emotion. She’d read that as a child in the tomes written by learned Tuil Erdannan.
Shifters had honed this silent language to perfection.
Rhianne didn’t know the technique for responding to him, so she brought to mind what she wanted to answer and hoped her posture would convey it.
Of course I’m frightened. I’m not Shifter! … Am I?
We will speak later. Tiger turned away but the line of his back was somehow reassuring.
Ben scowled at the Bureau agent who’d brought them in, his words coming to her more clearly now. “How many times does he have to explain? She’s registered. Legit. Here on a legal pass.”
The blond man with the quiet eyes broke in. “I saw the paperwork myself.”
Rhianne had no idea what paper they were talking about but she kept silent.
“Well, I haven’t seen it,” the lead agent snapped. “No request for transfer has come through my inbox, and I monitor these things daily.”
“You handle all requests personally?” the blond man asked mildly. “At my agency, there are five clerks who do the paperwork, and I get a report.”
“That’s what I mean. I never saw that report.”
“Sometimes the clerks get sloppy.” The blond man nodded at the agent in confidence. “Check your database—I know it’s there.”
The agent regarded the blond man with suspicion, but the blond man returned a bland stare and offered nothing more. Ben had his arms folded across his chest, his fists tightly balled, barely containing himself.
Rhianne had seen Ben’s might. He could break every human in this room in half without trying, and she could use her magic to crash them out to freedom.
Excitement built inside her at these thoughts. She and Ben could devastate the place, run away laughing, and collapse somewhere private and make crazy love. Rhianne wanted it with her whole being.
What had Ben called it? Mating frenzy. She closed her eyes, enjoying the waves of heat and need pulsing through her body.
When she opened her eyes again, she saw Tiger watching her. She flushed, knowing she must be broadcasting her private thoughts to him.
Patience, little one. Better to placate than destroy. A corner of Tiger’s lip twitched. I had to learn this.
Rhianne had no interest in placating the men who’d surrounded them, pointed weapons at them, and hustled her and Ben into the large black vehicle, separating them when they arrived. She had no interest in being patient with the agent who’d dared to touch her mate.
Peace.
Tiger’s message was like a cool whisper in a lake of fire. Rhianne curled her fingers into her palms and willed herself to breathe.
How many times in her life had she had to leave a room—or an entire district—to find calm in solitude? She’d attributed her restlessness to her unfortunate birth into a prominent Tuil Erdannan family and having an evil bastard for a father. She’d grown impatient with her mother’s many gatherings both important and frivolous, grown unhappy with the threat of her deadly father always in the background, and sought solitude. Her interest in astronomy, where she could sit long nights in peaceful darkness, had helped, but not entirely.
Had there been more to it than that? Perhaps the Shifter in her had wanted space to wander, without the scrutiny of her family?
How the hell had she become a Shifter?
The answer was obvious, and Rhianne shied away from it, hard.
“We’re equipped to return her to the Austin Shiftertown,” the blond man was saying when Rhianne focused again. “She’ll be contained there.”
“The eyewitnesses say she turned into some kind of bird.” The lead agent glared at Ben then the blond man. “I’ve never heard of any bird Shifters in the Austin Shiftertown.”
The blond man didn’t blink. “It’s a new program. There are very few of the raptor Shifters, and our agency is rounding them up to study them. So far we only have the one.”
“I’ll have to verify this,” the lead agent snarled then trailed off into a mutter. “Always weird stuff going on in Austin.”
“It’s the city’s motto,” Ben grunted. “More or less.”
The lead agent didn’t like Ben talking. “I’ll check the database,” he said in a hard voice.
“By all means,” the blond man answered. “The information will be there.”
Rhianne could hear, if she strained, a tinny voice somewhere in the room, as though speaking from far away. She cocked her head, trying to listen, and saw as she did that the blond man had something tucked inside his ear. From this the voice came to her.
Walker, lad, what are you doing to me?
The voice sounded