by Sara Summers
SOULFATED
By Sara Summers
Copyright © 2018 Sara Summers
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the author except for the use of brief quotations in a book review
Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Names, characters, and places are products of the author’s imagination.
iamsarasummers.blogspot.com
To You.
Because you believe in love.
One
When you hear a knock on your front door, your first thought is never,
“Oh hey, I wonder if that’s my soulmate.”
At least, that wasn’t my first thought when someone knocked at my house. Typically my first thought was,
“I really hope that’s not the police coming to take my father to prison.”
The soulmate thing would’ve been much more fun to worry about though, if I’d had any clue that I needed to worry about it. But I was a human and I had no idea that one day the person knocking at my door would be my soulmate—and a shifter.
“Hallie! Get the door!” My dad yelled from the living room.
I headed toward the front door. Responding to him with actions was almost always wiser than responding with words. The man was a loose-cannon.
I pulled the door open.
When I saw a tall, dark-haired man standing on my doorstep, I took a shocked step backward, and then quickly hurried back to where I’d been so he wouldn’t notice.
“Wow, you’re gorgeous.” He grinned, staring at me like it was the only thing on his to-do list for the entire day.
“Um, thanks.” I bit the inside of my cheek to stop a smile of my own. This guy had to be either a salesman or a cop I figured. Maybe the police had finally decided to assign one of their guys to guard my house so my dad would stop threatening people. “What can I do for you?”
“Oh, sorry. My name is Tanner, I’m a wolf shifter.” He explained.
When he said the word ‘shifter’, my eyes widened and I glanced behind me to make sure my dad hadn’t heard. Since there was no yelling or pounding feet, I figured I was safe. My dad hated shifters with a passion that I didn’t think anyone else could match.
See, when I was growing up, shifters (people who could turn into animals) had all been stuck inside the walls of what was basically a cage that took up half of Washington. A year and a half before I met Tanner, the walls had been busted down and the shifters had joined society. As far as I knew most of them were still in Washington, so my tiny town in Nevada wasn’t exactly the place shifters gathered. Still, shifters lived like humans—with jobs and houses and families—so I wouldn’t have known if my town was overrun by them.
The only way to tell a shifter from a human was the marking on their body that looked like a magical tattoo (for lack of better description). We called them mate marks, because the markings matched that of their soulmate.
Before he could repeat the “s” word, I stepped out onto the porch and closed the door behind me.
“Why are you here? My dad didn’t threaten a wolf pack, did he?”
I had a sinking feeling that he had, in fact, either threatened or killed some wolf shifter and now the rest of them wanted to make us pay. While I did everything I could to keep track of him and was with him 80% of the time, I still had to sleep.
The shifter guy didn’t look like he wanted to kill me, but I’d only ever seen two shifters in my life so I wasn’t exactly sure how to read his body language.
“What? No, nothing like that.” He gave me a hesitant smile. “You’re my soulmate, Hallie.”
I lifted my eyebrows.
“This is a joke, right?” I looked around the sides of the house, waiting for more people to show themselves. “Seriously, tell whoever you’re with to get a life. He has a brain tumor, he isn’t insane.”
I shook my head and grabbed the door handle.
“It’s not a joke.” Tanner grabbed my hand and spun me around to face him.
The moment our hands touched, the side of my neck began to burn, hurting so badly that I stumbled into his arms.
He grabbed me, holding me up, and I gawked at the shimmery, dark purple swirly marking underneath his ear.
He really was a shifter.
“What did you do to me?” I demanded, reaching up to feel the side of my neck, where my skin felt sort of sore.
“Proved that we’re soulmates.” Tanner let go of me since I could stand up on my own. His gaze focused on the marking that had appeared on my neck, the same dark purple design that was on his.
When his eyes found mine, the look he was giving me was so intense that I hurried backward until my back hit the house.
“How is that possible?” I swallowed when he stepped toward me.
“Shifters are soulmates with humans. It’s been all over the news.” He took another step and I held out my hand to stop him.
“Just stay back, okay? I need a minute.” I closed my eyes for a second and touched the sensitive spot underneath my right ear. He didn’t come any closer, so at least he’d listened to me. I didn’t watch the news. While I’d heard of an actor who had turned into a shifter because he was soulmates with one, I had assumed it was some kind of publicity stunt.
I didn’t get out much, if ever. I was too afraid that if I left I would come home to find my dad was gone—either dead or on the loose. Neither of those options were okay with me, so I tried not to leave.
But I couldn’t deny that he was right. There wasn’t exactly a way to ignore the marking under my ear or the fact that it had appeared when he touched my hand. Tanner and I were soulmates, whatever that meant for me.
I opened my eyes.
“What happens now?”
“Whatever we want to happen now.” Tanner lifted his shoulders. “There aren’t any rules for soulmates.”
“No, I mean what happens to me? Do I become a shifter?”
“Yeah. The marking on your neck means that you’re a wolf shifter now.” He nodded. His eyes were filled with emotions I couldn’t read, but he was acting cautious and not trying to push me. I could at least appreciate that.
