They decided to leave her SUV there as a diversion. Vlad would take her and Zoe in his rental to Colorado. Alexis would cross into New Mexico and fly out from Albuquerque—another diversion.
“Good thing you had a nap,” Rose said to Zoe as they finished putting the house in order. She didn’t want to leave it a mess. “We’ve got a long drive ahead of us.”
“Like driving.”
She could tell from Zoe’s expression she was more worried than happy about this change of plans, though. “It’ll be okay, baby. I promise. We’ve just got a lot of driving and flying ahead of us.”
“Okay, Mommy.”
Rose’s heart squeezed at the little hitch in her daughter’s voice, and a deep seed of anger took root. Damn this stupid shifter business. Zoe had been through enough in her short life. As they headed out into the dark night, she swore by all that was holy, she’d make sure Zoe didn’t have to worry about running away like this again. Whatever it took.
*****
With all the fear and anxiety riding Vlad throughout the journey, all the worry about his brothers somehow catching up to them, he was a little surprised when they reached the elders’ compound forty hours later without any trouble.
“Was that too easy?” Rose asked as they drove through a huge security gate. “Or did we just outsmart your brothers?”
“Good question.” He wasn’t entirely sure. “Just stay alert. We won’t be able to relax until the elders give Zoe their backing, and the way the bastards talk, that could take days.”
“Days? Ah, hell.”
“You guys cursing,” Zoe scolded. “Ah ah ah.”
Rose shook her head and grinned. To Vlad, she said, “This is what I get for imposing a no-cursing rule in my home. My daughter throws it back in my face. I blame my mother. I get the prohibition on ‘bad words’ from her. My dad can cuss up a storm when he wants—especially when Irish rugby is on.”
“Grandpa gets in trouble when he says fuck.”
Vlad choked back a laugh.
Rose rolled her eyes and tried not to laugh, too. There
was
something very funny about a three year old saying “fuck” even though it was completely inappropriate. But her mother would kill her if she heard it. “Exactly right, baby. You shouldn’t say that word either.”
“’Kay, Mommy.”
The drive from the gate up the long, forest-lined road to the interior of the compound took enough time that Zoe started asking for a potty stop.
“Almost there, sweetie. Can you wait a few more minutes?” Vlad pulled into the parking lot, looking around, anticipating ambush. What he saw surprised him.
Alexis, backed by a dozen other tigers, was already waiting to greet them. She broke from the group as he climbed out of the rental car.
“Thought you might feel safer with an escort,” she said quietly. “Did you have a fun trip, Zoe?”
“Yay! We drove lots. Need a potty.”
Alexis chuckled. “Well, we’d better get you to one quick.” To Vlad and Rose, she said, “These are Trackers I trust. They’ll guard our backs. You’re safe now.”
Rose released a breath and her shoulders sagged for just a moment before she straightened again. Vlad couldn’t quite believe what he was seeing. He was the son of a known murderer, under suspicion himself for playing a part in Nila’s kidnapping. Yet Alexis had rallied support to keep his daughter safe.
“Thank you,” he said to her as he pulled their luggage out of the rental.
She waved it off.
Inside, the huge entry was brightly lit and outwardly welcoming. All the corridors in this part of the compound were lined with pale marble floors and white walls, the walls holding paintings and sculptures of nature scenes and tigers. The high ceilings gave the building an open, airy feeling that kept the average tiger shifter from feeling confined and squeezed. The designers of the building had intended for it to be imposing too, and from the awed look on Rose’s face, they’d succeeded.
Their group had barely cleared the main door when Alexis’ husband, Victor, joined them.
Alexis and Victor signed to each other for several moments, then Alexis said aloud, “Everything is in place. We’ll get you all to your rooms in the guest wing. After you’ve rested some, the elders have arranged a meeting. Zoe will have to attend that.” After a bit more signing with her husband, she said, “They’ve agreed to an open meeting so any tiger in the compound can attend.”
“Is that good or bad for us?” Rose asked.
“Good,” Vlad said, both surprised and relieved by the news. “With the entire community watching, they have to keep things…on the up and up.”
“Safer for Zoe?”
“Yes.”
