Tayme (Were Zoo Book Eight) Read online

Tayme looked up from where he was making a list of items he needed to add to the grocery run. Auden was a wolf shifter. The pack was responsible for driving the humans on the safari tours and helping with park security. “What about him?”

  “He found his soulmate.”

  “Oh?” Tayme’s brows lifted. “How?”

  “He was on patrol the other night and saw a bird fall into the paddock. He went to investigate and discovered she was an owl shifter and his soulmate.”

  “Holy crap,” Tayme said. “Talk about luck.”

  “Or destiny,” Fell said, sliding his grocery list across the stainless-steel counter of the building that housed the large commercial kitchen. Tayme and most of the bears started their mornings in the kitchen to prepare for the day.

  “She was okay? How did she fall into the paddock?” Tayme had never met an owl shifter before. That one fell into the park overnight and was a soulmate seemed fantastical.

  Tarquin explained that Jessica, the owl, had been flying with her people when they crossed the path of human hunters and she was shot. Disoriented from the pain, she was fortunate to land in one of the empty shifter paddocks.

  “That’s pretty damn cool,” Fell said.

  Tayme hummed in agreement. The couple would have an amazing story to tell their friends and family.

  His bear grumbled in annoyance, wanting to find their soulmate. All he could do was tell his bear that timing was everything, especially when it came to matters of the heart. Auden and Jessica were proof of that.

  Tayme’s parents weren’t soulmates. They were what their kind referred to as “chosen mates,” picked by the heart and not the beast. There were shifters who wanted to have children but also wanted to wait for their soulmate, so they’d make an arrangement with another of their kind to have a child. There were many shifters in the zoo born under those circumstances. Sometimes, shifters would get tired of waiting for their soulmate and choose a mate on their own. While they could find happiness and love that way, he’d always wondered if their beasts were truly happy. He didn’t think his grizzly would ever want to settle for a chosen mate when their soulmate was out there in the world somewhere.

  Tayme would never begrudge anyone their romantic choices, and while he was fine with waiting for his soulmate, he could also tell that many of his sleuth brothers were getting restless. He wished the safari tours had worked better to bring in more soulmates. It was the point, after all. When the alphas got together to discuss the lack of soulmates being found, they decided to utilize the tours to bring in single human men and women. The park utilized government databases to locate unmated people in the surrounding area and sent them coupons for a free tour and admission to the park. It had seemed so promising, but in the end had yielded little even after so many months in operation.

  He wasn’t giving up hope that the tours would turn up soulmates, but he just wasn’t sure that he’d find his forever girl that way.

  He’d be glad when she came to him, however it happened.

  He turned his attention back to the bears who were discussing Auden and Jess. “She’s into birds, so they’re going to build a sanctuary for real ones and make it an attraction,” Tarquin said. “If anyone has free time, the lions are asking for help with the build. There’s lots to do.”

  Tayme liked to build things, so he immediately volunteered to help, as did Fell and Seneca.

  “We just need to clear it with Dad,” Seneca said. His father, Marcus, was the alpha of the sleuth. Seneca was his only son and would take over the sleuth when Marcus stepped down. “But I’m sure he won’t mind.”

  “Sounds like fun,” Fell said. “We haven’t built anything since we updated the bathroom in Justus and Trina’s place.”

  “Agreed,” Seneca said. “And a new exhibit will bring more patrons into the park, and that means the chance our soulmates will be among them.”

  Tayme turned his attention back to the grocery list and handed it to Fell.

  Fell looked it over. “What’s the flavor of the week?”

  “Strawberry cheesecake.”

  “Interesting,” Fell said. “I really liked the maple syrup one. With the bacon.”

  “I’m doing that one, too.”

  “I love that bacon,” Seneca said. “I don’t think there’s anything better on the planet than candied bacon.”

  “Hear, hear,” Fell said.

  Tayme chuckled at his friends and left the counter, heading to the fridge to grab the bacon slabs and turn on the oven. In no time, trays of thick-cut bacon dusted with brown sugar were cooking on trays in the oven, and the savory-sweet smell filled the air.

  As he checked on the bacon, he wondered if his mate would want to help him in the park at his food stall. The idea of working side-by-side with his future sweetheart made his bear chuff in longing, and he quickly nixed the train of thought. No reason to make himself feel extra lonely.

  By the time the bacon was finished cooking, the ice cream had been properly chilled and mixed in the large machines, and he was ready to go. While the park opened at ten, the food stalls didn’t open until noon. Working at the ice cream stall was his favorite thing in the world. He adored seeing the faces of little kids light up as they were handed one of his special bear ice cream cones – a single scoop of vanilla or chocolate ice cream topped with mini chocolate wafers for ears, candy eyes, and a special cookie he decorated in advance with a curl of frosting so it looked like a smile.

  Someday, he’d be making grizzly cones for his own kids.

  And he couldn’t wait.

  Chapter Three

  Rory drove her pickup filled with supplies to the zoo that Jess now called home. Since the fateful night her bestie and Auden had been attacked, Rory had kept her ear to the ground, hoping to figure out what was going on. She was distressed that Jess had been attacked and didn’t really understand what the point of it all was. Jess and Auden were clearly mated, but that didn’t seem to matter to Jess’s father or the king.

