Luke (Bear Shifter) (New World Shifters) (2 page)

Maybe that was pathetic, but it was the truth.

The night wore on. Every now and then I looked over to make sure that he wasn't getting bothered by the Wolf pack, but as things picked up in Bruno’s I was able to check on him with less and less frequency. The bikers, if they could even be called that in a climate where their motorcycles had to be left behind more often than not, were loud and disorderly. They wore matching leather jackets with big, howling wolf heads on the back and moon patches on their right shoulders.

At least Bruno wasn’t here. Even though this was his bar and he ran the Wolf pack, he almost never put in an appearance.

Not that I was complaining. He might've technically been my boss, but the guy gave me the creeps. He’d never so much as laid a finger on me, but the way he looked at me made me feel like I was constantly completely naked in his presence, nonetheless.

What's more, I could tell that he thought that I was
his
. Just because he paid my wage, I got the distinct impression that he’d already decided that my soul was bought and paid for too. He might not have touched me yet, but I didn't know how long that reprieve was going to last.

I’d come to terms with the fact that it was almost inevitable that he would try something. One day I’d be restocking behind the bar, or stacking chairs on tables after closing time and he'd come up behind me and make his presence known. If I was lucky, I’d just lose my job.

If I wasn't, I’d lose more than that. My dignity, or my ability to say no and be listened to. I shuddered at the thought of being close to him, let alone all the rest of it. I needed the job, and Barrow was hiding me from all of the things I needed to hide from, but if push came to shove, I’d make Bruno regret trying something with me.

Not that I thought the situation would end well for me…

Hours passed. The cash register rang and rang, though not once did money change hands when it came to the Wolf pack asking for drinks. That was the way it worked here. They got their booze for free, and anyone who so much as raised an eyebrow at the arrangement got taken out around behind the bar and had their teeth kicked in.

Not that
that
happened very often. The locals knew the deal, and if they dared to disagree they were at least smart enough to keep their mouths shut about it. Nobody wanted trouble, not when the trouble that came ran the whole damn town from top to bottom.

Bruno's may have just been a bar, but my boss had his finger in every pie. The little shit motel I stayed in, the one that always claimed to have ‘no vacancy’ even though half of the rooms were perennially empty. The outfitter, run by Old Man Cole. The diner, and the pawnshop beside it. Everybody paid Bruno a slice of what they got, or they found the power cut on the colder days or a fire mysteriously start on their property overnight.

None of that had happened for a while, though. The score had been settled long ago, and Bruno was the undisputed authority. I hadn't seen a cop in town for almost six months, and even when I had him he'd walked straight up to Bruno, shook his hand, clapped him on the back like an old friend and then come to me for a free beer.

It looked like it was going to be a long night. The Wolf pack always had a few women that hung around them, and occasionally one of the guys would leave with one of the ladies in tow as they headed off to find a spot that was slightly warmer and fractionally more private in order to do their business.

Cold as it may be outside, Carla and I were working up a sweat in here. The music, some old twangy country thing, poured out of the speakers and made a loud, steel guitar laden backdrop to the tasks that we had to complete.

There was just the two of us, and we had our hands full. As usual, we were short staffed. Bridget was supposed to be here, but she hadn't bothered to show up. This was the third shift that we had to cover for her, and there wasn't anyone else in town interested in pouring drinks for this lot, especially not at our salary.

I didn't blame them. After all, free drinks meant no tips, not that the Wolf pack was known for their generosity in the first place. They’d rather just as soon grab your ass and yank you onto their lap as you tried to squeeze by them, and if they did tip you it was only so that they could worm their fingers down the waistband of your jeans when they gave it over to you.

“Almost there,” Carla panted at me, as we passed each other behind the bar in a hurry to fill the orders.

“Can't come soon enough,” I responded. It was almost one in the morning, and there were only three members of the Wolf pack left. Other than them, and the cute guy in the corner, we were done for the night.

By rights we should have been closed at least an hour ago, but one of Bruno's many long-standing rules was that as long as the Wolf pack wanted to drink, they drank. Carla and I were both mentally crossing our fingers, I'm sure, that none of the other members decided to roll in now. A late comer would mean that we would be here forever, though it wasn't uncommon for the sun to rise before we were able to shut up shop, barely able to get the place clean before we had to open it up again.

If there were other jobs to be had, I'd have quit long ago. But there weren’t. No, I was stuck. And so was Carla. So was Bridget, come to think of it, and if she ever showed back up to work I’d get a chance to tell her that. We’d each fled here for our own reasons, and now that we were here it was harder and harder to earn enough money to get anywhere else.

It didn't matter. There were worse places we could be. The things we were running from couldn't chase us to Barrow, and sometimes that had to be enough.

At least that's what I told myself…

Over the din of the music I heard the scrape of a chair, and two of the three remaining Wolf pack members got drunkenly to their feet and lurched toward the door, arm in arm. They didn't say anything on their way out, thankfully. The less I had to do with them the better, and if they were calling out comments or shouting demands, it would be disrespectful not to respond.

And nobody, and I mean nobody, disrespected the Wolf pack. At least if they wanted to live.

There were just the four of us in the bar now, Carla and I getting ready to shut up shop, the handsome loner in the corner with at least eight empty bottles of beer in front of him and a half-full one in his hand, and Everly, the last of the Wolf pack that remained.

Everly was what my mother called a bad apple. He was a monster of a man, redheaded and freckled, a mean bastard if ever there was one. I don't know what he had done before he came up to Alaska, but my instinct said he’d been a trucker. He wore a trucker hat at least, and his beady little eyes beneath the brim of it glared out despite how inebriated he was. I could picture him behind the wheel of a big rig, high as a fucking kite on uppers, trying not to fall asleep as he cruised through the night on his way to parts unknown.

