by Amelia Jade
“Some of the other women were discussing what a shifter looks for in a woman, from an appearance standpoint. You sort of fit that bill.”
“I do?” she asked, feeling naïve and uninformed.
“Sure you do. You’re young, of somewhat shorter height, thick waist and shapely-ass legs, above-average size tits—if only by a bit,” Kelly joked, forever jealous of her own smaller breasts.
“Yeah, but look at the rest of me,” she said. “Pale skin, freckles galore, thin red hair—”
“Gorgeous eyes and a cute little face,” Kelly finished more strongly. “You’ve got it going on, girl. Trust me. Every shifter is going to be after that ass at the ball.”
“Assuming I go,” she muttered.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Kelly asked dangerously. “You’re pregnant, girl. Not dead. Hell, you’re only three months pregnant at that. No, you can’t get shit-faced like I’m sure you did back in the day, but that doesn’t mean you can’t have an awesome time. Who knows,” she said slyly. “You might meet the man of your dreams.”
“Whoever said I wanted to meet the man of my dreams?” she complained. “Not me. You’re the one insistent on me getting hitched. Or laid. Or both. Some days I’m not sure you even know what you want for me anymore.”
Her friend laughed, bringing the two cups of water she’d been filling over to the little round table in front of the second-hand couch that had been donated to the fund by some caring Cloud Lake citizen.
“I just want you to be happy, and not moping around here. You need to get out, meet a man, make out in public, grope his dick. Things like that. Let him put his hand between your legs. Who knows, maybe you’ll enjoy it!”
Erika thought about dumping the cup of water over her friend’s head. She wasn’t interested in getting laid. Wait. That wasn’t entirely true. She just wasn’t looking for some random sex. Erika was ready for more. Something serious. There was a child growing inside of her, and she found herself more interested in someone who would be there when it was born, not someone who would make her toes curl and her back arch, as fun as that might be.
“I’m not going with the express intent of getting some dick,” she said bluntly. “Let’s put that out there. If I do even go, I’m going to keep in mind that I am pregnant, as are you, and we’re going to have an enjoyable, but relaxed evening.” She paused, then added, “Though I’m still not sure about going.”
Kelly stomped over to her and looked her in the eyes, gold-flecked brown orbs boring into her. “Erika Diane Rey, you are going to go out, you are going to look fabulous, and you are going to have a damn good time. Understood?”
“Yes ma’am,” she said meekly. “I’ll be good, I promise.”
“I’d rather you be bad, but as long as you’re there with me, I’ll take it,” Kelly said with a sniff of approval. “Now, get your ass dressed, missy, we’re going out shopping now, before everyone else steals the best dresses. You had better believe that when three hundred women descend on this little town’s stores, it’s going to be bare-bones pickings!”
Erika was on her feet and rushing to the bedroom to get changed almost instantly. She still wasn’t sure if she was going, but she damn sure wasn’t going if she didn’t have a nice dress.
Besides, maybe if she bought thrifty, she could get some nice shoes and other accessories. Erika just loved shopping.
Chapter Three
Harden
He was heading to the ball with several other shifters, all of whom he’d just met. They had all been cordial to him, but it was clear that they knew each other from elsewhere, and while they were willing to let him travel, he wasn’t privy to the inside jokes and casual banter that came so easily to them. So he watched from the outside, wishing that he had his friends here.
Which is impossible, considering all but four of them are dead.
Growling at himself to stop being so down about circumstances out of his control, he tried to push the thoughts from his mind. Glancing over at his travel companions, all of them dressed to the nines as he was, he waved off their curious glances. Great. His internal dialogue had just ostracized him from their little group even more. Harden wasn’t the best at making new friends, not anymore, and he realized that he’d just blown his chance with them.
“You go on ahead,” he said, stopping to pretend to tie his shoe. “I’ll catch up.”
The others politely said they’d wait, but he shooed them off, and they didn’t argue too much, shuffling off down the sidewalk as he untied and then retied his shoe exactly how it had been.
He should have been in a more festive mood. A happy mood. But instead he was fighting off the grim blackness that surrounded him. Not for the first time he wished that his friends, the only family he had left, had been up to coming. It was unfortunate that they were still unwell, but he knew it was for the best that they stayed.
“Everything okay there?” a calm, helpful voice asked from behind him.
“Yeah, I’m fine,” he said, standing up to look at the speaker.
It was a large bear shifter, he noted. An easy smile tugged at his face, highlighting the bright blue eyes within. Like the other shifters, he was wearing a formal suit. His was a dark gray, almost charcoal color with some pin striping that served to help accentuate his bulky form. A pale purple tie gave it some color. A matching pocket-square stuck out of his right breast pocket. It was a very sleek, stylish look. Harden didn’t doubt that he’d receive a number of stares.
“Good to hear it. Heading to the ball I take it?”
Harden nodded. “Yeah. You are as well?”
The shifter grinned. “Sure am. Got the night off. The boss-man said I could head on down, ‘slong as I was good. Which I always am, of course. He just never said what to be good at.”