  While inside she’d fully hated her adoptive father for his behavior, she kept her emotions to herself and acted as if everything was fine. She didn’t want her parents to put her on lockdown. It was bad enough she still hadn’t gotten her phone back, but she could still contact Jess by email thanks to an outdated computer Rory kept hidden in her room. She’d asked her parents what happened that night, feigning innocent curiosity, and had been told that Jess had clearly been brainwashed by a shifter from another group. They were angry about it, particularly the king, but kept saying that Jess wasn’t part of the nest anymore and therefore wouldn’t consume any more of their thoughts.

  Rory wanted to believe Ahar and Jess’s parents were going to leave Jess alone, but she honestly didn’t think that was going to be the case. The king hated to lose, and he despised people going against his laws. Something was brewing, but Rory couldn’t figure out what it was.

  Auden had emailed her late the night before and explained that Jess had gone out in the middle of the night and slept in a tree in the zoo. He’d been frantic when he’d woken up without her. As a wolf shifter, he was content to live underground in the zoo, but Rory knew that Jess wouldn’t be.

  “Owls like to nest,” she explained in a return email.

  “Nest like sticks and stuff?” he asked.

  She chuckled as she read his response. “No, not really. She needs to be in a tree. Owls live their whole lives aboveground. Their birds like to be part of nature. Surrounded by it.”

  There had been a pause in his response, but he’d eventually explained that he believed he could give her a place to live aboveground in the zoo and build a room around a nearby tree. He sent her a crude drawing of a building that looked like a barn next to a huge tree, with a treehouse built around the center of the tree.

  “That’s perfect,” she replied. “I’ll sneak into her room and pack what I can. And I’ll bring supplies so I can help out.”

  Late that night, she snuck into Jess’s bedroom in her pare
nts’ treehouse and filled two bags with clothing, toiletries, and as many of Jess’s bird books as she could manage. She stashed the bags outside of the owl’s territory, and the following afternoon she waited until her parents were occupied, used her computer to order a car to pick her up at the nearest road, and stealthily made her way to the bags and then the pickup location. The car dropped her off at a vehicle rental company, where she rented a pickup that she filled at a home improvement store with items to help Auden set up the home he was going to create for Jess.

  She’d never been to the Amazing Adventures Safari Park, and it floored her that an entire network of shifters lived beneath the zoo as well as working at the various exhibits and manning the stalls and shops. She was thankful Auden had emailed and asked her for help, so she’d have a chance to see Jess again. She missed her bestie terribly.

  She parked and headed toward the front gates, explaining she was there to see Auden. A couple who were taking tickets made a call on a walkie.

  “I’ll have one of my guys run you to the security office,” the male said.

  A few moments later, Rory was escorted to the office inside the park by a male whose nametag read Jasper. She’d scented the air discretely and known that the couple at the gate and Jasper were all wolves. Her fox liked being around other shifters.

  “Thanks,” she said to Jasper.

  “See you around,” he said.

  She opened the office door and smiled at a male behind a long counter. Behind him was an office with a row of monitors and another male was seated in a chair before them. “I’m Rory. Auden’s expecting me. I have supplies for the barn renovation for his mate.”

  “I’m Amadeus,” he said, extending his hand. “Nice to meet you.”

  A large male came out of the office and introduced himself as Jupiter. “You’ve got things for the barn apartment?”

  “Yep.”

  “If you give me your keys, I’ll drive your vehicle to the site so you don’t have to worry about it.”

  She showed him the picture she’d taken of her parking spot and handed the keys to him. When the door closed behind him, she looked around the small room. “This is pretty damn cool.”

  Amadeus and Jupiter were both lions, scenting of sunshine and tall grass.

  Amadeus chuckled. “It is, isn’t it? Not like where my family lives at all. It’s just lions where they are, not so many different groups.”

  “Same,” she said. “Except for me.”

  He sniffed the air. “Fox?”

  “Red fox.” She corrected.

  He hummed. “I’ve never met one of your kind. But I thought Auden said you lived with owls like his mate.”

  “I do. The short version of my early life is that I was adopted by the king and queen of the nest.”

  He gave her a quiet look. “I’m sorry you’re not with your own kind. I think it helps when we’re around our own.”

  “Yeah, the owls don’t really understand me. Red foxes can shift as kids. Owls don’t get to shift until they’re teenagers.”

  The office door opened, and Rory looked to see who came in.

  “Thanks for coming,” Auden said, greeting her with a handshake and a big smile.

  “Hey Auden. Nice to see you again. How’d you get rid of Jess?”

  “My mom invited her to lunch with some pack females.”

  “Nice. I filled a truck with as much as I could. I have some more ideas, too.”

  “Cool. You can drive your truck from the parking lot to the employee access path and take it around the park to the barn.”

  “Jupiter already did that,” Amadeus said.

  “Oh?” Auden asked.

  “Yep. She explained what she brought, and since the workers are already there, he thought you’d appreciate having it waiting.”

  “Great,” Auden said. “Let’s go.”

