Secret Baby Lion: A BBW Lion-Shifter Romance (Shift Your Fate Book 2) (8 page)

“It’s not fair,” she said as she stared at the screen. “Not fair. Not fair. Not fair.”

She couldn’t take Olivia down and keep Tristan. That was simply impossible. But she could take them both down. She could take Tristan’s whole pride down, all he had built here and had struggled to nourish and protect. That would be the supreme punishment for having taken her from the orphanage against her will, having turned her into an asset and nothing more, then having ignored her feelings, desires, everything that made her human. She could take them all down. Why not? They weren’t her family, after all. They had always accepted her, but never quite adopted her as one of their own. She had nothing to gain from staying loyal to them. Not anymore. This wasn’t home. It had never been her home.

Camille pressed the phone to her ear, her hand shaking. Olivia screamed one last time, then the night was finally quiet.

“Yes?”

The man’s voice on the other end startled her, although she had been expecting it. She recognized it, even, although she had only heard it once before.

“Nathan Moore?” Her voice trembled. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t help it, so she gave up.

“Yes. Who is this?”

“I’m sorry for calling this late…”

Silence. He sounded calm and collected, which meant she hadn’t woken him up. As a respected New York attorney, he was probably used to being called late at night by clients who were too rich to care about anything other than their own problems.

“We haven’t met,” she continued, her voice and attitude a bit bolder now. “But I know who you are.”

“Miss, I’m in no mood for pranks,” he said in a dead serious tone.

“Your work for the Calimala.”

Silence again, but this time heavy, unsettling. For a second, Camille thought he would hang up. She had to get his attention, she had to make him listen to her no matter how insane she sounded.

“You work for the Calimala,” she repeated, “and I work for Tristan Ward, the only lion-shifter in the world who has managed to hide an entire community of lion-shifters from the Guild. I can give him to you. And you can give them all to the Calimala.”

Another long moment of silence, then Nathan Moore’s hesitant answer: “I’m listening…”

CHAPTER FIVE

Camille placed the cup of hot coffee in front of Olivia, then sat down with hers. When she was sure Olivia wasn’t paying attention, she dug her left hand into the pocket of her long, loose hoodie and squeezed the small glass vial. It was early, and it was chillier inside than outside. It wasn’t chilly enough for two rounds of clothes, but Camille had always been more sensitive.

“Thank you,” said Liv.

The blonde girl smiled and nodded. She took a sip of coffee and closed her eyes when the hot liquid warmed her whole body.

Olivia looked around the kitchen. It was small, but clean and well organized.

“I really like your house,” she said. “It’s perfect. I’ve always wanted to have one just like this. Simple, cozy, easy to maintain…”

“Where do you live in London?”

“A two-room apartment. It’s enough for me and…” Liv stopped herself on time. She took a huge sip of coffee and burned her tongue, as punishment for being so careless. She couldn’t say why, but she felt comfortable around Camille. Could it be because she knew they loved the same man? It was strange, really. Naturally, Liv would’ve felt threatened by a woman who was interested in her boyfriend, but not now. Now, she had the odd impression that Camille and she had something in common, that they shared a secret.

Camille was too lost in her own thoughts to notice Olivia’s weird answer. She was only half listening to her, her fingers playing with the vial in her pocket, her mind focused on what was to come. This was perfect. Her plan couldn’t have been smoother and easier to accomplish. Olivia had wanted to have coffee with her since the day they had met, and Camille had found it easy to invite her over after the rather friendly conversation they had had last night, at the bonfire party. Now, all she had to do was wait for Nathan Moore’s text. The pot of coffee was on the stove. She could always pour more into Olivia’s cup. When the time came, she would empty the vial unnoticed, and when Olivia dropped to the floor, no one would care she was dead, because the assassins of the Arte di Calimala would be on their way, and they’d all have to pack and leave.

“When are you going back?” asked Camille. She figured she should at least try to make some small talk, lest Olivia became suspicious.

Liv thought for a second. “I don’t know. I really don’t know…”

“You said you have a job there.”

“Yes.” She bit the inside of her cheek. “Honestly, I never intended to stay too long in the States. My life is there.”

Camille fixed her with her faded blue eyes, suddenly a bit more interested.

“What changed?”

Liv smiled. “A lot of things changed.”

