“Once mates complete the bond, its unbreakable. They are forever connected. They can no longer survive without the other. Dramatic? Sure.” Ava explains.
“Sounds romantic to me.” I mumble under my breath. Ava must hear me because she gives me a soft look, a slight smile tugging at the corner of her mouth as her hand slides a little higher onto my thigh.
“Anna wasn’t my fated, but we were mated.” Neo cuts in. Ava gasps and looks wide eyed to Neo.
“I know, I know.” Neo says, not meetings Ava’s stare.
“Hold on. New guy here, back up.” I ask, not understanding the look between them. “Didn’t you say she wasn’t your mate?”
“No, I said we weren’t fated. Fated mates, like you two, don’t have a say in it, once you find each other, it’s inevitable. Mating outside that just… isn’t done in our world.” The blank look I’m giving Neo must tip him off I have absolutely no idea what he’s talking about. “You haven’t told him?! Seriously Ava. What the fuck. So, Captain Clueless, here’s the elevator pitch for Fated Mates. The Universe, God, Gia, whatever you subscribe to… creates a perfect mate for every shifter. Not every shifter finds their Fated mind you, but they’re out there. When we come in contact with our mates, we can tell them by scent and some weird sixth sense pull shit. It’s solidified by touch, once you touch them, you know. Mates become bonded when they share a bite. Now, I can tell our lovely Ava here hasn’t sealed the deal with you yet so… have fun buddy.” Neo says with a wink. “Oh and one more thing. She bites you, next full moon you shift.” He explains in a tone you would expect from someone reciting the weather.
“Did you just say shift?!” I ask, not entirely convinced I heard him right.
“Um, yeah. I was gonna get to that part.” Ava says sheepishly.
“We are very much talking about that later.” I say seriously. Even though I’m freaking out at the thought of shifting into a damn cat, if that’s what being with Ava means, I’ll figure it out. I press a kiss against her temple and settle back into my chair, ready to get back to the discussion at hand.
“So, to continue what we were talking about, Non-fated matings have always been rare.” Ava says, “It wasn’t allowed for… well, for forever, but more and more of the old ways are falling by the wayside as we adapt to the new way of the world. It’s starting to happen more often, but still frowned upon in most prides.”
“I didn’t care, neither of us did.” Neo says, pain clear in his defiant tone.
“Neo, does anyone know?” Ava asks.
“Axl and the Club know. You know I had to tell them. The old guard weren’t exactly thrilled but Axl didn’t care, so the rest came around. No one else outside the club knew though. Couldn’t risk it.” Neo explain, not looking either of us in the eye. The table goes quiet for a moment, no one exactly sure how to move forward.
Trying to process everything I’m learning, my brain snags on one piece of information Neo gave. “Wait. What was Annalise’s last name? And when did she disappear? Like, exactly.”
“Taylor. Annalise Taylor. February 19th. She was 18, had just turned 18 two weeks before.” He says.
“Holy shit.” I mumble, sitting back in my chair, running a hand over my jaw as my mind races.
“What? What holy shit?” Ava asks.
“Neo, would you be able to identify her from say, a shirt?” I ask. Neo raises a skeptical eyebrow at me like I’m going crazy.
“Dude, cut me some slack, I have known about shifters for less than 12 hours. I don’t fuckin know what you can do or not.” That cracks a smile from Neo at least.
“Yeah. If it’s something she wore and has been preserved, I could identify her.” He nods.
“Okay. Good.” I say. Looking around the shop I notice it’s starting to fill with other patrons. So far no one is paying us any attention, but I don’t trust it to stay that way. “Ava, is there somewhere less… populated we can have this conversation?”
Ava looks around as well, nodding as she takes in the rest of the shop. “Sure, follow me.”
263
Kaden
In the last four days, I don’t think the three of us have left Ava’s tiny studio apartment above the coffee shop for longer than it takes to drive home and get clean clothes. Neo and I have been working around the clock pulling together everything we need to pin Burns to the wall, and Ava has been helping where she can and making sure the two of us don’t die. The only reason she hasn’t killed either of us for making her do “womanly duties” the whole time, as she puts it, is because the entire plan hangs on her.
After we came up here from the coffee shop that first morning, I filled Ava and Neo in on my initial ideas and you would think Neo was a kid given the keys to a candy shop the way he lit up when he heard it. He has barely come up for breath from his laptop since. We are breaking so many laws I lost count. But it’s all for the greater good and will be worth it in the end if we can pull it off.
So, my idea. Hearing Neo’s story about Annalise connected with one of the unsolved cases I came across when I first started digging into things around town. There was a missing person’s report for Anna Taylor that was “misfiled” five years ago, as unfortunate as that might be, it’s nothing special. But when you combine it with the unsolved murder and body dump of an 18-year-old Jane Doe three months later… it clicks into place. Neither case was ever solved, and from
