Read Online Shifters Unbound [5] Tiger Magic by Jennifer Ashley - Free Book Online

soldier asked.
    “He’s not here,” she said, still holding the door. “He went home.”
    The soldier gave her a careful look. “Who?”
    “Tiger. The injured man you tried to shoot. He went home like a good boy. What do you want?”
    The suited man looked around the soldier. “To speak with you, Ms. Randal.” He sounded nervous, not smooth as someone who’d arrived in a sleek SUV should sound. “About Shifters.”
    “Why? There are plenty in Shiftertown.” For some reason, Carly did not want these men in here, did not want them to find Connor in her living room. In spite of Connor being taller than she was, and strong—she’d felt his strength when she’d held on to him during the ride home—Carly sensed that here in her house, Connor was vulnerable.
    Would she have thought that if he hadn’t explained that he was a cub? She didn’t know. All Carly did know was that she did
not
want this trigger-happy soldier to start pointing guns at Connor.
    “Please, Ms. Randal,” the suit said. “It’s important.”
    “Let us in, Ms. Randal,” the soldier said, his blue eyes hard. “We have a warrant.”
    Carly’s knowledge of police procedure came mostly from television, but she thought that a warrant meant they could come in and search her place legally, whether she liked it or not. But search for what?
    Worth it to battle it out in court? Or let these guys in, try to keep them in the kitchen, and see what they wanted?
    If Ethan had anything to do with this, she’d . . .
    Damn him, she should have told Sean to shove the Corvette off a cliff.
    Carly let out an annoyed sigh, opened the door, and gestured with the beer bottle. “Can I get you anything? Probably not alcohol, huh? Coffee? If I can find my coffeemaker. I packed it already.”
    “No thank you,” the suited man said. “Is anyone here but you?”
    “Not really your business,” Carly said.
    Soldier was around her and through the kitchen door before she could stop him. Carly put the beer on the counter and hurried after him, but when she reached the living room, it was empty. The television still blared but was tuned to a cooking show, the running soccer players replaced by cooks madly chopping and sautéing to beat a deadline. Connor was nowhere in sight.
    Soldier walked from the living room down the hall to the bedrooms. Carly called after him, “Hey, do you mind?” She’d left her dress and underwear on her bedroom floor. How embarrassing.
    The soldier returned after a cursory glance at the rooms in the back. Suit had followed Carly into the living room, and now he sat down on the sofa and unsnapped a briefcase. Soldier took up a stance at the end of the couch. Carly picked up the remote and clicked off the television, but remained standing, one hand on her hip, the other holding the remote.
    “So, what do y’all want?”
    “Your help, Ms. Randal,” the suit said. “I want you to tell me what you know about Shifters.”
    Carly blinked, transferring her gaze to the soldier, who remained on his feet. A black-butted pistol peeked from a holster at his hip.
    “I don’t know anything about Shifters,” Carly answered the suit. She pointed at the soldier. “This guy was aiming at him. I bet he knows more than I do.”
    The suit smiled. He wasn’t cold and slick, like so many businessmen in suits—Ethan’s friends, for example. He had soft eyes, hands that had never seen a manicure, hair growing out of a once-good cut.
    “Would you like to know more about them?” Suit asked. “Perhaps for pay? What I’m trying to do, Ms. Randal—awkwardly—is offer you a job.”
    “I already have a job.”
Well, maybe.
“What did you have in mind?”
    “I want you to find out about Shifters. Talk to them, interact with them, see what makes them tick. And then you and I sit down and talk about it.”
    “You mean spy on them?” Carly thought about Tiger, all shot up because of Ethan, Connor so young but promising to protect her, Liam and