CHAPTER THREE

Son of a bitch.

Angus swung around to see something streak into the woods, churning wet leaves in its wake.

Whatever the hell kind of animal Tamsin was, she was tricky, and fast. Some kind of cat, maybe—perhaps a serval, like his friend Reg.

Hadn’t smelled like Feline, though. Angus had no clue what she was. Fucking fantastic.

She’d left her clothes. Angus went down on one knee to look through them—tank top with spaghetti straps, bra, jeans, underwear, boots and socks, a jacket. The jeans held a wad of cash in the pockets, winnings from tonight’s game. A key with a Harley key fob, which probably went to the motorcycle parked out of sight, but not out of scent range. Another key looked like it went to a room in a small motel—it was a real, metal key, not a key card. No label to say which motel though.

That was it. No wallet, no ID, no cell phone, just cash and keys. Nothing to say who Tamsin Calloway was, or what she was.

A killer? Her actions screamed of guilt. Fleeing out the window, ready to risk the men who’d been beating on her to get herself away from Angus.

Angus gathered up her things, unfolded to his feet, and carried them to the car. He had a change of clothing for himself in the station wagon, but he didn’t bother to dress. The clothes he’d arrived in were back at the plantation house, where he’d shucked them to chase Tamsin. He knew Reg would take care of them for him.

One useful thing Tamsin had left behind was her scent. Angus held her shirt to his nose and took a good whiff, letting the tendrils of smells seep into his wolf brain. Nutmeg came to him again, along with her fear and the need to flee.

Angus laid the shirt on top of the pile of her clothes, closed the station wagon door, morphed into his wolf, and started off on her trail.

---

The Shifter woman led Angus on a merry chase. Through the woods, across streams, down into swampy ground. She kept heading south, deeper into the bayous, the land of alligators and too much water. Wolves liked drier land—at least this wolf did.

Angus’s rage kept him going. He would grab this woman, drag her back to his joke of a car, tranq her, dump her at Haider’s feet, take Ciaran, and go home. Any twinge of remorse about giving her to Shifter Bureau had died when she’d tried to kick him in the crotch and called him Shifter Bureau scum. Which he was.

But damn it, if they touched Ciaran . . .

All of him wanted to be with Ciaran, the small black wolf who gamboled around in his cub form and made fun of his dad. Angus needed to hold his son, feel his warm body next to his heart, make sure Ciaran was all right. He felt bad for Tamsin—she’d looked truly afraid—but his son would win this battle.

Her scent led him onward. Angus had smelled nothing like her before, and he’d had to put up with the stench of a lot of Shifters. In the club, the sweaty smell of a hundred Shifters dancing and prowling mingled with the pheromones they let loose as they chose partners for the night—enough to make Angus wish for a bad cold.

He’d smelled every sort of Feline, Lupine, and Bear, but never anything like Tamsin. What was she? Though Reg was a rare type of Shifter cat, he smelled like Feline no matter what form he took.

Angus would finish this, tell Haider to stuff himself, and go home. That is, if he didn’t split Haider and his minions in half for touching his son.

His agitation made his Collar start sparking. Angus forced his emotions down, making himself focus on the mission. He was a good tracker, one of the best, or used to be considered so. Gavan’s ill-fated rebellion had taken Angus from being trusted second to ordinary guy looking for a job in ten seconds flat.

The scent grew stronger, which meant Angus was catching up. He allowed himself a wolf grin. The swamp was slowing Tamsin down as much as it was Angus, which meant she wasn’t an egret Shifter. Or a duck Shifter.

The trail crossed and recrossed itself. Tamsin had doubled back several times, had run straight down the middle of a stream and come out farther down the bank, had even retaken her own trail. A wolf with a lesser nose would have lost her. She was good.

Was that why Shifter Bureau wanted her? To teach them her evasive maneuvers?

And why did Angus care? If she’d been part of his brother’s group and fled while Gavan got himself and the other Shifters killed, he’d happily hand her over and go out for pizza. With Ciaran.

Angus put on a burst of speed. He heard a splash, almost turned to track it, then kept on his original course. He wouldn’t put it past her to toss something into the water to distract him. Angus calculated the trajectory of the splash in relation to the path he’d already been following, and focused on the point where she must be.

