CHAPTER FIVE
Tamsin rolled to sit on the side of the bed and groaned. Her hand was on fire, her arm too stiff to bend. The gauze and bandage grated on her torn-up skin.
“What kind of healer won’t come to a patient’s bed?” She struggled to stand, and stumbled, a moan dragging from her throat.
Angus was next to her in an instant, his arm around her waist, his warm strength keeping her from falling.
Tamsin considered collapsing against him, letting him hold her up, giving in to her need to forget all this and be normal. Have friends, a mate . . . cubs. The wanting for that suddenly rose up and nearly choked her.
But normal meant living in a Shiftertown with a Collar around her throat, her cubs captives, her movements restricted. Her own mother lived in a Shiftertown near the Canadian border, and Tamsin was rarely able to communicate with her, hadn’t seen her now for five years. Their last encounter had been covert and heartbreakingly brief, and they hadn’t been able to meet since. Tamsin’s sister was long dead, killed by a Shifter hunter twenty years ago when un-Collared Shifters had been fair game for hunters. There had been no penalty then for killing an un-Collared Shifter; in fact, it had been encouraged.
Angus, on the other hand, had chosen to live in captivity and round up Shifters like Tamsin.
He’d showered sometime while she’d been asleep, and his skin smelled of soap, his black hair damp. He’d trimmed his beard, which brushed his jaw and chin without hiding it. This close she could see the tiny lines around his eyes, and the glittering gray of those eyes, clear and now full of concern.
A bouncer, Ben had said. Angus had the strength and the bulk for that job, but also the caring. Bouncers were protectors—they kept out the troublemakers and expelled those endangering others.
Tamsin felt hard muscles through his T-shirt, and she’d seen plenty of them when they’d run around the woods. He was clean, solid, and steady—attractive. Tamsin, on the other hand, was hurt, smelly, and disheveled, and she wouldn’t say no to a bath. Foxes weren’t quite as fastidious as cats, but they came close.
“You all right?” Angus asked her, his voice vibrating through her.
Damn it, don’t let him make me believe he cares. He’s healing me, so I don’t croak before he gets me to Shifter Bureau.
“Hmm.” Tamsin pretended to consider. “I’m being held prisoner in a weird house with a wolf and a goblin, an alligator tried to eat me, and you’re going to drag me to Shifter Bureau. I’d say the answer is no, I’m not all right.”
She held herself rigid to keep tears from coming. That was all she needed—to break down into a blubbering fool in front of her captor. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction.
“Zander can take away the pain at least,” Angus said. “He’s asking you to come down because he says he needs space.”
“Space for what?”
Angus’s shrug moved his body against her. “Hell if I know. I don’t know him that well, but he’s a good healer. Come on.”
He guided her toward the door. Tamsin hissed as her arm moved, and Angus stopped her, gently peeling the bandages away.
The wound did not look good. Her skin was lacerated to the bone, and blood had seeped out again, as had yellow pus. Tamsin shivered, which didn’t help the pain.
Angus replaced the towel, concern in his eyes. He steered her to the door, his arm still around her, and they went out into the hall, where he guided her to the stairs. Ben was waiting at the bottom, looking up at them anxiously.
Damn it, why were they both being so nice? Ben and Angus weren’t her friends. It would be a big mistake to like them and start to trust them. She’d been down that road before.
Tamsin knew that without Angus supporting her every step of the way down the stairs, she would have fallen. Her right arm wouldn’t move at all, she was weak, and she wanted to barf.
A breeze sprang up outside as they reached the ground floor. Wind chimes on the back porch fluttered and rang, the sound soothing and somehow easing her nausea.
Angus led her down the hall and through a set of double doors into a huge room hung with crystal chandeliers, which were fully lit. The drapes had been pulled back on the room’s three long windows, letting in the dawn light.
This was a dining room, Tamsin saw, but they’d moved the table and chairs against the far wall. The room was big enough to be a ballroom, and maybe once upon a time it had been.
A man and a woman, both Shifters, waited in the middle of the room. The man was enormous. He was taller than any Shifter Tamsin had ever seen, and had a dark, close-cut beard like Angus’s and snow-white hair. Not because he was old—his hair was a pure white-blond, like a Viking’s. Most of his hair was short, but two braids full of beads hung down on either side of his face. He wore a long black duster coat and motorcycle boots over jeans and a black T-shirt. The most striking thing about this Shifter, however, was that he had no Collar.
