by Sara Summers
My eyebrows shot into my forehead, and I looked back to the mirrored glass of the Redwood building. Three security guards in one building on an already-private campus? Why would they want me in there?
“I’m here on a scholarship. There must be some kind of mistake.”
“It’s not a mistake.” Briar promised, reaching out to touch my arm. “You belong in the Redwood building, Adrie Lane.”
And then she walked away, leaving me standing there stunned, confused, and slightly afraid.
But I was the one dumb enough to accept a full-ride scholarship to a school I’d never visited before, so I had no choice but to go inside.
When I scanned my ID card the sleek, glass door automatically slid open. My eyebrows lifted at the small but fancy lobby. Between the long fireplace that had been built into a metal-looking wall, modern but uncomfortable-looking chairs, and the security guards, I felt entirely out of place.
My gaze hit the elevator, and I headed toward it. Every hotel I’d ever been in used the room number to designate which floor it was on, and the Redwood building seemed enough like a hotel that I figured the same would be true.
I pressed the button for the tenth floor—the top one—and stood alone in the elevator until it dinged when it stopped. Getting out, I walked up and down the halls until I found my room number.
There were only fifteen doors on the entire floor, and one of them led to the roof. Room 1001 was at the end of the hallway to my right, directly across from 1002. The closest other room was at the end of an entirely different hallway
I slid my ID card yet again, and then entered the room.
When I saw it, my mouth fell open.
I’d been expecting a tiny dorm room, and I was staring at a massive loft apartment, complete with black-framed glass walls to separate the bedroom area from the kitchen and living room. Everything was modern and shiny, with windows taking up two entire walls and a sectional that could’ve fit eight people comfortably.
“What is going on?” I asked the air.
And then I had to explore, of course.
There was a desk with a huge computer in one of the corners, and a washer and dryer in one of the three coat closets.
I checked out the kitchen—stocked with dishes and pans and silverware, condiments in the fridge, and dish towels in a drawer.
The walk-in closet was bigger than all three of the closets in my childhood home combined, and the bathroom? Between a gigantic bath tub with jets and one of those showers that’s so fancy it doesn’t even have a door, it was fit for a king.
Not a girl who couldn’t afford to go to college at all without a full-ride scholarship.
I decided to go check out the rest of the building before unpacking, just to make sure there really hadn’t been a mistake. It wasn’t until the door was shut that I realized I’d forgotten my ID card.
Swearing under my breath, I began wandering the halls.
QUESTIONS
So the rest of the building was just as spacious and fancy as my apartment. The rooms on the other floors were smaller, but not much. There were only twenty or thirty rooms on each gigantic floor, with a big study room on every one besides mine.
When I made it down to the first floor I still hadn’t seen anyone else, so when I heard loud music coming from a doorway I hadn’t checked out yet, my curiosity got the best of me.
I stepped into a spacious, modern gym filled with every piece of equipment that I knew existed and a bunch that I’d never seen or heard of before, and it all looked brand new. Off to the right, near the second entrance to the room, there was a large mat like the kind wrestlers used.
Three guys were on it, all barefooted and wearing loose shorts with tank tops.
One stood off to the side, watching. He was cute, with messy reddish brown hair, and looked super tall even from where I was at the entrance. The two guys in the middle of the mat were doing some kind of hand-to-hand fighting, no weapons. One had his arm around the other one’s neck, and the other guy was fighting hard to get free.
As disconcerting as that sight was, my gaze landed on the guy choking out the other guy.
He was tall, built, and focused on the fight, with hair that was cropped close to his head in a deep brown color . With stubble on his face and blemish-free skin, he was the kind of attractive that women would stop and stare at.
When he looked up from the fight and saw me, his grip on the other guy loosened.
The guy who wasn’t fighting looked over at me too, and the one who had been choking took the opportunity to turn the tides. He broke through the choke hold and spun to tackle the one I’d distracted to the mat.
The distracted one pushed the other guy off him and stood up as the cute, tall one crossed the room. Though the cute one was walking toward me, for the life of me, I couldn’t stop staring at the distracted one.
“So you have a weakness for beautiful women.” The one who had been choking mocked the distracted one as he stood up
My cheeks flushed when I realized I was the beautiful woman he was talking about.
“Hey, I’m Torrin.” The cute one held out his hand.
I was still paying enough attention to the other guys to hear the distracted one say something that sounded like,
“Just one.”
“Hmm? Oh, hi.” I shook his hand before pushing part of my hair to the other side of my head. My waist-length curls were always so tangled together that it was pointless to try to move my hair as anything other than one mass. The two guys who had been fighting walked up and Torrin introduced them.