Then he heard a scream. Not a woman’s scream, but the cry of an animal in terror.

Angus sprinted toward the noise. The animal had not been a bird or one of the many small creatures that lived out here. Something not from this swamp had gotten herself into trouble and was shrieking in pain and fear.

Angus plowed through standing water, his wolf’s vision assisted by moonlight glowing on the mist.

Gator. Angus halted several yards from an alligator that had to be seven feet long. The end of its mouth was clamped over a struggling ball of fur.

As a wolf Shifter on the large side, Angus wasn’t afraid of much in the animal world, but he’d developed a healthy respect for gators. They didn’t care if an animal was Shifter or wild or someone’s pet—they just ate it. Driven by hunger and a small reptilian brain, they acted on instinct alone, and it was best to stay the hell out of their way.

Angus took in the situation with lightning speed and leapt toward the gator. As he barreled past it, he grabbed the red ball of fur by the scruff and yanked it from the gator’s mouth.

Tamsin’s animal shrieked in pain and fear, blood spraying everywhere, but Angus didn’t stop. Alligators could move fast, and this one would home in on their trail of blood. Angus had to get her out of here and into a moving vehicle as fast as he could.

He kept running, his mouth full of fur, but that didn’t slow him down. He’d carried Ciaran to safety often enough—a male wolf cub could get himself into so much trouble.

Tamsin wasn’t much heavier than Ciaran. Angus hadn’t gotten a good look at her animal, but it was small with wiry fur. Cublike in size, but Tamsin was no cub. She was a fully grown female Shifter past her Transition, and dangerous. No doubt about that.

Angus sprinted through puddles and streams, making his way northward to drier land and his borrowed car. He went as fast as he dared, hearing the gator crash along behind him, and prayed to the Goddess he didn’t stumble into another gator along their path. The thing Angus hated about living in the New Orleans area Shiftertown, besides the humidity and hurricanes, was the wildlife that could best a Shifter.

After a time, Angus no longer heard the creature behind them. He could no longer smell it either, which he hoped meant it had grown bored and given up, slinking off to find slower prey.

Angus, sides heaving, slowed and then stopped, dropping Tamsin to the ground.

She unrolled from the ball she’d been in, her right foreleg soaked in blood, pain in her light-colored eyes. Her left foreleg, unhurt, was soot black. Angus looked down into a terrified face covered with fur as red as her human hair. The lower part of her nose and throat, by contrast, was white.

Two furry ears stuck up from her head, which was a little lighter than the rest of her coat. That coat was rust-colored all over, except for the darker patches of red around her eyes and the pure white of her underside. All this red and white culminated in a multicolored tail that was almost as long as she was.

Angus gazed down at her in disbelief. Shifters like this didn’t exist. The Fae had made wolves, cats, and bears, and that was it.

Angus shifted to human, painfully in his exhaustion, and continued to stare at Tamsin as he crouched on hands and knees. She was hurt, bleeding, not running anywhere soon on that leg.

He drew a strangled breath. “You’re a fox!”

Tamsin morphed to human woman so fast Angus scrambled a few inches backward. He’d never seen anyone shift so easily in his life.

“Thanks. You’re a sweetie,” the red-haired woman said. She held up her mangled and bloody hand, and regarded it sadly. “Got anything for a gator bite?”

---

“You are damned lucky,” Angus reminded her for the hundredth time.

“Yes, yes, yes.” Tamsin gritted her teeth on pain as she hobbled alongside the wolf-man, who supported her with a very strong grip. That grip wasn’t letting her get away, but right now, she was too shaky and sick to run anywhere. “I know. The big bad wolf saved my life.”

“I mean that the alligator didn’t bite down like he could have. Prying their mouths open can be impossible. He’d grabbed what was moving past and hadn’t made up his mind whether to eat it or not.”

“Thank you, yeah, I got it.” Her hand and arm were a mess—Tamsin needed a healer, but where the hell were they going to find one out here?

She’d never been attacked like that before, by a silent predator in the dark. One moment she’d been running gleefully along, the next, trapped by teeth and strength, watery panic rushing through her.

She wouldn’t tell Wolfie how relieved she’d been to see him.

