Page 26 of Heir

Oh yeah, this was definitely hipsterville.

Hopefully, my mate wasn’t a hipster.

Even if she was, I’d love her.

We could overcome that. I could grow to like microbrew beer and for someone as warm-blooded as me, hot yoga would probably be a piece of cake.

I scoured the building for a way in, finally finding an open sliding glass door on a balcony on the second story. The lights were off inside. Chances were whoever lived there kept the door open for fresh air, or they had a cat that came in and out on its own. I parkoured my ass up to the balcony, barely making a sound as I landed over the wrought iron railing, pausing to see if there was any snoring or sounds within.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if this was my mate’s place? Maybe she left the door open for me?

I crept inside, mindful of where I placed my feet on the floorboards.

A gentle breath in the single bedroom echoed through the high-ceilinged unit.

It wasn’t my mate though. Her scent wasn’t strong enough in here for it to be her.

I made my way to the front door and, just as quietly as I had been so far, I opened it and stepped out into the hallway, taking a deep inhale to orient myself.

She wasn’t on this floor.

I needed to go up.

So up I went, poking my head onto the third floor.

She wasn’t there either.

Ah, my lady fair was on the top floor. The top of the castle for the queen of my heart. How utterly fitting.

When I stepped out into the hallway of the fourth floor, I pulled her perfect scent deep into my lungs and headed in the direction my heart tugged me, stopping in front of unit 405.

Lifting my fist, I knocked on the big metal door, eager to meet my mate and start our lives together. Hopefully, she was just as excited to meet me.

CHAPTER FIVE

Omaera

Three men stood in front of me.

Three gorgeous men.

All of them looked very different, but all of them were beautiful in their own way.

I’d had a dirty dream like this once, but it sure as hell didn’t end in their claiming me in whatever paranormal savage rituals they were probably thinking of.

My head hurt, so I sat down on the yellow corduroy couch Gemma refused to let me get rid of, even though we could afford better. Back when we dropped out of college and were flat broke, we found the couch on the side of the road and carried it with us from apartment to apartment. Now that we were flush with cash, I wanted to get us something newer and better, but she said it was a reminder of how far we’d come.

Burying my face in my hands, I let my tight curls fall forward. “So you’re telling me that for thousands of years people and,” not lifting my head, I waved one hand to encompass all of them, “whatever you guys are, have been coexisting and humans just never knew?” Finally, I glanced up at the vampire, bear shifter, and fire mage. What the hell was a fire mage anyway?

All three of them nodded.

“And have you ever heard of your kind mating with a human before?”

They all shook their heads.

“Then this has to be some kind of a mistake. Because I’d know if I was a shifter, vampire, mage, or something.”

“The other species is demons. There is a sub-species of vampire, which we prefer not to speak of,” the vampire said with zero inflection in his tone.