Midnight Wolf (Shifters Unbound #11)(58)

Dante seemed like a good guy, but Tamsin had seen his watchfulness. Was he a plant—a Collarless Shifter working for Shifter Bureau or Haider? She wouldn’t put it past them to recruit or coerce Shifters to assist them. Look what Haider had done to Angus.

Dante didn’t smell duplicitous, but he might become very interested in Tamsin if he found out how unusual she was. He was an opportunist, she sensed, which would explain how he’d escaped detection all these years.

A whiff of fear kicked her out of her contemplation, and Tamsin swerved to follow it.

The trail led her out of the grounds and over a rise covered with dust and weeds. More stickers in her fur.

Tamsin continued to scent fear, isolated from the smells of the fairgrounds, but she couldn’t find a source. She sat on her haunches on the rise, gazing back over the mass of tents and spinning rides, and at Angus and Ciaran, both in human form, skulking around in the weeds along the property’s boundaries.

Her fur bristled as the scent burst to her, stronger than ever. Fear had turned to panic.

Without a word, Tamsin turned and hurried along the small ridge, following it lengthwise. She’d thought it a raised bit of earth to mark the end of a farmer’s land, but she realized as she reached the end that it had another function.

Tamsin nearly dropped off an abrupt ledge, unable to see where the rise ceased. She lowered herself to the ground and carefully peered over.

A culvert opened beneath her, its round shape held in place by rusting corrugated metal. The bottom of the culvert held water, about an inch of it, smelling musty and stagnant. A large snake slid its way along it, heading for a child folded up inside. The child whimpered, too terrified to make another sound.

If there was an animal Tamsin feared, it was snakes. Well, and gators. Larger Shifters could scoff about snakes, but a small animal could be killed by the bite of a rattler. Eaten too. Swallowed whole.

Yuck. Stuff of nightmares.

Tamsin didn’t have time to wait for Angus, who could kick the snake aside and barely notice. She darted forward, her heart pounding, praying her swiftness would be her best weapon.

She splashed through water, and the girl’s head came up, her gasp echoing through the culvert. The snake didn’t care—it slithered on. Whether it thought the girl was food, it was just passing through, or it homed in on a warm heartbeat in the darkness, Tamsin couldn’t know.

Didn’t matter now. Tamsin leapt, bounced off the sloping metal wall with all four paws, and landed on the snake’s back.





CHAPTER SEVENTEEN


The snake whipped around, mouth open, striking, but Tamsin was no longer there. She jumped like a cat, straight up, then five feet backward, and scrambled away when she landed.

The snake now homed in on her—maybe she was a tastier target in its little snaky opinion. It sped toward her, and Tamsin turned and ran like hell.

She saw the pair of blue-jeaned legs at the end of the culvert too late to swerve. The owner of the legs roared, “Shit!” and Tamsin went right between them and out into the desert.

She kept running, shivering, needing to flee.

“Tamsin!”

Only Angus’s full bellow could have stopped her. Tamsin turned, sides heaving, and looked back.

He had the snake in his hand. The reptile dangled from Angus’s grasp, Angus clutching it by the head. The snake was still alive, wrapping its diamond-patterned, sinuous body around his arm.

“There are probably more snakes out there.” Angus swept his free hand to indicate the direction she’d been running.

Crap, crap, he was right. Tamsin now saw little holes in the dirt around her, perfect for gophers—or snakes.

She spun on her back legs and charged toward the culvert. Angus, meanwhile, walked a long way out into the brush, where he, the traitor, let the snake go.

Ciaran had crouched down to peer into the culvert. “Are you Natalie?” he asked in a calm voice. “I can take you to your mom and dad. They’re looking for you.”

Natalie said something Tamsin couldn’t hear. Tamsin was too busy running in circles, trying to get over the creeps of her brief battle with the snake.

As Angus walked to her, she shifted to human. “I hate snakes.” She kept spinning around, stamping her feet, then jumping when she came down on stickers. “Hate them, hate them. Wait—I hate gators too. Okay, I hate all reptiles.”

Angus put his hands on her shoulders and stopped her spinning. Tamsin looked up at the widest smile she’d ever seen on him.

She stopped, transfixed. Angus’s eyes were dancing, his teeth showing in his grin, and then he laughed.

Tamsin stopped. She’d never heard him laugh before. The laughter came from deep inside him, rich and strong.

Worth it, maybe, to go through that little bit of hell to see this?

No. Nothing was worth snakes. “It isn’t funny, damn it.”

“You are.” Angus dragged Tamsin into his arms, lifting her from the sharp rocks and thorns of the desert floor. “My brave, bold mate. You found her, sweetheart. You found her.”

Hanging in Angus’s arms, happy with her, was not a bad place to be. The warm friction of his clothes on her bare skin made her want to cling to him, maybe rub against him. Kissing him sounded like a good idea too.

Angus’s eyes darkened, his skin flushing. His wanting came to her in waves, engulfing Tamsin and making her shivery with need. She knew in that moment she’d been yearning for Angus since she’d met him. She’d run from him, but she’d been watching him, following the lines of his body, doing anything to look into his eyes, his strong face, to feel his hands on her skin. She’d be lying to herself if she denied it.