The Baby Of The White Tiger (BWWM Shifter Romance) (3 page)

“We’ll make sure there are plenty available.” The wolf told her. “I’ll send someone to the grocery as soon as I leave. We’ll make sure that you have everything you need. We have plenty of people to help you out, and anything else you need I’m sure the coyotes will be able to find for you.”

“That is probably the first time I’ve seen you smile.” The coyote told the other leader at the table. “It’s nice to be getting along finally.”

“I would like us to continue getting along.” The wolf’s words sounded strange coming from him, he wasn’t known for really wanting anything to do with the coyotes, so the fact that he might actually be looking forward to working with them was a nice change.

At precisely ten o’clock that night, a woman walked into the safe house. “I’m here to pick up Dominique.” Her words were precise, well rehearsed and obviously planned. The woman looked around and took note of the fact that everything was already packed and ready.

Dom stuck her hand out while Gregor watched. “It’s nice to meet you. Let me say goodbye and I’ll be ready to go.”

“Take as much time as you need.” The woman’s voice grew warm as Gregor walked up to Dominique.

“I’ll miss you.” Gregor brushed her hair out of her face as he leaned in to kiss her. It was a gentle brushing of her lips, one that nearly made her swoon.

“I’ll miss you too.” Her eyes centered onto his.

“I’ll make this as fast as possible. I promise I will be back as quickly as I can.”

“I hope you don’t tell your mother all of the bad things about me.” Dom joked with him.

“She will hear nothing but good things from me.” Gregor made an ‘x’ over his heart. “I cross my heart.” He kissed her again, and she leaned into him, devouring his touch, knowing that it would be almost a week before he would touch her again. “I’ll get back as soon as I can.”

“Are you sure you’re not going north for another girl?”

“Since the moment I met you, there hasn’t been room for another girl.” He told her. It was an old conversation. She brought up other women a lot, he knew that she held insecurities and fought to make her a little more comfortable in her situation.

The woman that was there to pick up Dominique cleared her throat, reminding the couple of her presence. “We should get on the road soon. We have people waiting for us.”

“I’m sorry.” The witch blushed a little as she moved away from Gregor.

“Are all of these your bags?” Her voice was strained, like she was trying to figure out how many trips it was going to take to get everything into the car. She might have even been trying to decide how it was all going to be loaded so that there would still be room for everyone.

“Just the ones over there, those other ones are Gregor’s.” Dom responded carefully, examining her feet. She couldn’t help but notice the difference in the amount of luggage the two needed, even though she knew that Gregor would be having most of it moved to their new location while they were gone, it still must have looked very strange to the guard.

“Are you sure that’s all you need?” She took note of the two duffel bags. “If there’s anything else you need, it may be hard to get a hold of.”

“It’s only going to be a week and I’m sure that I’ll have access to a washing machine. Plus, if I absolutely need something I’m sure they can find it for me.” Instead of answering the guard nodded and walked over to the two small suitcases. She picked them up and started to lead the way outside into a car sitting at the curb, idling. Dom climbed into the passenger seat and the other woman climbed into the back seat. “Let’s get this done.”

Chapter3

Her new safe house looked nice enough from the outside, but it wasn’t home. The outside was stark and white like a chain hotel. It was almost sterile in its appearance. The land around the building was dotted with nice little houses. The area looked like a mixture of the suburbs and a city center. She knew that there were other areas of the tribal lands that she wouldn’t be allowed in. These were the areas where meetings were held and spaces that were used for special rituals.

She noticed the touches that they made in her room to make her feel a little better about her situation, a little more at home, but it just didn’t seem to work very well for her. The flowering plants were carefully placed all around the small apartment, but it didn’t make her feel any better about being trapped here in protective custody.

The woman stayed with her, leading the way into the apartment and checking every room before the witch was allowed to step foot anywhere. “By the way, what’s your name?” Dominique asked her guard.

The woman responded with a thick accent, betraying her native language as being Spanish. From the sound of her voice it was obvious that she was from southern Mexico. “My name is Rosa.”

“
That is a beautiful name.” Dom tried to make conversation. If she couldn’t talk to the girl it would be a very boring week. “Are you going to be with me all week?”

“
Yes, my uncle asked me to stay with you, to guard you. This apartment is very nice, is it not? The wolves always have such nice houses.” Her English was stilted and rough, but she sounded very intelligent, with clear bright eyes betraying her desire to learn all about the world around her.

“
It’s a lot nicer than my house.” Dom admitted, smiling at the young lady. It was very clear that she was a few years younger than the witch, but she didn’t hold that against her, even at a young age shifters could be vicious combatants and were excellent at sniffing out trouble before it arrived.

She laughed a little. “I imagine that your house is very nice.”

“Nope, it’s a pretty old place. My grand-mother had lived in it her entire life.”

“
I’m sorry, I do not understand.” The woman squinted, trying to wrap her mind around a sentence that had been practiced so well it was now said too quickly for non-native speakers to understand. 

Dom felt a little guilty about speaking so quickly. She searched her memory for any Spanish that she knew, it wasn’t much, but it would be some help. “My… Abuelita… she lived there her entire life. She was there since she was a girl.” Dom smiled eager to learn how to communicate with her host. Rosa was a beautiful young lady and it was very obvious that she was related to the leader of the coyotes, a man she had spent a good portion of time looking at as she sat in on Gregor’s talks. She wondered if this woman was his niece or cousin, and how many members of his family there were that carried the lovely high cheekbones and dark straight hair. She wondered if there were many coyotes with the dark eyes that looked like they could burn right through you and look straight into your soul.

