Sweet Alice, a Shifters' Short Story, by Sarah A. Hoyt

Even though "Sweet Alice" is included in the Bonus Content section of "Crawling Between Heaven and Earth," it's also offered as a separate transaction on Amazon, and that's how I got it. So, I'll give it a review of its' own.

My first introduction to Sarah Hoyt was "Draw One In The Dark," which I picked up on Baen,com. I don't remember if I got it when it was part of the Baen Free Library or not, but it was there and still is, and whether the first taste was free or not, I got hooked enough on the stories of the Athens Diner to read all of them. Sweet Alice is the back story of one of the main characters (or should I say 'mane characters') in the series, Police Officer Rafiel Trall, of the Goldport Police Department.
He's a shape-shifter. A lion. And when we meet him, he is in that form, and he wants to ...snuggle...with the main character, Kyrie, who also happens to be a shape-shifter (a panther). Despite the intense chemistry between the two of them, they never hook up. Some of that is due to Kyrie's attraction to Tom, a shape-shifting dragon, and former drug addict (and unfortunately in real life, sometimes good girls really do like bad boys, but it works out okay in the story), but partly because Rafiel just doesn't try to push the relationship. He's got some problems with commitment.
And the story of Sweet Alice explains that. She was his high school sweetheart, but he never told her he was a lion.
And I'm not going to tell you not one single thing else about the story. Get Sweet Alice by it's lonesome, or get Crawling Between Heaven and Earth, and find out yourself.
You will be glad you did.