Zoe Bright pulled on her safety goggles over her green eyes and loaded a rectangular piece of oak wood into the lathe. Her long, black hair swung in a ponytail down her back. She turned on the machine and slowly pressed her sharp cutter against the swiftly turning wood, pursing her red lips in concentration. Soon she had the rectangles smoothed into a cylinder that would began her intricately beveled table leg.

When she had first come to the Bright Institute for Shifters to study woodworking, she had not expected to enjoy it so much. Her brother Corey Bright, the founder of the Institute, thought she was lying about her interest. But the fact was, she really liked working with wood. Building real things with her own two hands gave her a sense of accomplishment she had never known before.

If only she had come here under different circumstances, maybe she could really use the skills she’d learned over the last six months. Maybe she could have a real life that she could be proud of for once. But Zoe still wasn’t free from her past, and she didn’t know if she ever would be.

Part of her knew that she should have come clean with her brother six months ago when she had first arrived in Fate Mountain. But every time she tried to talk to him about it, she couldn’t bring herself to tell him the truth. Corey was ten years older than her, and in some ways, he was more like a parent than a brother. He’d been taking care of her since she was a child.

Unlike Corey, who was a computer genius and a billionaire, Zoe had always been labeled a troublemaker. From her earliest memory she had been the wild child and the one who always had to be lectured and watched. After their mother had died before the war, Zoe had left the country to find a life of her own. All along, Corey had been sending her money and hadn’t asked what she was doing with it.

He was a good brother. He had never let her go hungry. In fact, he had allowed her to live a life of leisure since she had become an adult. She’d never actually had to have a job or had any kind of responsibility. When she first left the country seven years ago, she had spent the first couple of years traveling to music festivals and dancing.

But that form of stimulation had only excited her for so long. Soon, she needed greater thrills and that’s when she met her ex-boyfriend, the and notorious Russian mob boss who was the leader of an international crime syndicate. He had taken her and immediately shown her the kind of life that Zoe had always believed she deserved. Corey’s money had afforded her the luxury of never having to work, but it didn’t afford her the real luxuries of life. That, Dima had given her.

But it didn’t come without a price. Not long after she had become involved with Dimitri Ivanov, he started to ask her to use her shifter skills to do jobs for him. At first, they were small, innocuous jobs that she could tell herself had no victims. But soon the jobs escalated in risk and she was complicit in Dimitri’s criminal underworld. She was deeply involved by the time he asked her to begin stealing and smuggling jewels across international borders.

The thrill of danger and the luxury Dimitri provided could not make up for the fact that Zoe was doing something incredibly wrong. She couldn’t justify her actions and asked Dima to allow her to leave. He did kick her out of his bed, but he would not allow her out of the crime family until she did one last job. It was the most dangerous job yet, smuggling a million dollars’ worth of diamonds from Saudi Arabia into France.

She’d made a judgement call in the airport when it became evident that security was onto her. She’d been forced to drop the diamonds into a garbage can on the concourse. She had been able to get past airport security, but she wasn’t able to get free of Dima. He insisted she pay him back every penny of the value of the diamonds she’d lost.

For the last eight months, Zoe had been giving Dimitri every cent that her brother Corey sent her. Every job she did for Dima she had to do for free. And she still owed the man eight hundred thousand dollars. Soon, she would not owe him anything anymore, and she’d be free. At least, that was the plan. Part of her knew that Dimitri would never let her go after what she had seen.

But Zoe couldn’t give up hope, not now when she had come to Fate Mountain to be with her brother and his new wife Willow. They had welcomed her into the Institute and into their home in the way only a loving family could. It reminded Zoe so much of what she had been missing all these years since her mother died.

She hadn’t seen Corey in so long that she almost hadn’t remembered how close they had always been growing up. Even though Corey was ten years older than her, and he was the good kid that everybody looked up to, he was still her big brother.

