Authors: Astrid Lee Donovan
Epilogue
“I can’t fucking believe it,” Johnny said, growling down at his desk, hair clutched in two fists. Stella bit back a smile. “You fucking women! Every last fucking one of you!”
“Sorry, Johnny,” she said, wishing she actually felt a little bit sorry. He was clearly distraught. But as her fingers fluttered up her slightly swollen stomach, her heart was too full of love to make room for regret.
She knew, just outside that door, Tammy stood with her ear pressed against the wall, dying to rush in and declare herself ready, willing, and able to take Stella’s place. Stella wished the best for her because she couldn’t harbor any hatred for the girl. Right outside the bar, Tuck waited her, his new car ready to drive her back to his house, where his hands would roam across her tummy and then upwards, his eyes fixed on hers, their bodies meeting together in a perfect circle, their family still growing inside her.
Let Tammy be manager. Let Johnny’s strip club burn to the ground. Who cared? Stella was happy, and she was right where she belonged, in Tuck’s arms.
THE END
TRACKING HIS MATE
Alpha Male Paranormal Shifter Romance
He could smell her from the moment she entered the room. His neck snapped upwards from the notes he’d been looking over. But it was impossible to tell, in the huge horde of girls who’d all entered together, noisy and fragrant, which of them had the scent that had called to him.
Why do they always need to travel in packs,
he wondered, reigning in his beast. If he could shift right then and there, in the classroom, he could use his panther’s heightened senses to single her out. But the university wouldn’t look kindly on that sort of behavior. In fact, he was well aware that the university preferred to ignore his shifter identity completely; the only reason they’d tenured him after it came to light was because he was still the country’s foremost expert on shifter sociology. Despite the effort to make mainstream society accept shifters, there was still a great deal of prejudice, especially among society’s upper echelons.
His golden eyes scanned the room as the girls took their seats. For the first time, he cursed the fact that women outnumbered men two to one at the school. Otherwise he found it quite progressive, and was proud to teach some of the nation’s brightest young women. Vassar’s graduates went on to do impressive things, more often than not, and Cillian had seen some of his own students go on to make great strides in sociology, anthropology, and politics.
Why are you even bothering,
he thought, scolding himself for giving in so easily to his urges.
You don’t truly want another mate.
Still, if he was going to have to spend the entire semester with this girl’s scent in his nostrils, tempting him, taunting him, making the panther inside him growl and pace back and forth in the wild jungle of his mind, it was going to be a very, very long semester.
Bloody hell,
he thought as the clock clicked into place. Class was starting. He had no choice but to begin, and try not to get distracted.
“Welcome to Introduction to Shifter Relations,” he said, commanding the class’ attention with his booming voice. He could tell by the way many of the female students leaned forward slightly that they were considering how lucky they were – Cillian knew how handsome he was, at least compared to some of the other professors at Vassar. Plus, his rich English accent didn’t hurt one bit. More than once he’d have to ward off the unwanted advances of a particularly engaged (see also: horny) student.
This year, though, he hoped, far back in his mind, that the girl who was releasing that earthy, intoxicating smell might be one of those few students who couldn’t resist him. Of course, he shoved that desire down as far as he could, willing himself not to give in to his primal instincts.
“Please take a syllabus and hand it down,” he said, bringing a stack of papers to each end of the front row. He watched in benign amusement at the confusion that always seemed to break out when the stacks met in the middle and had to be passed back to the next row – every year, the students never failed to make sure at least one person got skipped, and that the last person holding a stack would look around in such wild panic you might think they were caught with a bag of cocaine rather than a harmless collection of papers.
“I’m rather stringent on attendance, so I’m afraid this is
not
the class to be in if you enjoy coming up with excuses for your absence,” he said, turning back to his desk. “I start each day with roll call, then…”
Cindy clicked her pen against her teeth until her friend, Jenna, kicked her gently in the shin. Cindy blushed and put the pen down, turning to those around her with an apologetic smile. It was one of her worst habits, and she knew how annoying it was. But it was hard to sit still and not fidget after a long day of the same nonsense. The first two days of class were always torturous for Cindy; while her peers probably enjoyed being eased into the routine of school and coursework, Cindy started every semester claws out, raring to go, wanting to dig deep into the material.