“This is Reed,” he gestured to the choke-ee. He was cute too, I noticed, but in more of a rugged way than the other guys. He had dark skin and hair even curlier than mine, shaved on the sides but long on the top, with facial hair that would make him irresistible to nearly any woman with functioning eyes.
Except me, because for some reason the only dude I wanted to stare at was the distracted choker.
Reed grinned and offered his hand. I glanced down at it and then did a double-take. There was a name tattooed on his wrist in inky-black cursive, and though I was seeing it upside down, I was fairly certain it said,
“Coco”
I finally shook his hand, though my attention was now on the other guys’ wrists. There was another name on Torrin’s that I couldn’t read. The distracted guy’s hands were in the pockets of his basketball shorts, so I had no way of knowing whether he had a tattoo or not.
“And that’s Vaughn.” Torrin finished with the distracted one, the one who was staring at me with a look in his eyes that was so intense I couldn’t decide whether I wanted to throw my arms around him and kiss the guy or run for the hills.
As ridiculous as it was, I was actually looking forward to shaking Vaughn’s hand, so when he only offered a nod I was a little bummed.
“I haven’t seen anyone else in the building since I got here.” I hurried to speak before I had time to do or say something crazy to Vaughn. “Are you guys here on a scholarship too?”
Torrin and Reed exchanged glances I couldn’t read, while. Vaughn just kept on staring at me.
If my face had been pink before, it was definitely a deep red color at that point. Between the way all three guys towered over my five-foot-zero form and their obvious muscles, I wasn’t exactly comfortable around them and the stares weren’t helping.
“Kinda.” Reed finally replied.
“You’re kind of on scholarships?” I lifted my eyebrows, curiosity overpowering discomfort.
How much fishier could it get than kind-of on scholarship?
“Yeah, let’s go with that.” He nodded, sticking with the vague and utterly useless answer.
“What kind of scholarships?” I challenged, for some reason feeling the need to prod for further information. Move-in day at Paran University had barely started, and despite it only being 9 AM, it had already been the strangest day of my life.
“Athletic scholarships.” Reed shot back, q
uicker with his answer.
An answer that felt more like a lie, but if I prodded enough, I figured I’d get to the bottom of it.
“What sports do you play?”
“Wrestling, football, and swim.” He gestured to himself, Vaughn, and then Torrin.
The sports almost fit the ways their bodies were built, but he was answering so quickly that I knew he was lying.
“So you’re in the were clique? That’s what they call jocks around here, isn’t it?” I threw out the information I’d gotten from Briar to see what their weird-named cliques had to do with anything.
Torrin coughed, Vaughn grimaced, and Reed straight-up grinned.
“We’re more of the gargoyle type.” He shrugged. “Gargoyles are the more intense jocks, weres are just in it for the attention.”
“Riiiiight.” I drew out the word, making it clear that I didn’t believe a word he was saying.
Though I didn’t believe him, I had no idea what was going on or why he was lying to me. That called for a good long bit of internet searching.
Despite their lies, the trio of attractive males were the only people I’d seen in the whole building besides the security guards in the lobby, and that meant they were my shot at getting back into my room.
“So, assuming someone forgot their ID card in their room, what should they do? Hypothetically, of course.”
Reed’s grin grew, and I noticed that Torrin’s smile made his whole face look happy. Vaughn on the other hand may as well have been a brick wall.
“Hypothetically, there’s a camera outside your room. If you say your name, it will scan you and let you in.”
“Wow, high-tech. Thanks.” I turned to go with a little wave.
“Let us know if you need anything, Adrie. We’re rooms 1002 through 1004.”
“Thanks.” I called as I left, feeling all of their eyes on me as I went.
It wasn’t until I was back in my room that I realized I hadn’t told them my name.
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THE IMPULSIVE SHIFTER
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Isla
No one thinks of their wedding day as the day they’ll meet their soulmate. At that point they’ve already found him, right? But me… well, I didn’t meet mine until the day I almost got married.
As I walked down the aisle, flowers in my hands and family around me, my stomach was clenched and sweat trickled down my back. The smile I’d plastered to my face was shaking and I knew it.
What had started as a peer-pressured “yes” turned into my worst nightmare—a poofy dress and a veil that dragged behind me as I walked toward a man I knew I didn’t love.
It was my wedding day, and as much as I wanted to run, I didn’t have the guts to do it. Unless one of my friends stood up and told everyone I’d never loved Kenton, which wouldn’t happen because they all thought he was the best thing that ever happened to me, I would marry him.
I’d regret it my entire life, but I’d marry him.
My heart pounded in my chest as one of my closest friends took my bouquet with a big red-lipstick smile. She’d talked me into picking her as maid of honor over my other best friend and my own sister—which I knew was ridiculous—but once again, I couldn’t say no.
