by R. E. Butler
Once they were inside, and anything he said wouldn’t be picked up by human ears, he faced her. “I just had a feeling, you know? That there was someone in the park I was supposed to meet. I followed that feeling to the office and learned that you’d been there. I asked Jeanie for your number to call you, but her husband wouldn’t give it to me. He said I could meet you today when you came on the tour.”
Her brows rose. “You were waiting for me today?”
He nodded. “Do you ever feel like you were destined to meet someone, Dani? Like your whole life was leading up to one moment?”
She let out a soft sound, her brows drawing down. She opened her mouth, but then frowned as she looked behind him.
The door to the cafeteria opened, and Joss was standing in the doorway.
“Dani, your family is at the gate demanding we bring you to them,” Joss said.
“What? Are you serious?” she asked.
“Very. Neo?” Joss said his name like a question, but he could feel that it was more of a demand. Joss expected Neo to comply, so he would, or he’d face some consequences from the alpha wolf.
His gorilla wanted him to face off against the wolf, but the male in him who deferred to the alpha knew that was as dangerous as it was foolish. Joss was alpha for a reason, and it wasn’t because he’d won a popularity contest. And Atticus would never stand for Neo to disrespect another alpha.
Neo looked at Dani. “Sweetheart, I think you should go to your family.”
“But I thought…” Her voice trailed off and Neo’s heart cracked. He could practically taste her confusion and sense of betrayal.
“I’ll give you my cell number,” Neo said. “Then you can call me when you’re ready to see me again.”
She lifted her phone from her pocket and swiped her thumb across it. Her hands were trembling, so he took it and entered his information into a text and sent it to himself, so she’d have his number and he’d have hers. He kissed her cheek and put her phone in her hands. “This doesn’t mean I don’t want to see you or be with you, Dani,” he murmured in her ear. “There’s just things at play here that neither of us can ignore.”
He leaned away, and she blinked luminous eyes at him. She looked like she was on the verge of tears, and his gorilla hooted in his mind at her distress. She let out a shuddering breath and clutched her phone. “You promise you feel like I do? Even if I can’t put it into words just yet?”
“I swear on my life that I felt drawn to you and I know you feel the same. Whatever you need to deal with concerning your family–you do it and then come back to me. I’ll be waiting.”
She blinked rapidly, and a tear slipped down her cheek. He brushed it away with his thumb. “I’ll be back.”
“I know you will.”
He took her hand and followed Joss out into the afternoon sunshine. The walk to the gate was quiet. He wanted to beg her not to leave, to tell her to ignore her family’s wishes and stay with him, but that wasn’t fair. Not only was he facing the displeasure of the wolf alpha, but he had a feeling that there was more going on here than an overprotective father.
He recognized Dexter, the owner of the construction company, and figured the male for her father. He couldn’t recall the name of the male next to him, but assumed it was Dani’s brother.
“Dad,” she said, when she saw him.
“We’ll speak at home,” Dexter said.
Neo had the urge to drop to his knees and show his neck to the male, which made no sense. His gorilla would never show deference to anyone but an alpha, and Dexter was human. Wasn’t he?
Neo scented the air discreetly but picked up nothing but human.
“I’ll see you soon, Dani,” Neo said, giving her hand a squeeze.
She gave him a watery smile, and he wanted to hug her tightly and say to hell with her family. He wanted to shift into his gorilla and pound his chest, daring her family to take his soulmate from him.
But he didn’t.
He watched her walk away between her dad and brother, her shoulders hunched and the scent of her sorrow hanging in the air like wet rags.
“Damn that was tough, son, I’m sorry,” Joss said.
Neo inhaled deeply and rolled his shoulders. “I’m pissed that she’s so upset.”
“We need to talk,” he said. “In the conference room.”
Neo nodded and headed to the underground conference room, his heart heavy and his gorilla railing at the unfairness of the situation. Dani was his soulmate and she should be by his side, not snatched away before they could really even talk.
Ignoring his beast’s urge to race back into the parking lot and take her into his arms, he turned his attention to the conference room as he neared it, surprised to see all the alphas looking grave.
Something was very wrong.
Chapter Six
Dani folded her arms and stared at the open car door. “I’m not going anywhere until you guys tell me what the hell is going on.”
Her mother was seated in the passenger seat. “Language!”
“Mom, seriously? Dad and Khyle just fully embarrassed me and you’re going to comment on my word choice?”
“Ladies don’t curse.”
Dani rolled her eyes and looked at her dad. “Talk to me.”
“We’ll talk at home,” Dexter said, his knuckles turning white on the top of the door as he gripped it.
She looked toward the park, her heart panging.
“I don’t want to leave.”
“He let you go pretty quick, D,” Khyle said. “I think that’s saying something.”
“Don’t be an ass,” she retorted. “He was clearly being respectful of Dad.”
“Come on, honey,” her mom said. “Let’s go home.”
“I can drive my own car home,” she said.
“I’ll drive it home,” Khyle said, sticking out his hand. “Give me your keys.”
