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“I just don’t understand what went wrong? He seemed nice!” My friend and colleague tosses his cloth on the tabletop with a huff. I should be used to his little angry outbursts about my failed love life by now, but it still surprised me how invested he was, like my life was some trashy soap opera just waiting to be devoured for his amusement.

“Ciro...” Arching a brow, I give him a small smile and continue wiping down the chalk boards ready for the new menu launch. The bar wasn’t due to open for lunch for another hour or so, but it was all hands-on deck, ready for the changes. Nothing exciting ever happened here, so a new menu always drew a bit of a buzz, along with a few complaints from a few of our grumpy regulars.

Working in a bar had never been a dream of mine, but when I’d landed in Aurora Pines, a small town in Alaska, there weren't a lot of options. And Shep, the owner of Antler Inn, has been more than generous, giving me a job and letting me rent a cabin with a workshop from him near the lake. I say workshop, it was a shed when I first moved in, but gradually over the last year I’ve made it fit for purpose. Not that he really understands the purpose.

“What?” Ciro sounds almost indignant as he continues wiping down the tables across the room, the movement drawing attention to his peachy ass in his faded blue jeans. We were both wearing the green polo with embroidered antlers that Shep had introduced as a uniform about four months ago, but he’d added some rainbow badges to his and stitched in some cute little pink flowers down by his hip.I wore a long-sleeved thin jumper under mine.

Ciro’s light brown hair is curly on top, but it flops down into his eyes as he stands and starts listing the alpha’s attributes on his fingers. “He was an alpha, had his own business, was handsome, huge and seemed to like you a lot.”

“Then you date him.” Rolling my eyes, I try to drown out his friendly chattering. Ciro was twenty-one, only three years younger than me, but some days I really felt those extra years. He was also an omega, but he was born and raised in this town—he had no clue about what was lurking out in the big, wide world for people like us. The monsters in the shadows.

The other secondary genders, the alphas and betas, saw us as weak. If you were a prey shifter species, that made it even worse. I’d learned to be more selective about my sexual partners, for my safety, just as much for my pleasure.

“Go see if Mazie needs a hand changing the barrel for the IPA and check on the cake. The timer must be about to go off,” Shep grumbles as he enters the bar with fresh glasses, putting them out on the shelves. He’s wearing his usual checkered shirt with the sleeves rolled up his thick forearms. His salt and pepper beard has been freshly trimmed, but his hair is looking a little ruffled today.

It was only a small town, so we also opened for a lunch service each day. It suited me just fine since I’d rather work the lunch shift, hang around town for a few hours, and then do the early bar shift. I didn’t mind closing shifts, but alphas could get a little handsy after a few too many beers and especially during mating seasons.

“But Shep, there isn’t exactly a whole lotta choice for hot male alphas in this town.” Ciro was still talking about the lumberjack who’d been stopping by every night this week trying to convince me to go out with him.

The rugged bear shifter, who’d wanted me to shift into my Leporidae form so he could stroke me, was not the one for me. It wasn’t just because of his weird thing about my fur either, it was because I’m pretty sure I’d fucked his dad last mating season. Older men were much better in bed and they had zero expectations on a repeat. “Don’t you think Blue is being too fussy?”

Shep gives Ciro a stern look, his blue eyes crinkling a little around the edges. “It’s none of our business.”

“I know, I know.” Ciro blushes, glancing away and I chuckle. His crush on Shep was practically legendary amongst the staff at The Antler. Mazie, one of the other bartenders, told me that Ciro had been begging Shep for a job since he turned eighteen, and it was only because he was friends with Ciro’s parents that he’d eventually caved. A one-sided crush was always painful, or so I’m told. I’d never had a crush on anyone, although I had come close once upon a time. Forming bonds and having relationships wasn’t possible when you moved as much as I did.

