by Milly Taiden
“Thanks Aunt Gerri,” Theron said. “We’ll see you next week for dinner.”
She waved them away with a smile. A moment later her cell phone rang.
“Paranormal Dating Agency, how can I help you?” Gerri answered her business cell phone with a smile.
“Hi, is this Mrs. Wilder?” A woman asked hesitantly.
“Yes, it is. Who might you be?” She glanced at the open file on her desk. An unruly bear shifter who didn’t want a mate but his sister was adamant he get one. The name his sister provided for the mate was a much more difficult task. A human. One she’d recently become familiar with through her neighbor.
“This is Nita, Tally’s cousin. She gave me your card and said you could um...that I could use your services.”
Gerri grinned. Would wonders never cease? It was perfect. A plan formed in her mind. “She told me about you, Nita. Said you were a no-nonsense type of woman.”
Nita laughed softly. “Yeah, that’s me. So, I am interested in seeing who you can match me up with.”
“I think I can help you.” Gerri picked up the address to her unsuspecting bear client. “Tell me something, do you like mountain getaways?”
“I do, but I was looking for a possible date.”
Gerri picked up a pen and wrote down notes. “This definitely is a date. You’ll have to travel a bit since my client is out of the city, but I know he’ll just love meeting someone just as no-nonsense as him.”
“Oh, wonderful! I’m more than happy to try.”
“Excellent. Come by and see me. I have everything you need.”
Gerri hung up with a smile. That bear had no idea what was coming. Then again, neither did the human. This would be fun.
Continue the series with Geek Bearing Gifts
THE END
Savage Bite
Savage Shifters Book 1
NEW YORK TIMES and USA TODAY BESTSELLING AUTHOR
MILLY TAIDEN
Chapter One
“Mother!” Zuri Primrose stomped through her front door, removing the jacket she’d worn for no reason when it was hot as balls outside, and tossed it on the nearest chair. “Mother, I know you’re in here. There’s no use hiding.”
This was it. Mother or not, she wasn’t letting her join them in girls’ night again. Nope. She was done for. Finito.
Her sister, Sage, glanced at her from the book she was reading on the sofa. Sage’s colorful hair hung over her breast in a pool of curls. “What’s wrong?”
“Oh,” Zuri growled, slapping her hands on her pants. She’d left the bakery shop and rushed to the house without even grabbing a bottle of water to cool down on such a hot day. She never knew what to wear since the weather was going bipolar and it was supposed to be fall. One day, it was hot, and the next, it could plummet to super cold. “I’ll tell you what’s wrong. She is crazy. She’s fucking off the charts insane.” She huffed. “We need to have her committed. That’s the bottom line.”
“Why?” asked her other sister, Isaline. She walked into the living room with a big bag of veggie chips. Zuri glared at her. Isaline had begged them to not keep the veggie chips around but she somehow always found Zuri’s stash. And of course, she ate them without asking. Isaline was always on some fad diet and that meant she was also always hungry.
“She signed me up to attend the Shifter Mate Gathering. I’m not a shifter. Does she not remember that?”
Isaline popped a veggie chip into her mouth, her eyes growing wide. “Oh, no,” she crunched loudly. “Once you’re signed up, you can’t back out.”
“Holy fuck,” Sage gasped, her eyes saucer-wide. She put the book she’d been reading, a dirty romance novel Zuri had recommended, next to her on the sofa and watched her with shock. “Isn’t that where shifters go to get mates?”
Zuri raised her hands as if someone had finally figured it out. “Thank you, Sage! Yes. Yes, it fucking is. And just because we live in a town full of shifters does not mean we are one of them.”
“You have to go,” Isaline told her between crunches. Her big blue eyes were full of concern. “If you don’t, it’s like a huge dishonor or some shit.”
“MOTHER!” Zuri yelled loud enough to make her sisters wince. “Get your ass out here, right now! You need to fix this.”