The two shared a laugh. Harden noted the easy camaraderie between the two of them, and wondered just who the man was. The shifter showed no signs of introducing himself, though he did fall in line next to Harden on his way.
“So, excited for the ball?” the bear asked.
“Yeah,” he said with a quick nod. “It’ll be nice to get out. To talk to some people. Maybe make some new friends.” To perhaps start to feel at home among all of you.
“Indeed,” the shifter said, scratching his head.
Harden noted the gray tinge to his hair, which was odd considering he had to be around his age, late twenties, no more. Maybe it was a natural thing? He didn’t know, and it wasn’t polite to ask at this juncture either.
“You going to meet some women, or working as a guard?” Harden asked.
“Tonight, just a free man. I can’t say I’m looking for women, but the woman, now that would be pretty damn swell, wouldn’t it?”
Harden found himself immediately liking the bear shifter and his casual honesty. It wasn’t something that he was used to. So much of the past several years of his life had been filled with lies, deceit, and treachery that he caught himself trying to discern the real person behind the act.
“You’ll get no argument from me. I’m not really sure what to expect, but if the quality of the invitations are anything to go by, it should be quite the event.”
The bear shifter nodded, reaching into his breast pocket. He pulled out a cream-colored envelope made of high-quality paper. Opening the flap, he removed the invitation. Gold filigree curved and wound around the perimeter, reflecting the streetlight in a way that only real gold could. Black writing graced the thick paper in bold lines, spelling out the details of the event date, time, and location. Farther down, smaller writing indicated the fact it was a formal evening, and proper attire was to be expected.
Harden had an exact replica in his inner breast pocket, identical but for the name scrawled on the envelope with perfect precision. He touched it through the black suit jacket he wore, reassuring himself that it was there.
“You are hereby cordially invited to attend the Shifter Ball, an event that will be blah, blah, blah,” he said
with a laugh, gently putting the invitation away, despite his apparent disdain for the flowery language used. “I like formal things as much as the next, but did you read that whole paragraph? They could have used ten percent of the words to get the point across.” He smiled and stood up straight as they walked. “Me, I’m a man of straight-forward action. Efficiency and bluntness, that’s me!”
Harden snorted. “That’s bear shifters,” he joked. “No taste for the eloquent.”
The bear shifter turned to arch his eyebrows, but the grin on Harden’s face allayed any anger that might have been there.
“Leave it to a wolf to think taking sixteen sentences to say three things is any way of doing something,” he shot back.
Harden laughed as they rounded the corner, but the laugh died as he took in the spectacle in front of them.
“Holy—”
“Shit,” the bear finished, coming to a halt next to him.
Ahead of them, the road they were on came to a four-way intersection. Two police squad cars blocked the road they were walking on, facing toward them, though all the lights were off. The street itself was darkened, making the focus on the intersection, and what lay on the far side of it from them.
“I feel,” he said slowly, “that maybe we should have arrived in another manner.”
“Uh-huh,” the bear shifter said, still stunned.
Spotlights had been set up on the street corners, facing inward to highlight the middle of the intersection itself, where one long limousine after another was pulling up, disgorging its occupants, and then driving through. Cameras flashed from several angles, and his eyes picked up a thick red carpet that had been laid double-wide down the street.
“Andrew never told me he was going to such lengths,” the bear shifter said softly as they finally walked forward.
“Who?”
“Uh, Andrew Raskell, gryphon shifter, ambassador to Cloud Lake from Cadia?” the shifter went on as Harden shook his head. “You’ve never heard of him?”
“No. I take it I should have?”
“Maybe. He’s a good guy. You’ll probably meet him at some point if you’re staying at the embassy.”
“I am,” Harden said. The embassy was a former motel, which made it an ideal place for all the shifters to stay, where they would be out of the way of the human population.
“Yeah. Well, he put this on. But…he never said it was going to be such a…a…” the gray-haired man trailed off.
“Spectacle?”
“Yeah. Good word.” He clapped Harden on the shoulder in approval, never tearing his eyes off of the sight in front of them.
The two headed forward. Harden followed the carpet down to where it led to a set of stairs covered in flowers that signified the entrance to their destination. The building itself was of mostly modern construction, perhaps two decades old, but certainly no older. It was large, with blocky lines and more concrete than glass. To help make up for that, huge tapestries hung from the roof, showing various places within Cloud Lake, he assumed.
There was one of the mountains, another of forests, a third of a huge hydroelectric dam, and more. A bird’s-eye view map of the town was stenciled onto another section of concrete wall, breaking up the beige sharp lines with curves and loops of the streets. Two large sets of double doors seemed to be the entrance.
As they approached, he noted numerous shifters all clad in black standing around at various points, unobtrusive, and yet nearby at the same time.
“Green Bearets,” the bear shifter said out of the corner of his mouth as they slipped around the police cars between an approaching limousine and made their way down the red carpet entryway.