Any minute now, she’d lose her Shifter indifference to nakedness and realize she was walking in the embrace of a very well-made man. He was tall like most Shifters, solid with muscle that didn’t take away his grace. His hair was black, like that of his wolf, and his gray eyes remained the same color in both forms. His arms bore tattoos, flowing vines on one arm and geometric squares that looked 3-D on the other. He had plenty of stamina, marching Tamsin along without breaking a sweat, and this after chasing her for half an hour and then rescuing her from a gator.

Tamsin was a fugitive, but she was also a Shifter female in her mating prime. Her instinct was checking him out even as her reason told her to flee him as soon as she was able.

Hormones were hell. They triggered a picture of herself under him, his arms tight as he braced himself, his gray eyes full of fire as he looked down at her. She’d trace the muscles of his back while she arched up to him, begging for him with her body, while he opened her to hot joy . . .

Tamsin swallowed and forced the vision from her head. She had no business thinking about him like that. She was hurt, which was making her groggy, and he was the enemy.

The Lupine walked her back to the gas station parking lot and the ugly station wagon with the wooden sides. What did humans call it? Oh yeah, a woody. Great name for a car.

The wolf-man opened one of the back doors without unlocking it—but really, who was going to steal this thing?

Tamsin’s clothes and boots lay inside, along with her money. She smothered her sigh of relief.

The Lupine stood Tamsin against the cold side of the car and tossed her shirt, underwear, and jeans to her. “Get dressed. Then we’ll see to your hand.”

He rummaged inside again, showing her his tight backside, and brought out a T-shirt and jeans for himself.

Once they were both clothed, the wolf-man examined her arm, his touch surprisingly gentle. “Lucky, like I said. We can probably save it.” He towed her to the passenger side of the car and opened the door. “Sit there and don’t move.”

Tamsin plopped down into the seat, in too much pain to argue. Her blood had ceased gushing, but it still flowed, and she held her arm away from her body to keep from dripping on her clothes.

Wolf-man shut the door for her. Tamsin noticed immediately that the handle on the inside of the passenger door had been broken off. Must violate all kinds of safety regulations these days.

The wolf-man slid himself over the long hood of the car to get to the other side quickly, probably fearing Tamsin would lock the doors, hot-wire the station wagon, and take off. Which she would if (a) her hand worked, and (b) she knew how to hot-wire a car.

He slammed himself into the driver’s seat, gave Tamsin a warning look, took the key from under the visor above him, and cranked the car to life. He then reached into the back seat and brought out a clean towel, handing it to her in silence.

“Where are we going?” Tamsin asked in an eager tone, as though he’d asked her out on a date. She wrapped the towel around her arm. “Someplace nice?”

“To get you fixed up,” the man growled. “All you need to know.” He put the car in gear.

“Wait!” Tamsin thrust her good hand out in panic. “My motorcycle. I can’t leave it. You know someone will steal it. It’s over there, in the trees.”

Wolf-man shot her an angry look. “What do you expect me to do about it?”

“I don’t know. Put it in the back. This car’s a gunboat. There’s room.”

Another scowl. He was sure cranky. “I’m not bringing along a getaway ride for you. Tell you what.” He retrieved a cell phone from a compartment in the dash. “I’ll call a friend and have him look after it.”

His cell was an old flip phone—no latest tech stuff for Collared Shifters.

“Reg,” he said abruptly into it after he’d punched a few buttons. “Look for a motorcycle hidden near the gas station at the crossroads. Get it to my house for me, would you? Oh, and grab my clothes. I had to shift in the woods, and didn’t have time to go back for them.”

Tamsin heard the Shifter on the other end clearly—no mistaking the gruff tone for anything but Shifter. “Sure. Everything all right?”

“Fine. Mission accomplished. Thanks, man.”

“Great. Catch up with you later,” the other Shifter said.

“Yep. Tomorrow.”

They both hung up without saying good-bye. Typical male Shifters.

“Who was that?” Tamsin asked. “Boyfriend? Bromance?”

Wolf-man briefly rolled his eyes, then backed out the station wagon and pulled onto the road. He drove carefully, as though unused to handling giant metal cars manufactured before Tamsin had been born.

“Where do you even gas this thing up?” she asked curiously.

He grunted. “Engine’s been converted. Runs on unleaded. So they tell me.”

“Not your car, I take it.”