It was a few seconds before her mom, local baking legend Mirabel Primrose of Primrose Yummies, popped her head from around the wall that led to the kitchen. “Hello, darling. I had no idea you were home already. It’s so hot out, do you want some iced tea?”
Zuri growled again. She took a harsh breath and let it out slowly. Her mother did this all the time. Try to make them interact with people when they were not interested. “Mom, why did your assistant at the store hand me an invitation to the Shifter Mate Gathering?”
Mirabel’s blue eyes, much like Isaline’s, widened just a fraction before a frown covered her brow. “Hmm…I’m not sure I know what you’re referring to, darling.”
“Uh-oh,” Sage mumbled. “That’s her tell.”
Mirabel glanced at Sage, brushing her short blonde hair behind her ear. “What tell?”
“When you say ‘Hmm’ is when we know you did something bad. Really bad. Why did you sign Zuri up for the Shifter Mate Gathering?” Sage asked.
“Yeah,” Isaline said. “And why didn’t you sign us up, too?”
Zuri gave her sister a look. “Are you crazy? Would you really want to be paraded in front of shifters like you’re some kind of deli meat?”
“Mmm,” Isaline moaned, licking a chip and chewing furiously. “Now I want a sandwich.”
Sage shook her head at Isaline. “Focus on the problem at hand, Isaline!”
Zuri gave Sage a thankful nod. “Mom, you know you did it. We know you did it. The shifter community knows you did it. The question is why did you do it?”
“Because you need a mate,” Mirabel finally said with a shrug. “Excuse me for trying to help my oldest daughter find a man who will treat her right, love her, do anything for her, and finally give me the grandchildren I’ve been waiting for, for the past god-knows how many years!”
Zuri curled her hands at her sides. “No. No no no no no! You are not going to flip this on me. I can find a man on my own, thank you very much. Why you felt the need to set me up on some freak shifter mating thing is beyond me.”
Mirabel raised a brow and gripped her apron before letting it go. “You know very well that you’ve been so head deep in culinary school that you refuse to come up for air and meet a man or two. All you spend time with are those dishes you make and bring Isaline like she needs more temptation.”
Zuri gasped, hurt that her mother would say that about the only thing Zuri had going for herself. Were it not for her culinary classes, she would have no reason to leave her home. “If Isaline didn’t want my food, she’s more than capable of telling me that.”
Isaline’s jaw dropped open, a veggie chip hanging from her lips. “Wha-? Wait, I love your food, Zuri, don’t listen to Mom. She’s just trying to excuse her crazy.”
Mirabel rolled her eyes, folding her arms over her chest. “You need to stop all the dieting, Isaline. Every time you start depriving yourself, you want to eat everything in your path.”
Chapter Two
“Mother,” Zuri called out, closing the distance between them and gripping the back of one of the living room chairs, “we’re not done with you and the shifter thing.”
“You don’t have to go,” Mirabel sighed, her shoulders slumping. “I can ask the lovely lady who’s organizing it to remove your name. I just wanted to try and help you meet men, sweetie. You’re so young and beautiful.” She walked toward Zuri, her eyes filling with moisture. “And I just want you to find love. You’re thirty-nine years old. In a few months, you’re going to be forty. Do you really not want to meet a man and start a family already?”
Zuri’s anger deflated. “Mom, you know I do. I just refuse to waste my time with some loser again. I spent too many years being someone’s
wife. Now I am me, Zuri. Cooking school is keeping me busy.”
“Honey, I get that, but you’ve gone to school for so many things. First, you were doing real estate. Flipping houses and all that stuff. You made all that money with your ex. But when you divorced,” she bit her lip and placed a hand on Zuri’s arm, “you lost yourself a little. I just want to see you find the woman who had her shit together again.”
“Mom…” She blew on her bangs.
“No. Don’t mom, me,” Mirabel said softly. “You stood by Edward. You were his partner in every sense of the word. You two tried. Nobody will ever say you didn’t. You stood by him when he fought cancer and won. And you flipped houses together for a long time. You made money. You learned many things. But it did not bring you closer together. It’s time to move past that, Zuri. It’s time to learn to live again.”