A photographer snapped several pictures of them, and another tried to get them to stop for something more formal, but they declined. Harden wasn’t overly interested in having his photo displayed everywhere. He was having enough trouble with just being in Cadia. The last thing he wanted was to make a scene, something that drew more attention to him.
“What are those?” he asked.
“Bear shifters, trained military. Best of the best,” he said with a boasting tone that told Harden he was one of them.
“I see,” was all he said. Together they took the steps swiftly, though only singly, giving in slightly to propriety, etiquette, and all those other things that would be a large part of the evening.
Eight men in pure-white suits stood at the doors, taking invitations from guests. Though their outfits might be different, Harden had been around soldiers long enough to recognize the way they stood and subtly shifted the flows of traffic to ensure that they could stop anyone they wanted to without drawing a scene.
Like the way he and the bear shifter were neatly shown to an outside door, where two men in white waited for them. He didn’t look behind him, but Harden could sense the way that two others followed, closing them in.
Not that he blamed them. The pair had clearly not arrived like so many others, coming from a side street unannounced.
“Invitations please,” the senior one said with a polite, but hard smile, holding out his hand.
Keeping his left hand at his side, Harden slowly reached into his jacket with his right hand and withdrew the envelope that contained his invitation. The men accepted them, looked at them for a moment, then shrugged and handed them back.
“Enjoy your evening,” he said and all of a sudden the mood changed as they were deemed non-threatening. Two of the men gave them small smiles, while the two behind them melted back into the crowd of arriving shifters to continue taking invitations, their eyes more focused on any new arrivals, in case someone else tried to sneak in.
“Okay my friend, this is where I leave you,” his gray-suited traveling companion said, shaking his hand and then disappearing inside.
Harden dipped his head politely at him and then came to a stop, regarding the inside of the building. He was here now, all alone and without company.
This is going to be painful.
With that last thought, he plunged into the crowd.
Chapter Four
Erika
“This is…something else,” she said in awe as they passed through the invitation checkpoint and into the building itself. “What is this place?”
“A hockey arena,” Kelly said.
Erika shot her friend a look, asking her how she’d known such a fact.
“I asked one of the guards,” she said with a shrug.
“Oh.” She didn’t have anything better to say. It was a rather fair explanation.
The inside of the building had been transformed. Black drapery covered much of the walls and what she assumed might normally be food and beverage stands. Streamers and balloons festooned the place, along with lighting strung up along the passageways. Looking up, she noted that the large lights had been shut off, giving it a much more intimate atmosphere. Black, white, and gold was the color scheme of the evening, a very formal taste to it, though thankfully neither the gold nor the white had been overdone, a very easy thing to do.
The whole design of it lent a rather intimate aura to what was likely normally a cavernous building with extremely high ceilings and wide passageways. The fact that it was nighttime and many of the windows were now covered, meant that one had to really strain to see into the darkness outside of the lights that had been set up specifically for the event.
Together she and Kelly followed the main stream of people, until they emerged into a large open space.
“This must be the arena floor,” she said, looking around.
“I love what they’ve done to transform it,” Kelly said, spinning around slowly as they walked to take it all in.
Erika had to agree. A massive tent that looked almost like it had been cut from a single piece of material had been draped over the floor, with its ends falling over and down to the floor to obscure the arena seating that she knew must lie beyond. Lights were hung from various support poles and in the corners as well, to illuminate the entire place. A wo
oden parquet dance floor had been set up all along the far wall, with a real live band on a dais in one of the corners.
Another wall held food and drink tables, covered in a variety of delicious-looking items that she couldn’t wait to try. There were people everywhere dressed up in lovely gowns, suits, and tuxedos, dresses and skirts, and even a few other outfits from cultures around the world. Many of the colors were muted on the men, with the flares of color almost exclusively coming from the dresses the women wore.
“Aren’t you glad you came?” Kelly said as they stepped toward the food tables, easing their way out of the steady stream of people entering.
“Yeah yeah, say your ‘I told you so’s’ now please, so I don’t have to listen to them all night,” she said with a roll of her eyes.
“Is there any alcohol in these?” she asked as a steward came by with a plate of drinks balanced on one hand.
“No ma’am, not in these,” came the polite response.
“Perfect,” Erika said and snagged a pair of the glasses filled with colorful liquid, passing one to Kelly with a flourish.
“Oh, why thank you, madam,” her friend giggled, accepting the refreshment.
Erika stood back and admired her friend’s dress. Kelly was an average woman, as she described herself. Average height, average weight, average brown hair, and average looks. Erika didn’t really agree. She considered her friend gorgeous, and wouldn’t have argued at all if she woke up looking like that.
For the ball, however, she’d chosen a sky-blue dress that was bunched up around the back and then fell around her legs in waves. The arms were bared with double-finger-wide straps over the shoulders. The front dipped low enough to expose some cleavage, but it was the color that truly drew most of the attention. Her friend looked good, and some of the men in the room were already looking Kelly’s way.
