Sassy Ever After: Bite My Sass (Kindle Worlds Novella) by V. Vaughn

1
    “ J uliet !” I turn toward the voice of my college roommate, Alisha, and take in her impossibly long legs and flowing salon-blond hair. Damn it. She didn’t get fat. Not that I thought she would. She’s one of those people who actually likes to run and competes in marathons. I’d hate her if I didn’t love her so much.
    I ignore the groan of the ancient conveyor belt as it begins to move to bring in luggage, and rush over to her. She lifts me off the ground in a huge bear hug. She’s a foot taller than I am, and I squeal, “Put me down!”
    “I’ve missed you so much.” She sets me back on my feet and twirls one of my curls around her finger. “I love, love, love it! I always said you should grow out your hair.” She steps back to inspect me further. “Whew! You’re still smoking hot.”
    And this is one of the reasons why Alisha, a human, was my best friend in college. No matter how down I’d get about being a curvy girl, she always thought I was sexy. She helped me get to a place where I appreciated my body.
    I link my arm with hers. “I missed you too. Where’s your luggage?”
    She waves her hand in dismissal. “It didn’t make the connection. The airline is going to deliver it to the RV park later.”
    “Well, that sucks. You know you can borrow anything of mine that you want.”
    She smiles at me. “I knew that. Thanks.”
    I ask, “How long until Chelsea and Jayden get in?” Our two friends lived in the other half of our suite at Winter Valley University and are human too. As a werewolf in a pack with very few females, I was the odd one out when I couldn’t find a mate—a fact that is apparent every day now that we’ve graduated and my girlfriends have moved to other places.
    “They should be here in about an hour,” she says. The four of us are going on a camping trip in Blue Creek. While I would have preferred a beach vacation, Alisha is getting her masters in elementary education and has limited funds. The wheels of my bag rumble behind us as we approach the waiting area. She proposed a bare-bones vacation, but I put my foot down at the tent and carrying everything on our backs. I can’t imagine sleeping in the woods in human form, and my friends don’t know what I really am. So we’re renting an RV instead.
    “Good,” I say. “We can go get a coffee while we wait.”
    We find a place that has every version of caffeine one could want, and we get in line. Alisha is going on about the kids in her class when a familiar scent makes my stomach sink. Werewolves. When we hear their laughter, it doesn’t take more than a second for Alisha to stop talking and turn to gawk at them.
    “Holy hotness at one o’clock,” she says.
    She whispered, but with their acute hearing I have no doubt they heard her. Besides which, the four of them look our way when I glance over. Great. This isn’t how I want to start my get-away-from-it-all vacation.
    I sigh, and Alisha says, “Yeah. They’re not your type. Big, muscular, and cocky as all get out.” She chuckles because she’s right. I swore off my kind and searched out quiet, nerdy human males when we were in school, while Alisha lusted after the werewolves that would only date casually unless she was a mate. Fortunately, plenty of human men are just as obnoxious as werewolves, and she ended up with a football-player boyfriend instead.
    “But they’re your type. We can sit at the table next to them.” I’m not being as generous a friend as I appear. I’m interested in why these guys are in a small-town airport and where they might be headed. I might even get an idea of the local packs and make sure we aren’t headed toward trouble. Being in an RV park will keep us safe at night, but if we go hiking like the girls plan, I don’t want to invite danger with my scent.
    A girl takes my order, and a marker scratches the she writes my name on a paper cup before she hands it to a man who is making the drinks. Alisha ordered before me, and she