The blonde girl removed her hand from her pocket and placed it on the table. She waited for Olivia to say more, as she could feel her desire to talk. To her, to anyone… her witchy instinct told her Tristan’s woman was in need of a friend, or a counselor, or someone to whom she could simply unburden her soul. Camille couldn’t care less about her. Her doubts and emotions were meaningless now that she had decided her fate. It felt so weird, yet unique and exhilarating, to have the power to choose if someone should live or die. She had this power, and she felt like she also had the right. After all, she had been here first. She had loved Tristan first. And she was a witch. A naturally talented witch, not some mere, pathetic human.

Olivia studied Camille’s pretty face for a minute, then decided why she liked her so much, why she felt like she could trust her: it was her silent attitude. Unlike Miranda, or any of her friends in London, Camille didn’t push her, didn’t ask uncomfortable questions, and didn’t try to guess what she’d say before she even opened her mouth to say it. Camille wasn’t curious. She was patient, and she gave her the feeling that she respected her and her intimacy. If Olivia wanted to tell her something, then the girl would listen. But if she didn’t want to open up to her, then the girl would nod and change the subject.

A few minutes had passed, but the silence between them didn’t feel awkward. When Liv started talking, Camille wrapped both her hands around her cup and listened to her carefully.

“I know we’ve just met,” said Olivia, “but I feel like I can trust you.”

Camille eyed her phone. It remained silent, which meant that Nathan hadn’t told the Calimala yet. Last night, she had given him all the information he needed. Unfortunately, he was a new member of the Guild and had to go through some formalities until he could reach the right person to pass that information along. On the one hand, Camille was frustrated that Nathan Moore, the attorney who had managed to kill a compromised assassin of the Calimala under the very eyes of three shape-shifters, was in fact a newly recruited member with little to no power. On the other hand, helping him advance quickly and gain a respectable position within the Guild made her feel better about what she was doing. At least someone had something to gain from her betrayal.

“Sure you can trust me,” Camille encouraged her.

“You know Tristan so well,” continued Liv. “You know how he thinks, how he reacts in certain situations… to certain news…” She couldn’t believe she was actually going to tell someone else first. She had wanted to tell Tristan the night before, but she hadn’t had the chance. After spending more time with him, and realizing she was slowly, but surely, falling in love, she had started to fear the moment when she’d have to tell him the truth: that he had a son.

“He can be unpredictable,” said Camille. “No matter how well I know him, he always manages to surprise me, so I can’t promise you anything. But I will help you, if I can.”

“It’s all so complicated…” Olivia sighed. She wasn’t quite sure where to begin. If this whole confession thing was proving to be so difficult with Camille, then what should she expect from a possible confrontation with Tristan? “First of all, Tristan and I met for the first time about two years ago.”

“Oh.” Had Tristan known then that Olivia was his mate? This new piece of information added a new perspective to their relationship. For some unexplainable reason, it made Camille uncomfortable.

“Yeah. It was a brief… encounter.” Liv smiled, a bit embarrassed. “The very next day, I moved to London.”

“I see. And you came back and looked for him after all this time. Why?”

“That’s the thing.” Liv sighed and took another sip of coffee. It was cold. “The ‘why’ is the thing. He’s been asking the same question since I got here, and I still haven’t found the courage to answer it.”

Camille cocked an eyebrow. Nathan hadn’t texted her yet, and now she was thinking that, maybe, it wasn’t such a bad thing that he was taking his time.

“It must be important to you if you need… courage,” she said.

“It’s the most important thing in my life. He, actually. He’s the most important person in my life.”

Camille nodded, thinking she was talking about Tristan.

“My son. Tristan’s son, Camille. That’s why I came back and now I don’t have the courage to tell him. I kept his son away from him for over a year. Until recently, I never even wanted to tell him. How will he react? What will he do? I don’t know…” Liv reached over the table and took Camille’s hands into hers to draw her attention to how desperate she was and how much she needed her help. “How do I tell him, Camille? Will he want to meet him? Will he run away? You know Tristan. Does he even want a son?”

Camille was frozen in her seat. She forgot how to breathe, how to blink, how to send commands to her own muscles. She could see Olivia’s hands covering hers, but she couldn’t feel them. She was completely disconnected from this world, her brain stuck on that one thought: Tristan had a son. The mother of his child was the woman she had been planning to murder by slipping a lethal mixture of bear venom, wolf venom, and lion venom in her coffee. Tristan, the man she loved so much that she wanted to hurt, had a son, and that son would become an orphan when she, Camille, killed his mother and brought the Assassins’ Guild on his father’s doorstep. An orphan. Just like her.

“What’s his name?” she managed to utter.

