The Skunk, the Tibetan Fox and Their Wolf Omega by Lorelei M. Hart
Chapter Three
Leif
I’d never seen anything so beautiful. The Pacific Ocean spread out before me, rippling with whitecaps under a deep-blue sky. It hadn’t been easy to get the transfer here because Animals SD had no trouble staffing. It seemed every shifter for a hundred miles around wanted to work at the premier shifter nightclub in the state of California.
Arizona, the original club, and Crossroads in New Orleans had the same lack of employment problems. Who wouldn’t want to work for Warren and Karma and their management team? They paid fairly, offered great benefits, and tolerated no drama either among the staff or the customers. The only person I’d ever seen Karma fire was a little jerk of a chipmunk who was pitting one alpha against another and using their wiles to fuel drama. I’d happened to be walking past the offices when the dismissal took place, and nobody could have doubted what the boss’s opinion was of those who behaved in such a way.
But there was always going to be a fly in the ointment somewhere, and the fact there were so few spoke well for the company I’d gotten my first and only job with right out of school. I wasn’t even old enough to work while the club was open back then, and I’d done maintenance during the day just for the honor of being part of Animals.
Funny, that, though. While I loved the night shift at this place, the day had a special magic that sometimes I missed. All of us were young, except for our supervisor who was a bear somehow related to Warren—he seemed to come from an infinite pool of relations. And we dreamed of the day we were old enough to work with all the lights and music and wild goings on we heard some other employees talk about. And that we got peeks of when we were supposed to be in our dorm back in the cliffs.
It was a fairyland. Literally, since there were fae in there, along with shifters and vampires and witches and just about any other paranormal types, along with garden-variety humans. Of which Karma was supposedly one—not that I believed it. She had too much charisma and natural magic about her to be garden-variety anything.
But while I was on day crew, we had a lot of one-on-one time with the big bosses who treated us like their own family. We had a hot breakfast and a well-prepared lunch, at no cost, same benefits as the night people, and a lot of wisdom imparted to help us get a good start in life.
Made me a little emotional just to remember.
And then the day came when I was officially allowed to level up to nighttime staff. Still maintenance, but I didn’t mind. I always thought I’d end up doing something like bartending, but being there made it worthwhile. About a year ago, I had an opportunity to fill in for one of the DJs, and since then, I’d made myself available for every vacation or personal day one of them took. I wasn’t technically in that position, but I was doing it a few times a month at least and loved it. Hoping one day to step up into the job full-time, I sought to prove myself and looked forward to a happy future. The desert provided a great place to shift and run, my coworkers were my friends, the bosses were pretty awesome mentors, and I never wanted to work anywhere else.
A recurring dream of the ocean had invaded my sleep recently, but when I woke up, I couldn’t remember much about it beyond a sense of peace and well-being. Maybe one day I’d go to the beach on vacation and see if it held up to the dreams.
Then, one late afternoon while I was relaxing before reporting for duty, everything changed. The employees online group, where we chatted with one another across the various clubs and where jobs were posted, listed an opening in San Diego. And suddenly, from never wanting to leave, I wanted nothing else. Reading the posting, Wanted: Experienced DJ for Animals SD. I had to go. Clicking through, I found pictures of the club and the ocean views afforded there. And the images I saw brought the dreams flooding into focus.
The posting instructed me to fill out a form online explaining why I was the best person for the job. It was long, and I needed to get over to the club, so I bookmarked the application and shut down my tablet. It would be soon enough to do when I got home in the morning.
After a long night of sweeping and mopping and making sure the areas I was assigned stayed immaculate, not an easy thing when shifters partied as hard as they did at Animals, I curled up in bed and clicked on the bookmark, ready to fill out the multiple pages and convince the decision-maker in San Diego that my minimal substitute DJing made me an experienced person and perfect for their needs.
On this particular night, the patrons had been beyond the usual amount of messy, and we’d had another employee in maintenance call in, which had me running solid from the moment I arrived until my shift ended. I didn’t even take a break, although if my supervisor learned about that, I’d have been lectured. But I was home now and ready to apply for the best job ever. By the ocean.
Since the dreams began my desire to visit—no, to live near the ocean had been a growing ache deep inside me. But why would I ever leave this place? Animals SD offered the perfect way to fulfill both my dreams to DJ full-time and my completely incomprehensible need to be near the ocean.
For a desert kid, that would be quite a twist. A sudden yen to live near the shore. But that would be fine. My wolf even seemed excited at the idea. Focusing on the screen, I noticed the bookmark was gone. The link just took me back to the main page. What the…I tried again, but nothing changed and I was starting to worry. Also, to wish I’d copied down more information so I maybe could have emailed the person responsible directly. Animals didn’t have a real centralized personnel resources department, but I probably could make some calls to San Diego later and ask. It had to be a glitch, and it was too early in the morning to expect any office people to be around.
Before going to sleep, I decided to click one more time just in case, but instead of going to the main page, it brought up a stomach clenching Position has been filled.
“Well, that was fast.” Regretting that I hadn’t taken the time before work, I tried to convince myself that I probably hadn’t stood a chance anyway, with so many more qualified people likely to be applying. But that ache that wanted to be near the ocean would not abate, and when I finally did drift off to sleep, it was to yet another ocean dream, this one standing looking out from the overlook at the club.
Where I stood now.
And how that came about was almost miraculous, or maybe it was just how things went at Animals. I woke up after only a few hours and drifted into the club kitchens, hoping for a snack. I did have a kitchenette in my place but there were often treats to be had, as well I remembered from my day shift days.
Karma found me in the kitchen with a glass of milk and a pile of peanut butter bars on a plate in front of me.
“Leif, exactly who I was hoping to find.”
I chewed to clear my mouth before replying. While we were informal here, spraying the boss with bits of food would be frowned on anywhere. “Hi, Karma. Did you need something? Maybe a DJ for tonight?”
“No.” She swiped a bar from my plate and took a bite. “These are so good, don’t you think?”
“Yes.” The mountain of them I’d helped myself to probably gave me away, even if I didn’t admit it. “So, what’s up?”
“Oh, I—” She beelined across the kitchen and scooped up a handful of cookies. “Warren will love these.” She took a step toward the door but I called her back.
“Karma, you were looking for me?” Surely not just to steal one of my cookies, which were actually her cookies.
“Silly me. I blame low blood sugar. I’d better eat a few of these myself.” She plopped down in the seat across from me. “We have an opening in San Diego. For a DJ. So I guess I kind of did look for you needing one. When I heard, I thought of you right away. You do such a nice job, and just getting to sit in the booth once in a while is a waste of your talent.”
I stifled a sigh. Why didn’t this happen yesterday? I didn’t realize she even noticed my skills or lack thereof in the booth. She’d never said anything. “That’s so kind of you to say, but I saw the posting and it’s been removed. Apparently it was filled.”
Karma’s eyes danced with mischief. “By you. Unless you don’t want the job?”
I choked on a bit of cookie, and only my hand planted over my lips prevented a crumb spray this time.
“Are you all right?”
I nodded through my coughs, while she waited, head cocked. “I’m fine. You…you are offering me the DJ job? In San Diego? By the ocean?”
“Unless you’d rather not. We’re not trying to get rid of you or anything.”
“No, I didn’t—that is, I would love to. When do I leave?”
I could still hear her laughter as I stood on the overlook at Animals SD, ready to start my first day. With no idea why I’d wanted to move here so badly, I only knew that it felt right.