Chapter 1

AS PHOENIX SMITH hid behind Shenanigans’ bar, the latest in her long string of waitress gigs, she remembered the claim she’d made to her new boss when he’d hired her two days before. 

He’d warned her in his gravely voice that Shenanigans “doesn’t have crowds like you’re used to serving.” 

She’d assured him that she had plenty of experience working with the roughest of customers and that she could handle whatever his bar patrons threw at her.

Famous last words.

Phoenix peeked over the top of the bar and ducked back down, horrified. The brawl was still happening. Which wasn’t a big deal. She’d been in barroom brawls before. Even knocked a few heads together herself when the occasion called for it.

The problem wasn’t the fight. 

It wasn’t the beer bottles being thrown or the bodies flung through the air. It also wasn’t the sounds of tables being destroyed or chairs knocked over.

The problem was that her boss, the unbelievably sexy bartender with the gravely voice, had lunged over the top of the bar and landed in a whole different body. 

And then, in that whole new body, had let out a roar that shook the rafters and started tossing his customers everywhere.

And as for them. 

Well, they were the problem too.

Snarling and growling, snapping at each other with viciously long fangs.

Fangs.

No, not like vampires.

More like werewolves. And werecougars. Which shouldn’t even be a thing. 

But since it was a thing, it also meant her boss was a werebear. Or wereblackbear.

This was crazy.

But now the location of this bar, which was right in the middle of the woods, with no roads leading up to it, made perfect sense to Phoenix.

At first, it had seemed crazy that people would hike to their neighborhood bar, but then the more she’d thought about it, the more she’d realized how ingenious it was. They’d never have to worry about drunk drivers because their customers could just walk their drunk asses home. 

Only now she was realizing they’d probably be walking their drunk, furry asses home. Because who was more comfortable in the middle of the woods than a bunch of wolves and cougars?

Certainly not her. And now she was stuck here, with an unknown number of cougars and wolves between her and the door. Not to mention her boss, the scary-ass bear. What were the chances of her getting out of here without any of them noticing her? 

Surely there was a back door. She couldn’t believe she hadn’t explored all the exits by now. She knew better than this. 

“Shit, shit, shit. Phoenix, what are you going to do? Shit, this is madness!” She clutched her hair and dragged in a deep breath. 

That’s when she realized the sounds of fighting had stopped. 

All the growls, snarls and roars had faded. 

She’d never really understood how the hair on someone’s neck could stand on end, but that’s exactly what it did. Followed by a wave of ice-cold fear and a preternatural instinct that told her to run. 

Only there was nowhere to go. 

She’d trapped herself behind the bar.

“What’s she doin’ down there, Travis?” someone asked. 

“Hell if I know.” 

Phoenix shivered at the sound of her boss’s gravelly voice. If he was speaking, he had to be back in human form. Right? 

She slowly raised her head and looked up.

The other two waitresses, along with the men and women they’d served that night, were all crowded around the bar, staring down at her. 

While naked.

Okay, so she wasn’t positive they were naked since the bar hid their lower halves, but everything up top was on display, so she had to assume…

“I thought you said you could handle this job,” Travis growled at her as he shoved his way behind the bar. He faced her, hands on hips, a furious scowl on his face. “You told me you had experience with rough crowds. I knew I’d never heard of those bars before. They were all human bars, weren’t they? You should have told me you’d never had any experience working at a shifter bar!”

Phoenix was speechless. It wasn’t really what he was saying. Because she’d already pretty much processed that shifters were real and that this was a shifter bar. That had become shockingly clear when everyone in the bar went furry.

“Are you even listening to me?”

With great effort, Phoenix dragged her eyes away from the gorgeous cock bobbing in front of her and pushed to her feet. Swallowing, she looked her boss in the eye and said, “I’m sorry, what?”

“Why would you lie about your experiences? You could have been seriously hurt! At the very least, you should have shifted to give you a better chance in that brawl.”

“Um, why exactly would I shift again?”

He stared at her, a perplexed look on his face, then glanced over at the customers, as if asking them for help.

“Well, usually, it’s what shifters do, lass,” one of the men offered.

She glanced at him. Then back at Travis.

She had no idea why they thought she was a shifter, but she wasn’t about to admit the truth. They’d probably eat her or do something worse, like throw her in prison for the rest of her life, just to keep humans from discovering their secret. 

“So why didn’t you shift, honey?” Cassie, one of the other waitresses, asked.

“Yeah, why?”

Several voices chimed in, wondering what kind of shifter wouldn’t even bother to shift for protection in the middle of a shifter brawl.

Phoenix didn’t know what to say, so she just shrugged and refused to reply.

“What kind of shifter are you, anyway?” 

“Karl!” Glory, another waitress, slapped him on the back of the head. “Never ask a woman about her animal!”

“Well, I never smelled her kind before.” 

“Me neither.”

The murmurs of agreement spread.

Had they never been around humans before? Surely that wasn’t possible.

“Doesn’t matter,” Glory insisted. “A woman’s animal is very personal.” She turned to Phoenix. “Don’t worry about it, honey. You’ll shift with us when you feel safe. Until then, you just keep your animal a well-guarded secret. No one will fault you for it.” She glared around at the rest of the room. “Right?”

Travis rolled his eyes and crossed his arms, the movement causing his cock to bounce a little. “Look. You can’t work in a shifter bar if you’re not willing to shift. That’s just the way it is.”

“That’s rather prejudicial,” Phoenix said, glaring at him, trying desperately to ignore his bobbing cock. It couldn’t be sanitary to have all that nakedness around – well, everything. And what was she saying? She should be taking this opportunity to quit, not arguing her right to stay.

“Oh, don’t listen to him,” Glory said. “I’m half-owner of this bar, Travis, and I say she stays.”

This was news to Phoenix, who’d hadn’t realized the waitress who’d been pitching in occasionally was one of the owners. She should have guessed when Travis introduced her as his sister though. It made sense that they would own the bar together.

“She did a magnificent job tonight,” Glory continued. “And when the fight broke out, she quite sensibly retreated behind the bar, leaving you to knock sense into the lot of them.”

“She’s the best waitress we’ve had in a while, Travis,” Cassie agreed. “We need her.”

Travis groaned. “Whatever.”

“You know, it’d be so much easier to take you seriously if your junk wasn’t all out and proud right now.” Phoenix waved a hand in the general vicinity of his cock. “Can you please put some clothes on? Or go to the other side of the bar? Or something? Nobody wants your pubes in their beer.”

Groans and gagging sounds filled the air. 

“Oh, my god, Travis, get away from there right now!” Glory exclaimed. “That is disgusting! I never even thought about that and now I’m going to have that vision in my head every damn time I order a beer from my own bar!”

Travis rolled his eyes. “It’s not like I expected to explode out of my clothes tonight, Glory.”

“Well, you should expect it,” she said sharply. “It happens practically every weekend.” She turned to face the customers still crowded around the bar. “All right. I think that’s enough for one night. Clean up your areas, settle up your tabs and get out, the lot of you. And don’t forget to tip your waitresses. Generously.” She glared at them.

With shuffled feet and a number of muttered, “yes, ma’ams”, the customers began to assist in the clean-up and one by one, wandered over to the bar to settle their tabs with Phoenix and Cassie.

An hour later, the doors were shut behind the final customer and thirty minutes after that, Phoenix was headed out the door, officially ending the weirdest shift she’d ever worked, and that was saying a lot.