Shifter Short Stories

“Hey Baby can we get another round for our table?” Wren rolled her eyes and tossed her blonde ponytail back over her shoulder before turning and smiling warmly.

“Of course Todd, I’ll be right back with it.” She set down the four pints that she had been balancing on her tray and surveyed her section quickly.

The restaurant was slammed. It was ten at night and she could hardly squeeze through the crowd in her tiny jean shorts and white crop top holding her tray. She was thankful that the place had been bought last year and that the new owner was a woman who had bought them all cute matching cowboy boots that didn’t actually kill their feet, and protected them from getting stomped on ten times an hour when things got as crowded as they were now.

She felt someone grab her ass as she made her way back behind the bar, and she shook her head and rolled her eyes again. The tips were insanely good at this place and that was really the only reason any of the girls put up with all the pats and squeezes and pinches they were pestered with over the course of the night.

Someday, she thought, as she filled her tray again so that it was almost too heavy to lift, I will never have to walk through those doors again. Someday I’ll buy myself a hot little car and I will drive away from this pack and never look back.

Wren hadn’t been born as part of the Half Moon Dawn Pack. She’d been born in Texas, where both her mother and father were also born and raised. But her father had been killed in a rogue attack that had wiped out half of their pack and after that, her mother had put her in the car and driven for days.

She guessed that she and her mother had basically become rogues at that point. But one day, two years after the attack, they’d been walking through a mall, because her mother had promised they’d stopped for a pretzel with nacho cheese, and they’d heard someone growl “mate.”

Wren growled under her breath when she thought about that moment. Before that day she and her mother had been moving from city to city, living in apartments, going to the theater, watching the sun set, living the sort of life that she now dreamed about. Ever since that day she’d been stuck in a podunk town in the middle of nowhere, cursing the day she asked her mom for a pretzel.

Hoisting the tray up she swayed her hips as she made her way back onto the restaurant floor, barely watching where she was going as she thought of her goal. By the end of summer, which was only two weeks away, she thought she would have enough. She’d set a goal of ten thousand dollars. There was a little, 20 year old red Mazda Miata that had been sitting at the used car shop in town for two years and she was going to buy it and use the rest of the money to leave town and never look back.

Wren didn’t care if she was a rogue. She knew that she didn’t need a pack. She and her mom had been fine together on the road. And the last thing that she was looking for was a mate. She shuddered at the thought as she delivered the beers to the table with an appropriate amount of smiling and giggling and flirting, while her mind was almost entirely on getting out of this place as fast as she could.

Her first stop was going to be San Francisco. Then Portland. After that she’d move on to Seattle before working her way back east. She had plenty of experience as a waitress and there were restaurants everywhere.

Taking a deep breath she walked over to take orders from her next table. In two weeks she would be free. And that made all of this bearable.

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It was her second week working in San Francisco and as Wren made her way through the restaurant she smiled to herself. Her boss had just told her that this was a very important table with very important customers. She was pleased that, out of the dozen girls working tonight, many who’d been there for years, he was trusting her already.

The new restaurant was nothing like the one she’d left behind back at her old pack. It was a high end restaurant on the water. The windows all looked out on the Bay. The girls wore, fitted white button up shirts with short sleeves, navy blue pencil skirts that landed mid-thigh on their sheer charcoal tights, and a charcoal apron that covered the front of the skirt. The last part of the uniform was simple black flats, that made Wren miss her cowboy boots the tiniest bit. At least they were comfortable.

Wren’s bright blonde hair was tamed into a bun and her intensely blue green eyes sparkled as she approached the table, still excited to be in the city and out on her own.

The restaurant was already quite full. It was the place to be and reservations had to be made months in advance. Her boss had told her that this particular party had called in at four that afternoon, and that they were important enough to be bumped to the top of the list. She’d nodded and wondered who the heck they were, reading the name and not recognizing it.

Abbot. Party of 8.