Before I could process that I had become a shifter, I heard a loud crashing inside the house that sounded like breaking glass.
My head spun toward the front door, and then back to Tanner.
“Hide.” I hissed, pushing him toward the stairs.
He looked at me like I was crazy.
“I’m not going to hide.”
“Hide!” I insisted, trying again to push him toward the stairs that would take him off the porch and to safety.
“No.” Tanner didn’t budge.
My dad came crashing through the door with a large shotgun in his hand.
My jaw fell open; he had a shotgun?! I thought I’d gotten rid of all of his weapons after he’d gotten violent.
Apparently I was wrong.
“Get away from my house, demon.” My dad yelled, pointing the gun right at Tanner.
My soulmate raised his hands next to his hand.
“Sir, let’s be reasonable.” Tanner warned, not backing down despite the weapon pointed straight at his head.
“Get away or I’ll kill you.” My dad’s voice was flat.
Tanner might not have realized, but the man was completely serious. My dad would kill him without hesitation. Whatever part of his brain was in charge of logical thinking was either damaged or destroyed by one of his tumors.
“You don’t want to do that.” There was a bit of growl in Tanner’s voice that told me he wanted to challenge my dad, but instead he took a few steps away from my dad to show that he wasn’t a threat.
“Dad, put the gun down.” I stepped closer to him.
The next few seconds happened so quickly I could barely keep track of it.
My dad turned the gun to point at me.
Tanner snarled and stepped in front of me, protecting me with his own body.
“No! Don’t!” I yelled for my soulmate to get away, but it was too late.
My dad pulled the trigger.
Tanner tackled me to the floor. My shoulder slammed against the hard wood of the porch, popping as it hit. Intense pain ripped through the area, and I barely bit back a scream.
The bullet rushed over our heads as Tanner tackled me, and I knew that the only reason he hadn’t been shot was because the shotgun had more kickback than my dad expected.
Tanner’s body pressed against mine, holding me to the floor as he looked back at my dad, who was fumbling around with the gun. I was sure he couldn’t remember how to get the weapon ready to shoot again or even if he had to get it ready to shoot again.
“Run, Tanner.” I forced out the words, holding my pained shoulder with my opposite hand.
“I’m not leaving you.” He growled, blocking me from my dad’s view.
“He won’t shoot me. Get out of here and we’ll both be safe.” I ordered, meeting his eyes with a glare. “We’re sitting ducks.”
“Fine.” Tanner snarled and shook his head before he rolled away from me and took off running down the dirt road that was my driveway.
My dad chased him, of course. I knew that would happen but I’d counted on Tanner being faster than him.
Dad still hadn’t remembered how to use the gun, so I thought everything would work out fine.
When he stopped and pumped the shotgun, though, I swore. Muscle memory had defeated the brain tumor.
Still clutching my shoulder that was hurting so badly I felt like it might fall off, I stood up and shouted.
“Dad!” I yelled as loud as I could, hoping it would distract him for long enough for Tanner to make it behind a neighbor’s house or something.
My dad spun around to look at me, but my attention was on Tanner then. He shifted into a massive, person-sized wolf with deep brown fur that matched the hair on top of his head when he was a person.
When my dad saw where my gaze was pointed, he spun around and lifted the shotgun.
Tanner the wolf ran straight toward my father.
I scrambled down the steps, ignoring the pain in my shoulder and sprinting toward my dad as fast as I could run.
“Stop, Tanner!” I shrieked, shoving my dad with my free hand. He pulled the trigger as he stumbled and a bullet shot up into the sky and, miraculously, away from any of the other houses around us.
My dad dropped the shotgun on the dirt road and clutched at his head.
“Go inside and take a nap, dad.” I told him, swallowing hard as I gripped my swollen, burning shoulder. “You need some sleep.”
“I need some sleep.” He agreed, looking at me suddenly with confusion. “What just happened, Hal?”
“It doesn’t matter. Just go inside and go to bed.” I instructed.
He nodded and went inside, forgetting about Tanner despite the massive brown wolf standing only a few yards away from him.
“What just happened?” Tanner asked, having shifted back into human form while my dad walked away.
My face flushed and I turned away from the naked man behind me.
“I told you earlier, he has a brain tumor. A few of them, actually. The doctors thought he was going to die a few years ago so his tumors are so bad he can barely control himself most of the time.” I grimaced, still holding my shoulder.
“Are you okay?” Tanner’s hand touched the side of my arm.
“I’ll be fine. I think some of my dad’s old clothes might fit you if you want them.” I headed toward the house, figuring that after he’d shielded me with his body he would at least follow me inside my house.
“That works.” He agreed.
I heard his footsteps behind me as we walked into the house.
Two
Tanner looked ridiculously attractive in my dad’s old holey black basketball shorts and blue t-shirt.
I led him into my room, the one place in the house that my dad never went. He was asleep so I knew we had at least an hour or two before I needed to start making dinner.
I’d dumped the bullets in the dirt and tossed the shotgun in the trash bin on our way inside, so at least that was taken care of, but I knew I also needed to search the house for weapons again since I had no idea where he’d gotten that one.