She loved him, and she wished that she could tell him the truth. Every day that she came to learn at the Bright Institute, every time she saw Corey walking down one of the hallways or talking to an administrator, every time Willow invited her over for dinner at the couple’s big house that looked out over the lake, Zoe felt a sinking sense of dread and guilt eating away at the pit of her stomach.

Corey was a genius and the people who knew him well knew he was also an exceptionally skilled computer hacker. If anyone could help Zoe with her predicament, it was her brother Corey. But she couldn’t tell him. The shame of what she had done burned bright and her heart. She couldn’t tell her perfect brother, the guy who had won a full ride scholarship to college from the Great Shifter Counsel, that she had fallen in with the Russian mafia and had become a jewel thief.

Every time she thought about telling him, all she could see was the disappointed look on his face that he always gave her when she screwed up or didn’t live up to his expectations. He’d given her that look when she had created a less than perfect end table on her first attempt at woodworking. She couldn’t even imagine how he would look at her if she told him the truth.

No, telling Corey just wasn’t an option no matter how much she wanted to get it off her chest. All she could do was hope that her last heist would be worth enough to pay off Dima once and for all, and she would finally be free of him. She hadn’t expected to love Fate Mountain or woodworking as much as she did. But now that she was here and she had learned a new skill, all she wanted was to stay and explore her newfound passion.

Zoe continued to press her cutter into the table leg, creating an intricately tapered spindle that she could be proud of. Zoe’s skill had advanced exponentially since she’d first started taking classes in the Bright Institute woodshop. Even Corey’s crewmate Angus, who was an expert woodworker himself, had commented on her ability. Zoe hoped that after her graduation, that Angus would take her on as an apprentice. But she still hadn’t worked up the courage to ask.

Life on Fate Mountain was the exact opposite of the life Zoe had been living up until now. Everyone knew everyone else and they were all like family, for the most part. There were still some human/shifter tensions among the Fate Mountain community. But all of the shifters that she knew were some of the warmest people she’d ever met on earth.

Zoe had been welcomed into Corey’s clan. Her brother served as a volunteer Search and Rescue technician with his crew from his days as a Navy SEAL. The guys called themselves the Rescue Bears. All of them, including her brother Corey, who had sworn he’d never find a mate, had settled down with human women they’d met on Mate.com. Most of them now had cubs and homes of their own. It was a stark contrast to the way things had been when she and Corey grew up.

Back when they were kids, in the years right after the Great Shifter Council had first revealed the existence of shifters to the world, there had been an intense backlash from humans. Violence and persecution rose up all around the country and the world. Shifters were heavily segregated and entire neighborhoods turned on those who had once been friends, simply because they were shifters.

Since shifters had played such a critical role in ending the war, the government had passed the Shifter Equality Act and compensated all of the drafted shifters with generous VA packages.

Now, the world was totally different. Humans and shifters were openly mating and people like the men on her brother Corey’s crew owned businesses and held important positions in the community. Before the war, police brutality against shifters was common. Now, seven years later, the majority of the cops on the Fate Mountain Police Department where shifters. It was definitely a new world.

That was part of what gave Zoe hope that she could have a real future if she was ever released from Dima’s grasp. The thought of gaining her freedom and living a peaceful life on Fate Mountain made a tear well up in the corner of her eye. Zoe sniffled from her growing emotion and the sawdust that rose from the lathe.

She turned off the machine and released her table leg. It was a perfectly beautiful, beveled spindle, and she couldn’t be more proud of her handiwork. For a girl who had spent four years traveling the world to go to dance parties and another three years as the girlfriend of a dangerous mafia boss, something as simple as making a table leg gave her a tremendous thrill that she couldn’t quite explain.

As she sanded down the wood, wiped it off and applied a dark stain, she thought about what she would do if she could be an ordinary girl like the women who had been matched with her brother’s crewmates. Maybe she could find a mate and settle down. Zoe was twenty-five now and she felt ready for something more solid and real than she had ever wanted before.

