The Runaways: Book 1 of the The White Goddess Series

18. Breakers

Breakers was packed. 

Nick scowled as he followed Tom through the doors, squinting in the dim light after the bright evening sun outside. Behind them, someone cursed and slipped past them into the noisy shifter bar.

"Why's it so busy?" Tom muttered as they took in the crowded space. The vibe in the room was less frenetic than Friday and Saturday nights, but it was still a meat market and still sketchy as fuck. And a lot busier than usual for a Sunday night.

"Dunno." Nick wasn't a fan of crowds, especially in social settings. He found them stifling and invasive. On the plus side, at least they were mostly shifters. 

A few familiar faces leapt out as his eyes adjusted to the light, some of them friendly, others not so much. The size of the crowd aside, it was good to be back at Breakers. Nick used to come here all the time back in his Fire & Rescue days. That was before the Captain had recruited him to the Guards. Since then Nick managed to swing by Boulder once every couple of years if he was lucky. 

Not much had changed. The walls were still lined with game trophies and framed historical photos of Boulder and the Letourneau family and the battered wooden floor still looked like a stampede of horses ran over it. Daily.  A wall of shelves stocked with Breakers' world-famous selection of liquor ran behind the live edge wooden bar running the length of the room, the most polished thing in the place. 

A smile curved Nick's lips at the burly, white-haired bartender pouring a draught with his trademark flourish. Caleb Letourneau had inherited Breakers from his father over forty years ago but had been a permanent fixture behind the bar long before that. 

Memories flashed through Nick's head like a reel of shorts...memories of Caleb, of the bar, of his old Fire & Rescue unit. Of arriving in Boulder for the first time with his adopted brother Gage, dead now some thirty years. Nick had never been in neutral territory before and seeing rogues and pack shifters mingling freely had completely blown his mind. 

"There he is." Tom's voice was a rumble in Nick's ear.

Shaking off his thoughts, Nick followed Tom's gaze to a single man sitting alone at a table for four. It was the most conspicuous thing about him. Senior Intelligence Officer Erik Erikson had medium brown hair, a forgettable face, and an average build in a medium-blue polo and khakis. Totally non-descript right down to his drink, something clear with ice and a lime.

In spite of the angle and the milling crowd in front of the doors, Erikson had already seen them and flagged down the waitress by the time Tom and Nick reached the table. She greeted them with a flirtatious smile, her eyes lingering hungrily on Tom's hairy, oversized form. Tom was big even by shifter standards, topping Nick's six-four by a good five inches.

Tom didn't notice, of course. His attention was on Erikson as he rattled off his order and dropped into one of the sturdy wooden chairs with a grunt. 

Erikson held up his glass to the waitress. "I'll have another."

Nick settled into an empty chair facing the bar. "Pint of Lupo," he told her when she turned to face him. 

"Someone likes them big and hairy." Erikson grinned at the lingering look the waitress gave Tom over her shoulder.

"That's most of the males here," Tom grumbled, but he shot a look from under his brows at the waitress's receding form. Nick bit back a grin. So he had noticed.

"Some of the females, too," Erikson quipped, earning a chuckle from Nick and a grunt of amusement from Tom. His eyes were sharp, but not unfriendly as he scanned their faces in turn. "Good to see you boys."