I sat down on the old futon couch in the corner of my room that my friends used to sleep on when they slept over in high school. It had been years since that happened, but the couch still had good memories.
Tanner stood in front of me.
“Are you okay?” he checked.
“Fine.” I murmured, looking at the floor. My shoulder was on fire and the rest of my body ached, but I was still alive.
“Can I see your shoulder?” he asked, sitting next to me.
I nodded and let go of it. It was massive and swollen, and looked almost as painful as it felt.
“I think it’s dislocated.” Tanner met my light brown eyes with his dark ones. “Can I take you to the doctor?”
“No.” I shook my head and pulled my cell phone out of my pocket. It wasn’t cracked after all of the drama earlier, which was kind of a miracle. “If I leave, my dad will wander and threaten people. I’ll just google how to do it myself.”
“I know how to pop it back into place, but I think it’s best if a doctor does it so he can make sure it’s done right.” He told me.
“Well I’m not going to the doctor, so just go ahead.” I gestured to my swollen shoulder.
Tanner stood up and took my hand. I closed my eyes and clenched my jaw so I wouldn’t have to watch or scream.
As my shoulder popped back into place the pain got much worse and then much better.
“Thanks.” I gave him a small smile.
“It was my fault it happened in the first place.” Tanner grimaced and sat back down, pulling his t-shirt off.
“Whoa, what are you doing?” I checked, leaning away from him while I cradled my arm.
“Making you a sling. I figured that if you won’t leave to go to the doctor you probably won’t leave to buy one of those either.” He waited for me to answer.
I reluctantly leaned closer to him.
“Fine.” I agreed. He ripped the t-shirt down the seam easily, like he’d done it a hundred times before.
I’m not sure how he did it, but Tanner moved my arm and somehow managed to make the old t-shirt into a sling.
“Thanks.” I leaned back against the couch and closed my eyes.
He didn’t say anything, so I slowly peeked one eye open just a tiny bit to see what he was doing. I found Tanner staring at his hands, looking a little bit lost.
I felt plenty lost myself, so I didn’t ask him why he was feeling that way. Instead, I went for an easy question.
“Why do you know how to fix a dislocated shoulder?” opening my eyes so I could see him, I waited for his answer.
“Oh, my brother and I get into fights sometimes. His shoulder pops out pretty easily and if we don’t pop it back into place before my mom sees, she freaks.” He explained.
“You have a brother?” I was suddenly more interested. I had never had any siblings, so maybe if I was soulmates with this guy, I would have a brother by marriage or soulmateage or whatever.
“Yeah he’s my twin, actually.” Tanner gave me a small smile. Something was obviously still bothering him but I still didn’t want to know what.
“That’s cool. Are you guys identical?” I thought that could be a little weird.
“No, but most people us mixed up.” He looked down again. I still didn’t want to know what was bothering him.
“Okay.” I yawned and leaned my head back against the couch. My dad had woken me up early when he was
yelling at the TV, so I’d been up since 3 AM.
“Hey, I think I left my phone in a bush outside. I’m going to go grab it.” Tanner said, standing up.
“Alright.” I shrugged. As he walked toward the door, it occurred to me that my life probably wasn’t anything like he’d hoped for. I was sure he’d wanted a girl he could sweep off of her feet and into his world, someone who loved to laugh and wore pretty dresses and wasn’t taking care of her violent, dying father.
Since I wasn’t what he’d hoped for, and he obviously was bothered by that fact, I didn’t want to force him to stay.
“You can leave, you know.”
He stopped in the doorway when he heard what I said.
“What?” he turned around.
“You can go. My life is insane and unromantic and kind of depressing, I don’t blame you for wanting to leave. Sometimes I want to leave too. So just go.” I shrugged. “Just leave.”
Tanner’s eyes narrowed at me, and I felt that same urge to take a step backward that I’d felt earlier. Unfortunately, I was sitting on the couch, so that wasn’t an option.
“You think I want to leave you after we just met?” his voice was all growly again.
I wasn’t sure if that was good or bad, but I was leaning toward bad.
“Yes. You’re upset.” I gestured to him.
“I’m not upset, I’m angry.” He was glaring at me, then. I lifted my hands in surrender.
“So sue me for getting anger and frustration mixed up.” I shot back, clueless as to why he was mad at me.
“I’m not mad at you, Hallie. I’m angry with myself because I hurt you.” Tanner turned again to leave and I quickly stood up.
“You think you hurt me when you tackled me so I wouldn’t get shot? I’m pretty sure a bullet would hurt worse.” I folded my arms.
He turned back to me.
“I’m your soulmate, it’s my job to protect you.” His eyes were narrowed at me again.
“You said there are no rules for soulmates.” I glared back at him.
“It’s not a rule, it’s a responsibility.”
“Well if you think protecting me is your responsibility you’d better get out now because my dad is aggressive and violent.” I lifted the hem of my t-shirt, showing off just a part of the purple-green bruise that stretched across my torso and the tops of my legs. Tanner’s eyes widened in horror.