“I don’t need an alpha.” I smile, even though inside my stomach is churning. To someone like Ciro, who only wants to fall in love (preferably with Shep), get married and have lots of adorable babies, it was hard for them to understand why that wasn’t my goal in life. All I wanted was my freedom. Anything else was a bonus.

“Don’t you have a heat coming?” The curious sea otter shifter asks, his big blue eyes questioning. An omega’s first heat usually occurred between the ages of 16 and 22, and I knew that Ciro hadn’t experienced his yet.

Shrugging, I draw a sandwich on the board next to the new options. “Hmmm, rabbits work a little differently. We don’t have a heat, more like a breeding season.”

“What’s that like?” Goddess, he was like a toddler with all the questions. “And what the fuck is that meant to be?”

“You get used to it,” I lied, before leaning back to look at my art. “It’s the club sandwich.”

“That is not a sandwich. That’s just an oozing blob. What tomato looks like that?” He laughs as I flip him off with a grin.

I didn’t experience a week of intense heat like other shifters did. Instead, what I went through as a Leporidae shifter dragged on for months. It was like a pot simmering away on the stove. Some days there would be a peak of intense need, where I felt the impulse to breed, but mostly I was just super fucking horny for months. It was horrible. The only thing that made it manageable was the suppressants, which dampened the feeling that I was going to crawl out of my skin if I didn’t get laid. It made me weak. Foolish. And in this world, if you wanted to survive, you couldn’t be either of those things.

Back home, at The Warren, everything was geared around mating season so that it could be enjoyed by The Husk. All the work and preparation for hibernation was done early to account for the dip in productivity. Even lessons would pause or be reduced so that anyone who wanted to partake could. And you were expected to partake as soon as you came of age.

Fuck The Husk.

I refused to live by their rules any more. I’d paid for my freedom with blood, sweat, and tears. I was never going back.

After my shift, I drive my truck out of town, turning off down the unpaved track through the woods before arriving at my cabin. It gets dark early here, just like back home. It’s cold too, the air crisp and fresh each time the snow falls. Maybe that’s why I chose Aurora Pines—misplaced nostalgia for a place I would never return to. Leaving home hadn’t been easy, for more than just one reason, but it had been necessary. I couldn’t stay behind those metal gates any longer. Couldn’t be a puppet on their strings.

Letting myself in, I didn't bother to take off my jacket or my boots. I’m not settling in for the night just yet. There’s still work to be done. Waiting for a moment, I listen out for the familiar sounds of Chonky, my cat, coming to welcome me home.

I never planned on getting a cat. Animals were too permanent, a sign that you planned to stay in one place. Chonk just sort of came with the place. Even Shep wasn’t sure when or how the large cat had come to live in the cabin, but it didn’t really matter. It was his home, and I was just a guest, passing through for a few years before moving on to the next stop.

Once Chonky is fed and has had his ears scratched, I head outside, following a dirt path into the woods. The workshop was almost complete, and it had cost me a pretty penny to get it exactly the way I wanted. One of the first things I’d installed was proper access to electricity and water, along with its own generators, and then a top-of-the-line security system.

I’d had to hire private contractors and fly them out here since there was no one in Aurora Pines who could handle my specs. I’d also expanded the shelter beneath the shed, turning it into a private vault of sorts.

Sitting down at my wooden workbench, I run my hand over the dips and divots I’d already made in some places. In a vice, under a lamp and magnifier, sits my latest piece. The pendant I’m currently working on is beautiful, a teardrop amethyst inlaid with diamonds. There was no doubt in my mind that it would be snapped up quickly on my website.

Shep couldn’t understand why I worked shifts at the bar when I made good money with my jewelry, but that was because he hadn’t been raised like I was. Jewelry was the price of my freedom, but I wanted a normal life, a normal job, and normal friends. Now that I was free of The Warren and The Husk, I was never going back. The jewels made sure I always had options. A back-up plan.

I wanted the life that was owed to me.

I deserved it.