Chapter One

BILLIE

There’s a kid asleep on one of the benches in the booths near the bar. He’s been here since New Year’s Day, three days ago. Just another day in the Gaelic Wolf, Meridian’s townie, human-owned, 80 year old Irish American Werewolf pub, patronized solely by wolf shifter college students and faculty from Crescent University. Where 100% of the front-of-house employees—minus the bartenders—are young townie human girls looking for rich wolf shifter college boy tips, and the door never really closes.

I’m a human, but not a college student, either. Not yet.

I’m waiting the results of an audition for a modern dance scholarship.

In the meantime, momma’s treatment has to be paid somehow, and townie bars are the best places to get paid under the table.

Wolf shifters, or werewolves, and humans have been coexisting for centuries. It’s only recently, in the past fifty years, that treaties have been signed and werewolves have integrated further into society. A shortage of female werewolves, coupled with a growing need among their young to coexist more closely with their peers, has led to werewolf packs settling closer to human towns, and even sometimes within their limits, and founding the werewolf colleges. There are skirmishes, mostly between packs.

But the werewolves seem to view humans as incredibly fragile, occasionally cute, and mostly harmless. There are humans, especially human females, who will voluntarily go to live with werewolf packs and act as servants or, from what we’re told, willing sex slaves. In pack hierarchy, humans are the lowest, with the least amount of agency and independence, and the most subservience towards the alphas. They seem to be viewed as pets. The werewolves call them, and the weakest of the female wolves, omegas.

It’s fascinating to me. I’ve always wondered what they get out of it, besides protection. There’s no reciprocal exchange of werewolves to humans, they’re much too powerful. The closest are the rogue lone wolves who live away from packs inside human society. They tend to keep to themselves, checking in with a home pack to ensure everyone they haven’t gone crazy and killed a bunch of humans. Lone wolves mostly just want to be left alone.

At least the Gaelic Wolf is a cool place to work.

A time capsule of an 80 year old bar, complete with taxidermied deer heads and tin ceilings on both floors, the only modern concessions electric lighting, a booth for the disabled, and some of the labels on the bottles behind the bar. The Wolf collects misfits, Goths in particular, as both patrons and workers.

It’s a Wednesday shift, just before 8 pm, and both floors are crowded with mostly werewolf college students newly returned from winter break. I work the second floor, which means I have to go up and down an 80-year old staircase to retrieve each order from the bar and the kitchen for a full ten hours minus lunch. It’s not my favorite shift. I’m grateful dance has given my thighs strong muscles and my body endurance.

The bar is full of goths as usual, of varying degrees of flamboyance. Most of the kids are dressed casually with Gothic touches—black lipstick here, a spiked dog collar there, black clothing everywhere. Many of the girls are wearing corset tops, real ones with stays. All of it is expensive-looking and elegant. Black nail polish is nearly universal. I’ve never seen a town with such a high goth subculture population.

I can’t afford the high end fashion the wolf shifters love. My uniform tonight is a pair of black corduroy shorts, fishnet thigh-highs with garter belts that cut off below the shorts, showing leg, black combat boots from the Army/Navy Surplus, and a tight black tee with a plunging v neck from Goodwill. Marissa, our afternoon manager, said we were encouraged to dress sexy. The tip of my neckline reaches to just between my breasts, and to emphasize it I’m wearing a velvet choker necklace with a dangling cross. Both of my wrists are covered in several black leather bracelets mixed with chunky chains. My makeup is subtly dark, with smudged brown eyeshadow and dark, almost black, red lips. My neckline is so deep I have to pin my name tag on my shoulder. About an hour into my shift, I pile my long black hair on top of my head and stick a pencil in it. Running up and down the stairs is hot work.

I’m carrying up a round of pints for a table when I notice them. They’re sitting in an alcove in the farthest corner, my section, shrouded in shadows with light flickering from the battery operated candles in the sconces on the wall. Seven boys, seven wolves judging by the aura of charisma flowing from their table, in varying degrees of conversation ranging from intense to bored. The bored looking one is scanning the room as if looking for his next date. He, like the others, is a brunette, his hair shaved on the back and sides and longer on top. The one sitting next to him has long black hair, a pierced nose, and a lascivious smirk on his face. He nudges the giant on his other side and tips his chin…in my direction.

I drop off my pints and walk over to their table. As I walk, I look over the other boys. One, in intense conversation with the giant, has a mass of long curly black hair and what looks like a beauty mark in the shape of a star near his left eye. The next one has floppy chin-length brown hair and is gesturing dramatically, his arm over the chair of the one on his other side.

