Forever Fated Mates: A Shifter Romance Collection

by Meg Ripley

  I laughed. “I’m not sure, but I get the feeling that you’re making fun of me.”

  She grinned at me and stared for a long while. “It’s only because I love you. And I’m 100 percent sure of that.”

  I leaned down to kiss her. “Then tell me something. What are the chances you’ll say yes if I ask you to marry me?”

  “Well, that’s a much more serious consideration. I guess I’d have to figure in the method in which you asked, the ring size, the words chosen, your body position—”

  “Okay, so what about this?” I interrupted.

  I slid down to one knee and took her hand in mine. “I have no ring at this moment, but I will fix that immediately. I don’t know much about being romantic, so I’m hoping you’re a fan of spontaneity. And as for the words chosen… All I can say is, Roxy, you have captivated me from the first time I saw you. I thought we were too different at first, but I now see how everything about us fits together perfectly. I don’t care if fate is involved or not. I want to spend my life with you. Will you marry me?”

  She tapped her lips for a moment. “If you were to do it like that, I’d give it a 100 percent chance of receiving a yes.”

  I slid my arms around her the best I could and kissed her again. She tried to push herself up, but groaned and fell back to the couch.

  “This sucks,” she whispered. “We can’t even celebrate right.”

  I kissed the tip of her nose. “We can make up for it the rest of our lives.”

  “What’s the best time of year to get married?”

  “Based on availability or pricing or scenery?”

  “All three?”

  “I can put together some data.”

  She smiled and closed her eyes again for a moment. “Good. You have very accurate results.”

  I thought about that. There was one thing I hadn’t had good results in, and it bothered me deeply.

  “Have you ever been to California?” I asked.

  “No, but I’d love to see where you grew up and meet your family.”

  “That would be great.” I pictured it and squeezed her hand. “Have you ever felt an urge to go to California?”

  “I don’t think so? Why?”

  “I was just thinking. Before I met you, I ran all the numbers on fated mates and cross checked it against regular relationships. By my calculations, I should have met my fated mate four years ago in California.”

  She scrunched her face in thought. “Four years ago, I was just starting my Ranger program. Actually… what’s the date?”

  I glanced down at my watch. “The eleventh.”

  “Today is the anniversary of when I started my training class.”

  I pulled my eyebrows together. “Are you sure?”

  She nodded. “I remember because I went right after I graduated with my degree in recreation. I wanted to start right away, so I joined the first class I could.”

  “Huh.”

  “What?”

  “Well, it’s just that…” I shook my head. It couldn’t be true. “I was meant to start at the same time. But I thought it made more sense to stay in Silicon Valley a few weeks longer. I had thought that by leaving California, I missed my mate, but I had it all backward. I should have never stayed another few months. I felt like I needed to be here, and now I know why. I would have met you four years ago, when we both started our training class at the park.”

  She gave me a flat look. “Do you realize how much heartache you would have saved me if I’d met you then?”

  I chuckled and ran my fingers through my hair. “I… uh… had run the numbers and it made more sense economically to stay longer, and so I went against what I felt and decided based on what the numbers said. I guess it’s not always the best move to ignore your heart.”

  She laughed. “Duh. And what does your heart say now?”

  “It says I finally found what I’ve been searching for.”

  22

  Roxy

  Epilogue

  I sat on my bike and revved the engine one last time. I watched for my cue, and when it came, I rode my bike as slowly as it could go. The crowd stood and smiled as I passed through them, stopped at the end of the aisle and hopped off.

  I grabbed my bouquet from the saddlebag and turned to see my groom, who beamed back at me. We exchanged simple vows, promising to love each other fully and always be adventurous. And then it was announced that we were officially married.

  We turned to face the crowd of clan mates, family members and friends. I held up my bouquet and Alex grabbed me, sweeping me off my feet as he placed me on the back of the bike.

  He slid into place in front of me, and I wrapped one arm around him, still holding my flowers in the other.

  As he started the bike, I squeezed him hard.

  “I can’t believe you’re making me do this,” he said.

  “You’ll be fine.”

  He started down the aisle slowly, the bike wobbling just a bit, but we made it to the end of the path without falling over. He drove a little ways and parked closer to the pavilion where we’d go next to dance and celebrate our marriage.

  “You were perfect,” I said, resting my chin on his shoulder.

  He turned to kiss me and pulled me into his arms as he slid off the bike. He held me close and we swayed together as if dancing, though no music reached us.

  “I’ve been thinking about our next adventure,” I confessed.

  “Please don’t tell me it involves more motorcycle riding. I’m not so sure I’m getting any better.”

  I chuckled. “You are, but that’s not what I had in mind.”

  “In that case, yes to whatever it is.”

  “Perfect. I’ll plan it all out, then.”

  “Okay, okay. I still want to know what it is, though.”

  “Oh?” I looked at him playfully and tickled the back of his neck. “I was wondering if you could run some numbers for me.”

  “Sure.”

  “What are the chances that if we have sex right now, we’d make a baby?”

  He stepped back to look at me. “A baby? Already?”

