Red in the Blue

Chapter 1

The employees at the airport coffee shop deserved much higher compensation. Whatever they were making was wholly insufficient as far as I was concerned, gripping my carry-on over my shoulder and straddling my suitcase at the other end of the counter. A woman was losing her mind over not getting enough milk in her iced coffee, her voice raising above the whine of the machinery in the back. She turned to those of us waiting around her as if we might back her up, and I grimaced at her and shook my head. Someone else told her to chill. A weary barista handed me my coffee and I smiled at him sympathetically before wheeling off toward my gate.

"Lore!" a voice called from behind me, and I turned to see a familiar face.

"Oh, hey, Keeley!"

She reached my side with her own luggage, repositioning the strap over her shoulder as she stopped.

"You flying home today?"

"Yeah, trying to get back to work tomorrow."

"That sucks."

"It majorly does, yes."

We stepped out of the way of most of the foot traffic.

"What about you, heading back?" I asked her. It seemed obvious to ask, but I didn't know Keeley well so we didn't have a ton to talk about. If our roles were reversed, I doubted I would've even gotten her attention in the relatively crowded airport.

"I'm going to meet my boyfriend for a little Florida vacation before I fully reenter the real world," she answered.

"Wow, jealous."

"I know, sorry," she grinned. "It was a nice wedding though, wasn't it?"

My childhood neighbor Grant had gotten married over the weekend, and though we weren't super close as adults, we'd promised each other as kids that if we weren't marrying each other, we'd at least be in attendance. The shifter community where I'd grown up had been small—all of us rogues without claim to or from any pack—and in a way we had become like a little pack ourselves. We kept our wolfy secret together socially, but privately we were able to be ourselves. Though my parents had been against pack loyalties for various reasons, they still saw the value in community, and Grant had been part of mine growing up.

"It was a great wedding," I agreed, and I wasn't lying. Despite not knowing many people outside of Grant's family, his adult friends were warm and welcoming and—including with Keeley—I'd had a good time. Grant had married another rogue shifter, and they'd opted to forgo any kind of werewolf mating ceremony formalities. They weren't true mates anyway. For much of our kind, the fate-filled aspects of our existence irked us. It wasn't uncommon these days for people to just do what they wanted and deal with the fallout if it came to it later. Some of the older generations remained outspoken about holding out for true mates, but many of us didn't want to watch the world pass us by with some fated destiny on the other side of the globe. So Grant had married another shifter he loved, and I had gone to support him.

Still, with the fun part behind me, I was now eager to get home. Keeley and I wished each other safe travels, and I rolled the rest of the way to my gate to wait out the remaining hour or so until my plane started boarding. I'd brought a book, but I didn't have the attention span to read it. Airports were great for people watching and I always found it hard to stay focused with so much movement around me, so many scents. Plenty of shifters avoided crowded places for this very reason. Instead, I scrolled idly on my phone, my head pulling up often to look around me, drank my coffee, and rechecked my boarding pass.

Once on the plane, I could relax a little more. This was a finite space with only so much to see, hear, smell. I lucked into a window seat, an empty seat between me and the person on the aisle, some dad across the row from his teenagers. I nestled into my sweatshirt, hood pulled up over a messy bun, and kicked my shoes off under the seat, leaning my head against the side of the plane to watch out the window as they loaded our luggage and the plane continued filling. Beside us, another plane had arrived to deposit its passengers. I could vaguely make out their shapes as they hunched in the windows and filled the aisles to deplane. I looked to the head of my own plane. It was still mostly empty as I'd managed an early boarding pass. I hoped we'd get to keep our empty middle seat, ol' dad and me. I pulled my knees up to my chest, socked toes curling over the edge of my seat. I had a direct flight and plenty of room. So far everything was running on time. If I had to head back for work, this was the way to do it. They closed the plane doors, and I pulled my book out of my bag and picked out my place.