Lia avoided Professor Fredrickson’s eye the next day, but it was quite difficult. He seemed fixated on her, as if she held the key to something he wanted, and badly. And of course, she did. She wasn’t stupid. He wanted Kane out of the running so he could manipulate the entire school into thinking like he did. It was downright low to take advantage of the pack mentality. Shifters trusted their alphas fiercely, almost blindly. It seemed that Max couldn’t get any more disgusting if he tried.
Courtney noticed how shaken up she was as they headed to her father’s classroom, and touched Lia’s shoulder lightly.
“Are you all right?” she asked.
“Yeah,” Lia said, shakily. “Max is just being kind of weird.”
“Weird how?” Courtney asked, gripping Lia’s shoulders and peering seriously into her eyes.
“Weird like…I don’t know, Court. Just weird!” Lia said, pulling herself out of her friend’s grip to continue walking. “Looking at me like…”
“Like a wolf?” Courtney suggested into Lia’s ear. “Lia, we can’t ignore this. He’s being suspicious. We can’t just let him get away with it. Can we?”
“Well, what am I supposed to do about it?” Lia asked, suddenly furious. She hadn’t thought her decision to be Kane’s fiancé all the way through. There were dangerous implications to it that suddenly seemed less than desirable. And what about the way her heart had raced when Kane finally let himself into the bedroom for the night. He hadn’t even climbed into his own bed with her. He’d made himself as comfortable as he could in a rigid armchair across from the bed and napped in it until it was time for him to head to the university. He’d gone without even offering a ride to Courtney like he usually did, and they’d had to walk to the bus station together because Kane was still working on the engine of her car.
“Courtney, what’s wrong?” Kane asked.
Lia flinched and walked briskly to her seat as they entered Professor Desmond’s classroom, and she could feel Courtney’s eyes searching the crowd for her. The two spoke together quietly for a few brief moments, and Lia had the irrational fear that he was going to stop everything and pull her aside to talk about the horrible mistake she had made in agreeing to this insane arrangement.
Fortunately, though, soon Courtney was sitting down beside Lia and the class was beginning. Kane seemed oddly eager to avoid her gaze and continued on with the lesson as usual, though this time, he seemed to veer away from the course material and he spoke with passion about the shifter wars that happened a decade and a half ago.
“Many would surely wonder just what it is that keeps the wolves from planning another strike against the bear clan,” Kane said, a sharp edge in his voice as he paced in front of his students. “It seems quite foolish to let them off the hook. Can anybody take a guess as to why that is?”
At first, nobody raised their hand, and then one young man in the front ventured to speak.
“Is it because it’s a war that cannot be won?” the boy asked.
Kane’s dark eyes flashed down at the floor and Lia sucked in a breath. Even when he was angry, any kind of passion in Kane’s face made him look shockingly handsome.
“That may be so,” Kane said finally. “But the reason, I’m afraid, is a more practical one than that. The wolves may have the Serah Stone, but we do not necessarily have the advantage. Even as we speak, there are bear shifters and their supporters who are infiltrating Stonybrooke with their extreme ideologies, hoping to corrupt the youth and become one with the source of power again.”
The class was quiet as the information sank in.
“Isn’t that all the more reason to fight?” a young woman called out from the back of the room. Others began to murmur in agreement, and Kane smiled wryly.
“Yes, it is a good reason to fight. But, unfortunately, we are at a point when it is necessary for us to fight smart. The bear shifters live in the wild, with few modern luxuries such as those that the wolf shifters have adopted. They are larger than we are. Often stronger. And much more bloodthirsty. And we have something they desperately want, and look down on us for turning our backs on the code that once decreed that we coexist among nature together.”
“Well, then they shouldn’t have turned against us!” someone yelled, and even more vociferous calls of agreement rang out around the room.
“At this point, they would say the same for us,” Kane said. “They want what they feel they lost when the wolves finally were able to win back the Serah Stone. And they will do it by any means necessary. I want all of you to be on your guard from now on. And don’t trust anybody. If something feels off about a situation, trust your instincts. They were given to you for a reason, even if modern human technology tends to separate you from them. Stay alert. Stay cautious. Trust no one.”
Lia looked down at her hands guiltily. It was almost as if Kane could have been speaking about her. She hadn’t been honest about her family’s origins. About how they were bear sympathizers and supported the war effort that ultimately killed Kane’s wife. If he knew the truth, he most definitely wouldn’t want anything to do with her. Even if it did mean he could qualify to take over the school.
At the end of the class, Lia’s heart was heavy. The war amongst the shifters had happened around the time she was born. She’d had nothing to do with it, not personally, and yet, her parents and their conservative ideologies had been partly responsible for the casualty rates of the wolf shifters. Some humans had even funded the war on both ends, hoping for the greatest number of casualties possible so that their own agenda – to rid the world of shifters entirely – would be achieved much faster. It was a tragic story of intolerance and miscommunications that always left Lia feeling the urge to contribute to the situation positively and to make sure that nobody would ever allow such a massacre to happen again. That’s why she had chosen to attend SU in the first place. That, and maybe to try to make up for her parents’ sins. As if that were possible.
For the rest of the day, Lia walked through the school in a zombie-like daze, her mind clouded by the weight of her situation and the shifter’s plight. Even though it was the most difficult thing she had ever done, pretending to be Kane’s fiancé was her best chance at helping the wolf shifters to maintain the balance they had fought so hard to achieve in the world. Not just among the bear shifters but among the humans as well. And she was just going to have to suck it up and pretend she was happy because, in a way, she was. She would do anything to help the wolf shifters…and the profoundly handsome man she had no choice but to share her life with for the next few weeks. And that was the end of that.