Page 1 of I Don’t Believe In Fated Mates!

Chapter One

LANE

"The day I let a human, any human, onto pack lands is the day I dance the can-can in front of the entire pack, wearing a tutu." The growly voice is coming from the diner booth behind me.

There's a low, sexy timbre to the voice that sends a rush of heat washing over me.

"Ha! Be careful, Jesse. An Alpha's word is his bond. And I don't think a tutu would fit your furry behind." There was laughter in the voice of the man who answered him.

"No worries. It's never going to happen. I don't like humans," Jesse grumbles. "Why do you like humans, after everything they've done? After what they did to our grandfather?"

"Of course that was terrible. But it was decades ago. And our father got his revenge. He ate the bastard. Slowly." The hair on the back of my neck stands up. Noted: if you anger a wolf shifter, he will eat you slowly, and not in the good way.

Damn it, why did my mind have to go there? Why did the jerk in the booth behind me have to have such an arousing voice? Also, note to self: I really need to get out more. I truly can't remember when I had my last orgasm.

"Ever since the Shifter-Human Accord, it has been a death penalty offense for a human to hunt a shifter. And vice versa, of course," the other person continues. "There hasn't been a serious human-shifter incident in decades."

"Well, if that human sets foot on pack lands, we're going to have our first," Jesse growls.

"Maybe call Andrew to ask his advice?"

"No, I'm the Alpha now. Andrew made his choice. He's in Colorado playing happy families with his 'fated mate'." I don't have to look at him to hear the scorn that he's using for that phrase.

I duck my head and sip my hot chocolate. This does not bode well for me at all. Humans do not go onto pack lands very often, so odds are that he's talking about me.

I am broke AF, buried under several metric tons of student loan debt, and I was invited to Cedar Run, Arkansas, for what I thought would be my dream job interview today – first grade English, arts, and history teacher, for the Moonstone Pack.

And to make things worse, I spent most of my money on gas to get here. If I'm hired, I'll be living on pack lands. If I'm not hired, I'm sleeping in my car.

Then again, these days, humans and shifters are very slowly starting to interact more. There have been several reports of humans accepting jobs in shifter territory nationwide. Maybe…there's some other human that was planning to go onto the pack lands of some other pack, and that's what he's talking about?

There are three packs in this town alone. The Moonstone Pack, the Shadowpine Pack and the Frostbane Pack.

Please, let the sexy-voiced jerk be from either Shadowpine or Frostbane.

"We could have gotten a teacher from our pack," Jesse growls.

"With respect, Alpha, we couldn't. You never want our pack members to leave the pack lands, and there's no teaching program in town, so none of our pack members have a teaching degree, and this particular human was highly qualified." Ok, I think glumly, the odds that he's talking about any other human than me just shot up to ten zillion to one.

Jesse lets out a snarl. "Mother had no right to invite a human to interview for the job. If it were anyone else in our pack, I'd wear their hide for a jacket."

Even though this man is infuriating, there is something so primal about the way he growls out these words that my whole body is thrumming with arousal.

"Well, Jesse, our mother is the school superintendent, so…yeah. She'd be the one to do the hiring of schoolteachers. Maybe we should leave this to her, because school starts in two weeks and she's going to be pretty pissed off if you scare off our new teacher."

So, Jesse is here with his brother.

"Cole? Quit being reasonable or I'm going to kick your ass," Jesse snaps.

"You can try," Cole scoffs. "We all know I let you be Alpha because I hate politics. And everyone knows that I could take you."

Suddenly both men are snarling in a way that tells me they are seconds away from shifting. My heart thuds in my chest, and adrenaline zings through my veins. I'm about to be right next door to a shifter fight. This seems like a really good time to cash out and leave.

A fifty-something waitress hurries towards them as I quickly drain the last of my coffee.

"No fighting in here!" she yells at them. "The last time you two got furry in here, you destroyed three booths and five apple pies."

"Aww, Ethel, we had them rebuilt the same day and we paid for the pies," Cole protests.