by Sara Summers
Only four scoops fit in the bowl. We didn’t believe in small scoops, which apparently changed Haiden’s perspective on the twenty-two scoops of ice cream.
“Here you go.” I placed bowl number one in front of Haiden, and his eyebrows lifted.
“I have to eat six bowls this size?” he checked.
“Technically only five and a half.” I shrugged. “That’s the fun of it. By the time you get through three you’ll need to take a break, and that’s when we bring out….” I gestured to Brooke.
“Dungeons and Dragons.” Brooke smiled slyly.
“Best game on the planet.” I grinned.
“You’re closet nerds, aren’t you?” Haiden shook his head, but I saw his smile. He couldn’t have hidden that sucker even if he wanted to, and I hoped he didn’t want to.
“Through and through.” I nodded.
“Till the day we die.” Brooke said solemnly, putting her hand over her heart.
“Are you okay with that?” I checked. I had to be safe, after all. Some people really weren’t into the cool stuff that Brooke and I liked.
“Why wouldn’t I be?” Haiden asked.
“Good question.” I smiled. “How could you not like nerds?”
“It would be impossible.” My soulmate decided.
Haiden dug his spoon into the bowl of ice cream, gathering a massive spoonful. He lifted it in the air, then nodded at me once.
“Cheers.” He offered.
“Cheers.” I grinned back.
Haiden was just getting better and better by the minute, and for a few hours that night, I forgot about Matt and his asking me to be lead the pack. That night, we were just a pair of soulmates with a best friend happily third-wheeling.
We were Jazz and Haiden with a side of Brooke, and it was completely and utterly fantastic.
Chapter 17
After Brooke left that night—really that morning, around 1 AM—Haiden pulled me close and kissed my forehead.
“Thank you.” He said softly.
“For what?” I looked up at my soulmate, into his eyes. They were light brown (hazel, I guess), and I could’ve looked at them for hours.
Eyes really are windows to the soul, and my goodness, Haiden’s eyes were full of so many emotions I could hardly understand.
In his eyes I saw sadness, but I also saw happiness. I saw hope and peace and love.
Maybe it sounds crazy to see so many things in his eyes, but I saw it all. Haiden’s eyes were the windows that let me into his soul even more than his paintings did.
“I haven’t celebrated my birthday since my grandmother died. There was no one left to call me and say happy birthday or to bring me a present…” he shook his head.
“I didn’t bring you a present either.” I bit my lip.
“You are the present, Jazz. You’re here with me, spending time with me, talking to me. Telling me about your past, letting me into your heart. That’s what means the most to me. I have the money to buy anything I want, but I don’t want anything other than you.” He put a hand on my chin, tilting it upward just a little bit.
“You’re the other half of my soul, and I love you.”
He didn’t say it all devoted-like, the way I’d heard it in movies. He didn’t say it as he was overwhelmed with emotion or while he was making out with me.
Haiden said “I love you” like it was a promise. Though our relationship was just at its beginning, he was promising to love me. To fall in love with me, to share a life with me. Haiden Day was promising to be not only my soulmate, but my husband as well.
He was promising to love me unconditionally.
I don’t think it’s possible for any girl to get a better promise than that one, from the man who the Creator tells her is her other half.
In that moment, I knew exactly what I needed to say. There wasn’t anything else I could say, honestly, because all I wanted to do was to promise him the same thing.
“I love you too.” I whispered.
Our lips met in a firework-explosion of attraction, desire, and that promise of love. Haiden’s arms tightened around my waist, pulling our bodies flush against each other.
I’d felt a lot of things in my life, but never anything as incredible as what I felt with Haiden that night. He wrapped his arms around me, he pulled me close and didn’t let go, and I… I felt like I was home.
And good heavens, I didn’t ever want to leave.
Chapter 18
“Good morning.” Haiden’s words tickled my ear as he wrapped his arms around my waist.
“Morning.” I smiled, turning to kiss him on the mouth. “Hope you like scrambled eggs.” I gestured down to the pan, where the eggs were just about finished.
“I do.” He squeezed me around the waist. The words must’ve sparked something in his memory, because then he asked, “Do you want to have a wedding?”
I dropped the spatula and spun around to face him.
“No, no, no.” I hurried to shake my head. Brooke would kill me for turning down the offer of a wedding, but I didn’t care. I was a shifter, not a human, and I didn’t even want to think about wearing white and vowing to be with Haiden until the day I died.
He was my soulmate, why would I be okay with settling for a “till death do you part”? I was going to keep Haiden for all of eternity, and no human ceremony could mean as much to me as the markings on my leg.
Besides that, I might have been just a tiny, little bit afraid of having a wedding. All eyes on me, everyone wanting to talk to me and making toasts and stuff… yeah, that was not something I wanted to deal with.
Haiden chuckled. I said “no” three times, so I can see why.
“Sorry, you didn’t want a wedding, did you?” I prayed his answer would be no.
“No.” Haiden shook his head and I breathed out, relieved.
I spun around and stirred the eggs before they could burn, luckily catching them in time. Dry, burnt scrambled eggs? No thanks.
As I was dishing out our food, Haiden’s phone rang.