She stared at his hand for a moment, feeling the pressure of her family and their expectations of her. With a sigh, she took her keys from her bag and dropped them in his hand. “This is not fair,” she said as she sat down heavily in the backseat.
“It’ll all make sense soon enough,” Dexter said as he shut the door and got behind the wheel. “You have to trust us.”
“I want to, but you’re being unreasonable,” she pointed out.
They left, Khyle falling into line behind them. Her mom tried to engage her in conversation, but Dani wasn’t in the mood to chat. She wanted to go back to the park and find Neo. She’d never felt such a strong attraction to a guy before, and she just knew in her heart that he felt the same way about her. But the situation she now found herself in sucked.
Once they were home, she sat at the kitchen table with her parents and Khyle.
“We’ve got company coming tomorrow night,” Dexter said, folding his hands on top of the table.
“I know.”
“We just want you to meet them, honey,” her mom said.
“I don’t understand what any of this has to do with you tracking me down at the park and hauling me away like a kid who had a tantrum in a department store. I’m old enough to make my own romantic choices, and I choose Neo.”
“No one is saying you’re not an adult,” her mom said. “There are things at work here that you don’t understand, and we need you to trust us.”
“Why should I trust you when you’re obviously keeping things from me?”
“What do you mean?” Dexter asked.
“Like I haven’t noticed that you stop talking whenever I walk into a room lately? And this party that you keep mentioning, I mean, what’s up with that? It’s never mattered before if I was around for one of your get-togethers, so why is this one so important?”
Dexter and Khyle shared a meaningful glance, and Dani wanted to scream at their tight-lipped behavior.
Slowly, her father faced her. She couldn’t figure out what he was thinking because his look was inscrutable, but she was certain he wasn’t going t
o budge.
“We’ll explain everything when the time is right,” Dexter said slowly as if he were measuring every word. “You might be old enough to make your own decisions, but your mother and I aren’t asking for your trust, we’re expecting it. Don’t forget that we bought your car and phone, and we give you a roof over your head.”
“Threats? That’s nice,” she said.
Her mom put a hand on Dexter’s forearm and gave Dani a small smile. “Tomorrow night, everything will make sense.”
“At the party,” Dani said.
“Yes,” Dexter said. “Until then, we’re asking you to stay home and stay away from that male.”
“I don’t like this,” she said.
“You don’t have to like it, you just have to trust that we have your best interests at heart,” Dexter said.
“Fine,” she said. “I’ll play along, but fair warning, I’m not happy. You never even asked me why I wanted to be with Neo.”
“We’ll ask you tomorrow night,” Khyle said. He stood and pushed the chair in, the legs scraping against the tile floor. He kissed their mother, and asked Dexter to walk him out.
Before her dad left, he asked for her phone.
“Seriously?” Dani said.
“We said no contact, and that’s what we meant,” Dexter said.
“Let me guess, I’ll get it back tomorrow night after the party.” She pushed her phone across the table.
“Yes.” Dexter turned off her phone and took it with him as he left to walk Khyle out.
“I’ll ask, honey,” her mom said.
“Ask what?”
“Why you want to be with him.”
“I feel like we were supposed to meet. It was the craziest thing. There was even a gorilla there with his same name. I thought they were trying to prank me–like one of those reality shows, but it’s just a coincidence. Still...” She let her words die off and stared out the window behind her mother to the backyard.
“Still what?” her mom prompted.
“I miss him. It feels crazy and right at the same time.” She rubbed the space over her heart. “How can I like someone so much when I only spent a few minutes with him?”
Her mom didn’t say anything, and Dani took her gaze from the window to look at her. “Mom?”
“Sorry, honey. I’m sorry you’re in the middle of things right now, but it’ll all be clear tomorrow. Now, I’ve got some more food prep to take care of. Do you want something to eat?”
“No, I’m good.” Dani pushed away from the table and headed up to her bedroom.
When she’d shut her door, she flopped on the bed and stared at the ceiling. A few hours ago, she’d had freedom to do what she wanted. Now she was trapped. At least until tomorrow night. She couldn’t fathom what the hell was so important about this party that she couldn’t even text the sexy guy from the park. With his very kissable lips she hadn’t even had a chance to try out.
Frustrated, she did the only thing she could think of–used her laptop to record and post a makeup tutorial. It wouldn’t get Neo to her side, but it would make the time pass until she could get her phone back and get in touch with him.
* * *
Neo stared open-mouthed at the alphas as they sat at the big table in the conference room.
“What did you just say?” he asked.
Atticus cleared his throat. “They’re shifters.”
“But Dani smells human. And her dad and brother do, too,” Neo said.
“We know,” Joss said. “We don’t know what sort of shifters they are, but they’re definitely like us. Whatever they are, they’re either hiding the scent in some way or they naturally smell like humans so we can’t discern that they’re shifters.”
“Fucking A,” Neo said. He rubbed the space between his eyebrows with a groan. “When I met Dexter, I had the oddest urge to kneel before him and bare my throat. I thought it was strange, but if he’s a shifter–an alpha–then that makes sense. My gorilla would never have that urge with a human, even the father of my soulmate. So what kind of shifters don’t have a scent?”
