Chapter 2

                                    

                                          
Liana's hands shook all that week. She never expected something so traumatic to happen not ten yards from where she stood working. She couldn't stop replaying the chaos and confusion following the shouted death sentence. Was there such prejudice in the world still? She didn't particularly like the thought of shifters, considering the Mating Laws and all that, but she didn't hate them. She'd never met them.
On the upside, Melinda gave all the employees who worked that awful event double their salary. She could afford a few extra things this week. A good thing, since she hadn't fed her shoe or lingerie addiction in a long while. When you worked to get by, there wasn't often extra to purchase those luxury items she wanted.
The terror from the rally consumed her every waking moment. Every time someone snuck up behind her, she jumped. Every time a pan slammed in the kitchen, she screamed. It got so bad that by Friday, Melinda insisted she take a week off work. Fully paid. Apparently, her fright was scaring the customers.
The only reprieve came in the strange dreams Liana found herself in the middle of. The first night, she assumed the trauma brought on the weird scenario in her dream.
The shooting started like every other time, except this time the bullet headed her direction. The next thing she knew, a man wrapped himself around her and shielded her from the chaos. He never spoke, but somehow she knew what he meant by the gesture. I'll keep you safe. I'll protect you.
Liana thought the whole dream fanciful and actually pretty ludicrous. Then the next night, she dreamed of the same man. The same beautiful words.
The third night, a wolf appeared first. Large and brown, with kind, golden eyes. The same thing rattled around in her brain, drew her closer to the wolf despite her fear. Come to me. I'll protect you.
Liana woke in a panic that night. A wolf? The man in her dreams couldn't possibly be a shifter. He was nothing like the tales she heard of the vengeful, violent population that lived on the reservation nearby. The werewolves were supposed to be all rage and fury. Not kind. Not protective of a human. They only sought to save their own. The Mating Laws were a disgrace to humankind, an abomination.
Still, she couldn't shake the dream that day when she went to work. She found herself looking for the man in the crowd of customers. Melinda watched her with trepidation. That was the day Melinda told her to take a week off.
Ever since then, Liana couldn't shake the feeling of being watched. Not only in her dreams, but in her waking as well. Small things made her startle and large things made her panic. She couldn't live like this.
Maybe she needed a psychiatrist, but she didn't like the idea of someone poking into her thoughts. Especially with the handsome man roaming around in there. He was hers, the only good thing in her life right now. Never mind that he was completely fictional.
That's how, at 1pm on a Monday morning, Liana found herself huddled in the back corner of the library with an open laptop in front of her. The open search engine displayed story after story of shifters gone rabid, snapping and snarling and tearing humans apart. They were never meant to live in peace with the species.
Or so she'd been told.
"Why are you researching shifters?" A soft voice asked from over her shoulder.
Liana snapped the laptop shut and spun, eyes wide with terror. She calmed moderately when she spotted the short little brunette behind her. "Brielle, you can't do that to me. Why aren't you at work?"
"Uh, duh! I got sent home too." She collapsed into the chair across from Liana and folded her arms under her chest. "Are you researching them because of what happened at the square?"
Liana blew out a breath and opened the laptop again. It was no use hiding it from Brielle when the woman saw it anyway. "Something like that."
"One of them got hurt," Brielle said a little too fast. Like she needed to get the information off her chest. "The crazy guy with the gunshot him. There were videos on YouTube, but they got taken down due to sensitive material." She shrugged.
Liana paused, her fingers hovered above her keyboard. "Was it really bad?"
"It didn't look too bad, but there was a lot of blood." Brielle shrugged again. "He didn't shift, though. I thought they always shifted when they got hurt. But he kept it together."
"I don't think they're all bad like people want us to believe." Liana said the sentence quietly, as though a government official would hear and arrest them for such talk. Unlikely, but even after so many years of this, people were scared they might say the wrong thing and tee off the wrong official.
Brielle shook her head. "I'm not sure. Maybe he's just different from most. I've only ever met one shifter, and he pretty much lived up to what the media says." She shuddered.
Liana blew out a breath and typed in a new search. "I think the media is pretty biased, Bri."
"I don't know what to think." Brielle sighed, then tilted her head as though a thought occurred to her. "Why are you so interested all of a sudden? You're not handing yourself over to Wolf Domestic Affairs are you?"
Liana shook her head furiously. Some radical human girls gave themselves up as potential mates according to Sub-section 6 of the National Werewolf Mating Laws, but Liana heard horror stories about the things that happened to those girls. No, she wouldn't go that far. "I'm not going anywhere unless I'm called by name, and that's never going to happen."
"Are you sure? You seem pretty interested."
"Only because they saved us, Bri. I'm just trying to figure out how they actually live. Why the humans are so scared of them. That kind of thing." Liana stared absently at the search results, including a website dedicated to the family lines of the Lycan Werewolf Shapeshifters. She rolled her eyes. Some people had too much time on their hands.
"You could always ask them. Take a tour of the reservation." Brielle curled her knees up to her chin and wrapped her arms around them.
Liana shook her head. "You know I'm not allowed a tour. No one who isn't in a committed relationship is allowed in."
"Yeah, but there's always a way around that."
"I'd need protection from one of them, and I don't know a shifter to protect me." Except the one in her dreams. He's a fantasy, Liana! Get over him!
She tried and failed the dating game, no one wanted to stick with her. So Liana had long ago relegated herself to the "forever single" category. Her mom was disappointed, but at least her dad supported the decision to take a break.
"I could take a tour for you." Brielle offered.
Liana laughed. Brielle's boyfriend of two years wouldn't like that idea. He wasn't clingy, but he didn't like shifters, so it was probably better that Brielle stayed away. "No, thanks. I'll think of something."
"You always do." Brielle stood and blew her a kiss. "I should get back to Lou before he worries."
"As if he would." Liana shook her head. Lou might like Brielle an awful lot, but he didn't show it very well by Liana's standards. There was no... passion. But if Brielle was happy, she was happy.
"We'll discuss Lou's apparent shortcomings later. I'll be at your house Friday night for girl chat, okay?"
"Okay." Liana waved at her and smiled as Brielle walked back.
Her eyes instantly honed back in on her search. She wanted to know more. She needed to know that she wasn't going crazy when she imagined her dream man. Shifters couldn't be as evil as everyone made them out to be.