Chapter 5

GINGER

“Okay, I really thought the people out tonight wouldn’t be so… old,” Lucy said.

I sighed but figured I should just make the best of it. Maybe once I got back to Alaska I could meet some friends that knew how to party for real. Not that there were many places to go out in the middle of nowhere where I lived. And it was so strictly conservative too. More so than the pack I’d grown up in, which was saying something.

“Here, take these!” Lucy handed Paige and me fake IDs that, as usual, looked nothing like us. She then draped about a pound of penis necklaces on everyone.

We all marched in, and everyone’s eyes instantly went to us. Lucy made a beeline for the bar and started ordering us drinks before anyone could protest. I followed her, excited to get my drink on. The bar was playing my favorite Mariah Carey Christmas song, and I was ready to start dancing.

After we all had our drinks in hand, an older man with a grey beard asked, “What is this all about? A birthday?”

I blinked a few times, thinking how obvious the veil and phallic jewelry was. But I was feeling the alcohol and decided to engage in his dumb questions. “A bachelorette party!”

“Woo!” Lucy cheered taking a big gulp of her drink.

“A bachelorette party? What’s that?” He asked.

“Never heard of such a thing, Bob,” his seat companion said. I studied his face, to check if he was joking, but he said it without even a slight smirk.

“You’ve never heard of a bachelorette party?” I responded, taking a sip of my drink, about to roll my eyes.

“Nah, have you heard of a bachelorette party, Al?” he shouted to another man sitting on the other side of the bar.

“A bacha-what?” Al asked.

“Bachelorette.”

“What the hell is that?”

“No clue. Hey, Jim!” He waved down the bartender. “These girls are having a bachelorette party. Any idea what that is?”

“I think I saw that on TV. That’s a show, right? The Bachelorette?” Jim stroked his beard.

“Ah! Are you all famous?” Bob asked, glancing at each of us.

“Is this a joke?” I asked.

“A joke?” Bob replied. “Do I look like a joker to you? Lou,” he looked over at the man next to him, “Am I a joker?”

“Not at all, Bob,” Lou replied. “I didn’t hear you say anything funny.”

“Why don’t you explain what a bachelorette party is to us?” Bob said.

“Can’t you tell?” I tugged at the veil placed on my head.

“Are you getting married?” Bob asked.

“Ah! I know! These girls are having a party to celebrate her upcoming nuptials!” Lou said.

“Oh! I see!” Bob responded. “Well, in that case, you’ve come to the right place. Our town’s brides also celebrate before their marriage. But we call it a Bride Fight.”

I blinked a few times. “Bride Fight?”

“Well, you see, before any broad gets married here, she’s gotta engage in a duel with a giant chicken.”

Jasmine and Paige stifled laughter behind their hands. “Seriously?” Paige asked.

“Absolutely!” Lou nodded. “Poultry farming is our town’s biggest trade. So any lady that’s to be wed must prove herself in matters of wrangling chicken.” Was it just me or were the men sitting at the bar struggling to hold a straight face?

“Oh, Gigi will definitely triumph. What do you lovingly call your fiancé?” Paige elbowed me. “Tyson Chicken?”

“Oh hell yeah! Chicken fight!” Lucy sang, while pushing a shot into my hand.

“Hey, wait! Paige, you’re getting married sooner than me. So you should really be the one challenging the chicken.”

“You’re the one that wanted a crazy bachelorette party. So this crazy is all you,” Paige responded.

“I wanted to do coke, not duel cock!” I replied.

“Hey, hey.” Bob chuckled. “There’s an easy way to settle this. You can just pull on a wishbone. And the person who gets the short end has to fight.”

“And you just have wishbones randomly lying around?” Lucy asked.

“Always. For times like this,” the bartender, Jim, pulled one out of, what it seemed was, thin air.

I grabbed for it and held it out to Paige. “Let’s go!” I shouted.

Paige rolled her eyes and pulled on the other half of the bone, taking part of my half with her as it broke. Damnit!

“Gigi, is it? Looks like it’s all you.” Bob got up and his companions at the bar began helping him move some tables and chairs around.

“Lucy, where the hell did you find this place?” I asked as we all watched, and a crowd began gathering in the area that was being cleared.

“Isn’t this fun, though?” She clinked her shot glass against mine. What the hell? I downed it, the familiar burn of tequila in my throat.

After I thumped the shot glass on the bar, I exhaled with a satisfied sigh, and exclaimed, “Okay, I’m ready! Let’s go!” I may have slurred that a bit. The alcohol was really hitting me now.

“Okay, warrior.” Paige snickered.

“You can do it, Gigi!” Lucy cheered.

Jasmine patted me on the back as we moved closer to the now-cleared area.

“I’m looking forward to seeing this giant chi—” Heidi stopped before finishing her sentence as a man with a huge beer belly in a chicken suit strutted out onto the floor. The whole bar cheered, clinking their mugs of beer.

The room went quiet, and all I could hear were murmurs and some snickering as the patrons of the restaurant all gave each other looks, lifting their eyebrows, glancing to their friends and then toward the chicken man. The Chicken Dance blasted from the restaurant speakers and the men that had been chatting with us at the bar cheered.