“No,” he snapped. He seemed more worried she’d think this car belonged to him than that she’d believe he worked for Shifter Bureau.

He said nothing more, only headed along the dark road. Going north, Tamsin noted.

She tamped down the fluttery fear in her stomach. She tried to reassure herself that she’d squirmed out of tighter situations in her life, and she could squirm out of this one. Wolfie wasn’t wrong that she needed her arm seen to, and once she felt better, she’d get herself away from him. She’d been unlucky in the woods, in spite of him declaring the opposite. If the stupid gator hadn’t lunged at her, she’d be free now, heading out of state on her motorcycle at a rapid pace.

Tamsin cradled her arm against her chest, leaned back, and propped her booted feet on the dashboard.

“Something to be said for giant cars. Roomy. I’m Tamsin, by the way. Tamsin Calloway. But you knew that already. And you are . . . ?”

Another growl. “Angus.”

She waited but he said nothing more. “That’s it? Just Angus? I thought only bears didn’t have last names.”

A sideways look. “You don’t need to know it.”

“Hmm. Sounds like someone has issues.” Tamsin crossed her ankles. “Want to talk about it?”

“No.”

“Angus. That’s Scots, isn’t it? A lot of Shifters spilled into Scotland from Faerie, didn’t they? Back in the day?”

“I don’t know.” Angus hunched over the steering wheel, the tattoos playing as his muscled arms moved. “I’m not that old.”

Tamsin let out a laugh. “What, you don’t remember the Shifter-Fae war? That was what, thirteen hundred something? Or twelve hundred? I’m not good at history. I’m exactly forty-seven Shifter years old. What about you?”

“None of your business.”

“Oh, come on. I’m only trying to get to know you. It’s a bit of a drive back to the New Orleans Shiftertown.”

“We’re not going there.”

Ah. Interesting. “Or Shifter Bureau’s office in the city.”

“Stop fishing. Not going there either.”

Tamsin looked at him in true surprise. “No? Where, then? Aren’t you capturing me for the Bureau?”

“Maybe. But first, like I said, we’re getting your arm fixed. All you need to know.”

Tamsin fell silent but she couldn’t let him think he had her cowed, no matter how terrified she truly was. Shifter Bureau wanted to know what was in her head, and they weren’t going to be nice to get it. Their interrogation methods for rogue Shifters weren’t exactly full of sugar and sweetness.

She began to hum, then sing. Singing always helped keep down fear. When words ran out, Tamsin scatted guitar parts, drumming her good hand in time to the beat in her head, as though she didn’t have a care in the world.

Angus said nothing, though he shot her frowns from time to time. She could feel the growls from him even though he kept them stuffed inside.

He drove to the river and turned onto a highway that ran alongside it. They weren’t far from New Orleans now, which meant not far from Shifter Bureau. Tamsin would have to act soon.

The alligator’s teeth had gone right into her wrist, tearing flesh, muscle, and tendons down to the bone. Tamsin couldn’t move anything from the elbow down, so who knew what had been shattered. The blood continued to seep out, turning the towel bright red.

She knew she needed more help than a bandage and a Shifter’s natural ability to heal quickly, but she hid the pain and kept singing, tapping her foot to a rocking beat.

Angus remained quiet. Every line of him was tight with rage, but Tamsin sensed the fear behind it. Shifter Bureau must have some kind of mighty hold on him. She could work with that.

She started screeching lead guitar, but got no response from Angus other than more irritated looks. He left the main highway and drove down a winding road past warehouses and river dockyards. After about five miles—Tamsin kept careful track of where they were—he turned through an open gate of rusting wrought iron and went slowly along a lane under an arch of ancient-looking giant oaks.

Tamsin peered around in surprise, her singing trailing off. The darkness parted as they reached the end of the drive, and moonlight illuminated a house towering above them. Big. Old, with trees around it, vines fluttering over pale brick.

Angus drove all the way to the porch steps and shut off the engine and the lights.

“This isn’t Shifter Bureau,” Tamsin said. They favored square, anonymous, sterile office buildings.

“No kidding.”

Angus took the keys out of the ignition and closed them in his big hand, as though again fearing Tamsin would grab them, shove him out the driver’s side, and take off. If Tamsin wasn’t hurting so bad, she just might.