The woman next to him did have one. Her dark hair hung in one long braid, and she wore a duster coat to match the man’s. The most striking thing about her was the broadsword on her back, its hilt sticking up over her left shoulder.
A Guardian.
“Shit,” Tamsin whispered.
Guardians didn’t guard Shifters’ bodies—they guarded their souls. When a Shifter died or was on the brink of death without hope, the Guardian came and drove his broadsword loaded with Fae magic into said Shifter’s heart, which dissolved the body to dust, and released the Shifter’s soul to the afterlife. Tamsin had heard the story of the Choosing for a new Guardian in Montana, and for the first time in Shifter recorded history, the Goddess had chosen . . . a woman.
“You’re her,” Tamsin said in astonishment.
The woman’s dark brows went up. “I’m Rae Moncrieff. Is that what you mean?”
“You all think I need a Guardian?” Watery fear swamped her. Tamsin usually didn’t lose it in front of people, but she started to shake. She was going to the Summerland now? She wanted to say good-bye to her mother, kick some Shifter Bureau ass, free all Shifters . . . she had way too much to do to die today.
“Have a little more faith in my skill,” the big man next to Rae rumbled. “You look bad, sweetie, but I can fix it. Rae only came with me because she’s my mate. And last time I was here, I went on an adventure, and she got worried, and well, you know . . .” He made a vague motion with his huge hand.
“I told him he wasn’t going on another one without me.” Rae’s gray eyes twinkled. “I can’t let him have all the fun. But don’t worry. Zander’s the best. Let her sit down at least, Angus. The poor thing is about to fall over.”
Tamsin wouldn’t fall with Angus holding on to her so solidly. He led her, step by step, to a chair set under one of the chandeliers, where she sat, both nervous and grateful to Angus for his support.
Zander slid off his duster and dropped onto the carpet. Rae rolled her eyes, picked up the coat, smoothed it out, and draped it over a chair.
Anything amusing about Zander faded as he came to Tamsin and went down on one knee beside her. He removed the rest of the gauze and examined her arm, which looked not so much like an arm now as a chewed-up piece of meat. Which was exactly what it had been, Tamsin thought with giddy hilarity, to the gator. She must be delirious if she found that funny.
Zander’s touch on her shoulder above the wound was so light she barely registered it.
“What did you put on it?” he asked.
“Water and antiseptic,” Angus answered. “All I could find at short notice.”
The chandelier overhead creaked the faintest bit. Tamsin looked up quickly, but the light hung silent and still.
“Okay,” Zander said. “I can’t promise this won’t hurt, Tamsin, but it will get better.”
He placed his hand over her hurt arm, barely touching, then bowed his head and closed his eyes.
Angus took up a place on the other side of Tamsin, right against her chair. She’d suspect him of making sure she didn’t leap up and run away if he weren’t watching Zander so hard.
Zander’s touch stung on Tamsin’s peeled skin, and she clenched her teeth against the additional pain. It was nothing to the bone-deep agony of the bites, but every bit added up.
Zander began to drone a low chant, strange words flowing from his mouth. Tamsin recognized a prayer to the Goddess—she didn’t know the exact phrases, but her mother had whispered a similar prayer over Tamsin when she’d been a cub.
Tamsin’s eyes grew moist as she remembered the happy times with her family, long before her dad had died, when she and her sister, Glynis, had thought their cozy life would last forever. They’d been hungry sometimes—it wasn’t always easy to find food, living in the remote parts of Canada as they had. Most Shifters had hidden themselves from human eyes before Shifters had been outed, but fox Shifters truly hid.
Her dad had been the fox—her mom was a small Feline who was mostly bobcat. Shifter cubs of mixed parentage took the form of one parent, not both, and Tamsin had definitely been fox. Glynis had been bobcat, like their mom, but she hadn’t been able to run fast enough from a Shifter hunter’s bullet.
Tamsin heard whispered words that followed Zander’s and realized Rae chanted along under her breath. Rae was watching her mate in love and concern, her lips moving in the prayer. Zander swayed, his braids swinging, his eyes closed, face drawn. Outside, the wind chimes shimmered music, keeping time with Zander’s chanting.
Tamsin’s pain lessened. Not much, but she was able to draw a breath, her injury no longer the focus of her entire world.
