Chapter 2 #2
Hunter. The loner of the pack. The one who’d always kept himself apart, even when he was standing right next to you. Now he had Brie. The baker from Sweet Summit, who smiled like sunshine, made gooey pastries, and looked at Hunter like he’d hung the moon. Siren had watched them together.
She’d seen the way Hunter’s whole being oriented towards Brie when she was in the room.
Like she was magnetic north and he was helpless to point anywhere else.
It should have been ridiculous. The hardened bounty hunter and a woman who decorated cupcakes for a living.
But it wasn’t ridiculous. It was real and it was changing him.
Siren couldn’t pretend she wasn’t envious.
Both Hunter and Dom had found their mates through . It was a shifter dating site that found fated mates with 100% accuracy. She’d dismissed it for years. Why would she let an algorithm decide her fate for her? It seemed ludicrous and impossible.
But her pack mates had found their fates through the app. And Dom and Hunter were happy in a way that Siren had never seen before.
She reached for her phone before she could think better of it and opened the app store.
She typed in the search bar and downloaded the app.
While it loaded, she thought about how stupid and weak this was.
What would a match even look like for someone like her?
For someone who’d done the things she’d done. For someone who had become a reaper.
After the app downloaded, the welcome screen glowed in the dark room, cheerful and inviting. “Find your perfect match,” it promised. She laughed and almost closed it. Instead, she crossed the room and poured herself another drink before sitting down on her small couch.
She created an account before she could talk herself out of it and moved through the prompts like she was executing an operation.
Quick, efficient, minimal exposure. For her username, she chose Reaper Wolf without hesitation.
That was who she was. For her bio, she said, “Security specialist. Not looking for games.”
It was a warning more than an introduction. If that scared someone off, good. It should.
The vegetable question made her pause. It was weird and quirky. “If you were a vegetable, what would you be?” She wrinkled her forehead and almost swiped off the app but instead typed jalapeno.
When she finished the questionnaire, she had to choose a profile photo.
She scrolled through her camera roll and found almost nothing.
No selfies. No candid shots with friends.
No record of her life outside of work. Finally, she found one Valeria had taken at Steel Protection a few months back and then sent to her.
Siren was in conversation, not looking at the camera. Her dark hair fell around her shoulders, and her sharp eyes were focused on Blaze. She was wearing a leather jacket and dark jeans. She wasn’t smiling, but at least she didn’t have a scowl on her face.
She uploaded the photo, and her finger hovered over the submit button.
Everything in her wanted to delete it and pretend this never happened.
Signing up for a dating app was not who she was.
It wasn’t what she wanted to be. She didn’t put herself out there or make herself vulnerable.
She certainly didn’t let an algorithm decide her destiny.
But she’d come this far, and she wasn’t a quitter. She hit submit.
As soon as the profile loaded, the app pinged.
She stared at the screen. This wasn’t possible.
She’d been on the platform for thirty seconds.
There was no way the algorithm had already matched her with her fated mate.
But the notification was there, glowing on her screen.
100% match. Her wolf surged inside her, need flooding her senses.
She tapped the notification, and his profile filled her screen.
Username: Folk Bear.
The photo showed an attractive young man with shaggy blonde hair. He was on stage somewhere, an acoustic guitar in his hands, playing and singing a song. His blue eyes were crinkled at the corners. His face was warm, open, and welcoming.
Her wolf whined inside her mind, her instincts telling her that Folk Bear really was her mate.
His bio said, “Musician and computer engineer. I write songs about the little moments that matter in life. I write code because the songs don’t always pay. I’m close to my family, and I’m looking for someone to share quiet nights and soft music.”
It was so sweet and sincere. Everything she wasn’t.
She threw back the whiskey, sucking a breath through her teeth as it burned down her throat.
She then stared at his face. At his gentle eyes and the smile that promised warmth and safety and all the things she’d spent her life learning to live without.
She shook her head. There was no way this would work. He would want to soften her. She could see it in his face. In everything about him. The first time he saw who she really was, he would be disgusted. He’d be terrified. He would run and hide. That was the best case scenario.
He might be determined to make the match work. But that would mean sanding down her edges and making her into something she wasn’t. She’d watched it happen to other women like her who chose men over themselves. The slow erosion of everything that made them dangerous. She wouldn’t survive it.
But maybe he wouldn’t. And that would only be worse.
If he let her, she would destroy him. Her darkness would swallow his light. Whatever gentle life he’d built for himself, she would tear it apart just by being in it.
He wasn’t built for her world, for the violence and conspiracy and the cold mathematics of who had to die so that others could live. He deserved someone who could match his softness. Not a wolf who had killed with her bare hands and would do it again without flinching.
Siren stared at Folk Bear’s sweet face. She was trapped between wanting him and knowing better. She tapped on the messaging app, and it loaded, her cursor blinking.
What did you say to someone like him? Someone good and kind and completely wrong for her?
Her wolf pressed against her, wanting her to reach through the screen and claim him. She started typing.
“Life is complicated right now. Not sure this is the right time. Sorry.” She hit send before she could take it back.