Liv smiled. “Liam.”

Camille swallowed heavily and pulled her hands out from under Olivia’s. Slowly, her brain was starting to function again, and her body to react accordingly.

“Olivia, I have to make a phone call. Wait here, okay?” She grabbed her phone and stood up.

Liv watched her dumbfounded. She had just told her the secret which had caused her countless sleepless night, she had just trusted her with the knowledge about her son’s existence, and she was leaving.

“What? Why?” She was too confused to say anything more coherent.

Camille was already headed towards the door, typing Nathan’s number.

“I’ll be back in a second,” she threw over her shoulder. “I’ll be back and it’ll all be fine, okay? Trust me.”

“I… I do trust you. But, what’s happening?”

Camille closed the door behind her and stepped into the living room just as Nathan picked up the phone.

“I told you this would take time,” said Nathan instead of “hello”. “Believe me, I want this to be over just as much as you do, but we have to be patient. I told the Calimala I have important information and a serious lead, they called a meeting, it should begin any minute now…”

“Nathan, listen to me: we can’t go through with the plan. Get out of there if you can, if you can’t, then think of something else to say. You can’t tell them about Tristan Ward and his pride.”

“What are you talking about? What’s got into you?”

“It doesn’t matter, just do as I say.”

Nathan took in a sharp breath and let it out slowly. He tried to stay calm and control his voice.

“I can’t do as you say, Camille. You call me in the middle of the night, tell me you want to sell Tristan Ward to the Calimala, then change your mind in a couple of hours. That’s not how we do business, little witch. Not with the Guild.”

“Something unexpected came up. I had no idea…”

“I thought you wanted that woman gone,” Nathan pressed on. “I thought you wanted Ward and his pride dead so you could finally get your freedom.”

“I don’t… I don’t want that anymore. My freedom doesn’t matter.”

“Is that so? What made you change your mind? Whatever it is, it won’t make me change my mind. I told the Calimala I had something for them. If I don’t give them that something, I’m dead. I don’t know about you, Camille, but I rather fancy being alive.”

Camille started pacing the living room. She eyed the kitchen door and wondered how she could convince Nathan faster that they had to stop what they had set in motion. Olivia wouldn’t wait in the kitchen forever. She squeezed the vial in her pocket, suddenly grateful that it was there, safe, that it couldn’t hurt anyone.

“It’s a boy,” she eventually told him. “A child. Not even two years old.”

“What boy?” Nathan sounded more confused than ever.

“Olivia and Tristan have a son. I just found out.” She took a deep breath and kept whispering into the phone. “We can’t do this, Nathan. We can’t.”

“This changes nothing.”

“It changes everything! There’s a child involved!”

“A shifter child…”

“Yes. What does it matter? It could have well been a human child.”

Nathan sighed. “And you’re telling me you had no idea. It doesn’t make any sense.”

“A secret child,” Camille breathed into the phone. “Olivia hasn’t told Tristan yet.”

“She told you, though…”

“She trusts me.”

Nathan chuckled. “Horrible judge of character.”

Camille didn’t say anything. She closed her eyes and massaged her left temple. This conversation wasn’t going anywhere.

“So, Olivia Jensen has a son.” Nathan started thinking out loud. “She doesn’t know his father is a lion-shifter, which means she has no idea her boy is also one.”

“What are you trying to get at?”

“I’m just… reassessing the situation. She came back to the US to find Tristan and tell him the truth. She brought the boy with her.”

“Yes…” By this point, Camille was starting to feel uncomfortable talking to the attorney. There was something in his voice, something dangerous.

“Jensen. Jensen. She’s got family here.”

“Nathan, stop. Just stop.” She heard Olivia moving around in the kitchen. “I have to go. Promise me you won’t do anything. Promise me you’ll invent a story.”

“I can’t invent a story, Camille.”

“Our deal is off. You wouldn’t have known where Tristan’s pride is, if it weren’t for me. I’m a powerful witch, Nathan. I can make you suffer.”

Nathan couldn’t deny that. “I won’t tell them your location.”

Camille sighed in relief. “Good. Good.” They were both silent for a while. Just as she was getting ready to hang up, a quick, ambiguous thought crossed her mind, raising chills up her spine. “What will you tell them?”

“A different story.” Nathan hang up.

Camille stared at her phone for a long moment, her eyes growing bigger and bigger with panic.

“No. No no no.”

She re-dialed his number, but his phone was closed.

“Shit.”

“Is everything okay?”