Page 2 of Delivered to My Beasts (Mail-Order Matings #22)

Duke

When I was planting trees, I yearned for the off season, but a week into my resting time, I missed the activity of my job. Reforestation hadn’t been at the top of my career goals when I was a kid. I dreamed of being an astronaut, but bear-shifter astronaut wasn’t in the cards for me.

I tried to keep my routines as tightly as possible to the busy season but on days like today, the gym in the garage didn’t interest me in the least.

“Staring at it won’t get it done,” Crew said, clapping me hard on my shoulder.

My bond brother was right, of course, but I wasn’t giving him the satisfaction.

He came in and stared at the Smith machine as though it were his enemy.

He was dressed like me. Sweatpants. No shirt.

No shoes. We wouldn’t be able to dress as we did in a typical gym but this was our home.

“I know. Just giving myself a pep talk. Besides, you have no room to talk.”

“I come in here. Sometimes. Mostly, I let my bear do the exercise for me.”

Crew worked a desk job, and I didn’t envy him. My bear would’ve been out of control if I tried to sit in any chair for most of the day. He not only took care of our investments, but he did medical coding as his main job. My ass would be numb.

“Well, your human muscles need a workout too.”

“That’s why I’m here. Get your headphones on, and put your money where your mouth is, Duke.”

For an hour or so, we did just that.

I had to stay in shape for my job. When I first saw it posted, I thought it was a joke.

Get paid a full year’s salary for a few months of work to walk through the mountains, valleys, and hills and plant trees.

Just me, a shovel, a bag full of saplings, and a pocket with flags.

The sun shining down and clean air all around me.

No phone calls. No internet. No expectations.

And up there, where I worked, no one knew our reputation as the Beasts of Hawthorne. Of course, it was that very reputation that kept us safe, but it also kept us isolated.

The silence could be deafening. The three of us worked and lived together with such synchronicity it tended to be boring. Safe. Secure. But boring.

Plus, everyone running for the hills when we went into town all but guaranteed we had no chance to meet a female, much less find our fated mate.

That was why we joined the Mail-Order Matings app in the first place. Females online wouldn’t know about the small-town whispers that we were monsters.

We were the furthest thing from monsters, for the record.

Our reputation was something that grew on its own without our permission.

We hadn’t done anything to warrant the rumors.

I’d heard some of the murmuring. Our shifter hearing came in both handy and in negative ways.

According to the townspeople, we were murderers, thieves, the worst of the worst, and had been kicked out of our sleuth when we were only cubs because we were bad seeds.

We’d moved out of our sleuth of our own accord. Our parents visited us frequently.

Not that they would care a bit for the truth. Packs and people needed someone to be the scapegoat for their fear.

And we simply didn’t care if they knew the truth or not. We’d been around enough of them to know that none of the females we’d encountered was our fated mate.

I finished a semi-decent workout and went inside to shower. It was my night to cook. We were responsible for our own meals in general but for dinner, we made it a priority to get together. We were family, after all.

We all tended to make our favorite meals when it was our turn to cook. Tonight would be meat loaf and mashed potatoes with pea salad. It was one of the meals I dreamed about when I was eating an MRE in the middle of nowhere.

Jax was outside in his shop, making the last piece of an outdoor set that someone had custom ordered online. He took his time with each piece, and so it took months to fulfill one order at a time. Then again, that was why the customers paid premium price for his furniture.

I could hear his footsteps before he came in the door.

“Damn, something smells good.” He approached the oven and opened it, letting a cloud of steam out in the process. “You do have a thing for meat loaf, don’t you?” He chuckled. “Have you seen Crew?”

I ticked my chin toward the office. “In there. Said he had some things to finish out before dinner.”

“I’m gonna go wash up and then I have something big to tell the both of you.”

I looked out the window, wondering what Jax’s news was and saw his truck loaded with furniture. He must’ve completed it. That had to be the news. I shrugged it off and went back to preparing the salad and popped some rosemary garlic bread into the hot oven.

Everyone rolled in for dinner, and we put it all on the table.

“So what’s the news?” Crew asked, dishing out the meat loaf.

“Remember we signed up for the app?” he asked, accepting a plate.

“Of course we remember,” Crew replied.

Jax tugged on his blond hair and shook his head. “Yeah, but did either of you bother checking afterward?”

Crew cringed right along with me. I’d checked the app on and off while I was working but since I’d gotten home, I only checked it once a month, maybe less. We hadn’t gotten any matches. There were lots of messages, but they were from females that we weren’t matched to.

Jax was the one who convinced us to trust the algorithm, whatever the fuck that meant.

“Not a lot.”

“Well, you should be. Today, we got a match. Not only did we get a match, but she messaged us.”

The meat loaf and mashed potatoes were forgotten. Crew and I pulled out our phones while Jax chuckled and dug into his dinner

“Her name is Imogen,” I said, not to anyone in particular. I scrolled her pictures and while I was interested in more than a female’s looks, Imogen was gorgeous.

“What do we do now?” Crew asked, not looking up from his phone.

“That’s up to us. Do we like her? I like her. I think we need to read over her profile together and decide if we should pursue her.”

My bear chuffed inside me, wanting me to not only message her but go find her.