I reach the table and pull out my notebook. “Welcome to the Gaelic Wolf, what can I get you?” I pull my pencil out of my hair and shake it out like a sexy librarian.

Hey, I need the tips.

“New girl, Tristan,” says the one with floppy brown hair. “Human.” The boy next to him looks up, our eyes meet, and my breath catches.

His straight black hair is shaved in an undercut, with the long part hanging down his face until he brushes it back. He has the greenest eyes I’ve ever seen, as green as the forest in summer. His pale skin glows in the dark of the pub. He has a black lip ring, and as I watch, his tongue darts out to touch it. His black shirt and black leather jacket pull tight against his muscular body. A crescent moon hangs from a leather cord around his neck.

We can’t seem to stop staring at each other.

He smells like incense and sweaty lean muscle, like a hangover, like the best regrets.

“New girl,” he agrees. His voice sounds like liquid heat. “Hello, Kitten. Don’t be afraid.”

“He-hello,” I breathe.

“Hey, what’s your name, Billie,” says the seventh boy. He snaps his fingers and I turn to him, immediately annoyed but not wanting the wrong kind of attention from a werewolf. The truce in town is solid, but it’s still unsettling to live in a place with such a high werewolf population. This one has reddish hair and giant football player muscles. The word “LUNACY” is tattooed just below his throat.

He doesn’t belong in this group.

“Guinness. For the table. And hurry it up.” He glares at me.

“Guinness. Anything else?” I ask the table at large.

“Guinness, are you deaf?” says the rage monster with the giant muscles.

“Don’t be such a pick me, Spader,” says the one with the long hair. He makes eye contact with me, his expression gently flirtatious. “Whiskey, neat. And this one—” he indicates the giant next to him—“will have a glass of Chartreuse and tonic.”

“Got it. Any water or food?” They all shake their heads and I turn to leave.

SLAP.

I turn back around to glare at whoever just smacked my ass, which becomes immediately apparent when the red-haired asshole named Spader says, “I said hurry. Maybe there’ll be something extra if you’re good.” Then he dismisses me.

I take five seconds to get ahold of my anger, then storm off through the crowd.

There’s honestly nothing I can do. The university has an extremely high number of werewolf students, faculty, and administration; they patronize our bars and restaurants and bring their money to our little town. If they act entitled, we put up with it. We need them for our economy.

After I fill my tray with the drafts and two drinks, I take a deep breath and head back up. The one with the green eyes—Tristan—is still staring in my direction, as if he was waiting for my return. They’re all staring, I realize, and the creepy redhead—Spader—is actually licking his lips.

Brilliant. I’m burning this top. I love this top, I love the way it makes me feel to wear it, but if this is how it affects creeps, I’m burning it.

I set down a Guinness in front of every boy, the whiskey in front of—“Raven,” he says, “and this stone faced giant is my brother Thorne.” I set the Chartreuse in front of Thorne. “Hi, Raven and Thorne,” I say, conscious of the need to get to know any regulars, at least by name.

As I set the Guinness in front of the guy with the star on his face, he takes my hand in both of his and kisses it, somehow NOT making it weird. “I’m the Phantom,” he says, and indicating the bored one on the end, “that’s Dominic. He’s always dull.”

“Hilarious,” he says, taking his Guinness up and lifting it to his lips. “Cheers.”

I put the last three steins in front of Tristan, his friend—“Fleming, thanks”—and Spader, who downs half in one go. “Will that be—”

Spader grabs my wrist. His palm is clammy, slimy. “Hey new girl. Billie. I’m heading out. What would it take to get you in the alley for fifteen minutes, little human?”

And I see he’s holding out a twenty.

I can’t stop myself, so I knock the rest of his Guinness off the table and into his lap. “Oops.”

The rest of the table bursts into laughter, except Tristan, who watches Spader. And before I can blink, I hear the glass stein shatter on the floor and my back is against the brick wall, Spader’s hand squeezing my throat. I can’t breathe, and I swear his eyes are glowing in the shadows. “Trashy little human whore—”

Tristan snatches out and grabs Spader’s wrist, and I can hear bones crunch. “She’s just a little townie, man. She’s not worth it.”

Spader growls and lets me go. I cough, spluttering for air. The one named Dominic is there, offering me a glass of water he snatched from someone else’s table. I sip it. “Th-thanks.”

“Best go Billie, while they distract each other, chop chop,” he says, not unkindly, and he’s handing me a bill, enough to cover the drinks and then some. I take it and take off without looking back.