"It's really unfair," said Vex.

"I hate stacking shelves," said Kalix, wearily.

"Then next time, don't steal all the money for paying the bills."

"I wish I'd never learned how to write," moaned the young werewolf. "Then I wouldn't have been able to fill in the application form for this place."

The three flatmates carried on unloading the truck and transferring the seemingly endless flow of goods into the storerooms, and from there onto the shelves of the supermarket.

"How are things with Decembrius?" asked Daniel.

"Terrible. I slept with him one time, and now everything is awkward and difficult. We keep fighting."

"Welcome to the world of normal relationships."

From Kalix's expression, it was obvious she didn't like the world of normal relationships very much. They seemed to be a lot more complicated than her previous youthful passion.

"Are you going to ask Moonglow out now the curse has been lifted?" Vex asked Daniel.

Daniel shook his head. "She says senior staff can't go out with juniors. It's against company policy."

"Maybe when we've stopped working here, you can try again."

"Maybe. At least she's stopped shouting at us now we're earning money."

Vex struggled to lift an enormous crate of tinned soup. Kalix helped her, and together they loaded it into a giant metal cage on wheels, ready to take into the supermarket and fill the shelves.

Vex sighed. "I thought if you passed an exam you got a better job."

"Not your first one. You have to pass more exams than that."

"Oh. Well, I suppose we'll have to do more. Hey Kalix, do you want to be cheerleaders at college next year? I can really see us in some nice little outfits."

ABOUT THE BOOK, AND A LETTER FROM THE PUBLISHER.

This is a Red Lemonade book, published in collaboration with Underland Press, publisher of the print edition of Curse of the Wolf Girl, with the assistance of the excellent Malcolm Imrie, Martin Millar's agent and with Martin himself This publication is for us quite unusual as all other Red Lemonade books are published by Red Lemonade in all reasonably possible formats-limited artisan-produced editions, in trade paperback editions, and in all current digital editions, as well as online at the Red Lemonade publishing community.

A word about this community. Over my years in publishing, I learned that a publisher is the sum of all its constituent parts: above all the writers, of course, and yes, the staff, but also all the people who read our books, talk about our books, support our authors, and those who want to be one of our authors themselves.

So I started a company called Cursor, designed to make these constituent parts fit better together, into a proper community where, finally, we could be greater than the sum of the parts. The Red Lemonade publishing community is the first of these and there will be more to come-for the current roster of communities, see the Cursor website.

For more on how to participate in the Red Lemonade publishing community, including the opportunity to share your thoughts about this book, read what others have to say about it, and share your own manuscripts with fellow writers, readers, and the Red Lemonade editors, go to the Red Lemonade website.

Also, we want you to know that these sites aren't just for you to find out more about what we do, they're places where you can tell us what you do, what you want, and to tell us how we can help you. Only then can we really have a publishing community be greater than the sum of its parts.

All the best,

Richard Nash.

end.