Page 9 of Shifter Mate Magic
3
Jackie woke to sunrise and snoring. It took a few seconds for her brain to boot up and remember where she was and why she was so comfortable. She opened her eyes and looked to the floor where a larger-than-life, short-snouted, curiously long-haired bear slept stretched out in front of the motel room’s door, gently snoring. She smiled. He’d be one hell of a surprise for any intruders.
After renting the room for her, Trevor the man had carried her from the truck into the room. He’d made it seem easy, even though she was taller than average and nowhere close to skinny. She’d loved the feel of his strength, the sound of his steady heartbeat in her ear as she rested her head on his chest.
She’d invited him to sleep in the room with the idea of sharing the queen-sized bed, instead of making him sleep in his truck. She’d joked that his honor was safe with her, but it might not have been. Despite her injuries from the accident, despite being pregnant, and despite having just met him, her body burned for him. Her breasts ached for the touch of his calloused hands, the soft wetness of his mouth. She wanted him surrounding her, holding her, inside her. Her core pulsed at the thought.
Then her stupid bladder spasmed, and she’d had to limp to the bathroom to answer the call of nature. The mirror’s reflection of her scraped and filthy self told her she was in no shape to seduce anyone.
While she was in the shower, Trevor had brought in packaged sandwiches and chips from the cooler in his truck and written her a note suggesting she treat her knee with the ice he got from the machine outside the motel’s office. He couldn’t tell her about it because he’d shifted into his bear form and dozed near the front door.
Maybe it was for the best, since sex would only complicate their situation. From little looks and touches, and the unmistakable bulge in his jeans, she knew he wanted her as much as she wanted him. But she was bloated and fat, so his attraction was probably the shifter-mate potential thing. She’d never been the type of woman who drew men like bears to honey. She’d drifted off to sleep after her feeble joke.
The bedside clock now said it was a few minutes before six. She sat up cautiously, but her soreness had vanished in the night. Her knee still twinged, but she knew it would be fine in a few more hours. One of the pluses of carrying a shifter’s baby was she apparently benefited from the speedy shifter healing. The improved sense of taste and smell had made her morning sickness worse, but the better hearing and reflexes had helped her survive in a compound full of frustrated, quick-with-a-fist shifters. Roehm had assumed that by forbidding Ricardo and Ruben to force-change her into a leopard while she was pregnant, she’d be weak and powerless.
Enough of the past, she told herself. The day beckoned… and so did the bathroom.
By the time she returned from brushing her teeth and twisting and smoothing her hair into something resembling civilized, Trevor had shifted back to human.
The vee of his T-shirt drew her eyes to his deliciously broad and muscular chest. “Does your magic let you keep your clothes?” Would he taste as good as he smelled? Would his nipples be wide and sensitive to the touch of her tongue? She gave herself an internal shake. Timing, girl, timing.
“Yes. My aunt taught me. Magic runs in our family. I trained myself to shift really fast, so I could go more places I wasn’t supposed to and not get caught.”
She raised her eyebrows. “Wasn’t a big, woolly bear kind of noticeable?”
He smiled ruefully. “And now you see the flaw in my teenage logic.”
She rolled up the sleeves of her faded denim shirt. It wouldn’t fit over her belly much longer. “I was always the straight-laced, straight-A student, but it didn’t help. All most people saw was the mixed-race daughter of a witchy white woman who scandalously married a black man, who got himself killed fixing an electrical tower.” She sighed. “Now I wish I’d done some of the wild things in all those rumors.”
His smile gentled. “Smart gets you farther than wild.”
Tears threatened, and his face showed worry. “Don’t mind me.” She waved him away. “You’re a good listener, and I’m on the pregnancy-hormone rollercoaster. It’s a crying jag one moment, and a craving for banana Moon pies the next.” She rolled her eyes and pointed to her belly. “And nasty chocolate milk for Junior.”
The concern didn’t leave his face. “You need breakfast.”
She wiped away the tear that fell. She couldn’t remember the last time anyone had been so considerate of her. “Yeah so do you, but let’s check the map first.”
He spread it out on the dresser. The night before, she’d made it into a magic talisman that showed safety in blue and threats in red, and the safest route away from danger. All they had to do was wave a hand over it to make the pinpoints light up again. She shook her head dubiously. “Kotoyeesinay is still blue but look at the red swarm coming up from Denver. If we make it to Laramie and the mountains ahead of them, we’ll be boxed in by the mountains, with only the canyon road in front of us.”
His eyes narrowed as he considered the map. “The motel has a big, fenced lot out back for storing RVs. If I pay them to store the trailer for a few days, my truck can go fast, even up canyon roads. I have more emergency food in my cooler. Not as good as a hot meal, but we won’t starve.”
The temptation to go with him rocked her, but that was pure selfishness. “You have a business to run. People who depend on you. A girlfriend. I can’t ask you to just upend your life and take me to a small town in Wyoming.”
“I’m not mated. It’s just me and my truck, and I’m offering. And Kotoyeesinay is more than just a bright blue dot.” He pointed to the map. “It’s a sanctuary town.”
“What’s that?” She’d only heard of sanctuary cities in California that pledged not to hassle non-citizen migrants who’d been in the country for decades.
“They’re each different. The US has three, and there’s one in Canada and maybe one in Mexico. More around the world, I’m told. Kotoyeesinay was founded a couple of centuries ago by a refugee group of very powerful elves, and others have joined since. They take in peaceable folk who need a safe place to live, away from the human world, or the world of their kind. If they grant you sanctuary, their defenses are formidable.”
She shook her head. “The only thing Roehm is afraid of is the Shifter Tribunal. Otherwise, he’ll just keep coming, hurting more people because of me.” She hooked her thumbs into the belt loops of her cheap maternity jeans to keep from touching him. “Hurting you.”
He shook his head and crossed his arms. “My Aunt Straya takes in lost people. Gives them a place to heal, and time to figure out what they want to do. One of her rescues made my aunt call and tell me that I and my… that you and I need to be in sanctuary by the full moon. That’s tomorrow night.”
“What if we aren’t?”
“Auris didn’t say, but it’s always been calamitous. She might be part death banshee.”
Jackie suppressed a sigh. Anyone in the magical world could tell when they were being pushed around by one of the many hidden higher powers. It wasn’t wise to thwart them.
