The Seed of the White Tiger (3 page)

The screen told her that it was Anna on the other end of the line. “Hello?” She answered the call, wondering why she was calling this time.

“Dominique! I’m happy to talk to you. I take it you picked up Gregor already.”

“Yeah, he’s here with me.” Dom was getting frustrated with the situation.

“Did you tell him?”

“No.” Dom started to worry that he would hear something that she wasn’t ready to tell him yet.

Anna caught the hint, and quickly made an excuse. “He needs to get into headquarters. The shifters are looking forward to seeing him again. How long is he going to be?”

Dom looked at her guest and he shook his head. “Let her know that I’ll need an hour, but I can be there. Did you let her know where I’ll be staying so she doesn’t worry too much?”

“He says he’ll be there in an hour, and he’s going to be staying in my spare room.” Dom nervously twitched her naked bottom half on the floor of the spare room, the cold tile starting to make her uncomfortable. Gregor sat next to her and listened in to the conversation.

“
That sounds good. Get him down here; his friends are eager to see him.” Anna hung up the phone and she left to find a new pair of pants.

Chapter3

They got out of the door a little bit earlier than expected. “What are we expecting with the talks?”

“I would like to hope that they’ve made some progress, but I would be happy if they just haven’t gone downhill from when I left them.” Gregor’s honesty was refreshing. “I wish that I hadn’t been forced to leave for that long. I’m glad that the fighting didn’t start back up when I left.”

“Why did you have to leave?” Dom asked, curious about the lack of information. She would be lying to herself if it wasn’t partially aimed to find out about other women in his life.

Gregor didn’t seem to notice how loaded her question was. “I’m handling peace talks in other areas. The humans are causing tensions to rise just about everywhere. This isn’t the only place that’s being affected.”

“What do you think is causing all of these issues?”

“The usual, I suppose, politics and religion, just like always. It’s a tired old song and dance.” He sighed as they got into the vehicle. “The humans just never realize how often they are pulled from the brink of danger from people like you or me.”

Dom laughed as she started the engine. “I know, right? You have no idea how many ‘ghost hunters’ I’ve had to save from the mistakes they make. They often find evidence they shouldn’t have or drag something home with them. It happens so often and I have to fix what they did and leave them unaware of my work. If it wasn’t for humans messing with spirits, my job would be so much easier.”

“People are starting to mess with the spirits?”

“Most of the time it’s not on purpose. The spirits just pick up on what people are feeling, and around here that can be pretty dangerous.” She explained it, careful not to say the wrong thing.

“These problems in the world are affecting everything. I’ve had more jobs than I can do right now.”

They pulled into the parking garage, making their way down slowly one level at a time. “There are a lot of people down here. There must be something big going on.” Dom took note of all of the strange looks they were getting.

“Something smells strange.” Gregor noted. “But I think that the smog is messing with my senses, you’ve smelled differently since I got down here.”

“What?” Dom asked, worried about the entire situation. She wondered if shifters could smell if a woman was pregnant. She did her best to keep her face from betraying her emotions.

“You’ve smelt a little strange. I think that the amount of smog in the air down here is messing with my sense of smell.” He repeated

Dom hoped that was it. If it wasn’t the smog messing with his sense of smell he was going to figure out that she had been hiding information about the baby. “The smog messes with my sinuses a lot. That must be it.” She tried to keep her heartbeat under control as she pulled into a nearby parking spot. “This is where I let you out.”

“Aren’t you coming inside with me?” He asked, hoping that she would change her mind.

“No. I wasn’t called in, you were.” Dom saw the look on his face and couldn’t stop herself from feeling bad about the way she was making him feel. She knew that she wanted a few minutes to adjust to sharing her residence with him. The witch still wasn’t completely sure how she was going to handle this. She wanted to call for some advice, and just hoped that Anna was available for this.

“I’m sure that they would make an exception if I asked them nicely.” Gregor started to climb out of the car, staring at her hopefully.

“I can’t go with you.” Gregor looked sad as she told him that she wouldn’t be staying with him when he went to go talk to the shifters again.

“Why won’t you come with me?” He asked her, his eyes looking at her, filled with hope and pain. It was almost too much for her to bear. 

She laughed, slightly embarrassed, and she could feel the color start to rise all the way up to her ears. “I have things that I have to do. First of all, I don’t have any groceries in my house, second I have a doctor’s appointment.”

“It’s late; I don’t think that any doctor’s are open.” Gregor called her bluff, wishing that she would stay with him.

“You caught me, but I still have to get groceries in the house. Is there anything you need me to get?” She asked trying to seem calm and secure. She hoped that it had worked, and was grateful as he turned away to go into the janitor’s closet that concealed the door. It let him in, already having been acclimated to his presence in his previous visit. She watched him turn, his sad eyes lighting on her as he closed the door.

Dominique couldn’t bring herself to pull out of the parking garage right away. She sat in her parking spot for several long minutes, before she got the nerve to pull out. She drove the car slowly out of the parking garage and paused at the exit. She waited for what seemed like forever for the bar to be raised. It took a while for the bar to start raise and she slipped out of the parking garage and into the bright desert evening sunlight. It was a leisurely drive to the closest grocery store. She reminded herself to pick up something with meat in it, she was sure that her guest would not be happy with a vegetarian diet.

She had just rounded the turn to take her onto the street when the lights started flashing in the rear view mirror. Dom groaned and pulled her car over, with the cop car pulling in right behind her. She rolled down her window, dug out her driver’s license, insurance information and registration paperwork and waited. It felt like forever, sitting there waiting for the officer to walk up to her window, but there wasn’t much she could do about it.

