Page 3 of All for the Beast

All Katy could do was nod.

“I specialize in matchmaking with shifters. Is that something that would bother you?”

Katy scrunched her nose. She had never dated a shifter, and it hadn’t been an intentional choice. She had heard that they were intense, but that also meant they were loyal and passionate about their love, especially in the bedroom.

“It wouldn’t, no,” Katy replied. “Though I have never had any romantic interactions with them.”

Gerri nodded, looking satisfied.

“They are a lot, but that’s mostly their defensive exterior. Deep down, I promise you, they are as loving as they come.”

Katy could feel her heart beating through her blouse. She wasn’t sure about what was going to happen, but she felt like meeting with Gerri couldn’t be defined as anything but a fateful design.

“You would have to travel to another planet, of course,” Gerri sprinkled in. “The shifter I am thinking of lives on Nova Aurora. Have you heard of it?”

Katy shook her head, feeling dazed.

Gerri reached out a hand and gripped Katy’s. It was warm and delightful.

“It is taking a leap of faith, I know, but I think that it is a jump that you will regret if you don’t take it.”

Katy sighed, then reached into her purse for her business card. She couldn’t believe that she was agreeing to something so absurd, but she had been thirsting for something new. Plus, if she got to roll in the hay with a shifter even for a month, it would be quite a tale to tell.

“This is my cell number,” Katy said. “Let’s make a date.”

TWO

VHARLK

Vharlk Siborim was working hard, as usual. He was a person who preferred to be alone as it was easier to focus when he didn’t have to worry about anyone else around him. When Vharlk had a goal in mind, he was like a bull on the run. There was no point in trying to stand in his way.

The only person who even attempted to was his good friend, Tarvos, who had known him since he was a young boy. He was the only one who really had any say in what Vharlk did.

Vharlk, or V to his friends, was working on his most recent passion project. He was creating a cruise ship that would disembark from Siborim Harbor. The pink ocean looked nearly red in the early morning light, the planet’s double suns competing for attention in a wash of bright yellow accent and blood orange pressing onto the shoreline.

The shifter crew working on the vessel would arrive in a bit, but V wanted to take a good look at the craftmanship without anyone around to influence his opinion. He wasn’t easily wavered, but he thrived in the silence and in the artful gallery of his practical mind.

He had experience with vessels of this kind since he had lived on Siborim his entire life. The seaside beach town offered its fair share of exposure to the skills that only those who had lived near the ocean would absorb. His father showed him how to fix a tugboat engine at the age of ten, then the older he got, the more complicated his training became.

But V wasn’t only trained to fix or build boats. He was in line to be the next Alpha of Siborim. His father, the King of the area, was starting to show his decline.

V didn’t want to think about that just yet. The town thrived upon tourism, and he looked at it as a part of his job to keep that going.

The suns warmed him as he walked around the base of the big beast, and just as he was starting to drift into his meditations of the day, he felt a strong hand on his shoulder.

“I thought I might find you here.”

He knew who it was without looking. His best friend, so close he may as well have been his brother. Tarvos looked similar to him, except he wasn’t an alpha, and he was a bit on the leaner side. V’s hair was darker, nearly black, while Tarvos looked like he’d been in the sun too long.

He huffed at this friend who was smiling like he was wearing a mask. He shrugged his hand off his shoulder and continued to walk around the base of the vessel.

“You weren’t invited,” V growled. “Don’t you have someone else to bother this early in the morning?”

Tarvos shook his head, still looking amused. If he wasn’t V’s good friend, that smile would have been slashed right off his mug.

“There’s no alpha I enjoy irritating more than you,” Tarvos said, following V around. “It’s just so fun and so easy.”

V did his best to ignore Tarvos. The ship was coming along quite well, construction having only started a few months before. Because of V’s resources, the production of the vessel was put into overdrive, encouraged by the dwindling presence of tourism in their seaside town.

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