by Jade White
*
With Egan and Morgan out of the house, Olivia didn’t have to put on a brave face anymore. She looked at Sable and immediately fell apart. “Oh God, Sable. What if we can’t get to her in time?”
“We will, Olivia, don’t worry. I’m sure she’s at work. She’ll call you back, we’ll get her a flight on the next plane out and she’ll be here before you know it.”
Olivia nodded, wiping the tears with the back of her hand. She had to believe Grace was fine, and she would be safe and in their home soon. By this time next week, all of this fear for her friend would be a distant memory. Covering her tiny hand in his, Sable led her upstairs. She started to protest, then thought better of it. Egan and Morgan would be gone for at least an hour, if not more. Until Grace called her back, she really had nothing better to do.
Sable chuckled under his breath. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say that look on your face was you deciding you might as well sleep with me to pass the time.” He winked at her, “Glad to know I’m such a chore.”
She blushed, ducking her head to hide her smile. He was right; making love to him was far from a chore. She followed him up the stairs and down the hall to their room. It was modest compared to Sable’s estate in Florida, though Olivia liked it better. The room was spacious but somehow still felt very cozy. The walls were painted a deep scarlet, the effect made the walls look like crushed velvet. Olivia had decorated their room as a sort of lover’s getaway, filling the space with lush fabrics and deep colors.
Sable pulled her behind him, leading her to the bed. He pulled her yellow sundress off her shoulders, letting the fabric pool around her bare feet. Her breasts were bare and firm. He cut his eyes to the bed, taking his clothes off in a hurry and following her onto the bed.
Lying on the bed, Olivia opened her arms to Sable. He hovered above her, weight on his arms, bending low to kiss her deeply. One hand drifted down as he kissed. His fingers slid between the thin fabric of her panties and her hip, sliding the silky fabric down her legs. Olivia kicked the silky panties off and wrapped her legs around Sable, rubbing herself against him. A moan caught deep in Sable’s throat as she rubbed her heat against his shaft. He was ready for her, and it seemed she was also ready for him.
Sable slid inside her, sucking in air as her body wrapped around him and pulled him in. They rocked together, slowly at first, then picking up speed. The empty house echoed their moans as they pumped against each other. They moved closer to climax, guiding the other towards the pinnacle. Olivia called Sable’s name as she reached her climax, letting herself go in the waves of passion. With a deep groan, Sable let go, spilling himself within her and climaxing with her.
They collapsed together on the bed, a tangle of sweaty limbs. Olivia’s auburn hair framed her sweet face as she looked into Sable’s eyes. She stroked his face lovingly, holding his gaze and smiling at him. “Sable, you’re too good to me. I love you so much it hurts.”
Sable rolled onto his back, pulling her with him. He held her against his chest, arms tightly clasped around her. “I love you more, Olivia. You’re more than I ever deserved.”
Spent and completely sated, the pair fell to sleep on the plush bed.
*
Egan ran after Morgan as the tiny tiger bounded through the woods. He was fast but his stride was short, making keeping up with him an easy feat for Egan. Young and strong, Egan was the perfect running mate for young Morgan. Over his back, Egan wore a small pack containing clothing for both of them, in case they ran into humans in the forest.
The air was heavy and humid, the smell of pine trees drifting softly on the breeze. The forest was the same that ran all the way to Oregon, the scenery reminding Egan of the last family vacation they’d taken when he was just twelve years old. He remembered the joy he’d felt, flying through the forest completely free to be everything he was. He lived for these runs with his nephew, watching the delight on his nephew’s face as he explored.
Some days, only Egan shifted, with tiny Morgan dwarfed by the massive tiger. He’d hold on tightly, slender legs digging deep into Egan’s sides while he ran full-speed through the forest. They’d stop at the stream and Morgan would slide off his back, eager to look for frogs and other slimy things in the shallow water.