Now, as Professor Turick summarized the information that was clearly available on the sheet he’d handed out, Cindy wanted to groan in boredom.
Why can’t we just read this on our own time, and get down to business?
It wasn’t like there was even anything that radical about his rules. Show up on time. Do the reading. Write the essay. Be active in class. Participation grades, midterm grades, weekly writing assignments. Blah, blah, blah. When she yawned, Jenna leaned in to whisper in her ear.
“How can you be bored with
that
fine specimen in front of us?”
Jenna’s voice was low but Cindy worried about it carrying all the same; perhaps because she thought she saw the professor’s eyes glance over the two girls with a hint of a smile on his face. Cindy turned to her friend and shrugged; Jenna reacted with an exaggerated eye roll, then put two hands over her heart and mimicked fainting. Cindy bit back a giggle.
She guessed Jenna had a point; Professor Turick
was
rather handsome. With jet black hair, greenish-colored eyes, and a tall, slender, muscular frame, he certainly beat out her History of the UN, 19
th
Century Literature, and Dramatic Writing professors. And that voice – the British accent was like a siren song for females across America. It was like listening to a cat purring.
The more she stared at the man, though, the more she felt like she wasn’t seeing him at all. Squinting, she tried to make sense of what her brain was trying to tell her. It was like he was there – but also, weirdly, she found herself seeing something else in her mind’s eye. Something like the dark green leaves of a jungle. Or a long, thin figure moving in the dark. Confused and, frankly slightly frightened, she dragged her eyes back down to the sheet.
Too much coffee,
she thought. Brushing a strand of blonde hair from her face, she shifted uncomfortably in the hard wooden chair. The motion caught the Professor’s eye, and she felt suddenly like a deer in the headlights as he looked at her for a fleeting moment before moving on to Jenna.
Looking at her friend, she wondered if he thought they were sisters, or cousins, something many people seemed to think. Jenna and Cindy weren’t very close, just party friends and occasional study buddies when they had a class together, but everyone always talked about how they should be best friends because of how similar they looked. As though looks were a great indicator of personality.
Still, Cindy could see where those people were coming from. They both had long blonde hair and blue eyes, though Cindy was graced with freckles and a larger bust – her C-cup chest nearly eclipsed Jenna’s A-cup. Cindy also had slightly wider hips and a more substantial behind; in general, she was fuller-figured, something that was rather unfortunate considering how little she wanted to use that body for what everyone thought was its God-given purpose: sex.
Jenna had considered herself asexual for as long as she could remember; she hadn’t learned the term for it until junior year of high school, but she’d known even in ninth grade – or earlier – that the crushes her friends had on boys just weren’t her thing. Neither were girls, for that matter. She didn’t get porn, the few times she tried to watch it. She’d had a few boyfriends, and even had sex in a quest to ignite a passion she knew everyone else had. But nothing worked.
For a long time she’d struggled to find her place in a society that was obsessed with the pleasures of the flesh, especially because her own flesh was, apparently, considered quite pleasurable. But once she entered Vassar as a freshman, she realized that there was a whole spectrum of sexuality, and it was okay to place yourself
anywhere
on that spectrum – even outside of it entirely.
Sure, she’d had some issues relating to the other girls she lived with in her dorm, especially during those early freshman months of one-night stands and late-night girl talk, but once the girls got the idea that Cindy just didn’t feel the way they did, they accepted it and didn’t let it get in the way of their friendship. Even Jenna, who was one of the more promiscuous girls in their group, had quit ragging on Cindy about her asexuality long ago.
Now, in their junior year, the obsession with sex and boys had calmed down anyway, with grades, internships, politics, and post-collegiate plans becoming the main concern. Students at Vassar were very much encouraged to make the most of themselves, and being celibate was something of a badge of pride. All the more time to devote to making your resume look good without having to pay attention to a boy- or girlfriend.