  I lifted a shoulder. “We waited this long for love, why wait any longer?”

  He scratched his head and thought. “It depends on the day in your cycle and everything, but up to about a 25 percent on the optimal day.”

  “So, that does that mean if we do it four times, we’ll have a 100 percent chance?”

  “You know that’s not how it works.”

  “Are you sure?” I pressed my hips against his, the smooth white satin of my dress slipping easily along against the black fabric of his pants. “We could just test out the theory for ourselves. Just to see.”

  The hunger lit in his eyes, and he pressed his mouth to mine. “There will be a 100 percent chance that I’ll say yes to that.”

  He nipped along my neck and I moaned softly, but the sound of footsteps on gravel behind us made us straighten up.

  “Hey, you two,” Sawyer said, laughing. “Can you make it until after the reception at least? The photographer is waiting.”

  I looked up at Alex and bit my lip. “I don’t know if I can wait, honestly.”

  “Give us ten minutes,” Alex said.

  Sawyer was still laughing as he walked away.

  I sighed and looked in the direction of the party. “I guess we should spend some time with our guests. We do have all night to test out our theory.”

  “Oh, no.” He picked me up and set me on the bike’s seat, facing him. “I promised to follow my heart instead of my data, remember? And everything in my heart says to never let you go.”

  “Then I guess we have no choice. It’s just like fate. It brought us together and nothing’s been the same since.”

  “And I am so, so glad for that.”

  Dragon’s Royal Guard

  Shifters Between Worlds

  1

  Kaylee Turner shifted uncomfortably in her narrow seat. Usually, she saw these international flig
hts as the perfect time for reading and research. While other passengers complained of boredom, air sickness and cramped conditions, Kaylee was content to lose herself in a good book or an essay from her field of study.

  But that wasn’t the case today.

  Turning and pressing her forehead against the cool glass of the window, Kaylee studied the land formations below. She’d found that every country—and every state, even—looked a little different. She’d been on so many flights, she’d started to recognize them from the air, even before the captain would announce where they were in a thick accent over the speaker. This time, she was heading into Zimbabwe, which meant she wouldn’t get to see much of it from the air. The airport was on the western edge of the country, and the site she’d be visiting was much further east.

  Even so, she scanned the hot, dry earth below her. Deep inside, Kaylee sensed she was looking for something. She’d always felt that way, and she would continue her pursuit when she landed and traveled across the country in a vehicle. Her search had been constant for most of her life, though she never quite knew what she was looking for.

  That was what had inspired her career—that and her love for books and languages, which her father helped foster ever since she was a baby. Kaylee was always reading, and not always in her first language. She had a gift for words, one that she couldn’t explain any more than her yearning for finding that missing something. She took in everything below her, longing to feel some sort of connection to it. She’d been born on this planet. She’d been a part of it for her entire life, yet she never felt that way. The disconnection left her with an unsettled feeling in the pit of her stomach.

  “I trust you had good travels?” Dr. Morrick clasped her hand in both of his, his fingers warm and worn as he greeted her near the entrance of the Great Zimbabwe. Releasing her, he pushed his dark glasses up on his nose and ran a hand over his slick, gray hair. His pale, skinny legs stuck out of his baggy khaki shorts, and his matching safari shirt was soaked with sweat.

  “It gave me the chance to get a lot of work done,” she admitted with a smile. Kaylee had always liked Dr. Morrick. He’d been one of her first archeology professors, and his enthusiasm had helped her find her own passion.

  He tipped his head to the side and frowned a little. “Are you all right? You’re not unwell, are you? I’ve heard the airplane food is quite terrible these days.”

  “No, I’m fine. I’m just a little tired.” Kaylee scrunched her toes inside her boots, wishing she could take them off and rest her bare feet against the hot soil beneath her. The sun baked them where they stood, and it was clearly making Dr. Morrick uncomfortable. Beads of sweat rolled down the sides of his rounded cheeks, no matter how quickly he swiped them away with a handkerchief. To Kaylee, it was a glorious heat that sank through her skin and down to her bones, something she would carry with her once she got back on a plane in a few days. She would miss it when she returned to the chilly weather back home.

  Dr. Morrick smiled. “That can be fixed. I’ve set you up in one of the nicest hotels in the area. No sleeping out on the ground for the best translator in the world!”

  Kaylee flushed as she followed him down a dirt pathway. It had been carved by thousands of feet, traveling amongst the crumbling stone walls that had once housed numerous people. While some parts of the ruins were remarkably preserved due to the masterful masons who had once built them, there were others that had been reduced to nothing but piles of perfectly shaped granite bricks. “You don’t have to say that just because I’m right here.”

  “I don’t have to say anything; that’s true. But I don’t think either one of us can deny that you’re at the forefront of our industry. People talk about you, my dear.”

  “I’m not sure it’s always in a good way.” The curving walls of the Great Enclosure rose up in front of them, and Kaylee felt an immediate appreciation for the site. It spoke of ancient people, lost religions and stories that spanned centuries. Archeologists would never truly know everything about the Great Zimbabwe, a monument so stunning that an entire country was named after it, but it was still a lot of fun to guess.

