I pulled myself out of my pity party when Allegra reached for her donut. “Give that to me,” I huffed, snatching the donut out of her hand. “I’m not entirely convinced the baby is telling you that sriracha sounds like a great idea since you’re so early in your pregnancy, but the reason you want this doesn’t really matter. We both know you’re going to give yourself heartburn if you eat something this spicy.”
Allegra’s lips curved down in a pout. “You don’t know that it’s too spicy. Maybe the sweetness of the donut will overpower the sriracha, and I’ll barely taste it.”
I lifted the donut to my mouth and licked some of the red drizzle off the top. The heat hit my tongue, but it was quickly followed by the sweet from the sugar. Allegra might’ve been right about being able to handle the donut, but I wasn’t willing to admit it to her in case she was wrong. “There’s no way you’d miss the spiciness.”
“Jerk.” She shook her head and laughed as she grabbed a strawberry jam-filled donut to replace the one I stole. “I guess it’s better if you eat the stupid donut since you like hot things way more than I do.”
I dropped the sriracha donut on the napkin in front of me and picked up the half of the lemon-filled one I hadn’t eaten yet. “Nah, I’m not sure I want to breathe fire all day.”
“Breathe fire,” she echoed, clapping her hands together in excitement. “That’s it!”
I had zero idea what she was talking about, but I recognized that gleam in her eye enough to know I should probably be at least a little worried. “What’s it?”
“Maybe you didn’t find your hunky shifter here because you’re going to end up with a dragon!” She wagged her brows.
“I don’t know why you’re acting like it would be such a great thing for me to be paired with a dragon.” I rolled my eyes and shook my head.
“Yeah, well...I don’t understand why you’re being all pissy over the possibility,” she grumbled.
“Remember how Larissa said that Kace told her there weren’t that many dragon shifters?” Allegra nodded. “If fate matched me with one of them, the odds of me finding my guy just went way down.”
“Oh, good point.” Understanding dawned in her eyes. “Maybe the problem is that most of the guys around here are wolves, and you were never much of a dog person.”
I glanced at the kitchen door and lowered my voice. “You probably don’t want Zeke to hear you using the D-word like that.”
“Another good point.” Laughter bubbled up her throat. “But I bet he wouldn’t have minded if we’d told Kace and him that you wanted a big, sexy kitty for Christmas since you’re more of a cat person.”
2
Tane
I loved my family, but after spending more than a month with them, I was beyond ready to be back in Timber Ridge. Not that I regretted the trip since it’d been important for me to be there to help my dad. But after the risk to his recovery passed—along with our fear—my sisters got up to their old tricks. They loved nothing more than giving me a hard time, and having me home for so long gave them plenty of opportunities. If they weren’t pushing me to get out there more and up my odds of finding my mate when they knew damn well it wasn’t that simple, they were giving me shit about living with wolves and being Kace’s third.
Tiger shifters didn’t normally live in packs, but I loved the life I’d built in Timber Ridge. I knew Kace and Zeke had my back, no matter what. They were more like brothers than pack mates, which was difficult for my sisters to wrap their heads around since the only people they let inside their walls were family. They were best friends, and everyone else was an outsider in their view. Only the pull of the mating bond would be strong enough to get my sisters to truly open up to someone.
Mating was sacred among shifters, but finding the person fate intended for you didn’t happen for everyone. There were shifters who went their whole lives never experiencing desire. Never giving their heart to someone. Never feeling as though their soul was whole. The fear that I was going to be one of those shifters lived inside me, but it eased a little when I heard that Kace and Zeke found their mates only a day apart from each other. Their luck gave me hope that I might be as blessed.
When I got back into town late last night, I’d headed over to Kace’s place to check in with my alpha. I’d been about to walk down the sidewalk leading to his house when I heard female moans and quickly realized I should wait until morning for my visit. Kace has always had an open-door policy, twenty-four-seven, but now that his mate was in his life, that rule was bound to change since they’d need some privacy.
My tiger had been agitated as I’d turned on my heel and headed to my house instead. Even though I was finally home and in my own bed, he hadn’t settled during the night. If anything, he’d been more wound up after the few hours of sleep I’d managed to get. After showering and yanking on some clothes, my plan was to drop in to update Kace—mostly because I wanted to meet his mate and give them my support—before letting my tiger out for a run. With everything that had been going on with my dad, I hadn’t had the opportunity when I’d been in New York. I figured my
