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It didn’t take longbefore the bar was full. Sundays were typically an earlier rush, people taking time to meet up in the afternoons before heading home. It also meant different kinds of drinks than we served the rest of the week. I opened another bottle of tomato juice and got to work on a fresh batch of our spicy Bloody Mary base. We’d already burned through a typical Sunday’s worth.
“Did you hear about the Blue River Pack?” Chris Moody, an older shifter with a long gray beard asked as I passed his red beer to him.
“About their alpha getting busted with a human?” I asked. That was old news, but it had been the talk of the pack for weeks. The Blue River Pack was another pack hidden in the mountains away from humans. Like us, they had wards up to prevent trespassers from finding them. So the fact that their alpha had been sneaking into the nearby human town and knocked up a human was big news. Especially since he had a wife and kids at home.
“Someone killed him,” Chris said. “They found his body in the middle of the woods.”
“You think it was his wife?” Word was that she was furious at the disrespect. It was one thing to cheat on your spouse, but hooking up with a human was seen as unforgivable by most shifters. I didn’t think she’d kill him for it, though. Shifters weren’t typically loyal.
“That’s the strange part,” he said. “She took their kids and went back home to her pack in Alaska. She wasn’t anywhere around.”
“The human mistress then?” I asked, surprised how quickly I was getting sucked into the drama. I usually tried to stay out of it, but a dead alpha was rare.
“Doubt it. They say she didn’t even know he was a shifter,” Chris added.
“Poor thing. I hope the baby didn’t get the wolf gene.” When humans and shifters mixed, there was no guarantee the baby would be a shifter. They wouldn’t know until puberty when that first shift hit on a full moon.
“No kidding,” he agreed.
“You’re leaving out the best part of the story,” Sam McGee added. “Tell her how he died."
"Morgan, more beer!” Someone shouted from the other end of the bar.
I turned to see Stewart holding up his glass. I still hadn’t forgotten about his comments last night. “Ask me nicely.”
“Please, darling, Morgan, love of my life,” he said with mock sincerity.
“On second thought, stick to the not as nice,” I said with a wince. I glanced at Chris, “you’ll have to finish the story later.”
I was pulled back into pouring beer, mixing drinks, and cleaning glasses. Jasmine was working the tables tonight, popping behind the counter to make drinks before carrying them back to patrons.
I dropped off another drink for Chris, a plain beer this time, and he caught my wrist. A warning alarm blared in my mind at the contact.
His words slurred a little as he spoke, “I didn’t finish my story.”
Slowly, I pried his fingers off me. Thankfully, he was harmless, but I didn’t like anyone touching me unexpectedly. Even after months of dating Owen, I’d have to talk myself into not freaking out when his skin touched mine. Jasmine seemed to be the only exception and probably because I knew without a doubt that she wasn’t a threat.
“Yeah, tell her about the body,” Sam added before taking a gulp of his beer.
“What was so interesting about it?” I asked. “Was he eaten or something?”
“He was drained,” Sam said.
Chris threw him a dirty look. “Not drained. Siphoned. Sucked dry. Like all the moisture from his body evaporated and left behind skin and bones.”
I wrinkled my nose. “Gross.”
“It wasn’t like he was just decomposing, either,” Sam cut in. “People saw him in the morning and when they found him that night,” he made a sucking sound, “gone. All dried up.”
“They say there’s something in the woods,” Chris added.
“Probably took a potion he shouldn’t have,” I said.
“They had a witch take a look,” Chris said. “They said they don’t know how it happened.”
“Morgan.” Jasmine poked me in the arm and I turned. She looked totally freaked out.
“What’s up?” I asked.