Something like the table leg. Solid, beautiful, and sturdy. It would hold up the tabletop and provide support for everything that was placed on top of it. Family dinners. Holiday feasts. She knew she could be that solid, sturdy support for a real family if she could just get free of her past.

She placed the stained leg next to the other three and pulled off her safety goggles. The tear that had formed in the corner of her eye slid down her face and mingled with the sawdust on her cheek. She wiped it away with the sleeve of her girly coveralls and sniffled. She pulled off her coveralls, and hung them on the hook on the wall near the door.

She walked out of the woodshop, wearing a pair of multicolored, ethnic patterned short shorts. She’d paired it with a lacey, white tank top that accented her tanned skin and the detailed, pretty tattoos on her arms. Her brown leather ankle boots worked with her cute summer outfit and her coveralls. The boys in the hall glanced at her generous curves and her shapely legs as they passed. Zoe chuckled inwardly, knowing that even men who weren’t her fated mate thought her hourglass body was hot as hell.

As she turned down the hallway of the Bright Institute on her way back to her dormitory, she bumped into her classmate Heath Reynolds.

“Hi, Heath,” she said.

Heath was a grizzly bear shifter, like her brother, and they had become fast friends since the first day of class. He was as big and as imposing as most male shifters, with broad shoulders, muscular arms, a slim waste, and a face that made human women melt. He was wearing his best outfit, a pair of dark denim jeans and a light blue button up shirt with a red tie.

“Zoe!” he said with a beaming smile on his face.

“What are you so excited about?”

“I was just down at the police department. Chief of police, Commander Rollo Morris accepted me as a new cadet. Can you believe it?”

“Of course I can. You’ve worked really hard for this. You got your diploma and you completed your initial law enforcement training. You’ve done everything right, and now you’re accomplishing your goal. Congratulations.”

“What are you going to do now that you’re done with your six months training as a woodworker?”

“I’m not sure yet. I was hoping to get an apprenticeship at Angus Grant’s woodshop in town. But I still haven’t asked Angus if he will accept me as his apprentice.”

“What’s stopping you?”

“Angus Grant is my brother’s best friend.”

“So?” Heath asked.

No one could understand why Zoe was so reluctant to be incorporated into Corey’s life. But the closer she got to Corey and his friends, the more likely it was for her secret to come out. Zoe wanted to start her life over, but she still wasn’t free of Dima’s grasp. Maybe when she finally paid him off, she would be able to live the life she now knew she wanted.

“My two favorite students,” a female voice said from behind them.

Zoe turned around to see her sister-in-law Willow Bright walking down the hallway toward them. Willow was wearing a flowing maxi dress with a blue flower print that accented her dark skin. She had on a cute pair of jeweled flip-flops, and her designer sunglasses where nestled on top of her head. Willow’s naturally curly black hair, bobbed in ringlets around her pretty, round face.

Zoe adored Willow, and she wished that the two of them could be even closer. They had developed a fast friendship after Zoe had arrived on Fate Mountain. But no matter how much Zoe wanted to get closer to her sister-in-law, she couldn’t allow herself to open up to the woman with the threat of her Mafia boss ex-boyfriend still hanging over her head.

“Hi, Willow,” Heath said. “What brings you down to the Institute?”

“I was coming down here to congratulate you, as a matter of fact,” Willow said to Heath. “I heard you were accepted as a cadet on the Fate Mountain Police Department.”

“Commander Morris accepted me today,” he said with pride in his voice.

“This calls for a celebration,” Willow said, her brown eyes twinkling with mischief.

“What do you have in mind?” Heath asked.

“I want to take both of you down to Fate Mountain Brewery for a pint of Fate Mountain lager, on me,” Willow said, putting her arms around Heath and Zoe’s shoulders.

Zoe wanted to resist, but she knew that it was futile. Willow rarely pulled her attention away from her writing long enough to go out for beers or bother anyone about anything. She had made a special trip down to the Institute just to congratulate Heath, and Zoe didn’t intend to disappoint either of them. Since her arrival on Fate Mountain, Heath and Willow had become two of her favorite people.