And Cindy was
very
motivated. Always had been. She would graduate with honors, undoubtedly, and had already scored an internship with a prominent legal group that dealt exclusively with impoverished and minority clients. She was taking the Shifter Relations class because it fit perfectly into her busy schedule, and because shifters always seemed to be getting themselves into trouble.
At least one-sixth of the clients she saw coming in and out of the legal office were shifters, or in shifter-related cases, which was impressive considering the relatively low population of shifters in New York. The human-animal hybrids were much more common in rural areas than the urban jungle of New York City.
Cindy was reminding herself of this, as a means to kill time while Professor Turick droned on (although his accent did make that droning far more pleasant). Her phone buzzed; surreptitiously checking it under the table, she saw that her best friend, Sam, was demanding her presence at the coffee shop outside Chicago Hall. Typing out a quick agreement, she was relieved to see the professor hadn’t noticed, and was even more relieved to see she only had to endure fifteen minutes of boring getting-to-know-you rigmarole.
Sam and Cindy had been best friends since high school; they’d bonded over being similarly confused over their sexuality in a small Pennsylvania town where being confused over your sexuality wasn’t yet in vogue. Only, where Cindy felt confused about liking no one, Sam was confused about liking the boys on his lacrosse team instead of the cheerleaders who screamed for their victory. He’d spent a semester at a very liberal state school before transferring to Vassar, saying he wanted to be closer to New York City. Just like Cindy, he’d found himself at college, and was no longer ashamed to dish about guys he had crushes on.
“So,” Sam said as soon as Cindy sat down. “Is that Turick guy as hot as they say?”
Cindy laughed and took the coffee he ordered her; Americano, black, her favorite.
“I guess so,” she said with a shrug, her mind lingering on the way she’d felt oddly captivated when his eyes passed over her. “He has an English accent. Pretty hot.”
Cindy wasn’t asexual to the degree where she found people unattractive as a whole. She could see George Clooney and, in her logical mind, recognize his hotness. But that’s generally where her interest in the opposite sex stopped.
“I’m so jealous,” Sam gushed. “I have not one but
two
women professors, and the rest are old enough to be planning their own funerals.”
Cindy laughed.
“Missing out on some eye candy?” she asked. “Any cuties in the classes?”
“A few underclassmen seem promising,” Sam said with a twinkle in his eye.
“Well, here’s to a fruitful semester for me,” she said, raising her cup.
“And a bootyful semester for me,” Sam said, raising his own to clink against hers. For a moment, Cindy contemplated telling her best friend about the weird moment in class. But it was easier just to push it to the side and focus on how to make sure she wowed the professor academically – it never hurt to have a smart Brit on your side, especially when it came time to applying for grad school.
“For example, wolf shifters tend to be highly pack-oriented, and will entrust their mates to the pack as a whole. Often, a wolf shifter pack may share one or a number of females, with the pack’s alpha taking ownership of the most fertile or desirable, with the remainder of the pack sharing anywhere from three to seven females, depending on the size of the pack.
Bear shifters, on the other hand, are more of a ‘hit it and quit it’ species, to use the parlance of the times. A bear shifter, regardless of its breed, will mate with a female until she is pregnant, then want to have little or nothing to do with her, unless his cub is in direct danger. Of course, in modern times, the father will be required to provide financial assistance and – if the female insists enough – some emotional support for the family. It’s an unpleasant time to be a bear shifter.
Feline shifters – tigers, jaguars, lions, panthers – are far more devoted to their mates, and are so fiercely protective that they’ve been known to kill others who tread too closely to what they consider their territory. The famous case of Macon versus the People set a precedent that although the shifter was acting out of some overwhelming primal urge, he could still be convicted of second-degree murder.
Feline shifters are not generally associated with a pack, tend to be solitary, but when they find a mate they will give up their solitude, going to great lengths to ensure that the female remains at their side. Of course, lion shifters have a bit of a pack mentality, but only insofar as their immediate family – cousins and nephews – are concerned.”