Morgan got ahead of Egan, and Egan roared after him to let him know he’d gone too far. He rounded the corner, expecting to see the child but the path was empty. Frantic, he lengthened his stride, racing towards the next bend in the trail. Out of nowhere, Morgan leaped from a tree and tackled his uncle. They rolled together, Egan’s speed throwing them off the trail and down a steep hill. They hit the bottom, a little bumped and bruised, but otherwise ok.
Too young to concentrate when things got out of control, Morgan had begun shifting back to human during the fall. By the time they rested on the grassy bottom of the hill, Morgan had completely changed. Egan nuzzled the boy, drawing giggles out of the little boy when his whiskers tickled his bare chest. Egan motioned with his head, and Morgan stood. He pulled his clothes out of the pack and quickly dressed in shorts and a t-shirt. He climbed onto Egan’s back, using the straps from the pack to hold on. Egan took off up the hill with Morgan squealing with delight from atop his back.
He surged forward, careful not to shake the child from his back as he raced towards their favorite frog hunting place. The trail wound around through the forest, the soft dirt churning beneath his paws as he ducked and weaved as Morgan’s legs wrapped around his ribs, his tiny body dwarfed by the massive tiger.
Before long, they reached the part of the stream that widened off to the side, creating a shallow pool where the algae grew and the tadpoles swam freely. Morgan’s fascination with frogs had started around the time he started to realize he was a shifter. Egan wondered if he felt a sense of camaraderie with them, though their shift happened only once. Morgan was simply fascinated by them and returned often to check on the army of tadpoles that lived in the calm pool.
Morgan slid down from his back and squatted on a rock at the edge of the pool. While he searched the slightly murky water for his little friends, Egan shifted and dressed himself. They would walk back in human form, giving Olivia and Sable plenty of time alone together. It didn’t take a genius to figure out what Sable had planned when he’d walked her out of the room.
Sitting beside his nephew, he watched the child dip his tiny finger in the water.
“Uncle Egan, why do people hate tigers?”
Egan was surprised by his question, and it took him a moment to figure out what the child meant. But Morgan was smart as a whip and missed nothing.
“Did you see some of the things on TV earlier?”
Morgan’s head hung slightly, “Yes. Is that why Mommy’s friend is coming? Is she a tiger too?”
Egan took a deep breath. Why did Morgan always ask the hard questions when his parents weren’t around? “Grace isn’t a tiger. But a long time ago, before you were born, Grace helped save us from the people who hated us. Now Grace is in trouble, and we’re going to help her.”
Morgan nodded, his expression solemn as he considered what Egan had told him. Without another word, he went on with his tadpole hunt, lying down on his stomach to get a closer look at the tadpoles swimming in the water. “They have back legs now. They’ll start being frogs soon, and then there will be new tadpoles.”
Egan ruffled the child’s hair. After he’d counted every tadpole twice, the two walked back to the trail that led home. Morgan took off like a shot and hollered over his shoulder. “Last one home is a rotten egg.”
Laughing, Egan stretched into an easy jog, following Morgan to their home.
CHAPTER TEN
The phone on the nightstand rang shrilly, yanking Olivia from her dreams. She reached for it, her eyes and mind still clouded with sleep. The display showed Grace’s number. She fumbled to answer it before voicemail picked up, practically yelling into the phone in excitement.
“Grace? Grace! Is that you?”
&nbs
p; “Oh, Olivia. Yes it’s me.”
“Are you okay? We want to fly you out here to stay with us, at least until things calm down. How soon can you get to the airport?”
Grace looked around her tiny home, the boarded-up windows letting in tiny slivers of sunlight around the edges. Not one window in her home still had the glass in it. The last one had been smashed the week before, a large rock wrapped in paper landing feet from her while she sat in her recliner. The note was the same as the others, a profanity laced message of hate for the “shifter lover.” Grace was almost immune to the hate being thrown in her direction wherever she went. Almost.
