Erika
She looked the envelope over, not for the first time. The seal on the back was broken from the first time she’d read it, not knowing what it contained. Now several emotions warred within her.
Excitement.
Trepidation.
Hope.
Guilt.
“Erika!” the door burst open with only the barest hint of a knock, like a parent entering their child’s room. The knock was used as a warning, not as permission. Which meant it could only be one person.
“Hey, Kelly,” she said as her easily agitated best—and only—friend entered the room like a whirlwind. It seemed like a miracle nobody was injured by her arrival, least of all Erika.
“Guess what I got!” she crowed, waving a red envelope identical to the one in Erika’s hand over her head. The only difference was the name on the front.
Erika held her hands up to her temples, rubbing them in small circles. “If my powers are accurate, you have received an invitation to this so-called Shifter Ball.”
“Cheater!” Kelly said with a laugh. “You only know ‘cause you got one too!”
“Busted,” Erika said dryly.
“Well? Why aren’t you more excited?! This is amazing news,” Kelly said. “Think of all the hot, dreamy shifters that are going to be there.”
Erika thought her friend was going to swoon then and there over the imaginary figures in her head.
“I know. It sounds like fun,” she agreed.
And it did. If she didn’t feel guilty as sin. There were also five crisp hundred-dollar bills in the envelope. Money for them to go buy dresses. It made Erika extremely uncomfortable.
“Why don’t you look like you think it’s going to be fun then?” Kelly asked, calming long enough to evaluate the mood her friend was in.
“I don’t know,” Erika said, throwing her hands up in the air as she took two steps to the side of the entry into her sparsely furnished living room and threw herself down on the stairs. “Don’t you think it’s a little much?” she asked at last as Kelly joined her.
“What?”
“Everything. The places to stay, the food, and now this? Five hundred dollars to go buy a brand-new dress for one night? That’s ridiculous, Kel, and you know it! We’re in so deep with them, they could do whatever they wanted and we’d have to say yes.”
Kelly rolled her eyes. “Not this again. Erika, listen to me. These are good people. That’s why they offered to do all this for us. They didn’t have to build all these apartments to house us, or give us money to buy food. They chose to, because we were in a rough spot.”
“I know,” she said, still skeptical. “But it’s our own fault. We bought the line the Institute fed us. We thought we were doing our part to help shifters integrate with society. Now we find out that we were just breeding animals for some twisted human’s attempt to eliminate them completely?”
She held her stomach, still somewhat flat but beginning to expand. “I don’t hate the child I’m carrying, despite the circumstances that I now know led to it being there. I willingly did that. But don’t you feel the least bit guilty about it now?”
“I suppose,” Kelly agreed, placing her hand on her stomach as well. She was only perhaps two months along, having only discovered she was pregnant near the end of their ordeal at the hands of the Institute.
The Institute. An organization created by humans to try and steal shifter DNA by interbreeding them heavily with humans like herself. If they’d succeeded, they had every intention of culling full-blood shifters from existence, while keeping their superior traits for humankind. It was disgusting. And she’d been a part of it! Agreeing to bear a child from a shifter, in hopes it would be a half-breed with shifter-like characteristics, though diluted, without the ability to fully change into an animal.
“I’m grateful to the Cadians that they didn’t just toss us out on the streets, Kel, I truly am. They didn’t have to look after us. I know it was a generous act, agreeing to support all three hundred-odd of us. That was something special on their part. But I…I dunno. I guess I don’t like how heavily reliant I am on them.”
Kelly nodded. “I understand. But what else are we supposed to do?”
What else were they supposed to do indeed? Erika didn’t have an answer to that. Not yet at least. She was starting to plan ahead, but the abrupt death of the Institute at the hands of some Cadian shifters had caught them all off guard. For now, she had no choice.
“So, the ball?” Kelly asked again, sensing the shift in her friend. “Come on, we have barely left these places since we arrived here. You need to get out and about. Even if it’s just to socialize, not search for a mate.”
Erika snorted. “You’re assuming that I’m destined to find a shifter mate in the first place.”
“Damn straight. Look at you! You practically scream shifter-bait to me,” Kelly laughed.
“Shifter-bait?” she repeated. “Where the hell did you hear that term?”
Kelly shrugged and turned away, walking back to the basic but functional kitchen. All the apartments were laid out the same. Entryway, then living area off to the side. Farther back, the kitchen. Beyond that, a short hallway with bathroom on the right, and straight ahead a door into the bedroom. Small, but easily assembled, and more than she technically needed. The fact they’d given her a place to herself was almost as astounding as the speed with which they’d assembled the buildings for her and the other women.
“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.