Page 34 of Demon Rejected
I nodded. My body hurt from the long bike ride, and I could barely put my feet on the ground without planting myself fully on the face. Ziggy offered me his hand, but I pushed it aside. It was damn time for me to learn to handle myself on my own.
The first steps hurt like hell, and damn, I wish I could say that climbing the few stairs to the diner was easy, only my body was groaning and protesting.
After the long ride in the drizzle, the warmth and sweet scent of coffee and eggs hit my nose and made my mouth water. Ziggy walked me over to a booth and excused himself to go to the bathroom. When he returned, an overweight, friendly-looking waitress brought us the menu and filled my coffee cup.
“I don’t have any money." I looked at him.
“No worries, this is on me. The SN pays well."
For a second, I wasn’t sure what SN was. Then it dawned on me—Shifter Nation.
“Okay, in that case, I want the big breakfast with everything. Can you order for me too, please? I need to go to the restroom.”
“Sure thing “
This was the kind of place filled with truckers and bikers, people traveling from A to B, all too tired and hungry to care about anyone else's business. I got a few looks that told me even though I looked like a wet kitten caught in the rain, my face and body still attracted attention. But that was it. After smiling at me, the men returned to their plates and coffee cups, getting ready for a new day on the road.
The image that saluted me from the mirror in the restroom wasn’t even as bad as I imagined it would be. My face looked just a bit puffy, my blue eyes dark-rimmed from crying and from the sleepless night. The tip of my nose was red, and my face was pale. My hair was a wild mess after riding on a bike the entire night without a helmet. Ziggy didn’t have one either. Each twig, insect, and piece of wood decided to stick to my hair. Oh well. Taking my brush out of the backpack, I did my best to work my hair into a braid. After splashing water on my face, I felt almost presentable again. My stomach didn’t care and grumbled, asking me to hurry the fuck up and get some food.
Ziggy waited for me. Two full plates sat on the table. He sipped his coffee, and I had the first chance to look at his face in daylight. His hair was not as dark as I believed. It was chestnut-colored with warm reddish accents to it. Two warm, intelligent brown eyes completed his appearance. He sported a three-day beard that still showed off his dimples. What surprised me the most was the warm smile he had for me.
“Scarlett, I’ll make this short. I won’t ask about whatever happened between you and Matt cause that’s none of my business. I won’t try to get into your panties either." He made a break here and did his best to hide his smile. “But I’ll try to convince you to work for us. SN is a strong organization that devotes itself to helping people like us. You have no idea how many times young shifters get kidnapped for use in criminal endeavors against their will. It’s where we step in and give them a hand."
“That sounds dangerous."
“I won’t lie, it is, but shifters are almost impossible to kill. Did you know that? If someone fired into us with an AK-47, we would have big gaping holes in our belly and chest, it would hurt like a mofo, but we heal."
“What about head shots?"
Ziggy hit his skull with his knuckles. “Too hard for a bullet. They’d need a rocket launcher. Listen, you would receive more training."
As I heard the word training, my hackles started to rise.
“Not with Matt if you don’t want to."
I nodded.
“Scarlett, I need to ask you something. Was he rough to you? We don’t accept trainers that mistreat the students."
“No, no, he is a good teacher. This was personal. Hey, what do you know about mates?"
Ziggy threw me a look “Many of us believe in the fated mate thing, that there’s another person out there who is perfect for us in every way. I don’t know. If you decide to work with us, HQ has a huge library and a few guys who live skulking there."
“So what your saying is that you believe it’s crap.”
“Scarlett, I believe in making my own choices as a man and as a shifter. The Goddess is not going to choose in my place. That’s all. I saw good people ruined and broken because their so-called mates rejected them. I won’t get myself in such a position. Fuck ’em! Why have one mate when you can have many? By the way, did Matt tell you about the aging thing?”
I stuck a fork loaded with pancakes, sausage, and eggs in my mouth and could only shrug my shoulders.
“After your first shift, your aging will slow down significantly. The more often you shift, the slower you age. The average age for us is about 250 years, but I know a wolf up in Nevada who says he is four hundred and twenty. I don’t know if I believe him or not."
I almost choked on my food.
“How old are you?" It was a rude question, but I had to ask. Ziggy looked as if he was in his early thirties.
He laughed. “I was born in 1940, so I’m technically eighty-two. Matt, the old fart, is one hundred and twenty. Imagine being born in 1899. I mean, yeah.”
“You’re shitting me. I don’t believe you."