Cindy made a few general notes – though it was more like single words than actual notes. She’d already read all of this in the textbook, having jumped ahead a bit, as was her nature. It was only the second day of class, but Cindy had read three chapters ahead of the required reading. The notes were more a ploy to distract her from Professor Turick’s intense gaze. She’d noticed how he looked at the females in the class, devoting long seconds to each one, as though he were in a grocery store picking out the freshest apple in the bin.
Pervert,
she thought. He had yet to single her out for a staring contest. She wasn’t looking forward to it, but knew it
had
to be coming. In fact, she was a bit annoyed that it hadn’t happened yet. She wasn’t a vain girl, but she knew her own beauty, and it was almost like being snubbed when Professor Turick’s gaze landed on the homelier girls before it fell on her.
The truth was, she knew that the main reason she wasn’t looking forward to his eyes finally finding her in the crowd was because she was afraid of what would happen in her mind when they did. Even when he wasn’t looking at her, looking at
him
did strange things to her brain, which was usually as logical and rational as a math formula. She wasn’t a daydreamer. But when she looked at him too long, her mind seemed to get sucked into some other world, someplace mysterious and warm and dark. Someplace far from civilized society. Someplace Freud would probably love to visit.
Biting her lip, she dared to glance up from her scribbled notes. He was looking at a brunette in the row in front of her, those not-quite-green eyes containing so much intensity it seemed the girl in question should have spontaneously combusted already.
“Of course, the most interesting thing when discussing the nature of shifter romance, or lack thereof in the case of some species, is the calling of the females. Now, as you should know if you’d done last night’s reading, not all fully-human women are able to be impregnated by a shifter male. And since shifter females are so wildly rare, it’s something of a life mission for most shifters merely to
find
a woman capable of becoming pregnant.”
Suddenly, Cindy’s breath was sucked from her lungs. He’d found her. His eyes had found her. Like a magnet, they drew her forward in her seat. Her jaw dropped slightly, hypnotized as his eyes seemed to melt from green to gold. Suddenly, the world was too sharp to be true; she could hear every whisper of pens scratching against paper, could see Professor Turick’s chest rise and fall, see the whites of his teeth when his lips parted to speak. Her stomach knotted up, constricting almost painfully as a strange and dark desire rushed through her, tightening her nipples and causing her thighs to clench together.
And then, like a cramp letting go, she was free. His eyes moved on. Cindy felt immediately ill, like a bad hangover: head pounding, mouth dry, stomach sick. But as soon as it had happened, it passed, and she almost slumped down in her seat, taking a deep breath. Jenna turned to her slightly, one eyebrow raised.
“So for this week’s writing assignment, I’d like a two-paragraph summary of the breeding chapter, with special attention paid to the signs of a shifter-receptive female,” Professor Turick said. Cindy glanced at the clock; class was over. She wished she’d looked at the clock earlier. She couldn’t tell if she’d been locked in that strange, catatonic state for seconds or minutes. She had no idea if she’d missed some of the lecture. All she knew was that she felt exhausted. And confused. And very, very afraid.
She caught Jenna’s arm as they left, pulling her friend away from the chatter of their fellow classmates.
“Yo,” she said. “Did you catch Professor Turick staring at you today?”
The blonde sighed and pretended to swoon.
“Oh,
yes,
” she said. “And I saw him looking at you, too. Maybe he’s looking for a new personal teacher’s assistant.”
Cindy’s brow furrowed. Had her friend not felt the same intensity that she had? The same…whatever it was?
“You didn’t feel like…weird? Like, I don’t know, I felt kind of…um…woozy,” Cindy said, picking her words carefully. Jenna looked at her with a smug grin.
“Well, I definitely felt
something.
Looks like you might have yourself a little professor crush, Cin,” she said before waving to a group of girls coming the opposite direction down the hallway. “Gotta run, see you later!”
Cindy waved after her friend, mind still troubled. At least her classes were through for the day; she could go home and lose herself in her textbooks. And she’d start with Dramatic Writing, then work her way back to Shifter Relations. That two-paragraph response could wait until she didn’t feel like she was going to pass out whenever she thought of her professor.