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“I was not flirting. I was merely having a conversation with an old classmate who I haven’t seen for forever.”
“Sure, you were. Just a conversation,” Clara said, laughing as she walked away.
2
Luke
Luke smiled as he walked out of the café. It felt good to get back to regular life, especially if that meant spending a little bit of time flirting with an old acquaintance. He had to admit that she was right about the fact that he hadn’t remembered much about her from when they were younger. She had always been wrapped around some kid named Ryan. She sure was a beauty now.
He winced as he put his foot down. His knee still hurt from the injury he had suffered from an IED. Although most people didn’t know it, there were still specialized units operating all over the world, working hard to take out terrorists, drug cartels, and a whole host of other bad guys. Luke had been a part of a special unit, comprised of shifters, that took missions all over the world. During his last mission, he and his fellow soldiers took out a particularly violent group of human traffickers somewhere in Asia. As they were leaving the compound, however, their vehicle hit a mine and Luke, along with several others, were injured. Two of his companions were killed.
Although shifters do heal faster than humans, the injury was extensive and was still sore. It was time for reenlistment and Luke had struggled with a decision.
He loved knowing that he was making a difference in the world. Luke savored every victory like it was a delicious meal. However, he had suffered a number of wounds and still had a bullet in his back that was too close to the spinal cord to operate on. His parents were getting older and both of them had repeatedly asked Luke to come back home. His dad, Carl, seemed to be particularly excited at the prospect of Luke joining him at the hardware store that Carl had built up.
The conversation with his commanding officer replayed through Luke’s mind, occasionally, when Luke wondered whether he had made the right choice. Jamie was right – it would be very hard to settle down into a normal life after everything that he had experienced.
“Are you sure this is what you want, son?” Luke’s CO had asked.
“It is,” Luke replied with more assurance than he felt.
“You’ll be missed. You’ve done some great things in this unit.”
“Thank you, sir. There will be plenty of other eager young pups to take my place.”
After giving Luke another hard searching look, he nodded his head and said, “You’ll always be welcome if you change your mind.”
“Thank you, sir.”
That conversation had taken place just two days ago. Although he was sure that he had made the right decision, doubts still lingered in the back of his mind.
Carl was waiting, impatiently, for Luke to return.
“Did it really take you that long to go out on a couple of errands?”
“Yep,” Luke said, used to his father’s brusque way of addressing pretty much everyone in the world.
Then, Carl sighed and said, “Sit down. I need to talk to you about something.”
Uh-oh. This never means anything good.
“You know about the legend of Ivy Springs. There was a time, eons ago, where humans and shifters were able to live somewhat peacefully together here – at least until the billionaire decided that he didn’t like shifters. You know that his daughter fell in love with a dragon shifter and because of that, the old billionaire and his people decided to wage war on the shifters. The dragon king worked with the witches to create a shifter world. The portal to that world can only be seen by shifters. A lot of the shifters, including the dragon shifter, moved to the shifter world. The billionaire’s daughter followed, and there has been war between the two groups ever since then.”
“Of course, I know the story,” Luke said, impatiently. “I’ve known the story since I was a child. That is why all of the shifters left in Ivy Springs have to be extra careful about who they reveal their identity to.”
Carl sighed heavily and said, “What you don’t know is that the situation has heated up. Over the last couple of years, the Faisons have become increasingly aggressive. They actively, and pretty much openly, hire hunters to go after shifters. It is my understanding that they offer up bounties for each shifter that they capture or kill. We’ve lost quite a few people recently.”
Luke ran his fingers through his hair and groaned.
“Do you remember Noah Williams, who owned the large ranch outside of town?”
“Owned? His family has been there forever.”
“The hunters that the Faisons hired discovered that he was a bear shifter. He had hooked up with a human woman and she got him exposed. There was a huge fight and a couple of the hunters were killed. Noah and his woman had to flee to the shifter world.”
“Damn,” Luke said in disbelief.
“There have been some other shifters who have been killed as well.”
