1

ONE

NAOMI

A Book by Its Cover

“I’m sorry, I just don’t see a future with someone who can’t shift.”

I blinked at Jason over the tiramisu we were feeding each other. It was our third date, and I was beginning to feel safe and connected enough to invite him back to my place for a different kind of dessert.

And maybe also because I wanted to get laid. It had been a long time.

“After all, what if we have kids? How will you be able to watch over them or bond with them if they’re running around as wolves and you can’t catch up with them? Or what if they’re like you?”

What if they’re like you?

What if they’re like YOU?

It took all my willpower not to take my spoon and stab it into somewhere soft on my fellow shifter. He had such a condescending yet magnanimous look on his face, like he was explaining simple logic to dumb, little ol’ me; it really made me rage inside. Surely the expression could only be helped by the subtraction of an eye…

“I’m sure you understand,” he said, his words dripping with so much artificial sweetness that it would have made the tiramisu feel insecure were it sentient. Like he was just oh so benevolent and caring, he set down his spoon and patted my hand. “I’m happy to stay friends, you know, keep each other company and all that, but this isn’t something I can be serious about.”

Finally, I found my language center that wasn’t just repeated swears and insults one right after another like a filthy ticker tape. “This is our third date,” I murmured. “And I’ve been up front from the beginning about what I am.”

“I know, I know. It’s just that you’re such a great person, and I really wanted to see if I could overlook it. But what would my pack say?” He shook his head like he was the one getting dumped because of a cruel twist of nature that made a shifter unable to shift.

It seemed like an oxymoron, and honestly, sometimes it made me feel heavy on the moron, but it was a rare phenomenon that had been whispered about throughout history in pretty much every shifter community. The reasons were as varied as the stars, ranging from “You better eat your veggies or you’ll never be a real wolf!” to “Their souls are actually demons that have possessed a shifter child to devour their animal spirit and bring evil to the pack.”

I’d heard from people on both sides of that and pretty much every increment in between. Honestly, I was getting fucking sick of it.

“No different from what my pack says, I imagine.” God, I wanted to lunge across the table with all of my five feet and single inch and chew his nose off with my very non-canid teeth.

Unfortunately, even if I had the enhanced strength that most shifters did in their human form, that was a fight I would lose. Because, again, as much as I wanted to, I ultimately wouldn’t be able to shift. Granted, it wasn’t like he would, considering we were in a human restaurant, but still… I would not want to go toe-to-toe with an alpha.

“If that’s the case, I’ll head out,” I said, standing and trying to be graceful. Which was a word I was pretty sure that no one would use to describe me. I was a dog-walker, so my calves were about as impressive as one would expect from a barely over five-foot-tall distance stroller.

Even though I hadn’t inherited an inner wolf like the rest of my family, I had inherited the Bracken body type, which was stocky, strong, and looked built to play a contact sport. I couldn’t even say how many times in college I was asked if I was on a scholarship for the lacrosse team. Really missed my calling on that, apparently.

Yeah, words like elegant or graceful weren’t exactly synonymous with Naomi Bracken, but I was trying my best since anything else would make me dissolve into tears.

“Wait!” Suddenly, his broad, warm, and calloused hand gripped my wrist with just enough pressure to hint at the alpha strength I knew he had. “Look, just because being mates isn’t in our future doesn’t mean we can’t hang out, ya know?”

Hang out.

Oh, of course, hang out!

It was a code I was well familiar with, and it made my toes curl in the cute, sensible wedges I was wearing. I’d broken out the heels and shaved for the shitshow that had just happened. Even as a latent shifter who had a stunted version of the advanced healing abilities my people were known for, shaving my thick leg hair was a pain in the ass!

At least I’d only trimmed my bush. Because if I’d gone totally bald and opened myself to all those ingrowns for a guy who was basically saying I was good enough to sleep with but not good enough to date, I might actually go mental and become the Joker.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” I hissed through my gritted teeth. Whoops, sounded like the filthy ticker tape got loaded onto my speech center after all.

What a tragedy.

“Aw, come on, don’t be like that. You’re a cool girl, Naomi.”

“Woman,” I corrected sharply. I was over thirty years old, so the only people who got to call me girl were charming butches, glamorous drag queens, and elders more than double my age.

But he continued on like he hadn’t heard me. “I’m an alpha, Noms, you know that. And alphas will be alphas. Animal needs and all that.”

“The only needs you have are the same as everyone else,” I said, still seething but keeping it within my own skin. Probably unhealthy for me, but whatever. The only way I’d learned to survive the dog-pile was to pretend that I wasn’t all that bothered by it. My brothers had long since taught me that much. “Oxygen, food, water, and community. So here, let me help you with one of them since you sound so damn thirsty.”

With that, I picked up my water glass and threw it right in his face.

It wasn’t full, which would have been far more satisfying, but it was enough that it made an audible sound as it made contact. And ooh, the way he sputtered as he slammed back in his chair really was the cherry on top of the cake.

“What the—Are you some crazy bitch?”

“A bitch, huh? So, now you want to acknowledge that I’m still a she-wolf? Sorry to disappoint you, Jason, but the only bone you’re getting tonight is whatever rawhide you have lying on the floor of your alpha den next to your knot-sock. Get bent.”

I flipped him the bird, then marched right out.

Admittedly, it did grow kind of awkward considering how long it took for my short little legs to actually make it to the door. My footsteps seemed to echo in my head, but at least he didn’t try to get up and stop me. Because as pissed as I was, I didn’t actually want to cause any more of a scene than I already had.

We magical folks were supposed to keep a relatively low profile while in human territory, and unfortunately, human territory had gone from small patches of communities to giant cities, to pretty much the whole world. Thankfully, we had witches, sorcerers, and other magic users who kept up a global network of spells to help us stay under the radar when human technology was growing more and more difficult to hide from. Like, for example, literal radar. That invention had thrown dragons for a real loop, and for about twenty years, there was a massive uptick in UFO and deep-sea entity readings. A fraught time that I was very grateful I’d only had to learn about and not live through.

Granted, that seemed slightly less painful and frustrating than modern dating, even as a kind of magicless magical creature. Sure, thanks to some very inventive enchantresses and witches throughout the digitization era, we had apps that ran on scrying magic through a phone’s camera, where all sorts of magical folks could find their mates in a world where we so often had to live incognito outside of our family or packs. It was incredibly convenient, but unfortunately, with convenience came pitfalls.

AKA fuckboys.

There was an argument to be made that they’d existed as long as men had, but there was no denying that the advent of swiping had caused a boom in their population. And with no natural predators, all we could do was hope that a lack of viable mates would cause them to eventually die out. Survival of the most tolerable, or whatever term that human had coined.

I was a tad breathless by the time I reached my car. Not because of any lack of cardio health, considering my day job, but because I was just so angry.

Except it wasn’t just anger there. No, there was humiliation too, sharp and spiky down the back of my throat. And that humiliation latched onto the shame and worthlessness that I was trying so hard to ignore.

Because the truth was, I was a bit ashamed.

I would love nothing more than to have an inner wolf, to have to struggle with the balance between my primal, beastly nature and my human one. I would love to be able to shift with my family, to run with them, to finally be a full part of the community that I was only barely on the outskirts of.