Chapter 2
1402 Words
Lena raised her glass and touched it lightly to Mara’s. “Cheers to being ‘original.’ Too bad originality hasn’t done much for me in the romance department.”
“It will,” Mara said with drunken confidence. “You just need to let someone help you for once. Ask Calliope. What’s the worst that could happen? She sets you up with a man who worships you? Oh no, the horror.”
Lena snorted. “I don’t need worship. I just need a date. Preferably one who can keep Damian from trying to ‘accidentally’ corner me for a chat about our tragic love story.”
Mara finished the last of her drink and signaled for the check. “Calliope will pick someone good. Maybe someone ridiculously attractive. You know how many men go in and out of her place? It’s like a shifter parade.” She paused, eyes widening. “Imagine if she pairs you with one of those gorgeous wolf shifters she’s always talking about.”
Lena choked on her cocktail. “Please. If she sends a seven-foot wolf warrior to the wedding as my date, I will literally die.”
“But what a way to go,” Mara sighed dreamily. “Wolves, bears, big cats… and they’re all stupidly beautiful. It should be illegal.”
Lena laughed despite herself. “She does brag about her family. She told me once that most of them run businesses or secure territory for the council. Whatever that means.”
“It means they’re hot,” Mara corrected, propping her chin on her fist. “Although, speaking of shifters… did I ever tell you about my old friend who was a bear shifter?”
Lena blinked. “Excuse me? When did you have a bear shifter friend?”
“Years ago,” Mara said with a soft smile. “When Dad worked near the mountains. I had a best friend, sweet, quiet, who wore glasses too big for his face. He shifted for me once when I begged. A little cub. He was so embarrassed.”
“That’s adorable,” Lena said, touched. “Why didn’t you stay in touch?”
“We moved,” Mara said with a shrug that didn’t hide the hurt. “Life got busy. New school, new everything.” She sighed and reached for the bill. “Anyway. You should call Calliope.”
Lena dug into her purse and pulled out the transparent card Calliope insisted she “keep on her person at all times.” She slid it across to Mara. “If you’re so curious, you can try her service too.”
Mara stared reverently at the card. “Do you think she’d match me with a shifter?”
“Have you met her?” Lena said. “She literally promised she could find someone for me with ‘a soul as old as yours.’ Whatever that means. But I’ve yet to see a man in her orbit who looks average. It’s suspicious.”
“You need to do this,” Mara said, pointing at her as if giving a royal decree. “I need to know what shifter matchmaking includes. You need a date. I need entertainment. It’s perfect.”
“Better this than my mother signing me up for a soulmate website again,” Lena muttered.
Mara groaned. “Don’t remind me.”
Lena’s face twisted. “My ‘perfect match’ was a man with seven kids, three ex-wives, and a part-time job cleaning bowling shoes.”
“He didn’t even have all his teeth,” Mara added helpfully.
“I’m traumatized,” Lena concluded.
They paid the bill and stepped out into the cool night. As they hugged goodbye, Lena promised, “I’ll talk to Calliope tomorrow.”
“Promise promise?” Mara pressed.
Lena rolled her eyes. “I promise.”
****
The walk back to her apartment gave her too much time to think. The city hummed with nightlife couples laughing outside pubs, rideshares zipping past, the smell of street food drifting through the air.
She tapped her purse with Calliope’s business card inside. A date. That’s all she needed. A simple buffer between her and Damian. Someone to make her look… okay. Happy, even. Not like the woman he’d left behind in pieces.
Her apartment building loomed ahead a restored 1920s masterpiece with wrought iron balconies and warm amber lights glowing along the entrance. She’d chosen the place because it felt like something out of a romantic noir film, charming and a bit dramatic.
The doorman, Alton, greeted her with his usual cheerful tone. “Evening, Ms. Marlowe.”
“Hi, Alton,” she said. “Quiet night?”
“Just the usual,” he replied with a knowing smile. Shifters made up most of the building’s tenants; quiet was rarely literal.
Lena stepped inside and headed toward the elevator, digging through her bag for her keys. The elevator doors began to close as she approached, so she darted forward just in time to slip in.
Then a broad, muscular arm shot between the doors.
The metal doors jerked open.
A deep, gravel-edged voice followed. “Hold on.”
Lena turned and instantly forgot how to breathe.
The man standing in the elevator doorway could have stepped straight out of trouble. Tall, built like a nightmare and a dream combined, with dark hair brushing his shoulders and tattoos peeking from beneath a fitted black shirt. A leather jacket hung effortlessly on his massive frame.
He spoke again. “Didn’t mean to startle you.”
His voice was warm sandpaper, rumbling low in his chest.
“No problem,” Lena whispered.
Another man stepped in behind him, and Lena’s brain officially short-circuited.
The second stranger was a stark contrastrefined, elegant, blond hair styled with care, shirt sleeves rolled up to reveal forearms that looked sculpted. His blue eyes were vivid enough to glow under the elevator lights.
Where the first man radiated raw danger, this one radiated warm, magnetic charm.
The first man hit the button for the top floor the same floor Lena lived on with Calliope.
Oh no.
Oh no, no, no.
She pressed herself against the corner as the doors shut, but it did nothing. The elevator suddenly felt tiny, their heat filling the space, their scents, woodsy spice and midnight aircurling around her senses.
She avoided their eyes by staring at her reflection in the mirrored walls. Bad idea. The mirrors showed everything the hard lines of the biker’s body, the graceful strength of the blond one, the way both of them seemed to focus entirely on her.
Her gaze accidentally drifted down the biker’s torso and
Oh God.
He knew she was looking. His lips curved into a slow, wicked smirk.
“Evenin’,” he said. “My name's Ronan.”
His name was Ronan? Like, the Ronan that Calliope mentioned sometimes? Her brain screamed but her lips failed to respond.
She swallowed. "I'm Lena.”
The blond man spoke next, voice smooth like velvet. “I’m Silas.”
She blinked. Hard. Oh. OH. These two weren’t just shifters.
These were the shifters Calliope had mentioned.
And they were… impossibly gorgeous.
Dangerous.
And staring at her like she was praying for dessert.
The elevator hummed upward, tension thick like a storm before lightning. Bobbing slightly on her heels, Lena tried not to hyperventilate. She wasn’t small she had curves, confidence (occasionally), and a decent sense of self. But beside these two? She felt delicate.
And that terrified her.
The elevator dinged at her floor, and Lena practically launched herself out, muttering, “Have a good night!” before speed-walking down the hall.
Her hands trembled as she fumbled with her keys. She ripped her door open, tumbled inside, and slammed it shut, pressing her back against the cool wood.
Her heart hammered.
Her pulse thundered.
Her imagination ran wild.
Two shifters. Two beautiful, powerful shifters. In her elevator. Going to her floor.
Going to Calliope.
A horrifying realization smacked her.
Calliope had said she was bringing people over to “discuss potential matches.”
Oh.
Oh no.
“Absolutely not,” Lena breathed.
But the image of Ronan’s molten-gold eyes and Silas’s devastating smile unfurled in her mind like a wicked promise.
Maybe Mara was right.
Maybe she did need to get laid.
Because fantasizing about two men at once?
Yeah.
She was truly doomed.
- Writer