The man in the chicken suit put up his hands in a chicken beak gesture, opening and closing them. “Come on, Gigi.” He waved me to come to him. “It’s time for a chicken—." Before he could finish his sentence, I was already sprinting toward him, not listening.

Alcohol blurring all thought and common sense, I went into fighter mode, the practiced moves pulling at my muscle memory. Tyce had made me practice every beginner warrior move with him for hours every day, until my legs were like jelly, my fingers numb from the Alaskan frost, tears frozen solid to my skin, core muscles screaming to stop.

The last thing I saw was fear in his eyes as he made contact with mine. And it was at that moment that it came to me that perhaps he wasn’t actually looking to fight me. But it was too late. I was already in the zone. I gripped his shoulders and swung my leg behind his. In a matter of microseconds, his back made contact with the ground with a loud thump.

I turned to face my audience to celebrate my defeat. A loud, collective gasp sounded through the crowd and the music stopped abruptly. Oh, damn.

“Holy shit! That broad took you right down!” Bob from the bar rushed over to the man currently sprawled out on the ground, moaning.

The chicken-suit man blinked a few times.

“How many fingers am I holding up?” Bob brought three fingers to the man’s face.

“He was just going to challenge you to a chicken dance-off!” Lou from earlier pulled on my elbow, and giving me look of severe disappointment. “Why’d you have to get so violent for?”

“I… I… I didn’t know,” I replied.

“Hey! You told her she would have to battle him! Next time be more specific!” Lucy butted in. “Gigi is training to be a warrior. You picked the wrong bitch to fight!”

“A what?” Lou asked.

“Sorry, we’ve all clearly had a bit too much to drink,” Jasmine cut in before Lucy could say more of what she wasn’t supposed to. It reminded me of the time at the nightclub when she threatened humans with her “beta”, which had a far different connotation to humans than werewolves. I almost snickered out loud thinking about it, but knew that wouldn’t look good at this particular moment and stopped myself. “Is he going to be okay? Can I call anyone for help?”

“I’m a’right!” The man weezed a bit as he slowly got up onto his forearms. Lou and Bob helped him up.

“I’m so sorry!” I exclaimed. “I didn’t realize.”

“You were on your way to murder before I’d even finished my sentence!” The chicken-suit man replied.

“Is there anything I can do to make it up to you? Buy you a drink?”

He smirked a bit, and pulled on the white, unkempt beard on his chin. “You and your friends could join me in the chicken dance-off, and we’ll have a vote to see who wins fair and square.”

“Uh, okay,” I replied, looking around at the ladies that had come here with me. They nodded, clearly also feeling bad about the situation, which had gone from odd, to bad, to very odd.

“Okay, get in position!” he said, dusting himself off.

“Goddess, this place is weird,” Lucy whispered to me as she took her place next to me, handing me yet another shot, and clinking the one she had in her other hand to mine. We both downed them, and then the song started.

We all began quacking our hands, flapping our wings, and shaking our butts. As the song went on, we got more and more dramatic. At one point, Paige and I were hooking elbows, dancing in circles. The man in the chicken suit spun and dipped Lucy. And Jasmine, Heidi, and Kelli grabbed hands, dancing in a circle.

As the song ended, the crowd cheered, and the bartender came around to hand us all free drinks.

“You girls aren’t s’bad. Stick around!” the man in the chicken suit said, giving us all high fives. He then grabbed a microphone and announced, “I concede to the ladies. They have out-chickened me!”

We cheered, and everyone who seemed hesitant about getting too crazy was now heartily downing their drinks. I noted that Lucy was especially quick to make sure that Jasmine was never empty-handed.

Before long, everyone, except Heidi and Kelli, was clearly feeling it. I was now to the point where the whole place was spinning and blurring. Yep, definitely couldn’t see straight. And, wait, what? Was Jasmine agreeing to getting on a table to dance with Lucy? Holy shit!

I rushed over to witness the momentous event. By the time I reached the table, Paige was joining the two of them as well. I cheered them on and snuck my phone out for some photographic evidence—slash—blackmail.

We drank and danced for so long that we shut the bar down, and barely made it back to the party bus. I almost fell into a dirty puddle at one point, but Paige and Kelli grabbed me before I could.

Once the bus started moving, it wasn’t long until just about everyone passed out. I was just nodding off when I heard some voices speaking quietly.

“Thanks for planning this, Lucy. I’ve barely even been able to keep up with my luna duties. It’s been really tough. And I really appreciate that you followed all the rules. I know I made a crazy list,” Jasmine whispered.

“I’m glad you let me plan this and to come.” Lucy let out a heavy sigh. “And, Jaz.”

“Yeah?”

“I’m really sorry about all the problems I caused you. I should have been more understanding about you being mated to Luke.”

Silence filled the air and I wondered if Jasmine would respond. Finally, she replied, “Apology accepted.”

“Thanks,” Lucy replied.

“And I’m sorry about how you found out. It was wrong of us to keep it a secret from you.”

“Thank you for apologizing,” Lucy replied. After a beat, she added, “I hope we can be friends again one day.”

After some time, Jasmine replied, “One day.”