I could never say no.
Kenton took my hand with a big smile of his own. He was a gorgeous specimen of a man, tall and tan and blonde, and a doctor on top of that, but I had never been in love with him. He wasn’t right for me, and I knew I wasn’t right for him.
The preacher started talking, and all I could think about was how a person could call off their own wedding. I’d seen it in movies, but in real life? In real life, people weren’t stupid enough to agree to marry someone they didn’t love.
Except me.
I was stupid enough.
But maybe, just maybe, I could also be brave enough to make a run for it.
My eyes scanned the church for the best escape route. There were doors on either side of where we were standing, but I didn’t know where they led to so I couldn’t just run through those. What if I had to get back out through my family and friends? Heavens, that would a nightmare.
The only sure way out was through the door I’d come in through, which was back down the long, long aisle I’d just walked.
And there were so many people around. How could I just leave? How could I ask them to come and bring presents and spend so much money just to call off the wedding? I couldn’t do that, could I? What kind of person would that make me?
“I do.” Kenton’s words pulled me out of my thoughts.
Oh my heck, it was happening. He’d already said his part, and that meant mine was coming.
I’d be a loser if I stayed and married him knowing I didn’t love him, but I’d be a loser if I called off the wedding too. Which would be better? What should I do?
“Isla.” Kenton squeezed my hand, bringing me back to the present.
I’d missed the cue. It was a sign, wasn’t it? I had to go, had to run.
“I,” I swallowed, looking back to my family. Their wide eyes almost scared me into saying yes. “I’m not, I, um,”
The doors to the church opened wide and everyone turned, saving me from the moment.
Or at least, I thought they’d saved me.
When my eyes met those of the stranger in the doorway, my body stilled. I stopped sweating and shaking. I saw that man, with his messy brown hair and broad shoulders, and I knew.
He was mine.
He was the reason I’d never fallen for Kenton, and he was mine.
While I didn’t understand the feeling, I knew that if I was going to pledge myself to anyone I didn’t love, it was going to be him. The messy-haired stranger.
I let go of Kenton’s hands and turned to face him, my man. The guests all spun around to look at me once again.
“Isla, what are you doing?” Kenton’s voice was cautious.
I turned back to him, just for a second, and pulled the large ring I’d never liked off of my left hand.
“I should never have said yes, Kent. I’m sorry.”
I handed him the ring and slipped out of the tall heels I hadn’t wanted to wear, and then I ran down the aisle to the stranger as fast as I could manage in the 25 pound wedding dress.
He took my hand and a sharp pain stabbed against my hip, but I was too busy escaping the wedding of my nightmares to care. We ran together and he led me out to his car, which happened to be a beat-up old truck. It looked like it used to be silver, at some point, but had faded to a gray color.
It wasn’t until he’d helped stuff me and my dress in his truck, the skirt poofed up around us so big I could barely breathe or see, that I realized what I’d done and started hyperventilating.
“Oh gosh, oh gosh, oh gosh.” I fanned my face, breathing quickly. “What did I do? They’re going to be horrified. All the money, and the people, I—“
“Isla.” The stranger put his hand on my shoulder and pushed gently, turning my upper body to face him. “I’m your soulmate. You couldn’t have married him.”
My lips parted.
Soulmate?
“You mean, like, you’re a shifter?”
Shifters were people who could turn into animals, and as far as I knew for the most part they were like the rest of us, except they had soulmates. When they found their soulmate—who was usually human—according to the laws they were legally married like, the instant they met.
“A grizzly shifter.”
“Okay wow, that’s big.” I took a deep, shaking breath in. That explained what I’d felt when I saw him, and it explained the sharp pain in my hip.
Shifters had mate marks, shimmering markings that matched their soulmate’s. Which meant I had one too, and I was a shifter too.
“Geez, wow, okay.” I knew I was babbling, but didn’t know how to stop.
Kenton and some of my friends ran out of the church and looked toward the parking lot. Common sense told me Zane and I hadn’t been abl
e to stuff my whole dress into the truck, which meant they’d see it hanging out and know where I was.
“What’s your name?” I tried to be calm for a minute.
“Zane Fulton.” He was staring at me, and it looked like he was trying to figure out what I was thinking.
“Well, Zane Fulton, you need to get us out of here as fast as possible or we’re going to have to explain the shifter thing to my friends and ex-fiancé, which I am not prepared for. So drive.” It turned into an order at the last minute, and I bit my lip.
Kenton had always scolded me like I was a little kid when I ordered him around.
But Zane? When I gave him the command, he grinned.
“Yes ma’am.”
He had us out of the parking lot and speeding down the freeway in record-breaking time, and despite the horror of what I’d just done, there was a smile pulling on my lips.