’t bite me.”

Tamsin sat down on her haunches looking smug, lifting her red and white muzzle. She eyed Zander for a moment, then continued to Angus and twined her body around his legs, hugging him with her tail.

The mate bond throbbed, squeezing Angus’s heart until he couldn’t breathe.

Ben appeared out of a shadow, something glittering in his hand.

“What do we do?” he asked Angus. “Cut and run? Or try for Lady Aisling?”

Angus realized they were all looking at him, Tiger included, who folded his arms and waited for his orders. Tamsin remained a fox, the shimmering bond between them as soft as her fur.

Angus tried to find air to speak. “See if we can find Lady Aisling,” he said, his voice grating and hoarse. “If we leave, those guys might return. They can make enough money from these weapons that they’d risk coming back for them.”

“Then the police can catch them and arrest them for the stash,” Zander pointed out. “We’ll be out of it.”

“A stash with Shifter fingerprints and DNA all over it,” Angus said. “Including ours. I doubt my brother was smart enough to wear gloves when handling them. All Shifters were fingerprinted when they were put into Shiftertowns, and about fifteen years ago, Shifter Bureau came by and helped themselves to our DNA. We have to destroy the weapons.”

“And if we can’t?” Zander asked.

“I don’t know.” Angus shrugged tightly. “We have to succeed.”

Tiger gave them a nod. “Angus is right. We stay and destroy them.”

Ben hefted the stone. “All right. Here goes nothing.”

He closed his hand around the stone, chanted a few words Angus didn’t understand, and then the name Aisling.

A breeze blew through the humid air in the clearing, but it was natural, a few clouds rolling overhead.

Angus caught no scent of Fae magic, no sulfur smell of a gate opening between the human world and the Fae’s. When he’d journeyed to Faerie—an experience he wanted to forget—the doorway between worlds had emitted a sharp, acrid odor.

“Nothing is right,” Zander commented after about ten minutes. He’d restored his clothes, except for his coat.

Ben’s chanting died away, and he cleared his throat. He opened his hand and scowled in frustration at the stone on his palm.

“Maybe we have to be in the house for it to work,” Zander suggested. The door to Faerie that Angus and Jaycee had used had opened from the haunted house.

“Jaycee said Lady Aisling told her she could summon her anytime, anywhere,” Ben answered.

“Jaycee can,” Zander said. “I’ll bet Jaycee has to use the stone.”

Ben shook his head. “The Tuil Erdannan are powerful enough to do whatever they want. They don’t have to obey the summons of a talisman. They choose. I bet she hears me just fine, but has no interest in answering.”

Zander turned to Angus. “Options? Besides having Tiger tear the weapons apart. I hate to risk him accidentally blowing himself up. Carly would never let us hear the end of it.”

Angus found his jeans and underwear and pulled them on. “Can we build a big enough fire to burn the trailer down and everything under it? It will create a hell of an explosion, but that will destroy the weapons forever. We disappear and hope the local men don’t describe us well.”

“Shifter Bureau will just round up any Shifters until they find the right ones,” Zander said. “Or make some of them scapegoats—your Shiftertown leader maybe, or all your friends. They’ll figure out you had something to do with it, since they’re chasing you and Tamsin.”

And Ciaran, Angus thought but did not say. Who was safe with Dante for now, but would Dante be able to keep Ciaran safe forever? Worry so vast it was physical pain washed through him. Fucking Shifter Bureau.

Tamsin, still in her fox form, now scampered off into the trees. She came back a few minutes later, stuffing her feet in her sneakers before jamming her baseball cap over her mussed hair.

“Can I try?”

“Sure, why not?” Ben scowled. He tossed her the talisman, which Tamsin caught with agility. “She can ignore you as easily as she can me.”

Tamsin returned to Angus’s side as she examined the talisman. It was a large, uncut amethyst, polished, like the kind sold in New Age stores or souvenir shops. Gold wire twisted around the deep purple stone, glittering even under the clouds that now obscured the sun.

Angus sniffed at it, but he couldn’t discern any scent but Shifter. He supposed Jaycee had possessed it long enough to erase any scent but hers.

“What do I do?” Tamsin asked Ben. “I don’t speak Fae.”

Ben shrugged. “According to Jaycee, just say her name. Lady Aisling. I added polite words, but it looks like they had no effect. Never do, on beings like them.”

Tamsin cocked her head. “What do you mean, beings like them? I thought you said they were some kind of super-Fae. Not as evil as the high Fae.”

“I never said the Tuil Erdannan weren’t evil.” Ben’s onyx eyes sparkled with anger. “When my people were being slaughtered, they did nothing. When the survivors were exiled, they did nothing. My people died off to the last man—me—and they did nothing. Yeah, you could say I have issues with them.”

Tamsin sent him a sympathetic look. “I’m sorry, Ben. Maybe they didn’t know what was happening. We can always ask her.”

