AllFreeNovel
Share Us
PROLOGUE
Five years earlier
Ismile, looking up to my mom as she playfully bats my dad’s hands away from her so she can finish making my birthday cake. I’m fourteen today. Big deal, right? If I’d only known then that it would be my last birthday with them I wouldn’t have whined that my dad had a surprise for me, that did not include my friends and a party.
“I know you want to hang out with your friends, sweetheart, but tonight give an old man a break. Let me keep the two most beautiful women all to myself,” my dad said while giving me puppy dog eyes.
I rolled my eyes. “Old man, yeah right,” I scoffed. My dad is so handsome that after age twelve every one of my friends got tongue-tied if he even walked in the room. “Whatever, Dad.”
“Cake’s almost ready, Sophie. Go on and get ready. We have a reservation at eight o’clock,” my mom interrupts, looking as beautiful as my dad is handsome.
“Okay, Mom. Where are we going? Do I need to change?” I look down at my jeans and Scooby-Doo t-shirt.
“No, sweetheart, you look pretty.” I run upstairs to check my long, wavy hair for frizz and grab my phone. I have a couple text messages from friends wishing me a happy birthday and asking if I was coming out later. I ignore the messages, intending to respond when I get home.
Twenty minutes later, we pull up to my favorite restaurant. The downtown area of our upper-middle-class neighborhood is quaint. Black streetlights fashioned after antique gas lamps line the relatively busy sidewalk.
There’s even an old-fashioned movie theater that still plays black and white movies that my parents like to watch on date nights and a few trendy boutiques lining the road.
As soon as I step out of the car, I feel funny, butterflies making my tummy feel sour. When we pass a small pub, the feeling intensifies. My dad notices me holding my hand over my belly and asks if I’m okay.
“Yeah, I guess I shouldn’t have had that spoonful of icing. My tummy is just a little off,” I reply, grimacing to myself about how I found my mom and dad sharing a kiss in the kitchen, so I stole the wooden spoon Mom was using to decorate my cake.
Mates! I think with an eye roll. My parents were lucky enough to find each, other not all shifters do. The few that do find their mates live out their lives with the other half, content that they have the other piece of their soul beside them. Unfortunately, the rest make do, hoping that one day it will be their turn.
At dinner, my belly seems to calm. We eat, laugh, and eat some more while the men at the grill sing happy birthday to me. My cheeks light like lamps as every head turns to stare at our table. Looking down, I finish my meal quickly, embarrassed by the attention.
After dinner, we decide to walk up the street and get ice cream. I leave my parents, lost in each other, sitting on a bench sharing a cone and go grab my sweatshirt from the car.
“Hurry back, sweetheart,” Dad says while pulling Mom closer.
Back at the car, my tummy churns again. Agh. “What is wrong with me?”
The door to the pub opens, and the butterflies explode in my stomach, causing me to suck in a gasp. The scent of forest, frost, and leather hits me first. Holy biscuits, that smells good. I won’t shift for two more years, but my body knows what the smell affecting me so profoundly means. Mate. A man rounds the door and stops dead in his tracks.
My eyes rise and rise to meet his. The shadows keep the details hidden, but his strong jaw and large frame tell me he is much older than me. After what seems like years passing, he takes one step closer and clenches his fists. Dark hair falling just past his ears blows back from his rugged face showing me his scruffy jaw tensing repeatedly. Fear lashes at me, not from this man but from not knowing what’s next. I’ve never heard of mates meeting so young. It happens after the first shift, not before.
“Mate,” he utters so deep and quietly that I almost miss it, but his voice soothes my nerves.
The door opens again as a group of boisterous men and women stumble out. Only seconds have passed when a gorgeous blonde grabs his arm and slides her hand into his, looking at him with love clearly written on her face. He doesn’t push her away, nor does he look away from me. We stand frozen as the world moves around us.
One of the men slaps him on the back and says, “Mase, you missed it, man. Roxanne just slapped that girl that kept staring at you all night.”
He turns to the man that was just speaking, and the spell is broken. I look down, rubbing my hands across my belly, not sure what’s happening when the same man speaks again, “Who’s the little lady?” Head cocked to the side like he’s trying to figure me out. By this time, I have everyone in the group’s attention. Stepping back from the weight of their stares, I fumble with the sweatshirt I retrieved from the car.
The blonde woman slits her eyes at me and asks, “Mase?”
“No one,” he growls. The ache in my stomach instantly moves to my chest, hollowing it out.
No one,I repeat in my head.
“I almost ran into her when I came out just making sure she’s okay,” he grates.
“She looks great to me,” the other man says as his eyes run up and down my body making me squirm. A low rumble sounds and everyone freezes turning to him.
“Don’t,” my mate says. To me, to them? I’m not sure. Everyone in the group is still frozen staring at him, except for her. She looks at me. I would run if my feet would let me, to him or away from her, I don’t know that either.
“What’s your name, little girl,” she spits like a viper.
