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“And there are more of you? More than you and that jackal woman?”
“There are.”
“Then why doesn’t anyone know? People document everything and live their lives on social media. It just doesn’t seem possible that there would be people who could turn into animals and no one’s ever noticed anything.”
“Shifters.”
She waved a hand at him.
“We’re very careful,” he said. “The secret is the most important thing to our people. Humans wouldn’t know what to do with our kind, so we stay hidden. The park is our cover, the safari tour is where we spend time posing as our animals for the patrons.”
He launched into a story about how their people were looking for their soulmates, the one person on the planet meant for them, and that they used VIP tour tickets to bring in single men and women from the surrounding areas in the hopes they’d be mates.
“You’re using the word mate a lot.”
“It’s an important word.”
He half-smiled, and she sorta hated how it made him even more gorgeous.
“If I told you I wanted you to take me to my parents’ house because I don’t want to be here anymore?” she asked, even though she knew the answer.
“You can’t leave, Rhomi. I’m sorry, but the knowledge you have is too dangerous. Now that you know, you have to stay here in the park, in this apartment, until the alphas know for sure you won’t share the secret.”
“I won’t.”
No one would believe me anyway.
“I know it sucks, but it’s not so bad being stuck with me, is it?”
“You lied to me.”
“I had to. I wanted to know I had your heart, that you wouldn’t betray me, before I shared the truth.” He paused, then said, “You’re not the only human soulmate in the park, you know. There are others.”
She stared at him. Once more, she felt like he was speaking a foreign language. She’d never once referred to herself as a human, and soulmate? That was a romantic notion, not a reality, right?
She rubbed her temple with her fingertips as everything she’d heard in the last few minutes, everything she’d witnessed since coming back to the park, now spun in an endlesswhat the hell?cyclone in her mind.
“Listen,” he said, “you came to the park with your friends and you said you felt compelled to come to the security office. It’s because I was there, because you and I were meant to meet.”
“I just had a notion to go ask for a job,” she said.
“You can call it a notion and try to dismiss what’s happening between us,” he said with a low voice that made goosebumps rise on her skin, “but you feel the connection between us. Humans might not have soulmates the way we think of them, but you do feel connected to me, don’t you?”
He stared at her earnestly.
It was super tempting to tell him to go to hell and demand to be taken home, but the truth was, she did feel connected to him and had thought it was strange when she’d felt compelled to go to the security office.
And shewasin love with him. That he was a shifter was a complication she hadn’t expected and wasn’t sure what to do with, but she knew she’d never tell anyone, not even Darcy and Reagan or her parents. If humans collectively found out about shifters, it wouldn’t be good. Humans didn’t traditionally have a good record of being kind to things that were different. They’d be a threat, possibly locked up and experimented on. She shivered, trying not to picture Mercer locked up and in pain because she’d betrayed him.
“I can give you time to come to terms with things,” Mercer said, rising to his feet. He unfolded himself in front of her, all broad shoulders and tapered waist and muscles upon muscles. “But you can’t leave. And truthfully, I don’t want you to leave anyway. You’re my soulmate and fate brought us together, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to let you go.” He turned, but then swung back to face her. “You can’t leave the apartment without me. There’s a guard out front, and the complex is being watched as well, so if you were thinking you might escape through a window or sneak out the door, it won’t work. Our secret is more important than anything.”
He walked away and she heard him shut the bedroom door, leaving her alone in the family room.
She had the strangest feeling that he was pissed at her.
Maybe because she hadn’t just accepted all this craziness right away? Well, excuse her for being surprised to find out her new boyfriend was actually a freaking lion!
Dropping her head to the back of her couch, she muttered, “This is the craziest thing that’s ever happened to me on a date.”