“Obviously, we’d just be guessing,” Caesar, the lion alpha, said. “They might be a prey shifter, but we really have no way of knowing until they confirm it.”
“I think Dani felt connected to me. If she’s a shifter, why wouldn’t she have just come out and told me she was when we were alone in the office?”
Joss shrugged. “There are a lot of mysteries surrounding this situation, the least of which is whether we employed a shifter group to do the construction of our apartment complex without knowing.”
“And if they know about us,” Alistair, the elephant alpha, said, “why didn’t they share what they are?”
The alphas all nodded in agreement.
“What am I supposed to do?” Neo asked.
“You have her information?” Atticus asked.
Neo nodded. “And she has mine.”
“We think you should wait for her to contact you and see where things stand. We don’t believe you charging after her like a deranged bull is going to accomplish anything except infuriate her family,” Caesar said.
Joss nodded. “When she reaches out to you, be sure you’re keeping Atticus updated so he can keep us in the loop.”
“I will,” Neo said. He dropped his head back and sighed. This was not how he thought the day might go.
“The important thing is that you found each other,” Atticus said. “The rest will work itself out. Regardless of what her family believes about soulmates or our people, we have your back.”
Neo lowered his head. “Thanks.”
He pushed away from the table and stood. “I’m going to try to keep myself busy with work and hope she calls soon.”
It was tempting to disregard the alphas’ orders to let her contact him first, but he knew they were right. Neo had no idea what was going on with Dani and her family, and he didn’t want to cause her problems. While it warred with him to be away from her, it wasn’t like he knew her address and could go see her. She had to make the first move.
He hoped she’d make it soon.
* * *
“Honey, honey? Wake up.” Dani startled awake with a gasp. “It’s Mom, don’t freak out.”
“You scared me,” Dani said, pressing a hand to her pounding heart. “What’s going on?”
“I’m helping you get out of here so you can go to Neo.”
“What?”
“Your dad is gone for a few hours.” She held up her phone and showed Dani a tracking app, the red dot signifying her dad’s phone was at the horse farm down the road. “He hid your keys so you wouldn’t try to leave, but he didn’t hide my keys.”
Dani sat up and rubbed the sleep from her eyes. She looked at the clock on her nightstand. “It’s one a.m.”
“I know.”
“No, why is Dad at the horse farm this late at night?” She knew he liked the farm, but she had no idea he liked to go there in the middle of the night.
“That’s a long story for another time. Right now, get dressed in something cute and get your butt out of here.”
Dani reached for the lamp on her nightstand, but her mom told her to keep the lights off.
“Even though he’s down the road, he might see a light on. He won’t think to check if my car is here since we keep it in the garage. Hurry up, honey.”
Dani had a hundred questions, but mostly she was excited to get to see Neo. She dressed quickly in jeans and a top and put on her favorite tennis shoes. “My phone,” she said. “Plus, I just realized I don’t know where he lives, only where he works.”
“Here it is,” her mom said, handing her the phone. “Text him you’re on the way to the park. I know he’ll meet you there.”
Dani looked at her curiously as she took the phone and turned it on. “How do you know?”
“Listen, there are few things in this life that we can be certain about. The sun will always rise. The tide will ebb and flow. And when you meet the
man who’s supposed to be yours forever, nothing should stand in the way of that.” Her mom let out a sharp breath and then said, “What you described about meeting Neo is exactly how I felt when I met Dexter. Now Dexter’s got some opinions about what your future should look like, and no amount of me telling him it’s not fair to pull you away from Neo right when you met him will change his mind. So I waited until he was gone, and here we are. Go to Neo. Tell him that your dad and brother, and probably the other four knuckleheads, will be at the park in the morning. He’ll know what to do.”
“Mom, I’m totally confused.”
“It’ll make sense soon enough, honey. I can’t tell you what you need to know, you have to figure it out for yourself. Just like I did.”
“Now I’m really confused.”
“Then go find your man.”
Dani brushed her teeth, grabbed her wallet and phone, and followed her mom down the stairs. Dani didn’t take the long dirt road that went by the horse farm, instead driving the long way around to the main street. She sent a text to Neo that she was on the way to the park and needed to see him. Then she put her foot on the gas and hoped her dad didn’t realize she was gone until she was safely with Neo.
Chapter Seven
Neo was pacing in the family room of his house, his beast clawing at him to go find Dani. It was well after midnight, and his nerves were frayed. He hadn’t heard from her since she left, and while it was only a handful of hours since they’d said goodbye it felt like an eternity. After the eye-opening and disturbing conversation with the alphas, he’d tried to work on park vehicles, but he’d been unable to concentrate on anything but Dani.
He wished he hadn’t had to let her go.
August cleared his throat, and Neo looked over at him. His friend and fellow gorilla shifter was giving him a long look from where he sat on the couch.
“You’re going to wear a hole in the floor.”
“I know,” Neo said. “I can’t sit still. I’ve got a tenuous hold on my beast at best, and the only thing that seems to keep him from forcing my shift and finding Dani is keeping moving.”