“It’s fucking hard to think about this.” He shut the laptop and pushed it back. “Not that I haven’t. In fact, it’s been the only thing on my mind since Saber mentioned it.”
I took my boots off and sat down. My backpack stayed packed and ready. There was no telling when I would wake up one morning and take off on a long hike. Drove the other planners in this house a bit crazy. “We still believe in Fate, right?”
Saber snorted. “Yeah, but she’s taking her sweet time, isn’t she?”
“But at least we would be trying something. Right now, we’ve just given up.”
Aldrin threw his hands up. I knew what was coming next. Honestly, this was how we made a lot of decisions. “Fuck it.”
Saber was next. “Fuck it.”
Who was I to break the chain? “Fuck it. Saber, tell us what to do.”
In less than an hour, we’d signed up for the app together, linked our accounts. We chose all kinds of pictures of us not only together but solo.
We put our phones down and went about our business. I grabbed some leftovers for breakfast while Aldrin and Saber went back to planning the trip to Nairobi.
I had taken one bite of my oatmeal when all three of our phones buzzed with a notification sound I’d never heard before. “What the hell is that?”
Saber picked up his phone and went pale. “We…we have a match. Already.”
“What?” I exclaimed, unlocking my own device. “Already?”
Another notification.
“Um, guys? I think the match sent us a message.”
Her name was Posy. She was stunning. A match. For us.
Hi. I’ve been matched with you guys, and I wondered if you’d like to talk a little?
Chapter Five
Posy
I don’t know what I expected to happen when I finished signing up for the app. For a service that declared itself a mating one rather than dating, I sure got a lot of possible matches. It should have been more refined than that?
Fortunately, I had a lot of free time that evening to browse profiles and narrow them down for myself. So many wolves! Maybe my answers had drawn those matches? After all, I’d lived with wolves my whole life and probably had taken on some of their characteristics. How would I know the difference?
Willing to put aside prejudices based on my pack, I looked over the profiles. Each of them had humans as an option, of course, which already made them more of a choice than the boys I grew up with.
Finally, I sent a message to a cute wolf shifter who lived in the Arctic. Far, far away from home for me. I called that a plus. He even had a picture of his wolf who was white and fluffy and very cuddly looking. Why not say hello?
He replied to my short message of greeting with an extremely enthusiastic,When can we meet?
Not scary at all…How about we chat on here a bit first? Or video call?
He shot himself in the foot with,I don’t have time for that. I’m in the lower forty-eight until next week, and I need to have a mate by the time I go home. I’m a catch. I just need to know if you are. Yes or no?
I might not be finding my fated—if humans even had them as my parents insisted I did—but this guy was as pushy in his way as our alpha. I couldn’t conceive of a worse fate than ending up at the end of nowhere with someone whose ego would burstthe walls of his log cabin or whatever he lived in up there in the land of ice and snow. Months of darkness trapped inside with that narcissism?No, thank you.
Your loss.
How did a person respond to a comment like that? Mom was one of those mothers who always said, “you can’t say anything nice, tell them to fuck off.” Well…not that word exactly.
No, it’s yours. And I feel sorry for any female desperate enough to accept what you are offering.
Then I blocked him.
