Midnight Wolf (Shifters Unbound #11)(27)

“Nah, I like the weather.” Tamsin stuck her hands into her jacket pockets. No way was she entering a confined space with Haider. She’d be able to get away much more easily if they remained in the open air.

When Haider didn’t move, she continued, “So why did you send a master tracker like Angus after little ole me? What have I done? This time, I mean.”

The quirk of Haider’s lips hadn’t left him. Tamsin hated people with the I-know-something-you-don’t look.

“You interest me,” Haider said. “I could reel off the list of your crimes and your associations with known agitators, but I’ll do that later. You’ll tell me where they all are in time. You also know a few things about Gavan Murray I will make you tell me. But I’m also very curious about this.”

He dipped his hand into his pocket, and Tamsin tensed, but what he pulled out was an ordinary smartphone. He tapped an icon, gave it a few swipes, tapped again, and held it up facing her.

The screen of the phone was dark for a moment, then a greenish light spread over it, giving the trees and plants it showed a strange fuzzy outline. In the middle of these trees was Tamsin, her skin glowing in the green light. She was naked.

Before she could voice her disgust that someone had spied on her with a nightscope and filmed it, the Tamsin on the screen morphed rapidly and smoothly into her fox.

Shit.

Haider smiled as he turned the phone around and tapped it to make it dark again.

“What are you going to do with that?” Tamsin asked, pretending nonchalance. “Post it on a Canine porn network?”

“I’m going to find out what makes you tick,” Haider said. “I want to know why there are fox Shifters when no one knew it, and how there are fox Shifters. I’m going to find out everything about you.”

“How, by dissecting me?” Tamsin’s voice went shriller than she meant it to.

“Not right away,” Haider said smoothly. “I’ll want to talk to you first. About Gavan and his little group. About everything. We will do quite a lot of talking.”

Interrogation, he meant. With torture, drugs, whatever he could think of to make her spill all she knew.

Then he’d cut her apart to find the secret of what made Tamsin herself.

He was crazy enough to do it—Tamsin saw that in his eyes. She noticed that a couple of his goons weren’t thrilled by what he was saying, but she figured they’d obey orders no matter what. If they had true scruples, they wouldn’t be here at all.

Only one thing to do. She wasn’t sure Angus and Ciaran had made it to safety yet, but she couldn’t wait.

Tamsin launched herself at Haider.

She knew he’d be expecting something like that, so she turned in midair to hit the guy five feet away from him instead. She rammed into the startled man in fatigues, then jumped away from him, his tranq pistol in her hands.

The problem with tranq guns was that they only had one shot. Tamsin picked her target, and fired the tranq dart into Haider’s neck.

He swore at her the second before he crumpled into an unconscious pile, and in that second, she was gone.

Tamsin dodged the goons before they could coordinate to grab her. She heard their tranq guns go off, but none hit her, and then came the pop of pistol bullets.

Tamsin thrust the tranq pistol into her jacket and nimbly leapt from the ground to an ornamented frieze to the top of a tomb, then ran, jumping from one tomb to the next, dropping down at the end of the row to another walkway. The large human men in combat boots would have to run around, but they were trained, and they were fast.

Tamsin bolted down the main walkway toward the open gate, running with all she had in her. She emerged onto the street where Angus had parked. The station wagon was still there, Angus and Ciaran about ten feet from reaching it.

The Shifter agents were right behind her. No time to search for whomever Angus had arranged to pick her up.

“Change of plans!” Tamsin shouted as she barreled toward them and the car.

Angus and Ciaran exchanged a startled look, and then they were running.

All three reached the car at the same time. Tamsin yanked open the back door of the station wagon and dove inside. She hunkered down on the seat as Angus and Ciaran slammed themselves into the front, and Tamsin sent up a fervent prayer to the Goddess.

“Awesome!” Ciaran shouted. “Go, Dad! Go!”





CHAPTER EIGHT


Angus swung into traffic, diving in front of a speeding SUV that had to slam on its brakes. The driver leaned on his horn and gave Angus the finger. Angus didn’t slow, leaving the narrow street behind as fast as he could.

“What the fuck was that?” he demanded of the lump in the back seat.

“Me blowing your mission.” Tamsin’s voice was muffled. “I don’t care where you throw me out, but don’t take me back to Haider.”

“You want to tell me where you think I can take you? In this shitbag of a car? With all of Shifter Bureau on our asses?”

“You don’t know it’s all of Shifter Bureau, Dad.” Ciaran’s tone was reasonable but his eyes were lit with excitement. His face and arms were dirty. If any of those goons had hit him . . .

“It will be once Haider reports in,” Angus growled.

“We’ll have to ditch the car.” There was a rustle as Tamsin righted herself but she remained hunched down in the seat. “It stands out a mile, and I bet he put a tracker on it.”