“Ah, si, si, tu Abuela. I see now.” Rosa smiled once again, happy to have made a new friend. “It must be very nice to be mated to el tigre.” Her teeth were straight and bright, a typical sign of the carnivorous nature of the shifter. In general, they were very proud of their teeth and took excellent care of them.

Dom sighed. It seemed like everyone was interested in her relationship with Gregor. “I guess so. I mean it’s not like most people think.”

Rosa giggled, implying some things about the closeness of the witch and her shifter mate. Her face was a little red as she asked the question. “It must be exciting, yes?”

“
A little, my life hasn’t been the same since I met him.” Dom had to admit it, but it wasn’t the first time she had been asked these questions, and she was pretty sure that it wasn’t going to be the last.

“
I don’t understand.” Rosa smiled again, but it was a confused smile filled with frustration at not being able to understand her charge.

Dom searched her mind for the right words to explain what she meant. All that she could find was an old song lyric. “I think you could say that I’ve been living la vida loca.”

Rosa smirked and giggled a little. Dom was sure that she had caught the joke and couldn’t help but smile back. “He must be good in bed, very tough, very much macho. Tigre men must be very macho.”

“
I don’t like machismo very much, but he’s nice to me.”

“
Macho is nice, macho will always protect you.”

“
Sometimes they will protect you from too much, but it’s nice that he doesn’t try to protect me from too much.”

“
I can smell the baby.” Rosa added, changing the course of the conversation. “He will be powerful.”

“
That’s what they tell me.” Dom’s voice was quiet and she sat down with her hand over her stomach.

“
You smell like a shifter.”

“
I know.” Dom’s heart started to race a bit, but she concentrated on slowing it. It was a form of auto hypnosis, one that would stop the shifter from smelling the fear that was associated with this conversation. She hoped that the line of questioning would end soon, after all, no one would think of a Doppel, they were just too rare.

“
Not like el tigre.”

“
I know.” Dom grew frightened. Could they smell the child’s power, if so, would that would give her an extreme disadvantage in the current violent times?

“
I wonder if it is your magic that is… um… how you say, destroying the scent.”

“
It might be messing with it.”

“
That has to be it.” The woman noted, going back to her meal, shrugging of the possibility of anything else. Dom released her breath, happy that she didn’t have to admit the truth about the child, especially since it couldn’t be verified at such an early stage. The last thing she needed was to have to explain to the shifters that the rumors weren’t true.

They continued to chat as Dominique started to unpack her small bags. It was a difficult conversation, because Dominique spoke less Spanish than her coyote companion spoke English, but they managed to communicate fairly well, with very few hiccups. There were some things that couldn’t be communicated very well, because neither party really knew how to explain it to the other person, but it didn’t matter, the unlikely pair were quickly becoming fast friends, and Dom thought that her young guard was an absolutely charming young woman. She always seemed to be worried about safety, but didn’t seem to carry out her mission like someone who had been trained for it.

The apartment was beautiful, it was in a complex that obviously housed guests of the tribe and was set up close to a hotel, with amenities such as a card key for the door and an indoor swimming pool. She especially enjoyed the sight of the mints on the pillows in the turned down bed. The house had a well-stocked mini fridge and a hot meal for two sitting on a tray just inside the room. It was a beautiful vegetarian style salad. The other meal was a nice juicy steak, one that was obviously meant for her companion and guard, Rosa.

They sat and ate first, Dom’s bags sitting by the door. Once Dom had fully unpacked the girls decided to go swimming and walked down stairs with swimsuits that had been placed in the dresser. “I wonder how they knew my size.” Dom asked, marveling at the care they had taken to prepare the place for her stay.

“Oh, they asked. We cleaned your house up. Some clothes were outside.” Rosa’s English was a challenge for Dom to understand, but the woman was very pleasant and patient with her.

“
Well that’s one mystery solved.” Dom smirked at the thought of coyotes sifting through her clothing. For some reason, her mind stuck on them being in their hybrid form picking up her flimsy little panties. She knew that it wasn’t the case, but still the thought of it amused her.

The two women took their time in the swimming pool, laughing and playing while a guard watched from the deck that surrounded the water. They would occasionally climb out and get drinks from the cooler that had been placed there, only to jump back into the water right afterward. She enjoyed her time; her first day was full of distractions, getting ready to spend the next week in their place.

When night fell, everything went to hell. It started with the screaming. People were screaming outside and Rosa ran into the room with Dom. “Get down, get safe.” The thick accent was hard to understand through her panic. The rest of her commands were in Spanish because she was more worried about protecting her charge than with communicating.

Dom rolled off of the bed and onto the floor. She knew that something had gone horribly wrong, the screams and screeches and howls were evidence enough of that. Rosa pointed at the wall. “There!” Then the woman walked out of the room, checking windows to lock them and look outside.

Instead of heading to the wall immediately, Dom glanced out of the window. Noticing for the first time the window was made out of that shatter resistant Plexiglas she knew that it wouldn’t be easy for them to get in that way. The screams were getting louder and she could see the lighted front walk overrun by the streaking movements of attacking vampires. That’s when she realized that they were willing to kill to stop the peace from happening. They had something invested in these talks. They wanted to stop them, to kill them, to do anything to make this entire thing end.

Blood poured onto the concrete from the various injuries and dead bodies. She couldn’t make how bad the injuries were, but it looked like a war-zone outside of her window. A part of her couldn’t help but feel guilty as she saw what must have been a vampire pull out a shining silver colored club and slam it into a shifter’s head. She winced as he struggled to swing back, but instead fell, transforming back into his human shape at the moment of his death. The situation gave her pause as she saw the devastation. “All this to stop peace, I wonder if they are going to try to blame the coyotes.” Dom’s voice was a low whisper as she spoke to herself. She knew that Rosa was still in the house, she could hear the woman securing their location.