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So, trying to remain calm and not put too much into it, I went into the bathroom and showered, brushed my teeth, the basics before heading toward the kitchenette to make coffee. My self-control shattered before I hit the button on the single-serve coffee dispenser, and I ran back to where I’d left my phone and snatched it up.
Dropping into a comfy chair near the sofa, I swiped my screen and tapped on the notification.
You have a message from a member at Mail-Order Matings. Click here for your love note!
Yeah well. Someone had a sense of humor because if there was ever something less likely, I didn’t know what it was. Still…I clicked.
Hi, Ilya. Thanks for your contact. We’d like to get to know you better. Draven, Menace, and I think you could be the right one for us. Saber.
Saber was one of the orcs. Before I fell asleep, I’d done a little research on them and even found a few romance novels that featured them instead of bear and wolf shifters. But the lore about them seemed mysterious and maybe a little conflicted. And the only way I’d get more information was going to be straight from them.
I read the message again, trying to see what was there between the lines. I could be the one for them? They’d like to get to know me better? Well, they said they weren’t looking for romance, and their “love note” certainly went along with that. But then neither was I, right?
But I had to reply. They were offering exactly what I said I wanted… So, why did I feel a teeny bit let down by the fact? But replying! I took a moment to try to compose a message that would sound interested but not desperate. Because I was nothing if not that, but I couldn’t convey it. I had most of two weeks left here with Cindy, although I did not really want to camp out here the whole time. She was trying to get ready to move in with her new mates. So the sooner I made plans of my own, the better.
Hello, Saber. Thanks for writing back. I’m interested in getting to know you better as well. What would you like to know about me?I erased it before I hit send. Yes, I wanted us to get to know one another, but I wasn’t prepared to open with the gory details of my recent history. And it seemed logical that they might ask what made me sign up for the app or want to make a big change. After all, they didn’t live anywhere near me.
So I typed again.Hi, Saber. Nice to meet you.And that was 100 percent the most insipid reply I could imagine.
One more time, and no matter what I wrote, I was sending. If I couldn’t even manage to return a greeting, how on earth would I deal with them when we met?
If we met.
Hi to all of you. I think you could be the ones for me. Ilya.
This one went. I thought it said what I needed it to. Waiting for a response, I went back to get that coffee. By the time I sat down with my steaming cup, I had a reply.What do you think of a video chat?
Fear suffused me. Or maybe it was something a little less than that, but I was still worried at the very least. Sure, I’d seen their pictures in their bio, but how would I react seeing them moving and speaking? Truth, they were a little intimidating even in the still shots.
But if I was considering them as partners in life, wasn’t I going to have to see them in person eventually? I mean…I wasn’t going to get any babies without more than a video chat. And everything they had to offer involved going there and finding out if we could live together in companionship and security and without romance. But, obviously, with sex.
And then a thought occurred to me. These were three big guys inviting me to live in their home. What if they wanted a sex slave or something? Was I jumping from the frying pan into the fire? People could write anything they wanted on their profiles. A quick text told me nothing except that they could type.
A video chat would be an excellent way to dive deeper into this before I made a decision. And maybe instead of worrying about what I might think of them, I should be concerned about what they thought of me. They would be taking on someone who had very little to contribute. No money, no job, no car…no anything.
And I’d never considered myself a great beauty. How often did I see men of less than traditional handsomeness with a gorgeous woman on their arm? If they wanted some kind of a sex kitten, there were many many profiles on this app they could have chosen. Most of whom, as I’d flipped through, seemed to have lots more to bring to the table than I did.
I didn’t need to leap…but I did need to take a step to see if these men, these orcs, seemed to be the ones for me.
Yes, when is good for you?
Chapter Ten
Draven
Purple hair. That was the first thing I saw. Gorgeous, long, flowing violet locks that were attached to a woman ten times more beautiful than her picture made her seem.
The three of us must’ve taken an hour deciding where in the house we would have the chat. Menace insisted it should be inside on the off chance that this female was a hunter using the app as a guise to get our location so she could hunt us down.
I mentally shook my head at Menace. He meant well, but damn.
“Hello, Ilya,” I said after she greeted us. She was sitting at a table in a tiny kitchen with white-and-pink striped walls. It didn’t seem like her taste but, then again, I’d only known the woman for five seconds—profile info excepted.
She smiled, and I swore my heart surged to at least twice its regular size. “Hi, you’re Draven? I’m sorry. I didn’t get a lot of time to study your pictures. It’s all happening so fast. It’s not a bad thing, but I’m getting used to it.”
Saber moved more into the picture. “He’s Draven. I’m Saber. And the brooding one is Menace.”
Menace grunted, but I had a feeling he wasn’t going to say much during this call. He took a minute to warm up to folks, and we didn’t see very many people.
