Free Black Bear Fall: A BWWM Paranormal Romance (Black Bear Saga Book 2) by Tia Wilson

get away from me. Through tear filled eyes I could see my twisted shadow cast onto the wall and I saw them for the first time. Boney protuberances had ripped through the flesh of my back and ran down my spine from my neck to my ass. In the shadow they looked like the twisted stems of plants growing out of me. Rousen was the final member of the group to flee in terror. His last thing to say to me was, what are you? It was said in a mixture of outright disgust and terror. I saw I wasn’t a member of the group anymore, I wasn’t the same as these kids. I’d been fooling myself that I was part of a family. As soon as they saw the real me, everyone ran in terror. That’s all we will ever be to the humans, monsters ripped from their darkest nightmares. The creature under the bed or the creak coming from the wardrobe late at night. They will never accept us as equals. The humans would rather wipe us all out then trust us.”
    Nasak turned over and faced his long time friend and said, “The humans fear what they cant control or understand. It is true that they see us as monsters and freaks, something to be feared. It is the shifters that they should really be afraid of. If the news ever broke about shifters living among humans, a hunt like this planet has never seen would begin. They would not stop until every last shifter was destroyed. We, they see as monsters, the shifters they would see as a threat. A human is the most dangerous animal when it is backed into a corner. They usually strike before they become trapped, they are nothing if not resilient. Do you know there was once a time when it wasn’t so clear cut that the humans would be the ones to thrive on this planet?”
    Clarence nodded his head, he had heard all the old stores including the ones that all ways seemed the most far fetched.
    “Can you imagine a world run by shifters? Maybe some of the calamities that befell our world would of never happened under some one else's watch. We might never know. Tell me again how you met the Fenton travelling show?” Nasak asked.
    “After the first night when the bones ripped through my skin I fled the group. I thought as myself as nothing more then a disgusting monster. I had seen the looks on my friends faces, it hadn’t been pity or sympathy. They had looked at me with pure disgust, like they had walked into a room and switched a light on and a giant many legged bug was sitting in the centre of the room hissing at them. Not one of them looked at me with pity or concern and I knew if I hung around they would have done what most people do when faced with a disgusting bug. They would have stomped and crushed me. As the pain seemed to double and then triple in intensity I stumbled out of the room trying to make my escape. Everything was in a blur as I tripped and fell and then got up again. People scurried away from me as I tried to get out of the building. A couple of times when my legs gave out and I hit the floor people seemed to materialise out of the shadows and kick me hard into the ribs. Every kick sent an explosion of pain surging down my deformed spine. Minutes before these kids had been the closest thing I ever had to a family and now they where swooping out from the shadows to hurt me like a bunch of cowards. I made it through the gauntlet of kicks and punches and collapsed onto the pavement outside the factory. I lay on the wet asphalt panting and then the first brick exploded close to my head. Chips of stone sliced though the side of my neck. Then the projectiles started to rain down around me. The kids where grabbing anything they could find as a weapon and hurling it towards me. I ran tripping and falling towards the large lot across the road. Something hit me in the back of the leg and I went sprawling onto my face and seeing stars. People shouted names at me from the dark as bricks rained down around me. I scrambled to my feet and and charged on trying to get across the broken asphalt of the lot and to the