Midnight Wolf (Shifters Unbound #11)(17)

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.