by Lola Kidd
Jasper slammed his fist on the roof of his car. He should have been expecting this. Of course the new parents would want to bring their children along. But there wasn’t anything prepared for them.
He had to be sure before he changed his plans. He got in his car and dialed Alec Kern’s number.
After moving with Jess, he had changed careers and now was the founder of a shifter dating app, MateMe!. It was still in beta and wasn’t available everywhere. He’d invited Jasper to sign up when they’d talked months earlier. The app was incredible. It was like having a matchmaker in your pocket.
In the old days, some shifters used to employ matchmakers to find their mates. The tradition had become outdated more than a hundred years earlier. One of the founders of the app was one of the old-school matchmakers. She’d teamed up with Alec and his cousins to modernize her long-dead business.
When you signed up for the app, you answered a bunch of questions. Then it would show you all the shifters in your area that you were at least 80 percent compatible with. If you liked any of them, you could tap on their picture and message them. If it worked, it was going to make his search for a mate incredibly easy.
Jasper had been meaning to call Alec and thank him, but he hadn’t had time. Now was as good a time as any, and he could find out if the kids were coming.
“Hey, what’s up?” Alec’s voice was barely louder than a whisper when he picked up.
“Hey. I need to confirm a few things for next week.”
“No problem. Hold on a second.”
He could hear Alec moving around at his end of the line.
“Trying not to wake the baby. What did you need to know?”
“I have some conflicting information here. Are you guys bringing the baby?”
“We are. Shoot, did Jess not call you?”
Jasper ground his teeth. “No, she didn’t. It’s fine. We can get some stuff.”
“Don’t worry about it. We’ll bring everything he needs. I know Tyler and Suzy are doing the same for their little girl.”
“Great, but we want to make your stay as comfortable as possible.”
“It sounds like we’re staying at a luxury hotel,” Alec mused.
Jasper laughed. “With the effort I’m putting into this, you might as well be.”
“Is that it?”
“That’s it for wedding stuff. But I also wanted to thank you for setting me up with that app.”
“No problem, man.” Alec sounded very excited. “How’s that working out for you? You got a match yet?”
“Maybe. I found someone this morning, but I haven’t had a chance to do anything with it yet. I looked at the picture, and the girl is gorgeous.”
He’d been matched with a beautiful blonde. She had giant green eyes and a smile that lit up her face. She was perfect. If he had to guess, he’d say she was some kind of bird shifter. She looked so delicate and graceful. He hoped to set up a date with her this evening. It would be his first try at dating someone from the app.
“Great,” Alec said, sounding relieved. “We’ve been having a couple of problems with it, so it’s nice to hear that you’re having good results.”
“I know what you mean. It was really buggy for the first few days I used it. You guys are still in beta, though, right? I’m sure it’ll work itself out.”
“For sure. We have really good developers working for us. We’re all really excited to get this thing off the ground.”
“I’m sure you’ve got a winner on your hands. There’s nothing like it out there.”
Jasper heard crying faintly before Alec groaned. “Thanks, man. I’ve got to talk to you later. I guess little man isn’t ready for his nap yet.”
“No problem. I’ll see you when you get here.” Jasper hung up and rested his head on the seat.
So far, so good. Alec had said not to worry, but Jasper would still provide bassinets and toys for both kids. He wished he’d known ahead of time. He could have gotten cribs and everything for the kids.
Since he’d just been talking about it, Jasper took a moment to open the MateMe! app and check out the girl’s profile. But when he opened his profile, there was no longer a match displayed.
Where was she? He flipped through the app but found nothing. He remembered her name, but when he tried searching for it, he came up with nothing. Frustrated, he tried searching for her on the internet. Inexplicably, the name came back with zero hits. There was no way for him to find her.
He shot off an email to the app’s customer service team. Whatever the problem was, they had better fix it quickly. His dragon had been very interested in the girl, and Jasper wanted to try to meet her. According to the app, they were 98 percent compatible. He didn’t have much faith that he’d find his true mate with an app, but he was curious.
He was about to start his car and get moving when his phone dinged. Customer service had gotten back to him fast. He had to read the short email a few times before it could sink it.
The profile he’d been matched with was gone. Either she had deleted it, or there was a problem with the app. The customer service rep said they had put in a ticket with tech support, and the tech team would contact him in the next forty-eight hours.
He’d had enough of this. He needed to take a break from the human world.
He disrobed and transformed. Where there had been a man, a magnificent bronze dragon now stood in his place. The great beast beat its wings a few times and took to the sky.
Three
Leigh stomped through the woods. Fabia and her meddling, she thought. She was as bad as Leigh’s mother. Leigh knew Fabia was trying to be helpful, but honestly, that app didn’t even sound like something she would like. She had never been able to get a shifter boy to look at her twice, so there was no way she was going to be able to marry one. It would never work out.
She couldn’t wait to get out of the Wasteland and start her new life. She could picture it now: she would have a home of her own, and a big, strong human man at her side. It was a future that would disgust her family. Their precious Leigh with a useless human man. They would never believe that a human could provide a life for her—ignoring the fact that most shifters didn’t even want to talk to her.