Because her door had no inside handle, she had to wait for Angus to come around and let her out. The window was an old-fashioned crank-down kind—no electronics in this old tank—but she couldn’t get her good hand around to roll it down.

Angus yanked open the door, reached in, and hauled her out, careful not to touch her injured arm. What a guy.

He took her up the porch steps to a wide veranda filled with rocking chairs and a porch swing—a lovely place to sit on a summer day with a mint julep and watch the world go by. Tamsin wanted to find out how to make a mint julep just to sit on this beautiful porch with one.

On the other hand, her fox did not want her to go into that house, which Angus unlocked with a key he took from under a flowerpot. The vibes were making her fur itch.

“Don’t tell me you live here.” Tamsin peered at the glossy painted door with stained-glass sidelights and then up at the hanging porch lamp that looked new. The lamp swung a bit, though there was no wind. “Collared Shifters are allowed to live in giant plantation houses now, are they? Dark, creepy ones?”

“Belongs to a friend,” Angus said, his words clipped. “I look in on it for her.”

“Her. Oh, very interesting.” She shot him a knowing glance, which only earned her another scowl.

Tamsin didn’t know why she was bothering with nonchalance. Angus was Shifter—he must have already scented she was a terrified pile of mush under her bravado.

So, why wasn’t he browbeating her or laughing maniacally, maybe evilly rolling his hands and saying things like “You’re in for it now, my pretty”?

Instead, Angus looked angry as hell that he was doing this. He’d brought her to a place that didn’t belong to Shifter Bureau, but it must belong to a human—Collared Shifters weren’t allowed to own property. Tamsin wasn’t wrong when she said the situation was interesting.

Angus rattled the key in the lock, cursing under his breath. The door remained closed.

“Having trouble?” Tamsin asked brightly. “Maybe your girlfriend changed the locks. She’s sending you a signal.”

“Fucking hell.” Angus stood back and glared at the door. “Just let me in.”

The lock clicked. Tamsin’s cheeky words ran out as the door slowly opened, a cold draft of wind pouring at them from inside.

No one was behind the door. Angus grabbed Tamsin by her good arm and hauled her into the house. A flick of switches flooded the downstairs hall with light.

The old house was in excellent repair, with varnished wooden panels, solid doors, and modern lights made to look vintage. Carved and polished chairs and inlaid tables stood along the hall, the tables filled with trinkets and vases of colorful silk flowers.

Someone with wealth and taste lived in this house—so what was a tamed Shifter from a Shiftertown doing freely entering it?

Angus led Tamsin into a bathroom that was tucked under the stairs and shoved her down onto the closed toilet lid. He rummaged in a tall, narrow cabinet next to the sink and brought out bandages, gauze, and antiseptic.

Tamsin flinched at the sight of them, knowing what was coming would hurt.

Angus snapped on the water in the sink, lifted Tamsin to her feet, peeled away the now bloody towel, and eased her hurt arm under the stream.

She was right—it hurt like hell. Tamsin sucked in a breath, and Angus, concern in his eyes, gently sloshed water over the wound. He touched her so carefully his fingers barely brushed her torn skin.

Once the blood was washed away, Angus ripped open a packet of gauze, soaked it in the antiseptic, and gingerly touched the gauze to her torn skin.

“Holy . . .” Tamsin whispered.

“Hurts, but it will help against infection,” Angus said without softening. “Shifters are only so invulnerable.”

“No kidding.” The worst of the blood and dirt were gone, but Tamsin’s arm was torn all to hell. Shifters healed quickly, but very bad injuries could kill a Shifter as hard as they could a human.

Angus finished the torture with the antiseptic and then wrapped gauze around her arm and secured it with a long bandage.

“Should help,” he said.

Before Tamsin could thank him—or say anything—he had her out of the bathroom and back into the hall. The gentleness with which he’d tended the wound didn’t mean he was going to let her go. Not at all.

Angus opened a drawer in a hall table and extracted a pair of handcuffs. He growled when Tamsin’s eyes widened, and he said, “Don’t ask.”

Tamsin grinned. “Kinky.”

Her bright word died as Angus clicked one of the cuffs around her left wrist and locked the other around a thick newel-post of the staircase.

“Stay there,” he rumbled. “I need to make some phone calls.”