Her mom was right. After being married for almost ten years and then getting a divorce, she’d lost track of who she was. Her marriage had been her life. Then, when Edward got sick and he needed her, she’d done everything for him to know he wasn’t alone. She’d become the woman he wanted. That’s the biggest mistake she’d made. She’d become Edward’s wife and forgot who Zuri was.
When they grew so far apart it wasn’t worth it to stay together, she realized she needed to find herself again. How could she have forgotten the young, happy, carefree woman she used to be? She sighed and gave her mother a soft look. “I get what you’re trying to do. I really do, but this is crazy. A shifter mating gathering? Am I going to be the only human there?”
Sage sat up on the sofa. “So, you’re going?”
All the fear of being around shifters aside, she thought back to her old self. The Zuri that would look at this as a big adventure. She needed to get that girl in her life again. “Yeah. I’ll go.”
“Oh!” Mirabel squealed, her eyes filling with tears again. “This is going to be so awesome, honey. You’ll see. Even if you’re not someone’s mate, I bet the experience will be interesting. You’ve always said you wondered about shifters. They’re really nice men. With um…massive appetites.”
Isaline blinked. “Like for dessert?”
Zuri laughed. “Don’t be dense, Isaline. I think Mom means sex.”
Isaline rushed over and shoved more veggie chips in her mouth. “We’ll need to find you something to wear,” she mumbled between bites. “Oh my god. I’m so stressed for you. I need to find something else to eat.”
Zuri raised her brows. “What does me doing this have anything to do with you eating?”
Isaline rolled her eyes. “Hello-o-o, stress makes me hungry.”
Sage laughed and hopped to her feet. “Everything makes you hungry.” She pushed her rainbow-colored curls over her shoulder. “Come on. I think I have the dress for her.”
Oh, man. This was one of the things she worried about. Before she’d married, Zuri had been young with a perky body. But at thirty-nine, she was curvy, soft and what used to be perky wasn’t perky any more. Her hips were wider than in her twenties. Her belly was soft and rounded. She had rolls. Hell, even her ass had lost some of its firmness.
Even though she worked out regularly, she couldn’t stop time. That was another reason she’d been wary of meeting another man. A relationship that took years and didn’t work out would mean she’d be closer and closer to spending the rest of her life alone. “I’m not a spring chicken, Sage.”
Mirabel blew a raspberry and squeezed her arms. “Oh, please. You’re thirty-nine, not sixty-nine. Stop acting like life’s over. You need to find love and if that means making you look a little slutty, so be it.”
“Mom!” Zuri gasped.
“Go, Mom!” Isaline laughed. “I always knew you were a bit of a ho.”
“I was a hippie. What do you expect?”
“Mom, I’m not sure pimping out your daughter is the way to find her a man,” Sage told her mom as she went into her walk-in closet.
“Listen, I will have you know that it was me who got Harry and Jessie together. They’ve been married for ten years. And I just knew Lucy and Kevin were perfect for each other. Now, they just celebrated their fifth anniversary and have two gorgeous kids. If y’all listened to me more often, you’d have families and husbands, and I would finally have all the grandkids I keep asking for. But does anyone listen to me? No.” Mirabel hopped on Sage’s bed.
She ran her fingers over the colorful quit Sage had made. They all had one. Sage had amazing talent when it came to sewing and decoration. But being so shy, she had trouble meeting men. She still lived at home, even though she spent most of her time traveling to different locations to do interior decorating projects for big hotels.
Sage finally pulled out a long silver satin dress from her closet. “I made this for a client’s big hotel opening. I ended up wearing something else, so it’s still brand new.”
“Oooh,” Isaline gushed. “I haven’t seen that one before.”
Sage grinned at her sister. “That’s because if I had shown you, you’d have just taken it, and I was holding on to it for a special occasion. I spent a lot of sleepless nights making it and I kind of love it.”
