Midnight Wolf (Shifters Unbound #11)(9)

Angus sprinted through puddles and streams, making his way northward to drier land and his borrowed car. He went as fast as he dared, hearing the gator crash along behind him, and prayed to the Goddess he didn’t stumble into another gator along their path. The thing Angus hated about living in the New Orleans area Shiftertown, besides the humidity and hurricanes, was the wildlife that could best a Shifter.

After a time, Angus no longer heard the creature behind them. He could no longer smell it either, which he hoped meant it had grown bored and given up, slinking off to find slower prey.

Angus, sides heaving, slowed and then stopped, dropping Tamsin to the ground.

She unrolled from the ball she’d been in, her right foreleg soaked in blood, pain in her light-colored eyes. Her left foreleg, unhurt, was soot black. Angus looked down into a terrified face covered with fur as red as her human hair. The lower part of her nose and throat, by contrast, was white.

Two furry ears stuck up from her head, which was a little lighter than the rest of her coat. That coat was rust-colored all over, except for the darker patches of red around her eyes and the pure white of her underside. All this red and white culminated in a multicolored tail that was almost as long as she was.

Angus gazed down at her in disbelief. Shifters like this didn’t exist. The Fae had made wolves, cats, and bears, and that was it.

Angus shifted to human, painfully in his exhaustion, and continued to stare at Tamsin as he crouched on hands and knees. She was hurt, bleeding, not running anywhere soon on that leg.

He drew a strangled breath. “You’re a fox!”

Tamsin morphed to human woman so fast Angus scrambled a few inches backward. He’d never seen anyone shift so easily in his life.

“Thanks. You’re a sweetie,” the red-haired woman said. She held up her mangled and bloody hand, and regarded it sadly. “Got anything for a gator bite?”

“You are damned lucky,” Angus reminded her for the hundredth time.

“Yes, yes, yes.” Tamsin gritted her teeth on pain as she hobbled alongside the wolf-man, who supported her with a very strong grip. That grip wasn’t letting her get away, but right now, she was too shaky and sick to run anywhere. “I know. The big bad wolf saved my life.”

“I mean that the alligator didn’t bite down like he could have. Prying their mouths open can be impossible. He’d grabbed what was moving past and hadn’t made up his mind whether to eat it or not.”

“Thank you, yeah, I got it.” Her hand and arm were a mess—Tamsin needed a healer, but where the hell were they going to find one out here?

She’d never been attacked like that before, by a silent predator in the dark. One moment she’d been running gleefully along, the next, trapped by teeth and strength, watery panic rushing through her.

She wouldn’t tell Wolfie how relieved she’d been to see him.

Any minute now, she’d lose her Shifter indifference to nakedness and realize she was walking in the embrace of a very well-made man. He was tall like most Shifters, solid with muscle that didn’t take away his grace. His hair was black, like that of his wolf, and his gray eyes remained the same color in both forms. His arms bore tattoos, flowing vines on one arm and geometric squares that looked 3-D on the other. He had plenty of stamina, marching Tamsin along without breaking a sweat, and this after chasing her for half an hour and then rescuing her from a gator.

Tamsin was a fugitive, but she was also a Shifter female in her mating prime. Her instinct was checking him out even as her reason told her to flee him as soon as she was able.

Hormones were hell. They triggered a picture of herself under him, his arms tight as he braced himself, his gray eyes full of fire as he looked down at her. She’d trace the muscles of his back while she arched up to him, begging for him with her body, while he opened her to hot joy . . .

Tamsin swallowed and forced the vision from her head. She had no business thinking about him like that. She was hurt, which was making her groggy, and he was the enemy.

The Lupine walked her back to the gas station parking lot and the ugly station wagon with the wooden sides. What did humans call it? Oh yeah, a woody. Great name for a car.

The wolf-man opened one of the back doors without unlocking it—but really, who was going to steal this thing?

Tamsin’s clothes and boots lay inside, along with her money. She smothered her sigh of relief.

The Lupine stood Tamsin against the cold side of the car and tossed her shirt, underwear, and jeans to her. “Get dressed. Then we’ll see to your hand.”

He rummaged inside again, showing her his tight backside, and brought out a T-shirt and jeans for himself.

Once they were both clothed, the wolf-man examined her arm, his touch surprisingly gentle. “Lucky, like I said. We can probably save it.” He towed her to the passenger side of the car and opened the door. “Sit there and don’t move.”

Tamsin plopped down into the seat, in too much pain to argue. Her blood had ceased gushing, but it still flowed, and she held her arm away from her body to keep from dripping on her clothes.

Wolf-man shut the door for her. Tamsin noticed immediately that the handle on the inside of the passenger door had been broken off. Must violate all kinds of safety regulations these days.

The wolf-man slid himself over the long hood of the car to get to the other side quickly, probably fearing Tamsin would lock the doors, hot-wire the station wagon, and take off. Which she would if (a) her hand worked, and (b) she knew how to hot-wire a car.