Chapter 10

Chapter Ten

Toni

I stare at the giant monster, and I think my mind has finally received the final dose of stimulation that is too much for me to handle. The thing is a tiger but I stand in front of it and I feel like Tinkerbell. Size wise. I feel like this tiger is so gigantic that by comparison I'm a tiny pixie.

And I'm a pixie without any fairy dust to help me fly away.

I stare in horror but the truth is what really fills my being is sadness rather than fear. I'll never see Vance again. I'll never have the chance to hold him again or to feel safe in his arms again. I hope the women got away. The older one showed some life at the end. I hope that sticks with her. I hope the others get their lives back.

The tiger is terrifying. Its head is bigger than my torso. It's… hell, it wouldn't fit in the hotel room. I have no hope here at all. It seems distracted, though, in the way animals do. It looks left and right as though it's checking to see if there's anything around that will make a bigger mouthful. Then it turns and looks at me.

And I know in an instant.

I see it immediately behind the blood-spattered whiskers and the terrifying danger of the beast's physicality. I see it immediately behind the eyes of the enormous cat. "Vance!" I whisper and before I can think better of it, I have my arms around the tiger's face. I kiss the fur between its eyes and feel the emotions rise to the surface. I hold onto handfuls of fur as I keep repeating, "Vance…Vance…Vance…Vance."

I don't know exactly when it happens or how it happens but somewhere along the line, I'm not holding onto that giant tiger anymore. Instead, I'm holding onto Vance's body. His incredible body. He's actually naked in the forest. When I realize that, I back up and stare in shock.

Then I start laughing.

He looks at me with concern etched on his face and I lift up a hand and shake my head. "No. No. I'm not going gaga. I was just…" I start giggling again and fight to get control of myself. "I just found out there really are shifters. I just found out my boyfriend is a shifter." I really laugh through the words it takes to finish up. "But what shocks me… what freaks me out is that you're naked in the middle of the forest."

He chuckles along with me but then I'm back to the waterworks and I'm in his arms again. I don't really know how long I cry but by the time I pull away from her, there are a number of naked men and women there. I guess they're all the tigers. All of the women are there, too. They look hopeless again. It occurs to me that all of them have seem shifters nude after shifting.

"No," I say with more laughter and tears. "No! You're not captured again. These are your rescuers and you're safe now!" They look unsure and I say, "They're let any of you leave right now if you want but you should stay because we're going to get out of the forest."

They look a little less hopeless but not completely. A lithe looking grey tiger appears suddenly carrying a huge duffel bag. It's absolutely beautiful. But then, the tiger shifts into the most stunning woman I've ever seen in my life.

Jet black hair.

Deep, perfectly deep, blue eyes the color of midnight.

A face designed by a roman sculptor charged with carving the face of Aphrodite.

A body designed for one purpose and one purpose alone—to make men want it.

And the woman walks up to us and kisses Vance's cheek.

And my world ends.

She turns around and it ends all over again at the sight of her perfect supermodel ass.

Vance says, "Toni, I want you to meet my sister Helena."

She turns and smiles and says, "Well, I can see why he's so hung up on you, Toni."

Sister… Sister! My world starts right up again! I don't know how much of it is relief about her being his sister or how much that she's a woman who's not hopeless. I rush to her, starting to cry again, and hold tightly to her. Then I pull back and turn red. I mean, she's a naked woman!

She smiles and pulls me back to her. "After a few years around us, you'll see that nakedness doesn't mean anything unless you want it to."

A few years. So that's what he wants with me? Holy crap, I called him my boyfriend. We've never discussed that! I mean, sure, I've thought about it but we never made it official. What if...

"Who's phone is this?" I don't recognize the voice. I step back. It's a man naked from the waist up. There are clothes in the duffel bag and the tigers are getting dressed. "That's mine," Vance says. He walks over and takes it and I'm just an idiot because my first thought is that it sucks that there are clothes in the duffel bag because I'd love to keep seeing him walk around naked.

He calls Company 417, which doesn't make much sense to me since it's at least an hour and a half away and there have to be closer places. We all walk through the forest to a clearing next to a road and there are a couple of cars and RV's. Some of the girls finally allow themselves to hope. Some are still certain the circumstances are going to reverse.

The tigers barbecue food for everyone and that probably does more than anything else to help the women. Things move in a bit of a blur. Company 417 arrives with a number of ambulances. Police arrive, too, as well as some reporters. It's all handled without any discussion of shifters but Vance stands close to me and tells me each firefighter and officer there is a shifter. The reporter is a shifter, too.

I look at him and say, "So we did get our super soldiers after all." I blush about that and he kisses my forehead.

"Thank you," a voice says. I turn and look. It's Macy. She sounds completely different now. And she's holding a baby!

"You saved her, too," Macy says. I look at Vance and he just nods toward Macy, so of course I hug her, kiss her, and coo over the baby. I find out several days later that Macy has a degree in child development and she's going to manage the orphanage where all of the rescued human babies will go. The ones that are shifters will be raised by shifter families so human parents aren't suddenly confronted with a teenager that turns into a wolf.

As for me, I go back to my old life except it's a life without fear now. That part is gone forever.

Um… and there are some beautiful things added to make up for what's gone.