Midnight Wolf (Shifters Unbound #11)(90)

Ben gaped after her. “Shit,” he whispered.

Lady Aisling paused a stride and looked back at him. “Do goblins, as you call yourselves, know no other words? Perhaps your friends will take pity on you and teach you.”

She turned away in a sweep of her jacket, following Zander.

Ben stared after her, his dark eyes huge. “You did it,” he said to Tamsin. “Wow. She has a presence, doesn’t she?” He sounded admiring, no longer outraged.

Ben started after her. Tamsin, swallowing hard, began to follow, but Angus pulled her back.

“You all right?” he asked.

His solid presence and his touch cut through her shock, curling warmth through her body. “Sure. I think.” Tamsin stared down at the talisman in her sweating hand, then slid it into her pocket. “It’s not every day you’re told your ancestors were made by people who can annihilate whole races.”

Angus nodded. “I caught that. She said it’s against their rules to, which means they could if they chose to break those rules.”

“Yes. Comforting.”

Angus put his arm all the way around her. “Are you really all right?”

“No.” Tamsin gave him a shaky laugh. “But I meant what I said.”

Angus didn’t bother to ask what she was talking about. He leaned down and kissed her neck, his hot breath tickling her skin. The look in his eyes when he raised his head told her everything. The mate bond they’d formed was real, and Angus felt it too.

Tamsin took Angus’s hand and walked with him to the trailer.

Inside, Zander was lifting the door that led to the weapons cache—the local men had broken Ben’s iron strap with a sledgehammer. The rifles and pistols were no longer in neat lines, having been jumbled up as the men stealing them had flung them down and fled. Tiger came in with an armload, which he’d been gathering from where the men had dropped them outside.

Lady Aisling dusted off her gloved hands, though she’d touched nothing. “Smelly.”

Tamsin scented must from the shut-up half cellar, the tang of human sweat from the men raiding the place, rust, and oil. Lady Aisling slid a very large linen handkerchief from her jacket pocket and pressed it to her nose and mouth.

“I’m not used to being around so much iron at one time,” she said apologetically. “We don’t have the anathema to it that the hoch alfar do, but it is strange.”

“So how do we dispose of these?” Angus rumbled, waving a hand at the weapons Tiger and Ben were sorting through.

“Can you melt them with magic?” Tamsin asked, staying close to Angus. “Beam them into outer space?”

Lady Aisling gave her a perplexed look. “What odd ideas you have, child. I suppose it comes from living among humans for so long. No, it’s quite simple. We will break down all parts to the components that make them up. You might not understand the words, but I mean destroy them on the molecular level. Break the bonds and disintegrate the metals into their atomic components.”

All four of the Shifters, Tiger included, and Ben, stared at her.

Lady Aisling sighed. “I knew you wouldn’t understand. You see—”

“We understand,” Angus cut in. “Can that be done?”

“Of course,” Lady Aisling said as though he’d asked a too-simple question. “Atoms are mostly empty space. There is a huge distance between the nucleus of an atom and its electrons. The fact that anything stays together at all is rather amazing. If we tear down the weapons into their elemental components of, say, iron, copper, aluminum, and whatever else is in them, then they will fall to bits and be nothing but unusable dust.”

“Show-off,” Zander muttered and then chortled. “This I gotta see.”

“Won’t things blow up?” Tamsin asked. “When atoms are split, cities are destroyed.”

“Really?” Lady Aisling looked surprised. “Not if we are careful.”

“You keep saying we,” Tamsin said. “But we don’t have the ability to disintegrate metal. Well, at least not without special facilities and a lot of heat.”

Lady Aisling looked straight at Tamsin, all amusement gone. “You do, my dear. But perhaps you never knew this. You were made by the Tuil Erdannan, which means you are not constrained by the limitations of the hoch alfar. You are a Shifter, yes, and much like them, but you are a different variety. Like him.” She pointed at Tiger, who set the last rifle on top of the pile.

Tiger finally spoke. “I was bred by humans. They were trying to make a super Shifter.”

“Well, they succeeded,” Lady Aisling said. “I wonder if they tapped into Tuil Erdannan magic? Something to think about. And worry about a bit, yes indeed. Anyway, shall we begin? My roses aren’t going to plant themselves.”

“Shouldn’t we stand back?” Ben asked.

“No reason.” Lady Aisling put her hands on her hips. “It just takes a bit of concentration. Which means . . .”

The noise outside began with a rush. Rain drummed on the roof, and sirens split the air. The cars and SUVs roared forward, sliding in the mud, surrounding the trailer.

“Even I can only do so many things at once,” Lady Aisling said apologetically. “Ben, dear, will you hold my hat for me?”

She swept it from her head and held it out to Ben, who took it with a sort of reverence.