Page 6 of Poet & Protector

“You’re new tonight,” he said. “Since you haven’t skedaddled yet, I thought I’d introduce myself. Tom Shaw. The Burnout is my place.”

He held out his hand.

“Um, hi,” I said, feeling awkward as I shook his hand. “Mason.”

It wasn’t that I never talked to humans. Our teachers at the Mountain School were human, but our interactions were limited to class. Guardians were discouraged from mixing with civilians, even the human students in our classes. The only wolf I knew who regularly broke that rule was Ren Laroche, the young Bane alpha. Ren’s favorite pastime was dating all the human girls he could juggle. My alpha Calla was promised to Ren, and she wasn’t allowed to date anyone. It was utterly unfair and totally sucked for her.

Of course, there were always humans in Vail, so Guardians who lived and worked for the Keepers in the city had more contact, but wolves never revealed their true identities. As far as the human citizens of Vail were aware, we were no different from them.

Something different, and unheard of, happened at the Burnout. That a human bar proprietor had somehow become the linchpin of an underground society for queer Guardians was unbelievable. Yet here we were in a cavernous but somehow cozy bunker beneath the Burnout.

Tom’s smile was kind and I felt the need to say something more.

“Thanks, uh,” I muttered, “for having this place.”

“More than happy to offer a refuge to friends in need,” he replied. “You’re always welcome here.”

“I’m guessing Mason would like to hear your story, Tom,” Jackie prompted. “Like every wolf who shows up at your side door, it takes a little getting used to the idea of a human ally.”

Tom guffawed. “Good thing I don’t get tired of telling it. You ready for an origin story, young Nightshade?”

“How do you know I’m a Nightshade?” I blurted.

“The obvious answer is that you’re hanging out with Jackie here,” he answered. “The other is that I’m observant and you’re not exactly subtle about giving dirty looks to the Banes. Might want to check that, son. In this place there are no packs, no rivalries. We’re all friends, understood?”

There was no mistaking I’d just been given a warning. “I understand. Sorry. Old habits.”

“No harm done,” he said gently. “Every new wolf who joins us goes through the same thing. The Keepers really teach your packs to hate each other. Just remember to keep the peace here.”

“I will.”

“Now, about my story.” Tom settled into a chair.

“Hearing Tom’s story is pretty much a rite of passage,” Jackie told me.

He snorted. “You’re making me feel old. It wasn’t that long ago.”

“Thirty years is pretty long,” she countered.

“Are you telling this story, or am I?”

Smiling, Jackie sat back in her chair and gestured for him to continue.

“So, about thirty years ago,” Tom shot Jackie wry smile, “I came through Vail. No job. No sense of purpose. I’d been driving cross country, sleeping in my truck, picking up work here and there. I wandered into the Burnout looking for a drink, maybe something to eat if the food was cheap. The owner was a grizzly old dude by the name of Bruce. And before you say anything, Jackie, he was much grizzlier and at least a decade older than I am.”

“I’m sure he was, Tom.”

“I was two drinks in and chowing down on one of the best burgers I’d ever tasted when a couple guys got into it. This wasn’t some low-key brawl; they were out for blood. One broke a bottle and tried to cut the other to ribbons.

“I jumped into the middle of it. Don’t know what I was thinking; must’ve been pissed off at having such a good meal interrupted. Ten minutes later I had one guy on the ground out cold and the other screaming bloody hell because I’d broken his wrist so he’d drop the bottle. Didn’t make it out unscathed either. Got sliced across the stomach, still have scars to prove it.”

I grimaced. That sounded painful, and as a human, he wouldn’t have healed swiftly.

“I was cussing myself out for getting involved,” he continued. “Sure that Bruce would call the police and I’d end up in jail with the two guys who started the fight. Instead, I got a job offer. I hadn’t planned to stick around Vail, but I needed cash, so I agreed to stay for a month. A month became a year. Then five years. In that time, I went from bouncer and bar back to bartender and then manager.

“When I was closing in on a decade since I first walked into the Burnout, Bruce pulled me into his office and made me another offer. He wanted to retire and ride his bike across the US and Canada before he was too old to do it; mind you, Bruce was seventy years old at this point, but he was one of the toughest bastards I’d ever met. If he wanted to live on the road until he dropped dead, he’d do it and do it well.

“He offered to sell me the Burnout. I didn’t think I’d ever end up in a spot I wanted to settle and stay, but over the ten years I’d been working here I’d fallen in love with the place. It was home. The problem was, I was still pretty broke. Lucky for me, Bruce didn’t care about money. He wanted to hand the Burnout to someone who appreciated it for what it was. ‘Folks who come into Vail usually want to remake it in their image,’ he told me. ‘They ruin everything.’ He knew I’d never change this place. He sold it to me for a dollar and wished me well.”