I may not be certain about what he used to do, but I sure knew what he did now.
Now
, he hurt people. That was his full-time job. He was an enforcer for the Wolf pack. I'd been at the pawnshop, hocking a watch that I couldn't afford to keep a couple of weeks ago when he’d come in. I looked away and tried to mind my own business, but he wasn't there for me. He was there for the owner, an Indian guy named Sanjay that was about as out of place as you can imagine up here.

I found out later there’d been a dispute about protection pay, but I didn't know that then. At the time all I saw was Everly reach out across the counter, grab both of Sanjay's hands in his and, in a show of brute force that scared the shit out of me, ram both his hands and Sanjay’s through the glass counter that displayed the pawned jewelry.

There was blood everywhere, a crimson mix of both men's. Sanjay howled in agony but Everly just took the pain and swallowed it down. He didn't so much as flinch, and the only thing he said was, “Now you owe us double.” With that, he turned on his heel and walked out, dripping blood, moving as casually as if he were on a summer stroll.

Even from my place behind the bar I could still see the cuts on Everly's hands, and here and there the stitches had started to come away. I watched in quiet revulsion as he scratched at them absently.

I sent a little mental wish that the cuts would get infected, that his hands would rot off and his arms would go black and wither away to nothing, too. I'd heard too many stories about the things he'd done to people to have any sort of compassion or thoughts of mercy. He was a callous, vile, dangerous man, and the only reason he hadn't hurt me yet was because I'd always done exactly what he said.

“I'm done,” Everly announced, in the tone a king would tell his court once a meal was finished.

Carla looked at me with a frown, and then piped up, “I hope everything was to your satisfaction, Everly.”

“If it weren’t, you’d know,” he said. “The beer tastes like piss and the servers could have bigger tits if you ask me, but you can’t change that enough.”

“You have a good night now,” Carla said, forcing as much enthusiasm and brightness into her voice as she could.

Even though it was probably the nicest thing she could think to say, Everly didn't like it one little bit. “What's supposed to be so good about it”? He demanded drunkenly, getting to his feet too fast and almost toppling over.

Carla shrugged and bit her lip, and I felt terrible for her. The only reason she was talking to him at all was to take a bullet for me, and now it was my turn to return the favor.

“I think she just means that the night is full of possibilities…” I said, kicking myself. What the hell was that supposed to mean?” You know,” I continued like an idiot, since I'd never known when to stop. “Like you can go to sleep, and when you wake up things can be however you want them to be.”

“Is that so?” he asked, staring daggers at me.

I shrugged. “I don’t really know.”

He watched me for several long seconds until I got scared and looked away. If he demanded I go somewhere with him, I was going to have to make up an excuse that wouldn’t sound like an out and out rejection. I got ready with a prepared speech about how I had things to do in the morning and couldn't spend time with him tonight, but he surprised me by burping, lifting his shirt to scratch at his belly and then turning away.

I was dismissed, and I was glad for it.

Everly stomped his way to the door and left, and I heard Carla breathe a sigh of relief that sounded almost as loud as the one I let out myself.

“Wow,” she said. “That guy gives me the creeps.”

“He sure does. At least he’s gone.”

“Hopefully he wanders off into the woods and never comes back”, Carla said. “I was worried that things were going to go another direction, but thankfully I think he drank his pecker to sleep. You think maybe that's the secret, Zoe? I know we try and keep them happy and keep them drunk, but maybe the best thing that we can possibly do is just pour alcohol down their throats until they pass out. They’d sure as shit be less trouble, then…”

“Maybe,” I said. “But I have a feeling that there's not enough beer in the world to make those bastards pleasant.”

“I'd say you're right about that.” She checked her watch. “But it's getting late. Let's not talk about the politics of town when we can’t change it, huh? There’s just one more customer, if we can even call him that, and then we can all go home.”

I nodded. I looked over at cute guy in the corner, and realized that he wasn't there anymore. “Or not…” I said. “Did you see him leave?”

Carla shook her head, her brow furrowing as she tried to think back. “No, I didn't. I was so worried about Everly and whether he was going to kick up a storm, I didn't even notice the guy take off.”

“I'll check the bathroom,” I said, unwilling to lock the poor guy into Bruno's once we closed. The prospect of finding him in there both scared and thrilled me though.
Just think of the possibilities
, I told myself,
imagine yourself in a confined space with that man, just you and him, away from the music and the din, free to find yourselves and see if there was something to the connection you think you feel
.

“Get that look off your face,” Carla said, laughing at me softly. “It's only a bathroom. It's really not the most romantic place in the world, don't you think?”

I shrugged. “A girl can dream, I suppose. And get out of my head, will you?”

“I don't have to be in your head to know the thoughts you're thinking,” she told me. “It's written all over your face.”

I got out from behind the bar and went to the bathrooms, knocking on the men’s door and calling out, “We’re shutting up. Is anyone in there?”

No answer.

I frowned and pushed the door open, then went and checked the stalls. He wasn’t anywhere to be found. I even checked the women's, and that was empty too.

“He must've left already,” I said to Carla as I came back out.

“Good riddance,” she said. “Good riddance to bad rubbish. The lot of them can all blackout and never wake up if you ask me, and the whole world would be better off for it.”

I shook my head slowly. “Not him,” I said. “He's one of the good ones.”

“He's a drunk,” Carla told me matter-of-factly. “If he's ever going to be one of the good ones, he'll have to stop drowning his troubles and face them.”