Chapter Eleven

Audrey

Though the matches I'd had so far had all been duds for one reason or another, I still visited the app. Social media apps were addictive for the hit of dopamine they gave you, but this app? This one had a hold on me. I chalked it up to the fact that my future, a future with a potential mate or three lay in the results of their matches. And of course, I had enjoyed using them on those live broadcasts.

Everyone hated Mondays, but I loved them. Mondays were a new beginning and always felt like a fresh start. With my second cup of coffee in hand, I sat at my desk and decided to start my new commission. It wasn't due for another month, but the requirements were large, and it would take some time to come up with the right design for the campaign.

The home screen flashed on my computer, and I took a deep breath. Starting a project was fun and exciting but it was also the hardest part. I clicked on the email from the company and printed the documents. Having a hard copy with me was always important.

As I read over the parameters of the commission, my phone beeped—several times. The Mail-Order Matings app had a notification tone unlike text or any other app. I paused and looked at my phone before picking it up. I was both intrigued and annoyed with the damned thing.

Sighing, I picked up the phone and checked the app. I had four more matches, new ones. I groaned, clicking on the matches, my hope for a mate or mates dwindling by the second.

The first couple were more rejections for me. Wolves. Lions. And even a pair of demons looking for a mate. They might be fun to show my subscribers.

The third match made me pause. I leaned back in my chair and couldn't deny the way my heart sped up at their pictures.

Three of them. Three gorgeous, handsome men. All different and yet, each of them no more handsome than the others. They made something stir inside me.

Until I clicked on their information and realized they were humans. All three of them.

Gods, couldn't a girl get a break?

I moved on to the last one, a hyena shifter who made my cat's fur rise on the scruff of her neck. Not just a predator, hyenas were the predators. No, thank you. I would have to sleep with one eye open around that one.

I put my phone on the other side of the room, beyond temptation, and started on my work. I found my flow and in only a few hours had an amazing start to a lucrative social media campaign. My stomach rumbled, and I realized that what I thought was a few hours was actually more. Five hours of solid, focused work.

This cat needed lunch.

Marching over to the phone, I decided to call up my friend Bonnie. She was a black-footed cat, or as some called them, a small-spotted cat. Her kind was rare, and a shifter of her kind, almost extinct. She understood my defensiveness when it came to humans.

She agreed to lunch, but only if it was a burger and fries. We didn't have lunch very often, maybe once or twice a month, but it had to be burgers and fries.

Traditions mattered.

Bonnie slid into the booth thirty minutes later. "Did you order?" she asked. "I'm starving."

"Yes, ma'am," I answered, laughing. "Double cheeseburger. Fries. Strawberry milkshake. Two of each."

"Good." She took off her jacket and pulled her multi-hued hair up into a bun. "Tell me what's going on with you."

"Can't a girl just want to have lunch with her friend?" I scoffed.

"She can and sometimes she does, but you forget, I'm a tone and attitude savant. I notice every change in a person and a room—instantly."

Bonnie grew up in an emotionally abusive home. She knew, the second her parents came into the room, what their attitude was. She noticed the slightest change in facial expressions. Tones. Gestures. Words. And because she was a shifter, she could smell anger and fear a mile away.

"Fine. There is something I wanted to talk about. Someone who hasn't already formed an opinion."

Bonnie rolled up her sleeves as our food arrived. The girl was serious about her meals. "Shoot. I'm all ears."

I told her everything. About the app. About the pairs I'd been matched up with and finally, the three humans I'd been matched with this morning.

"How did they make you feel? I mean, it's only pictures on a screen, but you didn't immediately reject them like the others."

I hadn't.

"It doesn't matter how they made me feel. They are humans." I leaned forward and whispered the word. We were in public with humans all around us.

Bonnie put down her fry, and her shoulders tensed. When that girl put down food, you knew something profound was about to happen. "You and I both know how cruel and unkind humans can be. Thoughtless. Abusive. Angry. Rageful."

"You're not making the case for these guys," I said.

"I have two points. One: not all humans are like that. In fact, I've found that only a small portion of them are. It seems like more because most times they are the loudest. But humans, in general, have kind hearts and they try to do the right thing. Your mom…that was horrible what happened to her. Those humans represented the worst and most horrible segment of their species."

I bit back tears. The humans that threw my mother away like trash were the scum of the earth, and they fueled my mistrust of humans, even to this day.

"And two?" I asked after taking a bite of the burger.

"My other point is, even shifters can be cruel. It's not a trait exclusive to humans. Or demons. Or monsters. Or any creature. We all have the potential for good and bad and kindness and acts of horror." She picked up a fry. "Now tell the truth, how did they make you feel?"

Leaning back in the noisy booth seat, I recalled to her how my heart beat. How my cheeks heated. How I found them to be the most attractive males I'd ever seen.

"You'll never know unless you take the chance, Audrey. Never."