Chapter 7

Chapter Seven

Vance

"So, this is a kidnapping ring?" She doesn't look afraid, and I realize suddenly that she isn't afraid of the information I just shared with her because she's confident in my ability to protect her regardless of the danger.

"Kind of," I say. "It's difficult to explain."

"Try," she says. I can hear the bite in her voice. "Just tell me everything and stop coddling me."

I sigh and say, "Okay but at my house. Come on. I'll drive you there."

"Why your house?"

I stare at her and say, "Because you won't believe me unless I show you."

"What is this, Vance? I told you I trust you. I keep telling you. You give me drips of information when I need a damned firehouse worth." She smiles and rolls her eyes. "I totally didn't intend that, the fireman reference. I'm pretty proud of myself for it, though."

"All right. He's part of a wolf shifter clan. Ninety-five percent of shifters are friendly to humans. Then, you've got his clan. They think they have the right to kidnap human women in order to breed them."

She laughs and it takes her a moment to see from my expression that I'm not laughing at all. "Holy… Holy sh…" She swallows hard and says, "You're being serious. You…" What she wants to say to me is that I actually believe it. She doesn't because that would be admitting to me that she thinks it's crazy.

"You've never met a shifter," I say.

She shakes her head. "I've read the articles, of course. I've heard the interviews and a few television reports. That kind of thing."

"You don't think shifters exist, though."

She looks almost ashamed. "I don't… I don't not… Hell, I'm stumbling all over this. No. I guess I don't. I mean, it was such a big deal but where are all the things that were going to happen? Where are the super shifter soldiers? Where are the police forces where shifters use their abilities to solve crime?"

I smile. It's funny because she has no idea she's talking to a shifter. She sighs and says, "I mean, I can't say for certain they don't exist but when all that happened what, twenty-five years ago? When all that happened, there were people talking about what would happen. Where are the super soldiers, super firefighters, super mountain rescue squads, super SWAT teams and all that?"

She sees my expression and misinterprets it. I'm smiling because she's fucking beautiful. She thinks I'm smiling in a sad, I knew you wouldn't believe me way. "I'm sorry," she says softly.

"You have nothing to be sorry about," I say. I'm not being dishonest. The truth is, there's not an appreciable difference now in the number of humans who believe shifters exist compared to twenty-five years ago before we announced ourselves to the world. We are a very tiny fraction of the world population.

Every shifter on Earth could fit in a relatively small city. Every single shifter of any type, I mean. The estimates are between four-hundred and fifty thousand and five hundred thousand. That's total. In a word filled with seven billion people, that means one person out of every fifteen thousand or so. We wouldn't even make up an eighth of the population of Los Angeles or a tenth of the population of New York.

We're not even half of the population of Austin.

So, it's not surprising to me at all. And it's understandable that she doesn't believe in us. Almost nobody does. Nobody at all. "Well, do me a favor," I say, "and accept that he believes he's a wolf shifter and he's with an organization that believes in them."

"So, they still kidnap women." I nod and she asks, "Well, why haven't the authorities dealt with them?"

He says, "You didn't believe me." She looks ashamed again, "but the real reason is that if they deal with them, they'll have to admit that some shifters aren't good people at all. Unfortunately, there are people unwilling to trust the ability of the general population to accept that shifters are different from each other the same way that straight humans are."

I think for the first time, her belief or, rather, her unbelief wavers a little. She looks at me for a short while and then finally says, "But you'll protect me." Then, she just gets back to eating. I don't know exactly what to do. I want to keep talking to her but I think she's reached her limit with this particular subject.

"With my life," I say and get back to the food.

I can tell that she's trying to believe me. I can tell that she's trying but failing. I suppose that's to be expected, actually. I decide right then that after my shift at the firehouse is done, I'll take her somewhere and show her.

Well, after my shift and after the destruction of the Clan. Fifteen of the Grey will arrive over the next four days. Many will be angry because we're not involving tiger leadership but that's the great thing about being a small subset. When we want to, we can consider ourselves separate and our own leadership. That's why only the Grey will be involved although four other tiger shifters wanted to be.

This clan should have been destroyed years ago.

We make love again after dinner and I'm happy to see her recalcitrance when it comes to believing in shifters isn't impacting her feelings for me. At least, it's not impacting her sexual desire for me. She's as sweet and wonderful as she always is. In the morning as well. When the time comes for me to head to my shift, I feel good about our relationship.

And since we're going to destroy the Glenn Forth Clan, I feel damned good about her safety.