How I Met My Mate (Shifters of Cedar Run #3)

Chapter One

Cole

Downtown Cedar Run, Arkansas looks peaceful and quiet this Saturday morning. The fall sun beams down on the farmer’s market at the far end of Main Street. Children scamper on the wooden play structure that our pack built in the town square. And I’m one step away from exploding.

“You did not just dump this assignment on me,” I growl at my brother.

If he were here, I’d shift and tear a strip off his furry hide, but unfortunately, Jesse and his human mate, Lane, spontaneously decided to fly to a Caribbean island for their honeymoon week.

They left yesterday morning. I’m forced to argue my case over the phone.

“What? I thought you loved humans.” He’s gloating. The bastard is gloating at me.

“I don’t love them, I just don’t hate them as much as you do,” I mutter.

“Me, hate humans?” Jesse is all innocence. “When I just had a mating ceremony with one mere days ago?”

“That just means you don’t hate one human.

You still loathe them as a species.” He does.

The human-shifter wars are still recent enough in our memories that he holds a bitter grudge.

A human murdered our grandfather, unprovoked, when our father was a young man.

Up until recently, my brother vowed to never let a human step on pack lands.

“Eh. They’re starting to grow on me.”

I heave an exasperated sigh. Of course he’d say that, now that he’s gone all gooey over his human fated mate.

I miss him being a cranky asshole. He’s been in an annoyingly good mood ever since she showed up.

“Anyway, I get along with humans just fine, but this particular human almost started a war with humans when she falsely accused you of kidnapping your bride. This is the one human I want nothing to do with, and you’re asking me to be her babysitter? ”

“Not asking you. Telling you. Last I recall, I’m still the Alpha. Unless you want to fight me for it.” He lets out a chuckle. “I might even roll over and let you win. Then you’d be Alpha and you can be in charge of our nutball pack. Think of all the time that would free up for me and my mate.”

I let out a stream of curses. He laughs.

“I’m not babysitting this human!” I bark angrily. “Come back here and fight me like a wolf, you Alpha-hole.”

Alexis Monroe, Lane’s best friend, is a reporter from Indiana.

Just a week ago, she couldn’t get ahold of Lane for a hot minute, freaked out, and sicced the human police on us.

The police were terrified and showed up brandishing their guns – with silver-coated bullets.

Our pack council and most of our pack members raced to the scene, ready for a fight. It was almost a whole big thing.

And now… Alexis is arriving in town to do a puff piece on life in a shifter town, and I’m supposed to show her around and keep her out of trouble? I didn’t trust this fur-less human as far as I could throw a Buick. Which, even with my shifter strength, isn’t much further than forty or fifty feet.

I have a bad feeling about this whole assignment, and I’ve learned to trust my instincts. Is she just here for a feel-good piece or is she sniffing around after something deeper?

Because at the moment, we’ve got problems of our own – and if she stumbles across the wrong information, it could spell real trouble for shifter-human relations.

“Look, I have enough going on here with the situation at the coffee shop. Let someone else run interference.”

“Nah. You’re actually pretty good at diplomacy and this is important. See you in a week, human-lover.”

The woman climbs out of the car.

“I do not love humans!” I snarl, but Jesse has hung up.

The woman turns to face me, and I suck in a startled breath.

She’s about five foot two. Her jet-black hair is cut in a cute spiky pixie style like a little elf. She has luminous blue eyes and a pink rosebud of a mouth.

My heart stutters and freezes in my chest for a moment before coming to thundering life. Claws shoot out of my fingertips spontaneously, and my ears turn pointy before I force them back to human shape.

Something inside me snaps — like a live wire sparking to life. The air between us hums, thick and electric.

My wolf surges forward, desperate to get closer, to breathe her in. I shouldn’t even notice things like how the afternoon sun catches in her dark hair, or the scent of jasmine clinging to her skin.

But I do. I notice everything. My muscles go tight, my pulse pounds like a war drum, and for one dizzy, terrifying second, I forget how to breathe. Fate didn’t just tap me on the shoulder—it sucker punched me right in the heart.

I do not love humans, it’s true.

But I’m pretty sure I love this woman. Because my hammering heart, desperate yearning, and the sudden awakening of my wolf, all conspire to tell me one thing: she’s not just potentially the pack’s worst nightmare.

She’s my fated mate.