Page 327 of Love Bites

CANDIED WOLF

COCO

There was something about being invited to an ex-boyfriend’s wedding that really made a girl question every single decision she’d ever made in her entire life. It was like a game of if this, then that. If I’d done this instead of that, then I’d have that instead of this. Maddening. And also really, really distracting. And disheartening. And…every other dis word I couldn’t think of.

I mean, sure, owning a small business with my sisters was pretty cool. I’d even leveled up last year and bought a house. A charming little bungalow on a quiet street lined with big trees that covered the sky like a green canopy as you drove down it. Very fairy-tale like. My house even had a white picket fence. On paper, I had my life under control: accomplished, career-driven, successful. On paper, I should have been really, really happy, but paper sometimes lied.

In this case, my paper didn’tovertlylie; it was dishonest by omission. It neglected to mention the one area where I was truly lacking. My love life, which was an abysmal wreck. Romance was one aspect of my existence that I simply couldnotget right, no matter how hard I tried. And I tried. A lot.

I was pretty sure I’d dated every eligible bachelor in town—and by eligible, I meant human and shifter alike. No species-specific dating for me. No, sir. I kept the playing field clear, kept my options wide open. Of course, Kinship Cove, where I had always lived, wasn’t your normal small town—it was rife with paranormal activity and tended to attract men and women who could turn into animals. When I was a kid, I’d called some of them werewolves. As a teenager, I’d learned the correct word was shifters and had strived to learn as much as I could about the ones in my community so I could be a good neighbor and friend. As an adult, I called them friends, peers, and the men I should have known better than to get mixed up with—bachelor mistakes number six, twelve, and eighteen.

Eighteen being the one about to get married in the biggest wedding ceremony Kinship Cove had ever seen.

A wedding my sisters and I—owners of the Cake-ily Every After bakery—had been hired to provide desserts for.

A wedding my ex—who’d literally broken up with me via email after finding his fated mate—had just invited me to. Over text message.

“The man needs to learn to make a damn call or send a letter.” I tapped my fingers on the counter, trying hard to think up the proper response.Kiss offwas definitely too harsh and totally unprofessional.Are you jokingseemed too rhetorical. AndGosh, I’d love towas simply…not happening. Where were my sisters when I needed them?

“You keep frowning at your phone and your face is going to freeze that way.” Misty, the woman who ran the front counter and kept all the customers—both shifters and human—under control, just laughed when I rolled my eyes at her. “What could possibly be so bad as to make the bubbliest human in Kinship Cove frown?”

I wasn’t feeling very bubbly.

“I got a text.” I set my phone down, still unsure how to respond to the message. “It’s from Nico.”

The look she shot me would have scared a lesser woman. “What doesthe dogwant now?”

Dog. Because he shifted into a canine. Misty hadn’t liked Nico from the start, had said he shouldn’t have been leading me on, seeing as how I wasn’t his fated mate. I’d ignored her, not unaware as to how shifters found their partners. Heck, the other two shifters I’d dated had found theirswhiledating me. I’d thought the first one was a fluke. Figured the second was quite the coincidence. It couldn’t—wouldn’t—ever happen again. So I’d rushed into a relationship with the wolf shifter, choosing to believe I was safe from all that fate stuff.

I’d been so very, very wrong.

After two months of getting over Nico and a pretty badly scarred heart from how things had ended so abruptly, I could admit that I should have taken her advice. Fated mates would always win, no matter how much the shifter cared for their non-mate partner. That was why I’d vowed to stop dating shifters. No sense starting something the fates would finish when they tossed that beast their true fated mate, like they had with Nico. And Justin. And Charles.

Seriously, I should have rented myself out to lonely shifters. I could almost see the ad—date Coco Chance for a month or two, and you’ll find your mate. Guaranteed to work or your money back. You just have to pretend you love her, and she has to fall for you too, so her heart can be shattered into a thousand pieces when you leave. Mention this ad for a discount!

Ugh. No thanks.

Apparently, I took too long to answer her because Misty suddenly said, “I don’t know why you keep talking to him. No, wait, I do—you’re a good person.”

“Thanks.”

“You’re also an idiot.”

“I retract my thanks.”

“That’s fine, but he’s mated.Ma-ted. Not married, though he will be soon enough, and not just in a relationship. He’s attached in a way most humans will never understand. The fates threw him a bone he couldn’t possibly resist—there’s no coming back from that.”

As a woman who could shift into the cutest, softest, and yet meanest fox I’d ever seen, she knew what she was talking about. Me? I was still learning. Growing up in a town where mythical creatures walked among you was one thing—dating them was an entirely new ball game. One that sent your world sideways at every opportunity. And I’d suffered through three such opportunities.

Never again. “I don’t reach out to him.”

“But you answer when he texts.”

“Well…yeah. How do you not?”

“Uh, I don’t know. Maybe justnot.” Misty sighed, looking as if she were being forced to remind a wayward toddler why they couldn’t play in the street. Me playing the part of the wayward toddler, of course. “Look, Coco. You’re nice.”

That didn’t sound complimentary. “And your point is?”

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