Her call to police had ended abruptly. The dispatcher, driven by her hatred rather than her duty to the citizens of this town, had laughed at her over the phone. Sure, she’d send a police officer to take her statement. The disconnected call still buzzing in her ear, Grace had no illusions that the dispatcher had even logged her call, let alone sent someone to help her.
Tears were streaming down her face as she boarded up that final window, wondering what had become of the town she’d loved so much. The imposed curfew hadn’t stopped people from hitting the street at night to terrorize her and others like her. No one was safe anymore and hadn’t been in a long time.
“Grace?” Olivia’s worried voice pulled her out of her thoughts and back to reality, which wasn’t much better.
“I’m here. Sorry. Yes, I’ve packed a bag and I can be at the airport in about two hours. Can you get the ticket by then? I’m not checking anything. Everything I have that’s not destroyed and worth keeping fits in a carry-on.” She took a deep breath, trying to hold back the tears. It wouldn’t do her any good to fall apart when things were finally getting better. “I have what I need and I’m ready. I just have to get in my car and drive to the airport.”
“Are you going to be able to get there, through everything?”
“Yes. I know the news is making it out to be this crazy situation but during the day, it’s safe to be out. I have plenty of daylight left to get out of the area and to the airport. I can probably get there in one hour, but two hours, just to be safe.”
While Grace talked, Olivia pulled up the airline’s website on her tablet and typed in all Grace’s information. The soonest flight would work, but it would take her almost a day of traveling to get to her. But the next flight after that was hours later, and she didn’t want Grace sitting in danger for that long.
“I found a flight that leaves in two and half hours. It flies from Florida to Toronto, where you’ll have an overnight layover. I’ll book a hotel at the airport and the shuttle. You’ll be safe in Toronto; the anti-shifter movement still seems to be an American cause. Then, tomorrow morning you’ll fly from Toronto to Vancouver and I’ll pick you up at the airport. Ok?”
Grace nearly wept with relief. “Yes, that’s perfect. I’ll see you soon. Thank you so much, Olivia. I have to go. I have to get in my car and leave while the getting is still good.” She laughed weakly at her own, lame joke. It sounded hollow and Grace realized she’d been fighting to stay positive amidst the violence for too long.
“I’ll see you soon. I’ll be there waiting for you. I can’t wait to see you!”
They said their good-byes and Olivia hung up, relieved that her sweet friend would be here and out of danger soon. She booked a hotel in Grace’s name before she forgot, leaving her credit card number to pay for the room and room service and texted Grace to feel free to treat herself to a nice dinner and breakfast at the hotel, on her.
Satisfied that everything would soon be right in her world, she laid back and snuggled up with a still sleeping Sable. This time tomorrow, Grace would be in their home, and Olivia could start working on convincing her best friend to stay with them for good. She smiled and drifted off to sleep, thinking life didn’t get much better than this moment.
*
Looking around the house one last time before she left, she dragged her heavy carry-on bag through the kitchen door into her tiny garage. She pushed the button to raise the door and turned on her car, carefully backing out onto the road. The street was pretty empty, the violence tending to escalate at night, under the cover of darkness. Grace suspected a few of her neighbors were involved in the vandalism done to her house, but she would never know.
“Shifter Loving Slut” and other choice profanities were spray-painted on her house in massive black letters. She’d never dated a shifter before but the vandals weren’t interested in the facts, just their all-consuming hatred.
She stopped at a stop sign and turned onto the road leading to the highway. A part of her wanted to take one more look at the neighborhood she’d called home for so many years. The rest of her was glad she’d never see it again.
Grace turned up the radio, trying to drown her thoughts in the peppy tune. Five years ago, when everything first started changing, things weren’t so bad. She remembered the first time she watched in horror as the news showed a story about a young family being ripped from their home and taken to be executed. Like Olivia and Sable, they hadn’t married before conceiving a child, though they had married soon after.
