Page 5 of Delivered to My Elves

“And what’s so wrong with that?” I asked. “It’s not like the female wouldn’t be aware.”

A few bites of sandwich later, he cleared his throat. “What if our fated mate showed up? Say we have three kids by then and our chosen female is here, rooted in our home and our lives and our fated mate shows up or worse…her fated mate shows up.”

“Aerin, look around you. Half of the elves we know and more than that of the shifters and monsters, their mates are chosen, as in, their mates are picked out by them instead of waiting for Fate to hand them to you. Sure, we might have fated mates, but I’mnot going to spend a minute more of my life looking under rocks and hoping on the stars that I run into her.”

He snorted. “Have you been looking under rocks for our female? Well, no wonder we haven’t found her.”

“Come on, man. You know what I mean. And if a female is on the app, maybe she’s already met her mate and he rejected her. Or she didn’t want him. Maybe he was a real asshole. Whatever it is, we’ll work through it. I’m wasting my life, Aerin. Today just reminded me of what we don’t have and what I desperately want.”

“I do too,” he murmured. “More than anything. I think it speaks volumes that we both had the app downloaded and were ready to go.”

“Then let’s not delay. Let’s fill out the information and get this process going.”

“Are you sure about this?” Aerin asked.

“I am. More sure of this than I have been in a long time. Everything will be out in the open. We will know our expectations and hers. As long as we stay honest and transparent, this will be okay.”

“I hope you’re right.”

Later on that night, we had everything done and spent some time looking at profiles under the breeder category. It was strange, looking at females in that manner, but we’d decided and so had they by signing up.

“This is weird,” Aerin laughed, putting his phone down.

“It is, but at least there’s hope now. Let’s go to bed. Let the app do the work. I bet we have a match by the morning.”

He chuckled, standing up and stretching. “You sound so confident.”

“I am. Maybe for the first time in a long time, I am.”

Chapter Five

Misty

I’d been sitting at my desk for two full hours but done nothing.

Rob was now engaged. Another punch to the gut. Two days ago, I saw him eating out his mate on his desk and today, he’s engaged.

He had the audacity to walk up to my desk, hand in hand with his female, and handed me an invitation to their wedding. Shifters rarely bothered with a wedding, and neither was a human, but his mate was the type to want the biggest fuss possible.

I’d been a fool. Clearly they had been together for some time and had time to have invitations printed.

A ring with a diamond bigger than my eyeball adorned her finger.

As they walked away, I flipped them off under the desk, like a child.

There was no fucking way I was eating a piece of their congratulations cake in the breakroom.

Forcing myself to focus, I worked through until lunchtime.

“Hey, you wanna go get some food with me?” a coworker asked. Nate was tall and stocky. A ton of muscles. My bear didn’t like him for some reason.

Yeah, I was listening to my bear now. Should have about Rob, but that was in the past. “Sorry, I already have plans.”

“Oh.” He stepped from side to side. “Okay.”

Needing a break from the office atmosphere, I walked to the local Greek cafe and sat at an outside table. I took a few bites but I opened my phone quickly. I’d heard it buzz a few times in mydesk earlier, but personal phones were forbidden to use on office time. One of the company’s steadfast rules.

“Holy…” I said a little louder than I should’ve, gaining the attention of some of the other people eating.

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