Page 2 of Remy & the Wildcat

It’s not too bad.

I can’t wait for you to meet my Bella at the ceremony tomorrow night.

I’m happy for you and looking forward to meeting her.

See you tomorrow. Drive safe.

I will, thanks.

He closed the app and opened a streaming service, finding his favorite comfort show about an office with a crazy cast of characters. He’d never worked in an office. He’d been turning a wrench and fixing cars since he was old enough to help his dad. It had served him well while he traveled, since he could pick up odd jobs whenever he needed cash.

Maybe when he settled somewhere he’d start a garage like the one in Allen, but he’d call it Remy’s after himself.

As the night grew deeper and the hours ticked by, Remy stared at the ceiling of the RV, his thoughts on the future.

Something was stirring inside him, and he wondered if he might find his truemate soon. Or maybe he’d find the perfect town to start a pack in, a small town like he’d grown up in, with a dense forest filled with furry creatures to hunt and a human population that didn’t mind shifters sharing the town.

Whatever the future brought, Remy just wanted to get started now. He didn’t want to keep waiting, keep wondering; he was a male of action and ready for whatever was coming.

Hopefully the one right female for him.

Closing his eyes, he let sleep overtake him.

Tomorrow was a new day and who the hell knew what the dawn would bring?

Thyme Olson was frustrated as she trudged through her wildcat pride’s hunting territory. During the April full moon, not a single member of their pride had found any game, which left everyone on edge. Wildcats needed to hunt and catch things. Unsuccessful hunting led to unfulfilled feelings, and that led to people acting like jackasses and getting into fights.

It didn’t help that the pride alpha, her father, had died during a hunt four months earlier, and that meant there was no alpha running things. The pride was being led by the two elders—Liam and Jacob—until the next alpha took over.

Which was her.

The alpha position was hereditary only to the blood members of the Olson family, which meant that when her father died, his mate—her stepmom Brilla—wasn’t allowed to remain alpha female. The position was rightfully Thyme’s, but she was missing one of two requirements to take over—having a mate.

The full moon her father died, he told her that it was time she put away the foolishness of waiting for her truemate and simply choose a male to mate in order to take over the pride. She’d argued that waiting didn’t hurt anyone, but if she mated a male she didn’t love, then she might get hurt. It had been clear from the arch of his dark brow and the curve of his mouth into a frown that he didn’t understand and they’d both ended up frustrated, going their separate ways to hunt.

That was their last conversation.

She shook her head to get rid of the thoughts of the past. She’d think about her dad later, and the fact that her younger half-brother was turning twenty-one in a couple weeks and had been eyeing the alpha position for as long as she could remember.

The elders had asked her to scout the territory for game for the full moon that night and she was disappointed to have to tell them that she’d seen neither furry butt nor antler in her search.

Pollution from a nearby factory had ruined the groundwater and driven the wildlife to other, less toxic areas, away from Marin, Kentucky. Hunting game had been dwindling for months, hell years, since the factory had set up shop, and now the truth was clear: their hunting grounds were useless.

As a shifter she wasn’t too worried about the toxicity because she could heal from most anything, but she sure as heck didn’t like the chemical smell that lingered in the air or the fact that she hadn’t been able to hunt for anything for a long time.

She walked in through the back door of elder Liam’s house, following the sounds of talking to the family room, where she found both elders, Brilla, and Leif.

“Well?” Jacob, who was Brilla’s father, asked. He didn’t like Thyme, and the feeling was mutual. Jacob, like Brilla and Leif, had only tolerated her and had never made her feel like she was part of their family.

“Nothing,” she said with a sigh. “Not even birds in the trees, the chemical smell is really bad toward the back of the territory.”

“I’m sure there’s game in the woods,” Brilla said with a condescending smile.

“No one found anything during the last full moon,” Thyme pointed out, ignoring the smile that always made her think of the Cheshire Cat in Alice in Wonderland. “And no one will find anything this month either. I think you both need to really consider what I suggested.”

Liam arched a graying brow at her. “We’re not moving the pride. That’s in the hands of the next alpha.”

“So you’re going to just wait?” she asked.