“Hello?” he answered.
I leaned toward him to hear the conversation. Call me a snoop if you want, I won’t be offended. I liked to know what was going on.
“Yeah, this is Haiden.” My mate replied.
A familiar male voice said,
“This is Matt.”
I closed my eyes, suddenly remembering that there was a pack of cheetahs out there who wanted me to lead them. Despite being twenty and not having seen any of them in over ten years, they still wanted me and Haiden to be their Alpha and Omega.
I thought they were insane, but apparently my opinion didn’t matter despite the fact that they wanted me to be Omega, which would place my opinion as a major deciding factor when it came to decisions in the pack.
So, logic wasn’t important to them, obviously. Which was strange.
“Have you had time to think about the offer?” Matt checked.
“We’re still considering it.” Haiden looked at me, and I shook my head at him.
“Wonderful. Would the two of you like to come to a barbeque tomorrow night? Everyone in the pack will be there, and they want to meet you. Whether or not you choose to take over as Alpha, they want to see Jazz. We all thought she had died.” Matt said.
“Text me the time and address and we’ll see if we can make it.” Haiden told him.
“Great. Hope to see you tomorrow night.” Matt replied.
I closed my eyes as he hung up the phone, and Haiden took my hand in his.
“We don’t have to decide anything right now.” He promised me. “Sit down and eat, then we’ll talk about the barbeque.”
But as we ate, my phone started ringing. All thoughts about the barbeque went right out of my head.
“We’re popular today.” I remarked, as I put the phone to my ear. “Hey, Leah. What’s up?”
“Do you have time to help out again today? Apparently, we didn’t pass one part of the inspection and no one told us until now. We have
to move all the furniture out of the way, then pull up some carpet and fix some stuff. It has to be done by tomorrow, and almost everyone who worked yesterday is busy.”
I looked over at Haiden. We were definitely the free-est out of all the shifty girls, since we didn’t need to work for money and didn’t have kids or a pack to look after.
“Sure.” I said, after Haiden nodded that he was up for it. “We’ll be there in an hour.”
She told me which building to go to, and then Haiden and I showered. We got there exactly an hour after Leah called me, ready to work.
We didn’t realize just how long it would take.
“We’re finally done.” Marley sighed, leaning against the wall. 18 hours and 27 minutes after starting, we finished getting it ready for the next inspection, which was happening in…
I looked at the clock.
33 minutes, wow. We barely finished on time.
It was somewhere around 7 AM, and none of us had slept for more than five minutes during the night. I fell asleep for a few minutes on the floor, but that was it.
There was just a lot of work to be done.
“I’ll deal with the inspector.” Ty, Leah’s mate, told us all. “Go sleep in a classroom or something, we’ll put the room back together after he leaves.”
We weren’t going to argue with that, though I did feel a bit bad. Ty probably wasn’t getting enough sleep as it was, considering he had twin sons who were still super young. But he was the one who knew what was going on with everything, so I didn’t say anything.
The four of us—Marley, Beau (her mate), Haiden, and I—shut ourselves into a classroom and fell asleep on the ground. That was the most glorious hour of sleep I can ever remember getting.
We woke up when Ty came in again, and then hurried to put everything back together. That only took a few hours, so it wasn’t too long before we got to go home and actually sleep.
After crashing on our bed, I didn’t wake up until five that evening, when my phone started ringing.
Chapter 19
“Hello?” I said into the phone, my voice groggy and my eyes cloudy.
“Who is this?” a woman demanded, her nasally voice higher-pitched than I knew a voice could be.
“Who is this?” I turned the question back onto her. She was the one calling me, why would she get to ask me who I was?
“Haiden’s agent.” She hmphed. “Who are you and why do you have his phone?” the woman demanded.
“I’m his soulmate.” I yawned into the phone. “Haiden’s asleep, he’ll call you later.” I started to hang up the phone but she screeched,
“Wait!”
I rolled my eyes but put the phone back to my ear.
“What?” I asked, my heavy eyelids begging me to go back to sleep.
“I need to talk to my client. Give him the phone.” She insisted.
“How did you even get my phone number?” I wondered, then pulled the phone away from my ear and looked at it.
Right, it wasn’t my phone after all. It was Haiden’s.
So that was where she got my phone number. Made sense.
“Put Haiden on the phone before I convince him to sue you.” The woman had to grind the words through her teeth. She was apparently frustrated—very frustrated.
“Good luck, I have soulmate power.” I yawned yet another time.
“Oh my—I’ve been trying to talk to him to for days. I’ve sent him emails, and he doesn’t respond. I’ve called and left messages—he still doesn’t respond. I even showed up to his apartment and he didn’t answer the door. What have you done with Haiden Day?!” she demanded.
“We moved. We’ve been busy, sorry he didn’t get back to you.” I looked back at my soulmate, who was still snoring away peacefully in the middle of the bed. “Look, just tell me whatever you need to tell him and I’ll give him the message.”
