AllFreeNovel
Share Us
CHAPTERONE
Mia Slattery stood in front of her closet and stared at the contents. Her mind spun as she considered all the possible combinations.
“I think maybe this top and these pants,” she said, pulling a dark-green blouse and black dress pants from the closet. She turned to face her bestie and the alpha female of her wolf pack, Brynn.
Brynn sat on the bed and looked up from where she was digging a spoon into a tub of chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream.
“Too dressy.”
“But–” she said, looking at the outfit.
“It looks like you’re trying too hard.”
Mia wrinkled her nose. “Well, I don’t want that.”
Putting the blouse and pants back, she flipped through her clothes again.
“Did I tell you that my parents invited me to go on vacation with them?”
“Oh? Where are they going?” Brynn asked.
“Reno. Dad has a conference there, and they’re staying at a resort casino that has a circus theme.”
“Did they ask Mal to go?”
Mia’s only brother was mated to a human named Nila. Her son, Jack, was absolutely adorable, and she and Malachi were expecting their first child together in a few months.
“They asked, but Mal said he’s got too much going on with the wedding and work to leave.”
Malachi and Nila were getting married after the April full moon, and Mia was going to be the maid of honor at their small wedding. She’d helped Nila with the invitations, had already picked up her navy-blue dress, and was just waiting for her dyed-to-match heels to come back from the shoe store. Malachi and his best friend, Lucian, ran a successful security company – L&M Security. Malachi was also a high-ranked male in the pack, and very good friends with Brynn’s mate, Acksel.
“Did you say yes to the vacation?” Brynn put the now-empty ice cream container on the nightstand and leaned back on the bed.
“I said maybe. I could take off work, but I’m not sure that I want to go to a casino, no matter how fun the theme of the place is.”
“You could meet a sexy circus performer.”
Mia arched a brow. “What?”
“I don’t know. Maybe. It wouldn’t hurt to broaden your horizons.”
“That’s what this dinner is about.”
Malachi had a firm don’t-date-my-sister rule for his friends. Especially Lucian, who Mia had secretly loved since she was little, when he came to live with his grandparents in Wilde Creek.
He and Mal had become instant best friends, and Mia had drooled after him like a puppy. But since Mal had the no-touch policy, Lucian had never looked at her as anything but his friend’s kid sister.
Nila, because she was ten kinds of awesome, had arranged to invite Lucian to dinner at their home the next time he was in town. He lived away from Wilde Creek now, had ever since he’d turned eighteen and enlisted in the military. When he’d come back a few years later, he was ripped with muscles and covered with tattoos, and she’d been pining for him even harder ever since.
“Mal is going to flip his lid when he sees you at dinner,” Brynn pointed out.
“I know. But it’ll be too late by then. I think this is my last chance. It…feels like it.”
“Last chance with Lucian?”
“Yeah. I’ve been holding onto him for such a long time, hoping he’d want to be with me as much as I want to be with him. I’ll pull him aside and talk to him. If he isn’t interested, then I’ll be able to move on. I can’t really do that until I know for sure.”
It would hurt if he didn’t actually care for her, but she didn’t have a choice. She was staring down the barrel of twenty-six. Which wasn’t all that old in the scheme of life, but possibly one-quarter of her life was gone already, and she wasn’t in a relationship. Shewantedto find her mate, the one guy on the planet meant for her. Her wolf was insistent that the male for them was Lucian, but he didn’t seem interested. It was time to pull off the Band-Aid; even if it was going to potentially be the worst, most painful thing she ever did to herself.
