Chapter 1
Angel twisted lazily in her chair, looking past the computer and out the window, where the deep green leaves of a large oak rustled in the breeze. She was alone in the office of the Fresh Water Campground, where she’d been working for the last eight months. The owners – Ally and her three husbands, Richard, Troy, and Blake – were the best bosses she’d ever had, and leaving New Jersey for the mountains of Pennsylvania had been one of the most intelligent things she’d ever done.
The door opened and a blast of late-August heat traveled inside, along with Brierley, an owl shifter whom Angel had unofficially adopted as her sister. Brierley wiped her brow and smiled. “Heya.”
Angel turned in the chair and returned her smile. “What’s up, lady?”
“I finished cleaning the one cabin for Ally, and she said she had some errands to run in town. Do you want to come along?”
Angel cast her gaze to the computer screen, where the invitation to her best friend Whisper’s baby shower was open. The baby shower was the first weekend in October; Whisper was due at the end of October. Angel’s other best friend, Bliss, was due in early October, but had promised to be at the baby shower as long as she wasn’t actually in labor.
“I guess I wouldn’t mind getting away,” she said. She returned the RSVP and told Whisper she couldn’t wait to visit Beyton again. She hadn’t been back since she left in January, keeping in touch with video calls and emails to her besties and her mom and step-dad. Beyton was home to a wolf pack, which was now run by alphas Kross and Kayne and their hyena-shifter-mate, Heaven.
“What’s up, buttercup?” Brierley asked as she sat down on the edge of the desk.
Angel closed out her email and swiveled in the chair. “I feel like my friends are all moving on without me. Do you ever feel like that?”
Brierley’s brows rose. “You’re my only friend.”
Angel smiled. “Okay, let me rephrase that.”
“No, it’s okay. I think I understand. Whisper and Bliss are mated and having babies, and Kross and Kayne are the alphas now, since Mack mated Miracle and retired. I bet the whole town is different now.”
“Yeah.”
“Do you want to find your mate?”
“I’m human,” Angel pointed out.
“I know that,” Brierley said, rolling her eyes. “But humans can have mates.”
Angel’s heart clenched a little. Her mom was human, and her step-dad was a wolf. He’d told Angel that her mom was his wolf’s mate, and her mom told her it meant that there was someone for everyone, even humans, and she just needed to be patient. It was hard to be patient when she felt like everyone was changing and moving on but her.
“Maybe.”
“No, not maybe. You’re special, and somewhere out there is a guy who’s been waiting for you. Or guys.”
Hyena-shifter males shared a woman. It was like a reverse harem, with one woman getting sexed up by three men. It was just about the sexiest thing Angel had ever heard of in her life. Her two besties were mated to hyena shifters, and she happened to live in a campground that hosted an annual get-together for hyena shifters looking for a mate. They called it a gathering, and events like it occurred in November all over the country. Whisper and Bliss had met their mates at the campground the previous fall.
Although there were three clans of unmated hyena shifters who lived and worked at the campground, Angel hadn’t felt so much as a tiny spark of attraction to them.
“Maybe I’ll get lucky and the male of my dreams will show up at the gathering,” she said as she stood and stretched.
“Males,” Brierley added with an exaggerated wink.
“Before Whisper and Bliss came back to town with their hyena clans, I didn’t even know that there were guys who would share a mate.”
“Me either,” she said as they stepped out of the air-conditioned office and into the heat. “Owls don’t share. Well, they share pleasure, but they don’t do physical sharing.”
Angel didn’t really understand owl shifters, even though Brierley had done her best to explain her people. They were reclusive, and the leader of the nest arranged the matings. When a couple had sex for the first time, it was done in front of the whole nest, in what they referred to as a “pleasure sacrifice.” Angel wasn’t an exhibitionist by any stretch, and the thought of her first time with a guy happening in front of everyone didn’t appeal to her at all.
“Whisper’s having a baby shower the first weekend in October. I can look around for something for her while we’re in town.”
“Does she know what she’s having, or is she going to let it be a surprise?”
“She wants to be surprised, but she did tell me once that with hyenas, it was more likely she’d have a boy than a girl. Whatever she has, it’ll be getting so much love, between its four parents; plus Mack and Miracle, and Whisper’s four hyena parents.”
Brierley sighed. “It would be nice to be so loved.”
“Do you ever think about being mated?” Angel asked.
“Sure, but I don’t think my owl wants anything to do with shifters. A nice, quiet human male works for me.”
“I’ve thought that myself.”
“No, I think you’re meant for a shifter.”
“Why would you think that?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s just a feeling.”
“What is?” Ally asked as she joined them.
“That Angel’s destined to have a shifter for a mate,” Brierley answered.
Angel’s cheeks flamed. “We can change the subject.”
Ally opened the door to her truck with a laugh. “I know that my boys and nephews aren’t your truemates, but maybe you’ll find your mates at the gathering.”
Angel sat in the second row, and Brierley slid into the passenger seat.
“You know what?” Angel said. “I don’t care what my future husband can or can’t change into. I just want to find my Mr. Right.”
“Mr. Rights,” Brierley said, turning in the seat to give Angel a broad smile.
“Good grief,” Angel said, shaking her head at her friend.