“Good luck,” Ben muttered. He turned away and marched to the edge of the trees.

Zander watched him go but didn’t call him back. Tiger said nothing at all, only folded his arms and waited for what would happen next.

Tamsin tapped the talisman a few times and brought it close to her mouth. “Hello, is this thing on?” Tap, tap. “Lady Aisling, this is Tamsin Calloway. You don’t know me, but I’m mated to Angus, who’s a friend of Jaycee’s. I really like her. She’s a lady who knows how to get things done. You met Angus, the growly black wolf. And Tiger and Zander. They’re here too. We have a little bit of a problem we hoped you could help us with. You might not be able to do anything, as it’s a problem very much of the human world, but we would welcome your advice.”

She lowered the talisman, keeping her eyes on it, and waited.

Nothing happened. The breeze picked up, and a few drops of rain began falling from the thickening clouds.

Tiger abruptly went rigid, alert, his head snapping around to peer down the trail. “Someone is coming.”

Angus heard nothing, but he’d grown to respect Tiger’s abilities. “Zander, get the truck ready. Ben!” he yelled into the trees. “Get back here. Make sure Tamsin gets to safety.”

Tamsin didn’t move. “We’d really appreciate any help,” she said to the stone. “If that’s Shifter Bureau on their way, or the human cops, we might all get slaughtered. Ben maybe not—he’s a goblin, and can cast a glam to sneak off without being seen. Shifters can’t. If Angus, Zander, and Tiger get killed, I bet Jaycee will be really upset. So will I. I can probably get away, if I change to my fox, but I don’t want to leave my mate.”

Tamsin glanced at Angus, her eyes the same color as the gold wire around the amethyst. “That’s what taking a mate does to us Shifters,” she went on to the stone. “We’ll die for them, die with them, as long as we can stay together. Angus doesn’t know it yet, but I’m pretty sure we have the mate bond thing going on, which doesn’t always happen, you know. But it’s happened to me, and I’ll do anything, including stand here and talk to a rock in the hope that it will help my mate survive, to keep him safe. Because in the end, that’s what’s we have, isn’t it? What we do for other people, to make sure they’re alive and well, and in the best case, happy too. So if you don’t come, I’m going to grab on to Angus and try to get him away from the cops that I can hear now, fend them off in any way I have to, and make sure he gets out of here and back to his cub. It’s the best I can do, but it’s what I will do. The sirens are getting closer now, so I’m going to have to go. Thanks for listening, Lady Aisling. Tell Jaycee I said hi.”

Tiger came running back to them as cars and SUVs poured in on them, sirens blaring. Black SUVs were among the cop cars—Shifter Bureau.

Zander had the pickup started. Ben headed for Tamsin. Angus intended to push her at Ben and tell him to get her the hell out. She could go back to Dante and the carnival and hide there.

Zander was un-Collared—he had to get the hell out of here too. Angus was a registered Shifter. Could be that if Angus got word to Dylan after he was arrested, Dylan would insist on due process, and possibly, just possibly, Angus would at least get a trial. Goddess knew what they’d do to Tiger, so Tiger should go with Zander.

Just as Angus put his hands on Tamsin to send her toward Ben, and he raised his voice to tell Tiger and Zander to run for it, everything went silent.

He blinked and realized the sirens had cut off, as had the sound of the engines. Tamsin jerked her head up and stared at the raindrops, her mouth dropping open, but Ben remained frozen in place, his foot raised to take a step.

Angus glanced at what held Tamsin’s attention, and started. The raindrops were hovering in place, glittering like diamonds, but not falling. They hovered like a beaded curtain, perfect spheres reflecting the light.

He looked around. The cars and SUVs had halted, as though caught in a snapshot. Birdsong was gone, as was the constant drone of insects.

Tiger had stopped and lowered his arms. He wasn’t frozen—he too gazed about in wonder.

Zander in the truck was motionless—Angus couldn’t tell from this distance whether he was affected by whatever this was or not.

Only he, Tamsin, and Tiger seemed to be able to move. Angus stepped closer to Tamsin and she to him, the two of them seeking comfort in each other.

The door to the trailer opened, and a woman stood in its opening. She was dressed in khaki pants tucked loosely into boots and wore a white cotton shirt with a khaki windbreaker over it. A broad-brimmed hat half hid hair of flame red that she’d braided and pinned up in loops.

She was Lady Aisling, and she reeked of power just as she had when Angus had first seen her inside Faerie. He’d tried to protect Jaycee from her at the same time he’d realized she could wipe them both out whenever she wanted to.

“Hello, Angus,” Lady Aisling said as she leapt lightly down from the trailer’s door and strolled toward them. “What is it you want, dear?” she asked Tamsin. “I’m very busy today. We’re setting out the bare root roses.”