Nila had had a closed meeting with them when she’d finally been brought to the compound. According to gossip, she’d handled herself well, and the elders had behaved, if not well, then at least typically for them. Still, Vlad hadn’t been looking forward to having his daughter alone in a room with them—especially knowing one had been helping his father.
Rose stayed close to his side, holding Zoe’s hand tightly, as they were escorted through the massive corridors toward the wing of the compound reserved for guests.
“Is he deaf?” she murmured to Vlad, nodding toward Victor. “Not sure why, but that surprises me.”
Victor glanced over his shoulder and shook his head, grinning.
“He hears just fine,” Vlad told her. “He’s mute. That’s the reason for the sign language.”
“I’m still surprised.”
“Long story. Childhood injury. A lot of tigers consider him defective.”
Alexis glanced back this time, her eyes narrowed.
“I’m not one of them,” he said, raising his hands, palms out to appease her.
She nodded and looked ahead.
“You probably shouldn’t aggravate our security detail,” Rose murmured.
They’d just arrived at their rooms when one of the elders’ assistants stopped them. He stood with his spine stiff, regarding them with a neutral expression. Vlad breathed in the man’s scent, trying to pinpoint his identity. He was…Luke Chang, assistant to Wu Qiang, one of the “wait and see how the hybrid thing progresses” elders. Vlad was more than a little surprised to see one of Qiang’s people before any of Elizaveta’s.
“Welcome,” Luke said to Rose directly, ignoring Vlad. “I hope you’ll find our hospitality suitable. When you are comfortable and settled, Elder Wu Qiang would like very much to meet your beautiful daughter.”
Rose narrowed her eyes and glanced at Vlad. “I understood we’d be meeting all the elders later today.”
“Of course. He simply wished a quieter introduction in a setting that won’t intimidate the child. The meeting promises to be…something of an event. As you no doubt realize, your daughter is very important to our people. Qiang would like the opportunity to make her acquaintance prior to all the chaos.”
Rose glanced at Vlad again. Vlad stared at the assistant as he took in his scent. Nothing. He got nothing from him. Damned man worked for an elder. Of course he’d be able to keep his intentions and feelings out of his scent.
“I’m not sure we’ll have time,” Rose hedged. “We’ve had a long journey and Zoe needs to sleep before the…chaos.”
Zoe scooted closer to Rose, half hiding behind her. Luke’s eyes narrowed almost imperceptibly at the move. Vlad noted it too and wondered if Zoe was just shy around all these strangers or if she’d managed to pick up something from Luke that Vlad couldn’t.
Their people lived on instincts they couldn’t always properly explain. Vlad was inclined to trust Zoe’s.
“There will be time after the official meeting for quieter introductions,” Vlad said, forcing Luke to acknowledge him.
“Of course. It was a hopeful request.” He tipped his head a little as he considered Vlad. “But we must always bow to the wisdom of a parent.”
Vlad wasn’t sure what to make of that comment—was it a reference to his own father or to Vlad’s parental relationship to Zoe? If the former, did that mean Qiang was less neutral on the subject of hybrids than they’d all assumed? He wasn’t one of the elders Vlad had suspected of working with his father, but that didn’t mean he
wasn’t
the one. If the reference was to Vlad being Zoe’s father, the assistant had come damned close to spilling the beans and telling Zoe something they hadn’t told her yet.
He glanced at his daughter. She was watching Luke with a wary, narrowed gaze.
He was pretty sure she was too young to understand the undercurrents of this conversation, but it was hard to say with kids her age. He and Rose needed to talk about how to tell Zoe the truth. But that would have to wait for a better time.
Vlad said, “Tell Qiang we’re honored by his request, and Rose and I will discuss the possibility of a more private conversation with all the elders after the formal introductions.”
Luke bowed his head in a perfectly polite and neutral acknowledgement, then left.
“Was that…unexpected? Odd?” Rose murmured as they went into the room she and Zoe would share.
“Odd,” Vlad confirmed. “But I should have expected it as soon as we found out the meeting would be public.”
“The elders don’t hold public meetings like this often,” Alexis said from the doorway. “I imagine most of them are looking for ways to do things privately. They like to keep their machinations secretive and are more inclined toward closed door proceedings until decisions have been made.”
“Why aren’t they doing that now, then?” Rose asked.