It’s sad to say that this was a rather common occurrence for her. So many people denied things like this happening, but it wouldn’t be the first time she’d been pulled over and her car searched because she looked like she was trouble. It was a nuisance, but she knew that if she played it cool she probably wouldn’t lead to her being arrested. 

She spotted the police officer out of her rear view mirror as he climbed out of his car. He couldn’t be much older than she was. She noticed that he was a rather handsome Hispanic man with short black hair. She plastered a smile on her face as he walked up to her side. “Did I do something wrong officer?” She asked pleasantly, trying to control the normal nervousness that was typical of being pulled over right after you started heading somewhere.

His intense eyes threatened to burn through her. “License and registration please.” It was that sad old phrase that had played in too many TV shows.

“Here you go, officer. I didn’t think that I did anything wrong. May I ask what I did wrong?” She asked him, eager to find out why he had pulled her over and get on her way as quickly as possible. He didn’t respond, merely walking back to his vehicle with her information. Her senses were telling her that there was something wrong with this situation, but she had no clue what to do.

Instead, she reached down by her side and turned on her phone. With one hand she turned off the volume. Then she called the last number to call hers. She saw the indication that the other person had picked up and she whispered. “Just listen. This is making me nervous.” With that she flipped the phone over in order to hide the lights flickering from the call in progress.

The officer walked back up to the window and stared at her as he handed her paperwork back. “Do you know what you were doing back there ma’am?” His drawl was unmistakable. It was one of those good old boy cop speeches that had been practiced regularly.

“No sir, I have no idea why you pulled me over.” When she looked at him again she noticed how pale he looked.

“Ma’am, I just wanted to warn you about the danger you’re putting yourself in.” He spoke again. There was a glint of a threat in his voice. She saw the glittering white teeth smile at her from beneath his lips. At first she had thought that this had to do with the dark color of her skin, but it didn’t take her long to realize that this was something much worse, and significantly more dangerous than just the standard racial profiling.

“What do you mean?” She did her best to remain calm while he leered at her; having to appear calm and collected was becoming more and more of a common occurrence these days, she didn’t like it. It wasn’t the leer of sexual innuendo, but of an unspoken threat to her very life. She gripped the steering wheel so hard that her knuckles turned white.

The vampire cop’s eyes flickered to her knuckles and his smile widened for just a moment. Just as quickly as it widened it went back to its previous smirk. It happened so quickly that Dom wasn’t even completely sure it had actually happened. He spoke once again, supremely confident in himself as he leaned a bit further into the window. “We know who you’ve been hanging around with. We know what you’ve been doing.” The words came out as an angry hiss, eager to not be over heard by the cameras that are attached to the front of his car.

“What are you talking about?” She tried to play it cool, but her heart was racing. A realization hit her. This man was a vampire. While they didn’t normally work as police it wasn’t entirely unheard of.

“You know exactly what we’re talking about. As long as he’s around, you stay in danger.” The hiss grew sharper, and more pronounced. The fact that she was in trouble was supremely clear.

“Are you threatening me?” Dom could feel a lump start to form in her throat. The fear threatened to take over her for a moment, but she did her best to keep it under control. His body language suggested that he could attack at any moment, and she knew that she couldn’t stand up to a vampire, even if it was during the day. She wasn’t that good at fighting hand to hand and she couldn’t risk using magic in a public spot like this. They had obviously been very careful to pick their spot for the ambush.

“I’m not threatening you at all. I’m just trying to keep you safe. It’s my job as an officer of the law.” His explanation was laced with deadly innuendo. She couldn’t help but feel some nervousness about this situation. He could kill her with very little effort and he had the high ground. She wanted to run, but was trapped by a seat belt in a small car. There was no way she could get the belt off and get out of the passenger side before the vampire reached in and either snapped her neck or pulled her out of the car once again. The possibilities kept running through her mind as she looked up at his eyes.

Dom tried to keep him from seeing her shudder, but it didn’t work. His cold hand reached into the window and touched her shoulder. She had never been in physical contact with a vampire before, and it was unnerving. The flesh felt fake, rubbery and cold. It didn’t feel like a person was touching her, and this bothered her. “What do you want me to do?” She asked, knowing exactly what he was talking about, but she hoped to keep him talking until someone could help her. She had no idea what was taking them so long.

“I want you to watch who you’re spending time with. He’s probably not going to be alive much longer, and anyone who’s with him might get hurt in the process.” His eyes glinted with the words and with each breath this small amount of time was becoming scarier and scarier.

Dom’s hand touched her stomach until she realized that she was hinting at something that she didn’t want him to know. She tried to make it look like she wasn’t panicking, but she saw his eyes flicker down to her hand as she moved it away. He smiled at her. “Are you going to give me a ticket?” Her voice was shaking as she asked the question, hoping that would make him leave.

“No ma’am, I’m not going to give you a ticket. I just worry about the safety of the people in my city.” He explained carefully as he pulled his head away from the window. He knew that the camera would be able to hear him now. “Slow it down in the future and be careful, please.” His entire demeanor has shifted. The angry flashing eyes had disappeared and his jaw softened as he spoke. He looked like a worried police officer, concerned about the people in his city. “If I catch you pulling out onto a street so fast again, I’m going to have to give you a ticket.” He explained, careful to maintain his friendly manner, but Dom knew that there was danger in his voice; it was a low hum behind the words.

Dom couldn’t wait to get out of there. Nothing felt safe about this situation, but she still wanted to find out some more information. However he wasn’t going to wait around to answer all of her questions. A part of her regretted not having more control over her fear as he walked back to his vehicle and took off, driving past her and turning out of sight quickly. Dom started her car again and took a few deep breaths to try to control her shaking body. She drove past the grocery store, before remembering the phone and pulling over.