Zander lifted his hand from Tamsin’s arm to skim his T-shirt off his torso. His skin beneath gleamed with sweat, and his breathing was labored. When he grasped Tamsin’s arm again, his fingers gripped tighter, but now it didn’t hurt as much.
The chandelier jangled overhead—no mistaking it this time. The shadows under the chandelier moved, but there was no breeze, no breath of wind in the room.
Zander continued his droning. Angus pressed closer to Tamsin’s side, which made the already warm temperature of the room hotter. Tamsin began to perspire, drops of sweat trickling from her temples to trail down her spine.
Tamsin sucked in a sharp breath as sudden pain seized her. The agony grew, filling all the spaces of her body. Tamsin couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think. She would have screamed if she could only form a sound.
Zander’s chanting became hoarse, the words barely emerging from his throat. His outline blurred as Tamsin’s eyes flooded with tears that spilled down her cheeks, though she couldn’t so much as sob.
“What the hell are you doing?” she heard Angus growl.
“Leave him be,” Ben said firmly at the same time Rae said in worry, “No, don’t touch him.”
Angus closed his mouth, though he didn’t leave Tamsin’s side. He was the one thing she could feel through the pain, a solid rock of Shifter against her.
Another lightning flash of agony seared her, and then, in one swift movement, Tamsin’s wounds closed. Her bones fused in a brief moment of torture, her muscles knit, and her skin closed. The red streaks vanished, blood dried, and Tamsin’s skin became whole, pink with scar tissue. Even the scars faded in the next moment, leaving only a few white streaks to show she’d been hurt at all.
Tamsin gaped down at her arm, which was smooth and strong. Holy shit.
She looked up to pour forth thanks to Zander, and then froze. Zander had climbed to his feet, his face twisting in pain, and he was struggling to rip open his belt and jeans. What the—
“Get back!” Rae yelled.
Tamsin hesitated in perplexity, but Angus was already dragging her chair away from Zander, Tamsin with it.
Zander kicked off his underwear right before he vanished and a couple of tons of polar bear filled the space where he’d been.
Tamsin leapt from her chair and ran to the far side of the room, Angus a step behind her. She understood now why they’d moved the furniture and why Zander claimed he needed “space.” Not to meditate, but so he could shift into a gigantic, no-one-should-be-that-big polar bear.
A polar bear roaring in pain. Zander’s black eyes shut tight, disappearing into his mass of white fur. He held his right paw across his chest, and rose and rose until he was on his hind legs, his great head barely missing the chandeliers. He opened his mouth and bellowed, cradling his right front leg in the exact way Tamsin had her hurt arm.
“What’s wrong with him?” Tamsin yelled over the noise.
A whiff of fresh scent brushed her as Rae moved to her side. “He takes on the pain of those he heals. Not the injury itself, but the psychic part of it.” She cast a worried glance at her mate. “Yours wasn’t that bad, so he won’t have to fight it long.”
It had been bad enough, but also terrifying. Tamsin’s small fox had been up against a huge alligator that had ruthlessly attacked her. The shock and fear of that had been almost as devastating as the pain.
Zander’s face twisted, showing all Tamsin’s horror and panic as well as the anguish of her injury. He threw his head back, narrowly missing the polished ceiling, and roared again.
Rae rushed to him. Tamsin started to follow, worried that the flailing, bellowing bear would hurt the young woman, but Angus held her back.
When Zander ceased weaving around, Rae darted in and wrapped her arms around him as far as she could, sinking into his soft fur.
Angus’s hand rested firmly on Tamsin’s shoulder. “We should leave them to it.”
Ben waited for them at the double doors. Tamsin looked back before she exited to see that Zander had calmed a little, his left paw resting on Rae’s back as she rubbed her cheek on the fur of his chest.
The touch of a mate healed, Tamsin’s mother and father had taught her. Rae murmured to Zander, and he quieted, lowering himself to all fours, though keeping his weight from his right front leg. Rae leaned across his back, stroking his head, kissing it.
The sight of them taking care of each other brought a lump to Tamsin’s throat. How wonderful to have a person to trust and lean on. Her peripatetic life had not let her grow close to anyone, to let down her guard. The few times she had, she’d paid the price. But watching Zander and Rae showed her what she’d missed.