Zuri bit her lip, insecurity alive and growing in her chest. “Are you sure about this, Sage? I mean, it’s very beautiful but I don’t know if it will look good on me.”
“Just put it on,” Mirabel yelled from the bed. “You can give it back after the party.”
Zuri scowled at her mother and took the dress from Sage’s hands. It was now or never. So maybe she would look sexier than she was used to, but at the end of the day, what’s the worst that could happen?
Chapter Three
Savage McKane swiped angry claws at a massive tree. Within a few minutes, the tree shook and went down. That did nothing to abate his anger. He was tired of sitting around, waiting for his clan to get their shit together. A year ago, the issue of a mate would not have been a problem.
He had been sleeping with Greer Doher. She’d been pretty good and he’d even considered keeping her long term. It didn’t matter that his bear didn’t see her as his mate. For a while, she was fun in bed and a decent cook. But when she started telling others that she had the clan leader by the balls, Savage had something to say about that. And it wasn’t anything nice.
With his logging business expanding and most of his employees being in the clan, he tried to make sure they got first chance at a job, but too many of them wanted to piss their time away. He wasn’t going to employee good for nothing lazy asses.
If they wanted easy jobs, they could be employed by someone else. Logging was hard work. Between his lazy clan members and his ex firing up his anger, he was ready to bring down the trees with his claws alone. Good thing the river ran from his backyard down the mountain. He could always go for a dip after.
“Yo, Savage,” he heard is best friend and sheriff of Full Moon Bay, Tyson Force, yell out, “when you’re done abusing these poor trees, I want to talk to you.”
Savage gave a loud roar and shifted into his human body. His bear had gotten a decent amount of exercise and those trees would be chopped up and stored for the coming winter.
He could never have enough wood. Living away from most humans and the town meant he had to fend for himself a lot. As the leader of the Full Moon Bay Clan, he lived highest on the mountain and very close to the river. The rest of his clan lived on the edge of the river, making it easy for them to fish.
He slipped on his shorts and turned to Tyson. “What’s up?”
“You’ve got problems.”
He frowned. “What kind? If you say Greer’s been talking shit, I’ll take care of her.”
“Nah,” Tyson shook his head, a smile on his lips. “I know you have enough women ready to warm your bed. The problem is the bear clan from Midway Point. One of my guys was recently down there, his cousin lives in the area, and he heard that Billy Acer’s planning on coming up here and taking some of your women. Apparently their own have left for better clans and they t
hink the females up here are easy pickings.
“Billy the Snot doesn’t know shit. He’s been a pain in my ass since his daddy gave him the reins of the clan. Now, he thinks the world revolves around him.” He picked up his axe and readied to cut the trees he’d just brought down. “I can handle that kid.”
Tyson nodded, still looking at him. “So, what’s the story? Are you gonna mate Greer or what?”
Savage shook his head. “Not in this fucking lifetime. She’s got another thing coming if she thinks she’ll be my woman.”
Tyson laughed and slapped him on the arm. “I have a lot of work. Tonight is the full moon. That means there’s going to be more craziness than usual at the shifter gathering.” He gave him a pointed look. “Are you coming?”
“To help you?”
Tyson rolled his eyes. “No. To find a woman.”
He shook his head and slammed the axe down until it cut the tree into two pieces. “Nah. Women don’t want to live this isolated from town. They want stuff. Expensive cars. Houses. Hell, Trevor was just telling me about Rochelle. In order to get her to move up the mountain, he had to promise her he’d take her down to the city once a month to go shopping.” He winced. “That’s torture. And she made him buy some handbag that was so expensive, Trevor thought it came with a car. What kind of handbag is that expensive? I just want a mate and children. A family.”
“So, come over, man. Come find your perfect someone.” Tyson grinned.
Chapter Four
“You sound like a corny commercial. Besides, I’m too wild for those kinds of things. I don’t like dressing up and the most I’d do is scare women.”
“Hey,” Tyson argued, “I’ve seen you clean up. You put your hair in a ponytail and trim some of that beard off so we can see your face and women will go nuts.”
