Free Once Upon a Shifter by Anne Conley, Lily Marie, Kim Fox, Zoe Chant, Ariana Hawkes, Terra Wolf, K.S. Haigwood, Shelley Shifter, Nora Eli, Alyse Zaftig, Mackenzie Black, Roxie Noir Page A

can call me Richard. Senator Richard.”
    “Okay bye Dad,” Grace said. She leaned forward and whispered in Rebecca’s ear. “Just go.”
    Rebecca slid the car into drive and pulled away from the curb. She drove past the perfectly manicured bushes on both sides of the long driveway towards the steel iron gate. The two security guards in the booth opened the gate and waved to them as they passed. Rebecca always felt so stupid driving her used, ten year old car through these gates. Just the electronic gate alone cost more than she’d probably make in her life as a kindergarten teacher.
    “So remind me again why we’re going canoing in the forest,” Grace said from the back seat.
    “It’s kayaking first of all,” Rebecca said, pulling onto the road. There were multi-million dollar mansions everywhere she looked. “And you’re doing this because you owe me. You’ve dragged me to enough charity dinners over the years that I think you can give me one weekend.”
    Grace organized the fanciest charity dinners in New York for the cities’ wealthiest elite. They were full of people bragging about what they had and comparing their expensive toys and Grace was always dragging Rebecca to them.
    “Fine, but why kayaking?” she whined. “Let’s take my Dad’s jet and go to Ibiza for the weekend.”
    “No we got the trip set up already,” Rebecca said. “We’re going in the mountains.” Rebecca always found the forest and mountains to be so peaceful. So serene. It was definitely what she needed after the rough couple of weeks that she had.
    “There’s no place to take your mind off of Mark like Ibiza,” Grace pushed. “Some sweaty, muscular, Italian guy pushing up against you on the dance floor will make you forget Mark ever existed.”
    “We’re going kayaking,” Rebecca insisted. “I already got the tickets.”
    “Off of a radio station contest,” Grace said. “Yuck.”
    Rebecca turned to Angie. “Help me out here.” Angie had her bare feet up on the dashboard, flipping through an old book of CDs.
    “I don’t know,” Angie said, “Ibiza sounds pretty nice.”
    “Thank you,” Grace said from the back, slapping the seat.
    “But I do have to get back to the lab Monday morning,” Angie said, her face lighting up. “We have a Graphene Quantum Dots Accelerator on loan from Japan and we’re close to wrapping up our experiment for breaking the band gap energy flow.”
    “See?” Rebecca said, looking in the rear view mirror at Grace who was in the back seat with her arms crossed and pouting. “Angie has to get back Monday morning to her evil, super villain lab to take over the world.”
    “Oh shit,” Angie said, pulling out a CD. She slid it into the CD player and looked at Rebecca with a smile. “What does this remind you of?”
    An old familiar song came on through the speakers. “Oh shit!” Grace yelled. “Prom!”
    “Oh Justin,” Rebecca said, as she recognized it as N’Sync’s Bye Bye Bye .
    “Lance all the way baby,” Angie said, holding her arms to her chest.
    The first verse started and the three best friends sang at the top of their lungs. This was just what Rebecca needed. A weekend with her girls to take her mind off of Mark. She had been waiting by the phone waiting for him to call all week, even after the shit he put her through. She still would’ve taken him back and she was just waiting around for the opportunity.
    She sped down the road, leaving the mansions in the background, singing with the first love of her life. Justin.

three
     
     
     
    “So remember what I told you guys about professionalism,” Connor said to the two werebears sitting in front of him. The girls would be here any minute and he didn’t want them messing things up.
    “Why are you looking at me?” Sidney asked, putting his hand to his chest. “I’m not the one that phases and eats all of the food.”
    “Yeah but you’re the one that offers our guests autographs for ten dollars a