From halfway across the room her eyes evaluated the table as the Jen, the hostess seated them. There were five enormous, muscular men who towered over everyone in the room with their broad shoulders accompanied by three exceptionally beautiful women. Every person in the group was dressed for dinner and every eye in the room was on them.

Shit. Wren froze. They were, unmistakably, werewolves.

And she was now a rogue.

Most werewolves would kill a rogue on sight.

But they were in public. She wasn’t on their territory. She wasn’t hurting anyone.

And she really loved this job.

Turn around. Run. Tell your boss you can’t take the table. Tell her you feel sick and you need to go home. Her wolf urged her. But she’d always done a shit job of listening to her wolf. If she listened to her wolf she wouldn’t be in San Francisco, she’d be back home living with her pack, she thought, with a shake of her head.

Her feet carried her forward. She had already overcome so many obstacles, and what could they do to her here, in front of all these humans, in a human city?

She was ten feet from the table when his scent hit her. He smelled of balsam and redwood.

Wren froze again. This could not be happening. This was the worst thing she could imagine.

Now she wished that she had turned to run but her wolf was going crazy in her chest.

The man who was seated at the head of the table had a gorgeous brunette in a red dress, hanging off his arm. He was staring at the woman, listening to whatever it was she was saying when suddenly Wren saw his muscles go tense. He pulled away from his date as if her touch burned his skin the moment he caught Wren’s scent.

No, no, no, no, no. Wren chanted the word on repeat in her head. Not a mate but especially not an alpha. Fate was not this cruel.

A moment before everyone at the table had been enjoying their conversation. Now they all froze and turned their attention to their Alpha who had stood abruptly at the end of the table.

He was perfect. Even Wren couldn’t deny it. He was handsome, towering over her at six and a half feet tall, with broad shoulders and a chiseled body. He had dark brown hair and blue eyes, and his olive skin looked as if he spent a lot of time outdoors enjoying the sun. Wren’s wolf continued to howl in her chest, proud of her mate.

Wren dropped the menus in her hands and turned, finally doing what she should have done ten steps earlier. She ran for the door, every eye in the room on her.

She might have made it if her boss hadn’t stopped her by the employee entrance.

“What the Hell just happened, Wren. I trusted you with our best table and you just threw down menus in the middle of the room and sprinted for an exit?” He grabbed her wrist as he spoke, obviously expecting an explanation.

They both froze when they heard a growl from directly behind them. Wren closed her eyes. This was not how she was planning for this day, or her life, to go.

“Let go of her, now.” Her heart beat faster at the sound of the voice, while her mind still told her that she might make it to the door. The hand around her wrist immediately released her.

“I’m so sorry, Sir.” Her soon to be former employer said, backing away. “She’ll be fired, and-”

“You can go.” The words were still half growled and Wren closed her eyes for a moment, as she heard her boss hurrying away.

“Yes Sir.” He called over his shoulder.

“Mate.” He said the words as Wren launched herself forward into the hallway that led to possible freedom. Maybe she could lose herself in the crowds. At the very least she prayed that she could lose him. She slammed through the doors and darted outside, thankful that it was an extremely busy time of day and hoping that he wasn’t willing to make a scene in a tourist location, while she obviously was.

Glancing back she allowed herself to be carried forward in a crowd of tourists, all speaking different languages, while he stopped at the door and stared after her.

Could it be that easy? Had she really lost him? She began to speed walk to the BART station, thankful that she already had enough in tips from earlier in the day tucked away in her apron to pay for the ride home. Did she dare come back for her purse the next day? Or was it better to report all her things missing and get new ones. That would be such a giant pain but it might be worth it.

Still shaking she slid into a seat near the back of the train and kept her eyes on the door, finally relaxing when they slid under the bay, headed east. By the time she’d walked out of the station and had slid into her car she’d already decided that maybe her stay in San Francisco wouldn’t be a long one.

It might be time to move north. Just in case this Alpha didn’t give up as easily as she hoped.