Chapter Eight

Grendel

"Why in the hell does your phone keep beeping? Do you have some new game on there or something?" I asked, stepping away from the anvil for a moment. We usually turned on some music while working, but today we had not and, if Hemlock's phone beeped one more time, it was next in the forge.

"What?" He yelled over the music and then stepped over to the workbench to turn it down. "What?"

"Your phone is driving me nuts."

Hem shook his head. "Dude, that's your phone."

"I'm gonna kill it," I said and stomped over to the workbench where both of our phones were plugged into the wall. Before I threw the damned thing into the fire, I checked it to make sure. There was no way my phone was kicking up such a damned fuss.

Once I moved my finger along the screen, opening it, I realized my best friend was right.

"I've never heard that notification before," I barked, trying to figure out what the noises were all about.

"Shit," Hemlock said and took the phone from my hand.

"What is it? Do I have a virus?"

Hemlock chuckled, shaking his head. "No. Better than that. We have a match on that app."

"Shut up," I said, grabbing the phone back and pulling the top menu down.

Sure enough, there were several notifications from the app, but one of them was most important. We had our first match.

"Click it and see who it is." Hemlock nudged me with his elbow.

"Here she is. Her name is Poe."

Hemlock let out a cuss word.

"What? You don't like her?" I jested, knowing he did. How could he not? She was gorgeous with long purple hair and a few tattoos. She was smiling in her profile pic and had a set of headphones on her head with what looked like a mic in front of her.

"What is she? Human?" Demons mated with humans for the most part but there were matings with all kinds of species. Fate knew what everyone needed in a mate.

"Shifter. Wolf Shifter," I remarked, flicking through the pictures of her. "She has a cat."

Hemlock snorted. "You're looking at someone who might be our mate and you're commenting on her cat? Look at her, Gren. She's a goddess. Why are there so many pictures of her with headphones?"

We took a seat on our bench, and Hemlock got out his own phone since Poe would show as a match for the both of us.

"She is the host of a paranormal podcast. Interviews all kinds of supes. Damn, even a vampire."

I had an idea.

While he read out loud more facts about our match—her likes and dislikes mostly—I pulled up another app for our music but this time searched for Poe Paranormal and immediately her podcast came up. As I read the blurb for her show, I saw that she had episodes streaming on YouTube as well.

"She has her show on YouTube . We can see her better," I said and pulled up the app. Poe Paranormal had over a million subscribers and, from what I saw in the comments, her audience loved her show.

Hemlock and I watched separate episodes, ignoring our work completely. There would always be more horses to shoe, but this…this female could potentially be our mate.

Our mate.

For the rest of the afternoon, we watched some of her interviews. Poe had also been a guest on other Youtubers' videos. We got to see her laugh. Smile. Be kind to others.

Her voice calmed my demon.

"Hem, what are you thinking?" I asked on the way home. We had to go look at a new forge in town that was being custom-built for us. He had been entirely too quiet that afternoon and had even plugged Poe's podcast into the truck speakers so we could listen together.

"My demon and this human brain inside my head are at odds."

I stayed quiet, letting him get it out. It was his way, I'd learned over our many years of friendship.

"My human side is telling me there's no way our first match is our mate. It's telling me I'm desperate and horny and just looking for someone to bang."

Snorting, I turned down the podcast even though I would love nothing more than to listen to more of Poe's voice soothing me from the magic of the internet.

"And your demon?"

"That bastard wants her here. Right now. He thinks…there's no way we are that lucky, right? To find our fated mate on the first match? But damn it if she doesn't call to every part of me and I'm talking every-fucking-part."

"My demon would agree with yours."

When we arrived back at our home, Hemlock stopped while he unlocked the door. "I think we should send her a message. Accept the match and see if she thinks the same. Wolf shifters have fated mates too. If she thinks there's a chance we are hers, then she will accept and message us back, right?"

I felt a smile grow on my face. "I think you're absolutely right. Send Poe the message."

Of course, now would be the hard part—waiting.

Might be harder than all the lonely years between us but for Poe, it would be worth it.