“That sounds like fun,” Heath said, grinning wide and showing his straight white teeth.

“Have you heard the one about the human, the grizzly, and the jaguar who walked into a bar?” Willow asked.

“I haven’t heard that one,” Zoe said.

“Excellent, let’s make it a thing,” Willow said leading them both out through the bright open mezzanine at the front of the Institute.

The group made their way down the front steps and into the parking lot of the Bright Institute where Willow unlocked the doors to her SUV and everyone climbed inside. She drove down the road, around the lake, and up into Fate Mountain Village where Fate Mountain brewery was located on Main Street. It was late afternoon and there were already a dozen cars parked in the parking lot in front of the tasting room.

Heath, Willow, and Zoe piled out of the car and pushed open the door into the brewery. Classic rock music played on the jukebox and a group of loggers in red flannel shirts were sitting at the bar chatting up a group of what appeared to be college sorority sisters. The sorority girls giggled at the bearded shifters flirtatiously. Ever since shifters had come back from the war, the media had completely rebranded them as heroes. And now, girls like that were all over every shifter they could find.

Before the war, shifters were bad news as far as humans were concerned. Now, every early morning talk show and women’s magazine had some kind of news article about how shifters were the most eligible bachelors in the country. Human women clambered to get a chance to mate with one. Being a rare shifter female herself, Zoe was less than impressed with the turn of events.

Not that she begrudged male shifters their human mates, but the way human women had changed their opinions so quickly about shifters made Zoe feel a little ill. It was girls like the ones at the bar who gave all human women a bad name, in Zoe’s opinion.

Not that she was one to talk. She was a jewel thief, in debt to a dangerous criminal. She hadn’t fought in the war to defend her country, and she hadn’t been involved in the heroic actions that had brought about the government’s decision to instate the Shifter Equality Act.

While the male shifters who had been drafted into the military had completely turned around the state of affairs for the entire shifter community, Zoe had been dancing at nightclubs and getting involved with the worst possible people. The shame of it still dug at her soul.

Willow, Zoe, and Heath all sat down at a table and a waitress came over to ask them what they wanted. Willow ordered a pitcher of Fate Mountain lager. A few minutes later, a waitress brought them a cold pitcher and three chilled pint glasses. Zoe poured her pint and took a sip, sitting back in her chair, listening to the music. She sniffed the air, making out the faint scent of anticipation rolling off of Willow. She could tell Willow was up to something other than sharing a congratulatory pint with Heath.

“What are your plans now that you’ve graduated, Zoe?” Willow asked.

“I haven’t decided yet.”

“She wants to apprentice with Angus Grant at his woodshop,” Heath said, selling her out.

“Have you asked him? I’m sure he would love to have you as his apprentice,” Willow said.

“No, I haven’t asked yet,” Zoe muttered.

“Well, why don’t you ask him now?” Willow said, waving towards the front door.

Angus Grant, otherwise known as Big Bear to the Rescue Bears, because he was huge, walked in the front door of the brewery with his bespectacled mate Poppy. Zoe had met both Angus and Poppy several times over the last six months at various social events.

She didn’t know either of them all that well but she did know that they were both good people. She also knew that Angus Grant was one of the most talented woodworkers on the West Coast. If she was really serious about her craft, he was exactly the person that she should apprentice with.

Angus and Poppy smiled at Willow as they approached the table, pulling up two more chairs to sit down.

“What are you all doing here?” Angus asked, his massive arms bulging as he sat down.

“We are celebrating Heath’s acceptance onto the Bear Patrol,” Willow said.

“Congratulations,” Poppy and Angus said at the same time.

Zoe knew that Poppy and Willow were great friends, and part of her longed to be closer to these amazing women. But she could never open up to anybody with what she had hanging over her head.

