Page 4 of Delivered to My Fury

The world was moving forward, and I was anchored in place.

“Yes. Shifters have a heightened sense of smell and our mates smell like home to us.”

Ceci sighed, looking up at him while he spoke.

Goddess, I wanted that. Someone to look at me the way these two looked at each other. I took dessert to go since after a while, I didn’t exist anymore. They were whispering things and sharing kisses. They needed privacy. Their happiness brought me joy. Ceci deserved someone amazing.

Still, after hearing Derek go on about mates, I needed to know more.

Sure, shifters existed and most people knew one or more, but I didn’t know a lot about them other than what I’d heard tonight.

Once I got home, I couldn’t help myself. I was a researcher at heart and would get lost in deep dives of subjects.

I’d never looked into shifters much, so all of it was new information. There were sites against shifters. Some pro shifters. History. Lore. Pictures. Videos. Some real and some obviously fake.

I had to admit, the lion shifters were awfully sexy. Honestly, all of them were.

While I read about all kinds of shifters and how they differed from skinwalkers, I ate my oversized slice of triple chocolate cake with a side of bourbon because why not. I’d lost my funding. I had no job. My best friend was out living her best life and finding the love of her life with some hunky wolf shifter.

And here I was…reading shifter lore.

Like that was going to bring a sexy lion to my front door, begging to bed me.

Maybe that was it. Maybe I just needed to get laid.

It had been a while.

“Ugh!” I slapped my computer closed and carried my refilled glass to bed. Instead of flipping on the TV, I got on my phone, and the algorithm magic had done its job. My feeds were full of shifters and hotness.

I’d almost given up on the night when a video of some shifters and monsters came up.

Searching for a mate? Look no further than the Mail-Order Matings app.

An app?

For dating shifters?

I needed more bourbon.

Chapter Four

Shay

“Again?” I opened the fridge and pulled out the steaks from the local butcher. We lived in a mixed community of shifters, monsters, and humans, and our shifter butcher was the best. Three inch-thick New York strips were our go-to dinner when we got home in time to make dinner.

“Yes. These are part of my mouth. They are inside my gums. It’s like me coming up to you and asking if I can touch one of your fangs. It’s gross. I don’t know where her hands have been. No. You know what? It doesn’t matter. Rude. Uncalled for. Boundary crossing. Personal space invading. You don’t touch an orc’s tusks. Period.” Zyon went on and on, finally fading into a mumble.

A human female had come into the bar and started flirting with Zyon, our orc friend and fury mate. She’d also asked to touch his tusks. A big no-no. And he had a great point.

“You should’ve asked if you could stick your green finger in her mouth,” Eero laughed, taking out the grill tools from their designated drawer.

“What? No.” He softened. “She was human. Perhaps she didn’t understand the magnitude of what she was asking.”

The orc was all bark and no bite. He wouldn’t hurt a fly. He was simply particular about his body—nothing out of the ordinary. Some humans still treated him like a sideshow freak, something they could touch and pet as though he were an animal and not humanlike at all.

Sometimes, Eero thought he was more humanlike than we were.

“Maybe she was flirting?” I asked. “It wouldn’t be the first time. Women are drawn to the green skin and the flowing hair.”

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