“Elizaveta insisted on taking things public,” Alexis said. She glanced after Zoe, who’d disappeared into the attached bathroom. “Given the circumstances. She used Zoe’s age as the justification.”
Vlad took Rose’s hand and squeezed it to forestall any more questions as Zoe came out of the bathroom. He was sure his daughter could tell things were tense and this was a scary situation. She might be young, but Vlad didn’t want to make matters worse by saying more out loud while she was listening. Rose seemed to feel the same way because she dropped the topic.
Without a word, Zoe crawled onto one of the two huge beds in the large and luxurious room. Rose tucked her in while Vlad checked the locks on the various windows. They were three stories up, but that was nothing to a tiger. Alexis silently pointed out the cameras trained on the windows and main door, positioned so Rose and Zoe would be able to use the bathroom and sleep in complete privacy, but Victor’s security team could keep all possible entrances into the room under close watch.
Alexis left them with three of the Trackers to guard their doors and assurances that they’d be safe enough to sleep. Vlad waited until Rose and Zoe were settled before going across the hall to his own room. He didn’t like staying separate from them, but Rose had been hesitant to have him in the same room with them when Zoe didn’t know he was her father yet. Since the entire situation was already uncomfortable, he didn’t want to make things worse.
“If you need me,” he told her before he left, “just call. I’ll hear you and be here immediately.”
She cupped his cheek and gave him a quick kiss. “Thank you. I hope I’ll be able to sleep.” She glanced back at Zoe who was already snoring softly. “At least she’s too tired to stay awake fretting.”
“You’ll be okay,” Vlad assured, then kissed her, a lingering kiss this time, before leaving so she could rest.
They had a serious ordeal ahead of them. They needed all the rest they could get.
Chapter Fourteen
Rose sat staring at the
still
talking panel of elders while she cuddled Zoe. Her daughter had crawled onto her lap the minute they sat down and refused to be moved, which suited Rose just fine. She didn’t trust these people, and she sure as hell wasn’t going to allow them access to her child without her say-so. Vlad stood as a reassuring presence just at her left shoulder. He refused to sit, an action that only confirmed the danger for Rose.
The huge meeting room was as impressive as she’d expected for a seat of power—bright white walls, a long wooden table on a dais where the elders sat, the shiny dark marble floor covered with a soft red rug, and gold-leaf details adding an air of wealth. The lighting was mellow but bright, almost like sunshine, and sound carried easily around the room without echoing, which surprised her given the size of the place. The ceilings were arched overhead and painted with a beautiful mural of a nature scene filled with tigers.
The rows of seating lining the two shorter walls of the long rectangular room were filled to bursting with people, all but two of them men. And one of the women was Alexis. Rose could only assume they were all tiger shifters. Since arriving, she hadn’t actually encountered a tiger walking through the huge corridors, though. She wasn’t sure why, but she’d imagined the place full of free-roaming big cats.
Zoe focused exclusively on the ceiling mural while the elders debated her future. Rose couldn’t blame her. Most of the surrounding crowd was staring at Zoe with an unnerving intensity. Rose couldn’t be sure what any of them were thinking, but the atmosphere of the room was charged.
Rather than glare off all the staring strangers, which Vlad was doing for her anyway, Rose kept her attention on the group of officious elders talking over each other in a cacophony of noise. She’d made a few attempts to speak, but there was no hope of getting a word in while they all tried to out-argue each other, so she gave up and instead studied them.
She refused to let them take over her daughter’s life, but they would have to be a part of it—if Vlad was right—so Rose wanted to know what kind of people she was dealing with.
Elizaveta Chernikova was hard to miss, being the only female elder, but Rose suspected she’d be hard to overlook anyway. She was a tall, slim woman with sharp, angular features and beautiful white-silver hair. Her blue eyes were narrowed at the moment, and she was the only one not speaking. She wore a beautifully tailored white pants suit and a black silk blouse, an outfit that spoke of power and wealth.
Despite knowing she was an “elder,” Rose found it impossible to tell how old she was. The silver hair, pulled back into a severe bun, was the only sign of advanced age. Her pale features were mostly smooth, with only a few lines around her eyes and mouth, a mouth that was set in a firm line that gave away nothing of what she was thinking. In fact, beyond the slight narrowing of her eyes, she showed no sign of emotion at all.