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Her eyes narrowed. “Are you really asking me that?”
“No, of course not. It didn’t take you very long, is all.”
“You think I need to dance naked around a bonfire and cast a spell to figure out what female is a good match for you?” she scoffed. “My matching abilities are well tuned. If you’re asking me to match you, she is the perfect female for the alpha of the Kedrick pride.”
His lion let out a disgruntled growl, but Duke plugged his mental ears. It was time for him to be alpha and start a family. That’s what males did, and he’d been raised since birth to follow in his father’s footsteps. Perhaps Madison wasn’t as cold as she appeared in the photo, with her lips curved into a thin, haughty sneer.
“Okay. I accept the match. What now?”
“Now, I make arrangements for a meeting with your family and hers. You will be officially betrothed, and the ceremony can happen shortly after.”
“How long?”
She shrugged. “A week perhaps, maybe more.”
“Good. Thank you, Abbie.” He stood and took her hand, kissing the top.
“Anything for the future alpha.”
Which was just what he was going to be, as soon as he mated Madison. It didn’t have to be a heart-match, it just had tobea match, so he could be alpha. Finally, all his plans for his future were lining up. A mate. The alphaship. And a few cubs.
What more could he want or need?
Chapter 2
Memory Hendrix kicked off her heels at the door to her apartment and leaned against it with a yawn. The day had been a long one, thanks, in part, to a power outage that took out the whole block of the bank where she worked. So everything that couldn’t get accomplished during the outage, had to be finished once the power was restored, which made for a really, really long day. Thankfully, it was Thursday, and that meant just one more day until the weekend.
She hung her purse on the coat rack and then crossed the family room to the small, but cozy kitchen. Her apartment was one of four in a quaint building. Her younger sister, Mercy, lived across the hall. Just as she crossed the threshold, the front door squeaked as it opened and Mercy called out, “I thought you’d never get home. I forgot to go grocery shopping again.”
Letting out a sigh loud enough for Mercy to hear, Ree said, “Did you really forget? Or do you just like being a mooch?”
Mercy came into the kitchen and walked straight to the fridge. “It’s not mooching if it’s family.”
“I disagree. Like a thousand percent.”
Mercy straightened with a container of chicken salad that Ree had made the day before and said, “You still love me. Case in point, you made my favorite thing in the whole world.”
“It’s true. I have to love you, though, I think it’s a law or something.”
Ree opened the bread box and removed a container of croissants from a local bakery, which she handed to Mercy. Ree set the table and grabbed two bottles of peach iced tea from the fridge. When the sandwiches were made, she listened as Mercy talked about her day. Her sister was a stylist at a local salon, and was well liked by her clients. She had a flair for hair and had been cutting Ree’s hair since high school.
Ree noticed that Mercy’s long, chocolate locks were now tipped with pink.
“The color is cute. Did you do that today?”
“Yeah. I had a client cancel and I thought – why not dye my ends pink?”
“Must be nice. When I get bored at work I have to do filing.”
“You could have gone to cosmetology school like me,” she pointed out.
“No thanks.” Ree had never cared to wash strangers’ hair all day, or listen to their problems. Mercy, on the other hand, was very outgoing and sympathetic.
“I have the weekend off,” Mercy said. “We’re going to kick it off by going out for a drink tomorrow night.” Ree opened her mouth to say her standard “no” when Mercy put up her hand. “Don’t say no, or that you’ll think about it. You and I haven’t gone out for a drink in ages, and one of my clients told me about a bar in Kedrick.”
Ree’s brows lifted. Kedrick was a town that shifters called home. Specifically, lion shifters. Humans and shifters lived and worked together, but there were towns where the majority of people living within the boundaries were able to change into an animal of one kind or another. Kentucky, for some reason, attracted big cat shifters.
“It’s a shifter bar?” she asked.
