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“I already downloaded it. Started browsing,” I answered, handing him my phone.
“Oh!” He pressed his thumb on the app but then frowned. “You didn’t make a profile.”
“Do you know how many questions it asked. I answered about fifteen thousand of them and then gave up. Had to get back to work.”
Orion scrubbed a hand down his face. His skin had tanned in the sun since we were given wood-splitting duties, while I had remained the same. “All of the questions are there for a purpose, Koa. They want you to be specific so they can find our mate for us. Can you imagine us not finding her because you were too impatient with the questions?”
I tore into my sandwich, taking out half of it while he fussed at me. He really did favor his mother when he bitched about things. “Fine,” I grumbled around the bite. “I’ll do it tonight. After I cook.”
He shook his head. “What are you cooking anyway?” He took a big bite himself, already thinking about his next meal.
“A roast with all the vegetables. Thought I’d do a mushroom risotto along with it.”
Orion sighed. “I’ll make you a deal. You cook, and I will ask you all the questions and clean up. Make it easy on you.”
I scoffed. “Aren’t some of those questions quite intimate?”
“Dude, we’re going to share a mate. If you’re kinky, she needs to know beforehand.”
Chuckling, I kicked him with my boot. “I’m not. Honestly, who the fuck knows.” The truth was, I had saved myself for my mate. Sex with anyone but my mate wouldn’t come close to mating with her, so I didn’t bother. I would find her eventually.
Once we finished lunch, Orion resumed taking the split logs to the woodshed, and I returned to splitting.
Orion was my best friend but I felt more alone than ever. The trails and showing people the wonder around us used to quell some of that, but now that I had been shifted to splitting wood, the hollowness was slowly taking over.
Chapter Three
Orion
Koa clocked out later than expected. He texted me that there was some kind of emergency with one of the hot tubs. The resort had at least ten and, with their constant use, they were always in need of maintenance. We had made the mistake of letting management see that, between us, we could fix just about anything.
Now we were tasked with fixing just about everything.
Taking a seat on one of the plush chairs in front of the roaring fire in the staff area, I pulled out my phone and decided to scroll through the Mail-Order Matings app. I had installed it on my phone before even telling Koa, knowing that my best friend would be less than gung-ho about it.
We didn’t just need a mate—we needed our mate, our one fated female that would not only love us but would keep our secret close to her heart. Shifters were still not accepted as real by all humans, but, between books and movies, our existence wasn’t so scary anymore. While most shifters still kept to themselves, humans were more accepting when there was a sighting.
Because humans loved bears and wolves and even dragons.
Bigfoots…they liked to hunt us. For pictures. For evidence. They wanted to prove to themselves and to the world that we existed. That the sightings weren’t all confusion and speculation.
They wanted to be right.
We just wanted to live in peace.
The Mail-Order Matings app had changed some of that stigma around shifters. There were all kinds of people on the app, all looking for something. Humans wanting shifter mates. Shifters wanting humans. Females wanting monsters. Monsters wanting a breeder. Reverse harems were only a drop in the hat of the different kinds of relationships beings wanted to partake in, and they were all on the app, wanting love more than anything.
Except, there wasn’t a Bigfoot to be found. At least, not that I could see.
We were concerned about that, but we didn’t have to disclose a location, and the only pictures of us would be our human sides.
It was scary putting ourselves out there, but even more frightening was the thought of Koa and I living alone for the rest of our lives and never having the family we so deeply craved.
“Ready?” Koa’s voice snapped me to attention.
“That was quick,” I responded, standing up.
“Yeah, well, I can’t fix a cracked hot tub. One look and I knew it was beyond me. I covered it up, put on an out of order sign, and I’m going home.”
