Midnight Wolf (Shifters Unbound #11)(2)

The suit reached into his coat pocket and withdrew a card and a small manila envelope. He held out the card to Angus, and when Angus made no move to take it, he dropped it on the desk.

“I’m Jayson Haider, special operations. We’re recruiting you because you’re a tracker, a good one, and we need you to track a particularly evasive target.”

Haider pulled a couple of grainy photos out of the envelope and slapped them on the desk.

The first photo showed, from a distance, a woman with long hair, her face half turned from the viewer as though she had no idea she had a telephoto lens on her. There was just enough resolution to make out that she had a pointed face, a lot of hair, and a scowl that could match Angus’s for fierceness.

The second and third photos were from even farther away, and showed an animal—no clue what it was from that distance—running away.

“The subject is Tamsin Calloway. She’s Collarless, on the run, and needs to be brought in.”

Angus touched the photos, willing their blurriness to clarify, but they remained fuzzy and hard to discern.

“By me,” Angus stated.

“By you.”

“Why?” Angus shoved the photos away. “If you want to round up a Collarless Shifter, I’m sure you have plenty of Shifters at your beck and call to do that dirty work. I don’t know this woman.”

“No?” Haider actually looked surprised. Did he think all Shifters were best friends with one another? What a dickbrain. “She knew your brother.”

All the air rushed out of Angus’s lungs. By the time he inhaled again, rage seared every inch of his body. “You shut the fuck up about my brother.”

Gavan, Angus’s older brother, was dead, killed years ago when he’d tried to break Shifters out of captivity. He’d been the leader of a covert group who’d tried first to negotiate with Shifter Bureau and the governments of various countries to free Shifters, and then had turned to violence.

Gavan had led marches and attacks against Shifter Bureau offices, wanting to show the threat Shifters could be if they chose. At least that’s what Shifter Bureau claimed they’d wanted. Angus hadn’t seen Gavan since the night he and Gavan had argued and then fought with teeth and claws about Angus joining him.

Angus had thought the group was pointless and stupid and would only get Shifters killed. Gavan had called him a coward and an ass-licker. They’d parted in fury. The kicker was that Angus’s mate, April, had taken Ciaran and joined Gavan.

The next time Angus had seen Gavan was when he’d been dead, shot and laid out next to the rest of his followers—including April—waiting for the Guardian to send them to the Goddess. Angus and his Shiftertown leader had insisted that Shifter Bureau let their funeral be in the Shifter way—their souls released and their bodies rendered to dust when the Guardian thrust his magical sword through their hearts—rather than having them buried in a mass grave. Shifters had a horror of burial. If Shifters’ bodies weren’t reduced to dust, their souls could float free, easy pickings for anyone magical, like the Fae, to enslave.

The New Orleans Shiftertown’s Guardian had dispatched first Gavan, then April and the others, while Angus had shielded Ciaran from the sight.

If this woman in the photo had been one of Gavan’s, why was she still alive and roaming around when those who’d followed Gavan were dead and gone? And how close to Gavan had she been?

Or was this all bullshit on the part of Shifter Bureau? Angus wouldn’t put it past them to rile him up over his brother to get him to find this woman for them for whatever reason. Maybe Angus’s name had come up when they’d drawn the who-should-we-be-a-pain-in-the-ass-to-today? lottery.

“I’m asking again,” Angus said. “Why me? Don’t you have other bloodhounds to round up Shifters for you?”

“She’s been seen in the area,” Haider said without changing expression. “If she was close to your brother, she might trust you.”

“Doubt it. Why do you want her so bad? What can one fairly young female Shifter do to chafe the hide of Shifter Bureau?”

At last Haider showed some emotion—weariness, frustration, and anger. “She stirs up other Shifters, sabotages Shifter Bureau vehicles, breaks into offices and destroys records, and harasses agents. It’s a possibility that she killed two agents in Shreveport a month ago. We need to bring her in.”

“A possibility?” Angus could sympathize with a Shifter who riled up the Bureau, but Shifters weren’t killers. Fighters, yes, but not murderers.

“Two agents were found cut to pieces,” Haider answered in clipped tones. “A Shifter did it, all right.”

“Let me get this straight. You want me to chase after a woman who might have killed two humans, but you don’t know, and all I have to go on are these blurry photos? And she once upon a time knew my brother?” Angus held up his hands. “Forget it. I’m not in love with the Bureau enough to help you fix your screwups.”

Haider’s eyes narrowed. “You will do it, or we can revisit just how much you had to do with your brother’s revolt.”

Angus only gave him a tired look. “I was cleared of that years ago. I’ll be cleared of it again. I had nothing to do with it and everyone knows it.”

“All right.” The man straightened up, his mouth tightening in a grim line. “I didn’t want to do this. I hoped you’d cooperate, but you’re forcing my hand.”