Zander brought his head around to nuzzle Rae, and Angus shoved Tamsin out the door and closed it.
“I guess we’re off to Shifter Bureau now?” Tamsin kept her tone light, but her heart bumped as she waited for his answer.
Angus turned her in the direction of the stairs. “Shower first. We’ll have some breakfast and then we’ll go.”
Tamsin stared at him, trying to hide her confusion. “Well, aren’t you the polite host? Why did you even bring me here, Angus? You could have dragged me straight to Shifter Bureau and let them deal with doctoring me.”
Angus gave her a frown. “You were hurt. Human doctors can’t fix up Shifters very well, and I knew a healer.”
So very logical. Tamsin shook her head, ducked away from him, headed straight to the back door, and tried to open it.
It wouldn’t budge. It was unlocked—the handle moved fine—but as before, the door remained solidly closed.
Tamsin sighed and turned to find Angus pinning her with his fierce glare. She shrugged. “Had to try.” She laughed at his expression and tripped lightly up the stairs, out of pain, strong, and optimistic once more.
Angus walked outside with Zander and Rae. The house let them exit without hindrance, the front door opening readily. Angus worried that the house would arbitrarily let Tamsin leave as well and asked Ben to station himself upstairs in the kitchen to keep an eye on her while she ate.
Tamsin had showered in the large upstairs bathroom, singing at the top of her lungs, then came out toweling her bright red hair and went straight to the kitchen. Ben had cooked breakfast, and Tamsin sat down and began to shovel it in, but Zander and Rae declined the invitation to stay.
Outside, a motorcycle waited under a wide-boled tree. Marlo had flown them in, Zander had said, then they’d rented the bike to bring them to the house. Zander, Collarless, could easily rent vehicles where a Collared Shifter might be turned away—Angus suspected Zander’s large size and slightly crazed forcefulness had humans doing whatever he wanted, in any case.
As Rae moved to the motorcycle, Zander gestured Angus aside, crowding him against the bottom step of the porch.
“You really taking her to Shifter Bureau?” The anger in Zander’s black eyes sparkled in the early light. “I see that she’s a handful, but . . . All right, don’t let me mince words. What the fuck?”
“They have my cub,” Angus said quietly. “I don’t have a choice.”
“Oh.” Zander took a step back, his anger redirecting itself. “Oh, man. I’m sorry. Tell you what. How about you, me, Rae, and Ben go break out your cub and blow town. I’m guessing we can recruit plenty of Shifters to help.”
Angus thought of Haider and the strange, cold gleam in the man’s eyes. “Too risky. He might hurt Ciaran.”
“We’ll go in under the radar. No one will know we’re coming—”
Zander broke off as Angus locked his fingers around the lapel of his coat. “No. The guy who has Ciaran is careful enough to keep him well hidden and mean enough to kill him in front of me. Don’t even think about trying to rescue him on your own. If you get Ciaran hurt, I’ll kill you.”
Zander gazed down at Angus from his height, not even angry that Angus had grabbed him. “I get it. But, my friend . . .” He put his hand on Angus’s and gently but forcefully removed it from his coat. “If you need us to help, you call. I’ll stick around the area—maybe go visit Austin or Kendrick. I’m more than happy to kick some Shifter Bureau ass.”
Angus nodded once. “I’ll keep it in mind. Thanks.”
Zander’s face split with a sudden grin. “They say you’re a man of few words but deep thoughts. I’m guessing they’re right. Goddess go with you.”
“And you,” Angus said. “And your mate.”
Zander glanced at Rae, who’d climbed onto the motorcycle and had it started, then he bent close to Angus. “She hasn’t said anything yet, but I think she might be expecting.” Happiness radiated from the big man. “So I know how you feel. If anything endangered Rae and the cub . . .” Zander shuddered and shook his head. “But remember—you call.”
He took a few steps back, pointing at Angus, then he swung around, duster flying, and strode to the motorcycle. “No, no, I’m driving,” his voice boomed, and Rae’s softer tones answered him—firmly. Angus guessed who would lose that argument.
Angus was right—he looked back from the top of the porch steps when he heard the motorcycle rev, and watched them pull out, Rae in front, Zander behind her. Zander lifted a long arm and waved, and then they were gone.
The front door jerked open, and Ben looked out, wild-eyed. “I don’t know how she did it,” he said. “But she’s gone.”