“That isn’t allowed, Haiden hasn’t put you on any of the paperwork or told me I’m allowed to tell you anything about his work. This is all private, just—“
“Susan,” I cut in. Was her name Susan? I didn’t know, but for some reason, I thought it was. “Haiden and I are soulmates. We have equal rights to everything. Haiden is allowed to get my transcripts or social security card or whatever, and I can handle a few pieces of information. Just tell me.” I said, my voice flat though I tried to be nice.
“My name isn’t Susan.” The woman was apparently offended. I winced; whoops. “And frankly, it’s against the law for me to tell you anything, soulmate or wife or complete stranger. Tell Haiden to call me back if he knows what’s good for him.” She hung up the phone.
I shook my head. As I went to put the phone back on the nightstand, I glanced down at the front, where I saw a notification that said:
TWO NEW MESSAGES FROM MATT
When I saw the notification, I remembered the barbeque. We’d been invited, and it was sort of being held in our favor. But it was freezing outside, so maybe that would justify not going?
I dropped to my back and pulled the blanket up to my chin. Should I wake Haiden up and get him to go with me? Should I pretend I’d forgotten? Should I text Matt and tell him that we didn’t want anything to do with the pack?
I sighed and closed my eyes.
“Jazz?” Haiden mumbled. “Did someone call?”
“Yeah, it was your agent. Her name’s not Susan.” I yawned, still not opening my eyes.
“What did she want?” he wondered.
“I don’t know, it’s illegal for her to tell me, apparently.” I shrugged against the mattress.
“I’ll call her later.” Haiden rolled over. “Probably about the museum opening next month. I was supposed to email her back.” He started snoring again a minute later, while I thought about the barbeque.
If we went, the pack might expect things from us. They might beg us to lead them, they might ask us to stay…
But they had been my parents’ pack. My parents had died so that they could live. If I didn’t at least go and talk to them, what would my parents think? They would undoubtedly be disappointed.
I couldn’t disappoint them. My parents created the pack, and I at least needed to see them all one last time. I owed it to my parents.
“Haiden?” I shook his shoulder.
“Yeah?” he asked, though he didn’t really sound awake.
“Will you go to the barbeque with me?”
“Of course,” Haiden murmured, rolling over and wrapping his arms around me.
“We’d need to go like, right now.” I told him.
“Okay.” He slowly opened his eyes, letting go of me. “Let’s go.”
I threw my hair up in a ponytail and pulled on some clean clothes, then we were on our way.
We pulled up in front of a barn with big open doors forty-five minutes later. It was lit up with twinkly lights and I could see a whole bunch of heaters going around the room. Jack Johnson’s smooth voice filled the space, and people were spread throughout the room, talking.
Matt turned when we walked inside, and he spread his arms open wide.
“Welcome to the Daniels Pack.” He announced.
Everyone turned to look at us, eyebrows raising and mouths opening when they saw us standing there.
“Everyone, this is Jazz Daniels and her mate Haiden.” He gestured to the two of us, speaking to the group behind him. There were thirty or forty people gathered, so it wasn’t a massive pack. Still, it was a good size.
As Matt welcomed us, I noticed that no one in the barn looked comfortable. They were all standing or sitting stiff and formally, and they looked a bit worried. That was weird, but I didn’t pay attention to it.
“Alright, there’s food in that corner. Feel free to do whatever you like.” Matt said.
Everyone went back to their own awkward conversations, which was nice. I didn’t want all the attention on us anyway.
Haiden and I walked to the back corner to grab some food, and everyone was friendly to us. Despite the cold out
side, the room was a comfortable temperature. We took off our coats as we sat down.
We ate without talking for a few minutes, but were interrupted by a little boy halfway through the meal.
“Are you Jazz?” he checked.
“Yes.” I smiled at him. The boy gave me a toothy grin.
“My mommy says you’re going to save us.” He said.
My smile vanished, but he ran away before I could ask him anything. I looked at Haiden, who seemed just as shocked as me.
“What does that mean?” I whispered.
“I don’t know.” Haiden frowned. “Should we ask someone? Matt would probably tell us.”
“I’m not sure I want to know the answer.” I admitted.
“I have a feeling that we should get out of here.” Haiden said, his voice low and quiet. I had been feeling the exact same thing, since I heard the little boy’s words.
“Me too. Let’s go.”
We stood up at the same time, walking toward the door together.
A woman grabbed my arm as I passed by her.
“You’re not leaving yet, are you?” she asked. I latched onto Haiden’s arm so he wouldn’t leave without me.
“Um, I have to work on my lesson plans. I’m a professor at Shifty University, I have to-“ just as I finished my sentence, the barn doors closed.
“You’re going to save us.” The woman whispered, grabbing her children’s hands
“My tummy, mommy. It hurts.” The little girl cried quietly, and her older brother bravely wiped her tears away.
“Shh, it’s going to be okay. Jazmine will save us.” He promised his sister, though his voice was barely above a whisper.
“What am I going to save you from?” I demanded, looking around the room.
“From them.” Haiden stepped in front of me, holding his arm out to stop me from going in front of him.
I looked over his shoulder, gasping when I saw the men in front of us. There were four of them, big and mean-looking, and the first one carried a woman in tattered clothes. I could see the cotie on her arm that marked her as a mermaid, along with the metal cuffs on her wrist that marked her as a prisoner.