Page 4 of Mate Forsaken

“Hi, I’m Payton Savidge,” she said, introducing herself.

Circe stepped up, smiled, and bared her neck. “Hello, Luna,” she replied. “I’m Circe Tolliver.”

“Please, we don’t stand on ceremony,” Payton said with a wave. “We’re so glad you’re here. Follow me. Jericho is waiting in his office.”

Payton rose and escorted her to a closed door toward the back of the room. She knocked and then opened the door to stick her head in. “Ms. Tolliver is here.”

“Good,” came a deep voice. “We just wrapped up our conference call.”

“Excellent.” Payton stepped back and smiled at her. “Go right in.”

“Thank you,” she said and stepped into the room. The two men inside stood to greet her. Power exuded from both, but she could feel the taller man was the alpha. Once more, she bared her neck. “Hello, Alpha. I’m Circe Tolliver.”

Alpha Jericho held out his hand and she shook it. “I’m Jericho and this is my beta, Ledger Klayman. It’s good to finally meet you. Please have a seat.”

He gestured to the chair in front of the desk. As she sat down, Beta Ledger moved to stand behind Jericho.

“Well, I guess we should jump right into it,” Jericho said. “I was impressed with your resume. You are exactly the person I had hoped to find. What made you train in the human world?”

She’d gotten good at deflecting from any mention of her previous pack. “I knew I always wanted to teach, so I moved East to attend the University of Florida.”

“That must have been hard to leave your pack.”

“I have no pack, actually.”

Jericho and Ledger glanced at one another. “Lone wolf?”

“I prefer to use the termsolitary,” she replied. “As you know, Florida is full of panther shifters so I had to petition the local pride for the privilege of going to school there, as well as shifting during the full moon. Believe it or not, I made a lot of friends among the cats.”

“Why teach human children and not shifters?” Ledger asked.

“It wasn’t a conscious decision. I was offered a job and had school loans to repay. But I don’t regret it at all. I learned a lot and I honed my teaching skills. When I heard about your need for a teacher, I decided it was time to return to the pack lands.”

“Do you have a mate?” Ledger asked.

She had prepared for this question. “Not anymore.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry,” he said.

Alpha Jericho also gave his condolences. She knew letting them think he died was the best way of deflecting any talk of mates. Miles might not have really died, but he certainly was dead to her. She worked damn hard to leave him in the past, and for the most part, she didn’t think of him too much. Each year it grew easier to remember the good times, and not how he broke her heart.

“Well, the pay isn’t as much as you were making, I’m afraid,” Jericho told her.

“I know. If that bothered me, I wouldn’t have come.”

He smiled. “The good news is the position also comes with a single-family home and you don’t need to pay rent.”

Her jaw dropped. “Oh, wow. I wasn’t expecting that.”

“It was one way I could make up the annual salary difference.”

“I … thank you.”

Jericho stood and held out his hand. “Welcome to the Sheridan Pack.”

Her heart swelled. It had been a long time since she’d been in a pack, and she never realized until that moment how much she’d missed it. She shook his hand as well as Beta Ledger.

“Let’s visit the school and then your new home,” Jericho said.

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