Politicians on both sides had used this poor family as an example, televising the entire thing to prove their point. Shortly after, the laws changed, barring all human and shifter relationships and marriage. The human politicians claimed it was to protect human women from being enslaved by shifter men, the shifter politicians claimed the humans were diluting shifter blood in an effort to eradicate shifters, once and for all.
The truth was, both sides were acting based on their unfounded fear, creating problems that didn’t exist. A young family had died, all to further political agendas. When the elders had started dying one by one without explanation, both sides pointed the finger at the other, but no one truly knew who was responsible.
In the midst of all the turmoil, several militias sprung up on each side, claiming the need for protection from the other. Humans were routinely pulled from their homes, accused of being a sympathizer at the very least, and other times, of more heinous crimes. Fear among people grew, and it wasn’t long before old friends and neighbors became suspicious of one another.
Then there was the exposé a year ago, the catalyst behind all the violence. Grace was shocked to see her face on the screen, an unsteady camera revealing what transpired in the woods. It was edited, making it look like she’d helped a tiger shifter kidnap Olivia, then showing Grace riding atop a shifter’s back as if they were fleeing together.
She should have left right then. Packing her bags and leaving at that moment would have been the smart thing to do. It didn’t matter what she said, no one would believe her that nothing claimed by the reporter was even close to true. She could've died that day, and if anything, she was the victim. By the next morning, the vandalism had started, with people blaming her for the violence between humans and shifters.
After all, no one knew where Sable, Egan and Olivia had gone but they knew Grace was the only one of the group to return. It was hard to blame them with all the “facts” presented in the exposé. But she was disappointed when people who’d known her for years turned against her.
Shaking her head, trying to release the hold the memories had on her, Grace slowed to pull into a gas station. Her tank was nearly empty and she didn’t want to get stranded on the way to the airport. She parked next to an empty pump, pulling out her credit card and getting out of the car. She began pumping the gas, her eyes constantly scanning the cars coming and going. She couldn’t wait until she got to Olivia’s house and could relax. Living a life of looking over her shoulder was exhausting. Grace was ready to go back to a carefree life.
A silver sedan pulled up to the other side of the pump and Grace turned her head. She was about 20 miles from home but she’d had people recognize her before. A handsome man stepped out of the car, reaching into his pocket to pull out his wallet. Change fell out everywhere, some of it rolling under Grace’s car and his own. He ran around the
pump and her car, kneeling down quickly to retrieve a few quarters that had made their way around her back tire. The car obscured her view of him, and she hoped he hadn’t seen her face either. He stood up, and Grace stifled a groan when he made eye-contact and smiled.
Great, just great. His smile was dazzling, his light blond hair styled in a tousled way that made him look as if he’d just pulled himself out of bed. His clothes were nice, tailored to fit his body in a deep shade of brown.
“Sorry about that. Day before payday and all. Every cent counts.” He winked at her and headed off into the station to pay for his gas.
Grace turned off the pump and returned it to the holder. She wanted to get out of there before the handsome stranger returned. He might not have noticed who she was yet, but it was only a matter of time. She jumped into her car and drove away, getting back onto the highway and continuing towards the airport.
*
The car ate up the miles, passing motorists racing home to their families before curfew. It wasn’t long before traffic thinned out and she was left alone on the highway with only a few cars in the distance behind her, and some passing on the other side of the median. She was surprised by how relieved she felt. Being completely alone on the once busy highway should've unnerved her. Instead, she felt calm for the first time in weeks. The sign up ahead indicated the airport was only ten miles away. Grace released a sigh, happy to be so close to freedom.
A sudden pop ended her happiness as the wheel started shaking in her hands. For a moment, Grace panicked, thinking someone had shot at her. Then the panic cleared and she realized her tire had blown. She guided the car to the emergency lane, grateful this section of highway featured a large, grassy median on either side of the cement wall. She was able to pull off of the highway far enough that she wouldn’t have to worry about a distracted driver accidentally hitting her car.
