“She escaped. Sorry, boss.”

The younger of the two steps forward. “Did you see her?”

The blue-eyed shifter nods. “I think it could be her, but I can’t say for sure.”

His companions exchange a look. “So, what now?”

Their leader purses his lips. “We do know one thing. There is indeed a wolf shifter taking part in these illegal cage fights.”

My stomach sinks.

This isn’t good.

This isn’t good at all.

Sophia Hope

I stare at the drinking glass I’ve been wiping for the past five minutes.

Whoever has been using this waterproof, red lipstick needs to have her ass handed to her. What kind of idiot uses waterproof lipstick that smears? And the kind of smear that doesn’t even wash off. My mind is boggled by how this lipstick can even be called waterproof when it clearly stains glasses. We have a serial glass stainer in town, it seems.

I chuckle to myself, amused at my own joke, before my expression sours. I have managed to get most of it off, but I still have three other glasses waiting to be cleaned.

Sighing, I set down the glass and look around the bar.

The Dancing Bear functions as both a bar and a restaurant. I once told Elsa, the owner and my boss, that a restaurant with a bar was just a restaurant. She vehemently disagreed. Apparently, we’re a bar with a restaurant. My plans don’t include getting fired, so I decided never to broach the topic again. Restaurant with a bar or bar with a restaurant—as long as I get paid, it can be a flying goose for all I care.

“Another martini, Sophia,” one of the customers calls out, tapping his empty glass.

“Right away, Mr. Willow,” I reply.

I always thought being a bartender was all about mixing drinks and chatting with new and interesting customers. The idea had been a charming one, but when I finally got my bartender’s license, my tiny little dream got shattered. Oakrest is a small town, one of the few that litter the South Alliance’s coast on the Atlantic Ocean, and there are not a lot of people allowed entry here. I see the same faces every day. Most of the customers who sit at the bar prefer to drink in silence, and at this time of night, there are usually not many other people out and about. The ones who do come in have dinner and then leave.

As I set the martini in front of a gloomy-looking Mr. Willow, I know better than to ask what is bothering him. Perhaps my current stain removing activity will be the highlight of my day. It certainly distracts me from the problems plaguing me at the moment, problems regarding a blue-eyed shifter.

The only reason I figured out he was a shifter was because he bled from the scratch I gave him. He clearly takes scent blockers, like I do. Of course, his two wolf companions also helped me identify what he was. I know for a fact that he’s not part of the pack security team. It’s not as if I know every face in town, but I do know most of the shifters. But if those three guys are from out of town, how did they manage to get in?

Oakrest is one of seven towns on the Atlantic coast of the South Alliance. It is heavily guarded to prevent infiltrations—or at least, that’s what I was told when I first arrived here. Not that I ever asked many questions.

Sighing once again, I pick up the second glass and study it, glaring at the red smudge.

“Tonight, either you become spotless or you go in the trash!”

“Stop talking to the drinkware, Sophia.” Reese Dale, one of the waiters, walks past me without batting an eye. “People already think you’re crazy.”

I blink and look around. There are a few eyes on me but only because these people have nothing better to do than watch me.

I decide to cease my one-sided conversation and actually focus on removing the lipstick marks. Not that it matters.

I have spent nine years stuck in this town—nine years that have not been easy at all. Nobody here cares about my orphan status. However, the fact that I don’t have a wolf is something that is considered shameful. I try to keep to myself, but when I first came here as a traumatized sixteen-year-old girl, the pack security assigned to this town had been informed about me down to the last detail, I imagined, because within a couple of days, nearly everybody knew that I couldn’t shift, that I had a latent wolf, and that I was behind the incident at the orphanage in Ricker Town, where the main pack resides. Even now, I catch people staring at me, but most of them seem to have accepted me or to prefer pretending I don’t exist.

Mindlessly, I stare down at the glass I’m wiping. Nine years haven’t made a difference. There are those who like to remind me that I am lacking, who like to use their words to hurt me. This town is nothing short of a prison for me, one that I have strived to break free of. I have spent so much time trying to build up my savings so I can buy my freedom. If that blue-eyed shifter outs me as a cage fighter to the pack security, I’m done for. There will be no going back. I’ll be tossed into a real prison this time.

My wiping is getting more and more aggressive as fear pumps through my blood. I’m sure the shifter did not see my face. But what if he’s waiting for me when I go back to the gym tomorrow? I heard with my own ears what he and his companions were discussing. They had suspected that there was a wolf shifter taking part in the cage fights, and their suspicions were proven true. Even if that man did not see my face, he saw my claws. And he noticed my strength. He knows what I am.

I can’t go back there. But if I don’t, how will I earn the money to get out of this hellhole?

A hand drops onto my shoulder, and I jump, a frightened “eep” slipping from my mouth as the glass escapes my grip. Before it can shatter to the ground, the person behind me catches it.