A Very Merry Alpha Solstice (Shifter Ops)

Chapter 1

Chapter One

P arker

My day starts as all my days start. With violence.

“I’m gonna stuff ya and cook ya like a Christmas goose,” comes the shout from the kitchen. Whoever said an Irish brogue is soothing to the ear never met Declan.

I raise my hat and blink at the living room filled with bright Tucson light.

An explosion of white feathers precedes Laurie bursting through the door to the kitchen. The tall, lanky shifter crosses the room in two bounds, finding shelter behind the worn armchair I’ve been sleeping in every night.

“What now?” I groan.

Declan stalks out holding a frying pan filled with charred contents. “He burned the bacon. Again.”

The smell is enough to clue me in to what happened. Like the inside of a dumpster fire. I crane my head to look at Laurie, who’s doing a bad job of cowering behind my chair, seeing as he’s twice as tall as it. “Just cook it in the oven next time. Lay it out on a sheet pan and cook it at–”

“Sacrilege!” Declan shouts. “If my ma found out we were baking bacon like a bloody shortbread–”

“There’s t-t-t-urkey–” Laurie holds up a pack of turkey bacon, but Declan’s growl cuts him off. The frying pan Declan was holding hits the linoleum with a clunk, and then a big black dog sails over me to attack Laurie. There’s a scuffle behind me, complete with shouts and kicks to the back of my chair.

I'd join in, but I’m too tired. I let my head rest on the back of the worn upholstery while Laurie dashes in a circle around me with Declan the dog chasing him. Not unlike roadrunner and coyote, if roadrunner was an owl shifter shedding white feathers and coyote was an Irish wolfhound crossed with mangy mutt.

It ends when Declan the dog snatches the turkey bacon out of Laurie’s hands. He bounds back to the kitchen door, shifts into man form–still holding the plastic-wrapped turkey bacon in his teeth. Naked, he walks to the trash can and drops the package in. “I’ll nae let that abomination in me home. What do I look like, a vegetarian?”

“Eating turkey doesn’t make you a vegetarian.” I hold up my hat to block the sight of Declan’s naked body. “Now put some clothes on. You’ll give me indigestion.”

Declan grabs the frying pan and holds it over his bare dick. “Did you sleep out here?” he asks, his scowl deeper than usual. If it were anyone else, I’d read that as concern.

“Yes.” Mostly, I didn’t sleep. But it’s better than the alternative–thrashing around in the sheets, strangled by bad dreams.

“We need more bacon,” Declan says.

“We need money to buy it,” I shoot back. “And guess who bet all of ours on Caleb’s fight?”

Declan grins. “‘Twas a grand fight.”

“That was the fight to defend the shifter fight club. It wasn’t the actual fight. Caleb’s fight had to be rescheduled. And in the meantime, all our money’s tied up.” I settle my hat back on my head. The weight usually helps me think, but today it makes me want to go back to sleep.

A shadow falls over me as Laurie steps to my side, blocking out the sun. “W-w-we could get j-j-jobs.”

“We already tried that.” The stint with Declan and Laurie dressed as giant sandwiches, roaming the median and shouting at passersby to advertise a local restaurant gave me a three day migraine.

I can still feel an echo of the pain in the back of my head. Or maybe that’s the lack of sleep combined with the noise Declan’s making in the kitchen, banging pots and pans.

“M-m-may b-b-be…” Laurie tries to say and falls silent.

His stutter is getting worse. My dreams are getting worse. Declan’s mostly the same, which is to say he’s nuttier than a peanut butter factory.

“Ya know what we need?” Declan’s back, naked except for a frilly yellow apron. He holds a mixing bowl in the crook of one elbow and points a whisk dripping with yellow yolk at me. “Some Christmas cheer.”

“That’s the last thing we need. Do you even celebrate Christmas?” A lot of shifters don’t do Christian holidays on account of the early church hunting our ancestors as demons.

“Do I?” Declan does a double take that makes his apron flutter dangerously. He drops the whisk in the bowl and crosses himself. “Me ma’d kill me if she heard ya doubting her good Christian boy.”

“There’s s-s-solstice,” Laurie says helpfully. He’s found his glasses. The coke-bottle lenses make his big, round eyes even bigger.

“Or Hanukkah. Or Kwanza. Even Diwali. All holidays dedicated to joy and light. Whose idea was it to say, at this dark and depressing time of year, we should all be joyful?” Nothing’s worse than being depressed and surrounded by people faking happiness. “Just let us be depressed.”

“That’s it.” Declan tosses the bowl onto the counter, sending the contents slopping down the cabinets. “I’m getting a tree.” He turns and gives us a full moon. Laurie and I groan. I pull down the brim of my hat over my eyes.

“Laurie!” Declan shouts. “Come help me.”

My phone beeps. I dig in the chair cushions for it, finally unearthing it. The screen reads: missed call. He Who Shall Not Be Named . I get chills, and my wolf whines and tries to hide in a corner. That’s our call sign for Lucius, King of the Vampires.

It’s a bad idea to owe a vampire a favor. They're worse than the human mafia, except if you renege, instead of sleeping with the fishes you’ll be an involuntary blood donor. Either way you’re dead.

In Lucius’ case, he took pity on us and used us for odd jobs. And no job is odder than ones you do for a vampire king. That ended after he met his mate and discharged our debt.

But he still has us on speed dial. Because just like the mob, you can never escape a vampire.

I hit replay just in time for heavy metal music to come blasting through the speakers Declan insisted on installing.

“Deck the halls with boughs of holly–” Twisted Sister sings, interspersed with Declan’s cussing and howls.

“Shut up,” I shout, holding my cell to one ear and pressing my hat over the other. “I'm trying to listen to my voicemail.”

Declan returns. He’s still naked under the apron, now with a Santa hat on his head. Laurie has a tattered wreath around his neck.

“What are you doing?” I sigh.

“I can’t find the tree.”

“There is no tree. Not any more. The firecracker incident, remember?”

“We need to buy a tree.”

“No. No tree.”

“It’ll do ya good.”

“Declan–”

“Look at Laurie!” Declan waves, stirring the air until the room resembles an explosion in a pillow factory. “He’s so stressed he’s shedding feathers.”

Laurie pokes his head out of the feathery cloud, his Adam’s apple bobbing. “B-b-birds d-d-don’t shed feathers. We m-m-molt them.”

“Shut up.” Declan sneezes.

“We’re all a little on edge,” I say. “But I’ve got good news.” I hold up the phone. “A call from the King of Vampires.”

“Shite!”

“T-t-that’s g-g-good n-n-news?”

“He’s got a job for us.” I give Laurie a sour look. “Careful what you wish for.”