What other choice did she have? And were humans really so bad?
It upset Leigh when she talked about humans with her family. They all seemed to think she was a shifter just like them. So what if she hadn’t ever changed? It would happen eventually. But she knew in her bones that that wasn’t true. She had no animal lurking inside her, waiting to come out. She was never going to be like the rest of her family—another reason she couldn’t wait to get away.
She had finally reached her destination. There, in the center of a clearing, was an old well. The stones were crumbling, and it was dried up, but she loved it. No one ever came out here, and she could be alone with her thoughts.
She sat on the edge of the stones and stared down into the well, trying to block all thoughts from her mind and only listen to the forest around her. As she looked into the darkness, the world around her slipped away. All she could hear were the birds chirping around her. The waning sun beat down on the back of her neck, warming her up. It was like she didn’t have a care in the world. At peace, she rolled onto her back and looked up into the sky. It was such a great day. She wished she’d brought her sunglasses.
She was watching the birds in the trees above her when something large blocked the sun. Her eyebrows knitted together. This wasn’t a bird. This was something much larger.
She sat up, but kept her eyes trained on the sky. The giant creature suddenly came into focus. It was a dragon!
Leigh scrambled off the rocks and put her hand above her eyes, trying to get a better view. She’d never seen a dragon in real life. There had been rumors that there was a dragon in the Wasteland, and of course, the ultra-rich Collins family had just come out as dragon shifters. But they lived two or three hours away, and if there was a dragon in the Wasteland,
she had never seen it fly before. She wished she had binoculars or something. She would have loved to get a better look at it.
As if on cue, the dragon circled twice and then began to descend. Her stomach flipped as the beast got closer. She couldn’t believe it was actually descending. For a moment, she panicked. This had to be a shifter, but that didn’t mean it was a friendly one. She backed up until she was hidden among the trees.
When it finally reached the ground, the dragon almost filled the entire clearing. Its claws touched the ground delicately, and it beat its wings a few times before folding them against its back. Its scaly skin was golden and shiny. Leigh longed to reach out and touch it. As much as she tried to avoid shifters now, this one interested her. Dragons were so rare. It was like seeing a dinosaur walking around.
It had giant green eyes in a lizard-like face. They were quite beautiful and intelligent. Leigh was curious. Who was this great beast? It couldn’t be from around here. She surely would have seen it flying before now. A shifter couldn’t deny its nature for too long.
There was a reason there were dragon myths all around the world. They were one of the rarest kinds of shifters, but also the most dangerous and feared by humans. Many had been killed in darker times when they were spotted.
She could understand why this particular kind of shifter would want to keep its identity secret. She was grateful just to get a closer look at one. Even if she never found out who it was, this was something she would be telling her grandchildren about.
Luck was on her side that day. The dragon circled the clearing a few times and puffed smoke from its nostrils before it started to change. She was going to get to find out who it was!
As the dragon changed, it started to resemble a man. A very handsome and naked man. He stretched his long arms over his head and looked around the clearing. He turned once, twice, and then looked right at the spot she was hiding. It was like he was looking right at her.
Leigh sucked in her stomach and held her breath. She made herself as small as possible and tried not to move.
His gaze didn’t move. He smiled and stepped closer.
“You can come out. I know you’re hiding. I’m not going to hurt you.”
She put her hand over her mouth to muffle her gasp. He knew she was here. She had thought dragons had terrible vision and hearing. Apparently, that was a myth. He probably had heightened senses, just like other shifters.
“Miss? I said I’m not going to hurt you. Come on out. I won’t bite, I swear.”
Tentatively, she stepped out from behind the trees. She should have run, but her curiosity had gotten the best of her. He could have already killed her or incapacitated her if he’d wanted to. Plus, it was going to make a much better story now. This was going to be the day she met a dragon shifter, not just when she saw one from afar. She had to be brave.
She was shaking like a leaf, but she smiled back at him. “Hello.”
His jaw dropped and he closed the distance between them. He lifted his hand to stroke her hair. “Impossible.”
“What? What’s wrong?” She was rooted to the spot by shock as much as curiosity. He was so handsome up close. There something familiar about his angular face. She could swear she knew this beautiful man.
“I can’t believe this.” He smiled and laughed. “This can’t be real. Leigh? Leigh Ganza?”
She backed up and prepared to run. “Excuse me?”
How did this man know her name? Had he been sent by her father’s enemies? She was suddenly very aware that she was alone and no one knew where she was. If he hurt her and threw her body down the well, it would take ages before anyone found her.
She could be in great danger right now. There was little she could do to stop him if he attacked her. She had a fair chance against a human man, but a shifter? She would be dead as soon as he finished shifting.
He held his hands up and took a step back. “Sorry. I guess technically we’re still strangers, right? Well, I’m Jasper Collins. And you’re Leigh Ganza. There. Now we’ve been officially introduced.”
