Series: Shifter Ops Series by Renee Rose
Total pages in book: 68
Estimated words: 65371 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 327(@200wpm)___ 261(@250wpm)___ 218(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 65371 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 327(@200wpm)___ 261(@250wpm)___ 218(@300wpm)
“Full house every night,” he says with satisfaction. “But Sheridan’s making it more of a hipster beer bar thing. Sometimes we miss the old vibe, so we do these pop-up clubs. We found this abandoned strip. Thought it’d be perfect.” He directs me inside, and the thick miasma of scents hits me. Weed, beer, unwashed shifters of all sorts. The big, open space is crowded with people, hazy with smoke and sawdust. The only lights are two spotlights trained on the ring in the center of the room. The crowd mills about, murmuring, betting, craning their necks to spot the fighters. The place hums with anticipation.
A trio of shifters stand in one corner, taking bets. Their scents are weird, a mishmash of animals. The tallest of them, a painfully thin white guy with bottle cap glasses, sneezes and delicate white feathers puff out of his jacket. He catches me staring at him and sneezes again. More feathers fly. His buddies pat his back without looking up from their notebooks.
I jerk my chin up in a reverse nod to signal that everything’s cool.
“They’re over there.” Jared points to a shadowy corner beyond the fighting ring. “With Caleb. He’s the headline fight tonight.”
“I thought Caleb retired? Lives up in the mountains with his mate?”
“He does. We talked him into one fight. That’s why we did the pop-up here near Flagstaff–he was already in the area. His mate is doing some research on Grand Canyon trees. Some science shit. Otherwise, he wouldn’t come. No fun being on the road when you have a beautiful mate waiting for you at home.”
“I bet,” I say.
He glances at me, and I keep my expression light and casual. Is he remembering that I’m the only one in the pack without a mate? Is there pity in his eyes?
“I better pick up the packages before they get into trouble. Thanks, man.” We share another back slap, and I head toward the corner. All this talk about mates has my wolf on edge. That’s part of the reason I volunteered for this mission. Everyone in my pack is mated up. Even Lance, former fuck boy, is happily settled down with a mate and a baby girl.
I weave through the clusters of shifters to the back where the fighters are waiting to be called. The packages–the three teens I’m supposed to pick up and carry home safely–stand in a knot around one of the most famous fighters.
A sharp scent of clove tickles my nose. Someone’s wearing clove cologne. A shifter only does that when trying to hide their scent.
The clove perfume clears as I reach the trio of teens, and I get a face full of werebear teenager funk. The three skinny young men are identical triplets in an awkward teenage growth phase. Their arms and legs are stick thin, but their feet and hands are huge. They’re going to be taller than their brothers Axel, Teddy and Darius. Maybe even Matthias. But not Everest. And it’ll take a lot of food to bulk them up to fighting weight.
Not that I’m going to fight them.
The three triplets throng around a huge dude with a scary-ass beard. Another werebear named Caleb. The headline fighter.
“It was so awesome,” one of the triplets tells Caleb. This one is wearing a red kilt but no shirt. “You went two rounds and then bam.” The teen mimics an uppercut punch, complete with sound effects. “Whap, left hook, right hook,”
“It was a haymaker,” another triplet puts in. Bern, I think his name is. Bern is dressed in all-black head-to-toe, including Doc Martens and a black-on-black plaid kilt.
“Right, a haymaker,” the shirtless triplet says. I’m pretty sure his name is Canyon. “And then you slammed into the ropes and then–”
“Another haymaker,” puts in the third triplet. He’s in a red plaid kilt and a white tunic-like shirt with billowing sleeves–like a pirate’s. Hutch, his family calls him.
“Yeah,” says Canyon. His Adam’s apple wobbles as he shadow-boxes. “And then he falls, and it was epic–”
“Yeah, I know,” Caleb says. “I was there.” His huge beard hides his expression, but I sense his amusement.
“We didn’t see the fight, but our brother did and told us. We came all the way from Bad Bear Mountain,” says Canyon. “We’re your biggest fans.”
“Hey, guys.” I lean in and slap Bern and Hutch on the back, getting a grip of their t-shirts. “Your brother, Matthias, wants to know why you didn’t show up to class today.”
The triplets stiffen. Canyon glances across the warehouse to the single entrance or exit but doesn’t run. If he does, I’ll cuff his two brothers and then text Deke.
“You’re not supposed to be here,” I say. “Shifter Fight Club is twenty-one and older.”
“No one’s checking IDs,” Hutch protests.
“We’re almost nineteen,” Bern adds. “That’s at least twenty-one in shifter years.”