Midnight Wolf (Shifters Unbound #11)(82)

Angus’s grip tightened, and now came the scowl that made his eyes glitter. “I’m not letting you out of my sight. You’re my mate. We stay together.”

While Tamsin warmed at that statement, she persisted, “What are you thinking about, then?”

“Ways to get rid of the stash. I have a couple of ideas. But we should talk later. I’ll need Ben’s help.”

Tamsin burned with curiosity, but Angus said nothing more. He helped her into the pickup, Tiger took his place on her other side, and Angus drove them back toward Shreveport, Ben leading them on his motorcycle.

“Where did the agents get killed?” Angus asked Tamsin as they rolled along the highway.

Tamsin shuddered, not wanting to think about it. She swallowed bile and said, “In the park at the lake. Dion was trying to get me to show him the arsenal, but the Bureau must have heard he was in town, or were following him already. They sent two agents . . .” Tamsin trailed off, the memories she’d pushed aside now filling her mind—the horrible snarling as Dion went into his half-beast Feline and attacked. Blood, screaming, the stench . . .

Angus’s touch brought her back from the darkness. Tiger, on her other side, put his hand on her arm, sensing her distress, but Angus’s touch reached her heart.

Tamsin took a long breath, shaking off the memory.

“We’ll avoid the park at the lake,” Angus said. “Ben already booked us into a motel room, and we’ll lie low there.”

The room wasn’t in a fancy high-rise resort, but a small chain motel farther down the river. At this point, Tamsin didn’t care where they stayed as long as it had a decent bathroom and a bed, and no Shifter Bureau agents.

But maybe one day she and Angus could be truly free to come here on a real vacation and stroll along the river hand in hand. They’d take in a show and a fine dinner, walk in the moonlight as a human couple would. No one would mind that they were Shifter, and they could go where they wanted, do what they wished. Ciaran would never have to take a Collar, and neither would any cub she and Angus had together.

The thought of having a cub with Angus filled her with sudden elation.

All the more reason to get this over and done with. If they destroyed the arsenal, Shifter Bureau would have no more reason to chase Tamsin around—well, apart from the fact that she had no Collar and hadn’t been registered and had avoided being forced into a Shiftertown. She’d prove somehow that she hadn’t killed the agents, and they wouldn’t be able to threaten her or Angus or Ciaran any longer.

Then she’d figure out her life from there.

No matter what happened, she wanted Angus to be a part of that life. Whether they turned revolutionary or moved into Angus’s Shiftertown and took up woodworking with Reg, she wanted him by her side, and Ciaran too. A family. And this family would stay together.

Tamsin flopped onto the one bed in the tiny motel room Ben had given Angus the key to. “I could eat something,” she said.

“Pretty good pizza place right across the street,” Ben offered. “Deep-dish, loaded with meat and cheese.”

Angus turned from shutting the door, and Tiger took up a watchful stance by the window.

“Will you two stop talking about food for three seconds?” Angus said impatiently. “It’s like being on one of those road trip shows for a food channel.”

“I love those,” Tamsin said with enthusiasm, and Ben nodded.

“I like the diners one,” he said.

“Can we focus?” Angus frowned at them, and deepened his frown when Ben and Tamsin grinned and high-fived each other.

He should know by now that Tamsin babbled nonsense to break the tension. But Angus looked like he’d explode if she teased him any further.

“Focusing now, Captain.” Tamsin saluted him, then made a motion of turning a key in a lock over her mouth and throwing the key away.

“Thank you,” Angus said in exasperation. “Tiger, I’ve heard of a guy from the Las Vegas Shiftertown. Name of Reid—not a Shifter but what Dylan calls a dark Fae. Apparently, he can do things to iron, like make it melt, change its shape—something like that. I wasn’t clear on the details.”

“Stuart Reid,” Ben answered before Tiger could. “He’s a dokk alfar. Much, much more personable than the high Fae, trust me. Reid is what’s called an iron master—apparently, he can make iron do his will. The catch is he can only command iron inside Faerie. The talent doesn’t manifest in the human world for some reason—he doesn’t know why. What he can do in the human world is teleport.” Ben took on a hopeful expression. “Maybe he could teleport the weapons, or pieces of the weapons, to places all over the country. Scatter their parts so far and wide that no one would be able to use them.”

“How long would that take him?”

“Who knows? He can only teleport to places he’s seen or been to, and I don’t know how much he can do before it spends him. Or whether he can teleport explosives without them going off and killing him, or if he can teleport anything iron or steel at all. If the weapons were inside Faerie, of course, he could reduce them to slag in no time.”

Angus shook his head. “I’m not taking an arsenal of human weapons into Faerie for Fae shits to get their hands on. If we could even find a way to get it there.”

“Would it matter?” Tamsin asked. “The weapons are full of iron. The Fae can’t touch them.”