  Dr. Morrick reverently touched the stone walls that framed a doorway. “Don’t take any of that to heart. They’re just intimidated by you. Some of them have studied for decades and yet they can’t decode the way you can. They don’t think that a young woman such as yourself should be able to hold so much genius in her brain. Sexist, I know, but old ways die hard.”

  “Or they die without a single explanation of why.” Kaylee had read everything she could get her hands on about this ancient site as soon as she’d received the request from Dr. Morrick to come out there. She’d been excited both to work with her mentor and to see a new place, but as soon as she’d begun packing her bag, she started to realize the reality of it. She could handle the rigors of airport security, even when it involved flying to a different country. She could handle living out of a small suitcase for a week. She could even handle the inevitable change in diet.

  But she knew the worst of it was yet to come.

  “Perhaps you can help uncover a few of her secrets,” Dr. Morrick replied hopefully. He led her into a circular stone wall and past several other structures, all built of the same stone. They reached another doorway, and upon entering it, descended down a set of stairs that had been freshly uncovered from the earth. “As I said in my email, we’ve only just recently uncovered this new chamber. It’s been quite exciting for us, as I’m sure you can imagine. These new technologies that keep popping up are hard to keep up with, yet they’re always giving us new information about old sites. I love it. Anyway, we’ve found a tablet we’d like you to interpret for us.”

  “Has anyone else had a go at it?” The steps beneath her were still slick with the dirt that had been covering them for centuries, but Kaylee confidently made her way down them. She glanced up from her footsteps to see that a vast underground cavern had been dug out of the dirt. LED lights on strands had been set up at intervals, run by a generator that grumbled to itself somewhere above them. Several other rooms extended off the one they were in with more glowing lights emanating from them.

  He paused at the bottom of the stairs and turned to her, a look of concern in his houndlike eyes. “Well, Dr. Atwood is here.”

  Kaylee’s heart, which had been fluttering somewhere between excitement and anticipation, now dropped into a solid state of dread. She knew how Dr. Atwood felt about her, but then again, he’d made no attempt to hide it. She raised one eyebrow. “And did he have any success?”

  Dr. Morrick’s mouth was a hard line. “Not exactly, although he claims he’ll have all the answers very shortly. I should tell you he was rather offended that I called anyone else in on this project. You know how he is, always thinking he’s the end-all, be-all of any given situation. I never would’ve brought him on except that his connections with the local university helped me get the permission to dig here in the first place. Besides, I know you have a lot going on while you finish up your degree. Tell me, were you able to make sufficient arrangements with your professors?”

  That had been the very first thing Kaylee had done when she’d received Dr. Morrick’s invitation, and her teachers had been happy to accommodate her. Knowing where she was going and why had only made it easier. “Of course. I’ll have a few things to catch up on once I get back, but it shouldn’t be an issue.”

  “Good, good. Then let’s get started.” Dr. Morrick strode confidently across the dirt floor and through a doorway. While the first room at the bottom of the stairs had been fairly nondescript, this one was most definitely a library of some sort. The wall across from the doorway was covered in ancient scripts that had been preserved by centuries underground and away from the elements. A u-shaped assemblage of stone seemed to form a seating area in the center of the room, and shelves had been carved into the other walls. Each of these held thick sheaves of primitive paper, ancient wooden boxes, and stacks of stone tablets.

  �
��It’s beautiful,” Kaylee breathed, immediately intrigued by the amount of knowledge they might find there. Even if these writings were nothing more than diaries or recipes, they would certainly give the scientists some definitive insight into the lives of the people who’d once occupied these spaces.

  “I thought so, too,” Dr. Morrick said proudly, his chin rising slightly. “I assure you, the other rooms here are wonderful, but none are as fascinating as this one. Oh, where are my manners? I believe you know Dr. Parkinson?”

  A slender older woman with graying blonde hair stood up from where she’d been crouched on the floor, gently flicking dirt away from a small statue with a paintbrush. She extended her hand and smiled warmly. “So nice to see you again, Miss Turner.”

  “And you know I never leave the country without my partner in crime, Dr. Davison.” Morrick gestured to a man who turned away from the stone shelves to approach them, a fine coat of dust clinging to his salt and pepper beard.

  “No need to be so formal, Douglas. Call me Jonathan. I’ve heard so much about you that I’m starting to think Dr. Morrick here is thinking about adopting you.” He shook her hand as well.

  Kaylee felt a little better. Maybe she didn’t need to dread this trip at all if there were such good people there. “I’ve heard quite a bit about you, too.”

  “Only good stories, I hope?” Jonathan raised a furry gray eyebrow at his partner.

  “Mostly,” Kaylee replied with a smile.

  “Oh, she’s here.” This voice came from the doorway, and Kaylee turned to see a rather rotund man filling it. His dark hair had been slicked back and held in place with either gel, sweat, or a mixture of the two. Overdressed for the occasion, he’d eschewed the traditional garb of khakis and shorts for a dark suit. He made a disgusted face as he swept a bit of dust off the sleeve of his jacket.