Poppy pushed her long braids over her shoulder and motioned for the waitress to bring two more pint glasses to the table. When Angus and Poppy both had a pint in their hands, Willow decided to embarrass her.

“Angus, did you know that Zoe has been studying woodworking at the Institute for the last six months?” Willow asked.

“Corey mentioned that,” Angus mused.

“Willow…” Zoe said, wishing she would stop.

“Zoe just told me that she would love to be your apprentice at the workshop,” Willow said.

Zoe cringed inwardly but kept her face neutral and then forced herself to smile. Angus looked over at her with his friendly grin and rubbed his chin with his big hand.

“I’ve been considering taking on an assistant,” Angus said.

“You really don’t have to,” Zoe said.

“Nonsense. It sounds like the perfect solution. Why don’t you stop by the shop tomorrow morning and we’ll get you started?”

Zoe let out a deep breath, knowing that if she really wanted to start over, this was a perfect opportunity for her to get on her feet as a woodworker.

“I’ll be there,” Zoe said.

“How is the baby?” Willow asked Poppy.

“He’s teething and generally testy, but that’s normal for six-month-olds. We couldn’t be happier,” Poppy said looking up at Angus adoringly.

He kissed her forehead and they shared a tender moment between them right there at the table in the middle of the noisy bar. The sight of it made something crack inside Zoe’s heart and she suddenly felt terribly sad.

“You two are so lucky,” Zoe said without thinking.

“We owe it all to Mate.com,” Angus said, pulling Poppy closer to him. She smiled and giggled in agreement.

“Why don’t you two to sign up for Mate.com?” Willow said to Zoe and Heath.

“I’ve been thinking about signing up,” Heath said. “Now that I’m done with my training and have been accepted as a cadet onto the Bear Patrol, it might be the right time.”

“What about you, Zoe?” Willow asked, raising an eyebrow with the slightest smirk on her lips.

Willow was a romance author who wrote about the lives and loves of shifters. Everyone knew that Willow took her inspiration from the people on Fate Mountain. Suddenly, it dawned on Zoe exactly what Willow’s ulterior motives had been all along. She was trying to get Zoe and Heath hooked up with their own mates so that she could butt into their business and then write stories about them. She loved Willow to pieces, but that was the absolute last thing that Zoe was interested in being a part of.

“It’s not the right time for me,” Zoe said.

“Of course it is,” Willow said, grabbing Zoe’s phone off the table.

Her sister-in-law navigated to the Mate.com website and downloaded the app onto Zoe’s phone right in front of her face. Zoe made a grab for the phone, but Willow just yanked it away again until she had brought up the screen that allowed new users to create a profile and answer the questionnaire.

Mate.com was one of the many inventions her genius brother had created to make himself the piles and piles of money that he enjoyed. Zoe was not interested in being one of her brother’s clients. She couldn’t possibly find a mate when she still owed Dima so much money.

“I can’t. Not right now.”

“Well, just in case you change your mind, you have the app on your phone.”

“Really, mating is the last thing I want to do.”

“You never know, Zoe. Maybe your mate is already waiting for you somewhere on Fate Mountain,” Willow said with a smile.

After they had each had a pint, Willow drove them back to the Institute. Zoe and Heath made their way to the dormitory section of the compound and Willow drove home. Zoe said goodnight to Heath as she made her way to her room, mulling over the night’s events in her mind.

Angus had agreed to take her on as an apprentice. She knew she should be more excited about the prospect of studying with Angus Grant. As she walked into her dorm room and sat down on her twin size bed, she kicked off her shoes and sighed. Zoe just wanted the past to disappear. She wanted to believe that she could be like Willow and Heath and Angus and Poppy and all of the other wonderful people living on Fate Mountain.

Maybe if she just allowed herself to believe that she was free, she’d feel better about herself. Maybe she could just take a little break from the truth and pretend that she was just Zoe Bright, woodworking apprentice and Fate Mountain resident.

Zoe pulled her phone out of her purse and navigated to Mate.com.