She couldn’t believe how stupid she was. How had she not recognized Jasper freaking Collins? He was one of the most eligible shifters in the entire country. Now that she had calmed down a little and wasn’t as surprised by the dragon, it was obvious who he was. His tall, muscular frame looked different outside of his trademark tailored suits, but it was still breathtaking. And his perfect face was hard to forget. He had been a model in his teen years.
Leigh had never been that into celebrity gossip, but Fabia was. She should have guessed it was one of the Collinses’ dragons. They lived far away, but it wasn’t that far by air. She immediately let out the breath she’d been holding. He wasn’t going to hurt her. But that didn’t explain everything.
“Right. You’re Jasper Collins. But how do you know my name?”
“We were matched on MateMe! This is incredible. Your profile just disappeared from my app. I put in a ticket with the company to try to get it fixed. Now, they don’t have to bother. Can you believe how lucky we are?”
“You were the match?”
She wasn’t mad at Fabia anymore. It must have killed Fabia to delete Leigh’s profile from the app after she’d seen who Leigh’s match was. She had barely made a stink about it. Crazy. That wasn’t like Fabia at all. She must have been afraid that Leigh was going to hold a grudge. Or maybe she hadn’t seen the match. That would make more sense.
“I was. You are much more beautiful than your pictures.” He brushed her hair again. “So what kind of shifter are you?”
“I’m not a shifter.” She took a step back. He might not hurt her, but she couldn’t let him carry on thinking she wanted to date him or something.
He took a step toward her and she backed up another step. “I didn’t know they let humans on the app.”
“I’m not sure. I don’t know much about the app.” She took another step back and a bush brushed against her leg.
“Would you stop backing up?” He frowned and took a step forward. “What’s wrong? I’m not some crazy. You believe me, right? You believe that we were matched?”
She nodded and stepped back again. “I do, but it doesn’t matter. I’m not interested in being matched with anyone.”
“Sure you don’t.” He smirked. “Then why would you sign up with a dating app?”
“I didn’t.”
“Of course not.” He took another swaggering step forward. “A lot of people are intimidated when they first meet me. I know I can be a lot to take in. But you don’t have to worry. I’m very interested.”
“Seriously?” She put her hands on her hips. “I am not intimidated. I just don’t have any desire to date a shifter.”
“Sure you don’t, honey. And that’s why you signed up for a shifter-only dating site.”
“I’m not the one who made the profile.” Anger rose in her chest as she spoke. He was being so pushy. “That was a mistake. I’m not your match. I’m sorry if you feel misled. You can try again, and I’m sure you’ll have no problem finding someone more receptive.”
He was Jasper freaking Collins. Did he really need a dating app? And why was he making such a big deal of this? So, he’d landed in the same clearing she was in. That wasn’t fate or anything; it was just chance.
Jasper narrowed his eyes. “I don’t understand. You don’t want to even go on one date with me?”
She shook her head. “No, I don’t. It was nice to meet you, but no. No thank you.”
She spun on her heel and raced away. She could hear him calling after her, but it was no use.
Of all the people in the world, she’d gotten matched with the first dragon she’d ever seen. And one of the richest men in the country.
As tempting as it was, she couldn’t let herself get swayed by a handsome face. Leigh had a plan, and it didn’t involve marrying a dragon or any other shifter. It didn’t matter how hot that shifter was.
The way he had looked at her—there was lust in hi
s eyes. Once a dragon wanted something, it would work tirelessly until it possessed the object of its infatuation. Usually, the thing was some kind of treasure. But when the object was a person, the dragon wouldn’t stop until it possessed the human.
All those myths about women being carried off or sacrificed to angry dragons had some basis in reality. The very last thing she needed was a dragon obsessed with her. She had to put as much space between her and this dragon as she could, as quickly as possible.
Four
Jasper watched Leigh run away. He didn’t know what the heck had just happened. He had landed in a random clearing and found the girl he’d been matched with, and now she was running off.
He hadn’t believed it when someone so beautiful had shown up on his phone. MateMe! had its problems, after all, as Alec had said. He was sure he’d need at least one date to see if he even had chemistry with this woman. Just because the app said they were perfect for each other didn’t mean much.
But this girl was something special, a rare gem. And from the smell of her, she really could be his mate. But she was a human. He hadn’t been expecting that at all. He’d thought MateMe! was only for shifters. He wasn’t opposed to dating a human but, he’d always pictured his mate as one of his kind. His family was a special kind of shifter, and that had ruled humans out as mate options for generations. Now that they were out, he was willing to explore settling down with a human woman.
Maybe even this human woman. Except she was running away from him already. Either she was an expert at playing hard to get or she was intimidated. There was no way she signed up for the app unwittingly. It was hard enough to get an invitation. She did it on purpose and probably deleted her profile after she’d seen he was her match.
No problem. He’d have to convince her that he was very interested, and she was more than good enough for him. She might be the perfect woman for him if the app was right.
He had to find out more about her.