  “Thanks for the chat, Amadeus,” Rory said.

  “Anytime.”

  Auden opened the door for Rory and followed her outside, leading her to the path toward the barn. “How are things in the nest?”

  “Bad.”

  “I’m sorry. You were able to leave, though, so that’s good.”

  “I snuck away. It wasn’t easy, but I rented the truck and caught an Uber from the nest to the rental place. I brought two bags of Jess’s things I was able to sneak away from her parents’ house. I wish I could’ve brought more, but I was afraid to get busted and put on lockdown.”

  “Do you think they’ll try to get Jess back?”

  Rory stopped and faced Auden. “I’ve been eavesdropping as much as possible and listening to nest gossip, and it doesn’t seem like it. I’m just not sure what it means. My father was so furious when you and Jess showed up and you were able to get away with her. He really expected to force her to mate Miles. That guy is a creep and a half, by the way. Total douchebag.”

  “I figured as much. Any male who would knowingly try to separate soulmates isn’t a good guy to start with.”

  She hummed. “I think something more is going on there, but I can’t figure it out.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, normally the king’s mating matches are pretty decent. It wouldn’t be good for him to choose a guy who’s an asshole to mate one of his females, but that’s exactly what he did. It’s almost like there was a reason he picked Miles, but what that reason is, I don’t have the foggiest.” She shook her head. “The good news is they don’t know where she is, and I don’t have anything on me that could be used to track my location, so they won’t know where I’ve been.”

  “Thanks for being vigilant.”

  “She’s my best friend. I’m happy she’s finally happy.”

  They reached a big red barn that Auden explained was once part of a petting zoo run by the wolf pack. It was closed when they couldn’t keep the small animals from being freaked out by the wolves even in their human form. The barn stood empty for a long time, and then once some of their people started to find human soulmates, they outfitted the barn with one real apartment and two facades, so that if human family members came to visit, there was a real apartment on-site. It worked for a while, but then there were four human soulmates and a large private party at the zoo, and the truth almost came out that there was only one real apartment.

  “Whoops,” Rory said with a chuckle. “That would have been a disaster.”

  “Definitely.” He opened the door to the barn. Workers who all scented of lion and wolf were busy dismantling the two facades. “We hired an outside company to build a small apartment complex at the back of the zoo property. It’s due to be finished soon. Apart from being smart for any human soulmates, our people are planning to use it for honeymoons and for when couples need time away but don’t want to go too far.”

  “That’s a neat idea.”

  Auden showed her the plans to remodel the standing apartment and took her on a tour of the interior. Outside the barn, workers were building a room around a large tree to give Jess a treehouse room so she could feel closer to nature. Rory had picked up plants that were native to the Pinelands, along with potting soil and pots, to help give the apartment a more outdoorsy feel.

  The two of them returned to the rental truck and he helped her unload everything. She settled in the living room to clean and replace the window treatments to give the room a more updated look. Auden left her to work, telling her to holler at him if she needed anything. While she worked, she thought about the crazy turn Jess’s life had taken. It was amazing to her that her bestie was so fortunate to have found her soulmate. Although she was sure Jess would have preferred not to be shot in order for it to happen, Rory wouldn’t mind taking a bullet in the arm to find her happily ever after.

  Well, maybe not a real bullet. A paintball one. Or a foam one.

  She snorted at her train of thought. As if it were possible to bargain with fate and ask for an injury in order to find a soulmate.

  Until Jess had found her soulmate in Auden
, Rory had never heard of owls choosing a mate on their own. Which made her wonder if owls had the ability to find soulmates in the first place. She’d heard her parents say that owls didn’t have soulmates. Not just that they didn’t believe in them, but that it didn’t happen. But Jess and Auden were clearly meant to be together, and if that didn’t scream soulmate then she didn’t know what did.

  The afternoon passed quickly, and she found her mind wandering again and again to the subject of soulmates. She hadn’t ever really given them much thought before, but once Jess and Auden had found each other, she’d wondered if her own people had soulmates.

  Her fox let out an excited chittering in her mind and she lifted her head from where she was scrubbing the grout in the tile kitchen. Tilting her head, she listened intently but couldn’t hear more than the murmurs of workers outside. She inhaled and sorted through the scents, finding lion and wolf as she’d expected. But mixed in with the woods and sunshine smells from the lions and wolves was another scent, dark and enticing like the forest at night. Her stomach clenched and her fox turned cartwheels in her head.

  Straightening, she wiped her hands on a shop towel and closed the lid on the cleanser. And then she raced like a bat out of hell down the stairs to the first floor. She skidded to a halt as the sexy scent hit her full force and a deep growl sounded from a huge male who stalked toward her with flashing, copper eyes.

  She instinctively knew she was looking at a bear shifter.

  Who was not only the sexiest male she’d ever laid eyes on, but also her soulmate.

  Chapter Four

  Tayme woke up feeling unsettled. His bear was worked up, but he couldn’t figure out why. All morning he’d been grumbling at everyone, trying to focus on the ice cream he needed to make without biting anyone’s head off. In the ice cream stall, he was busy making cinnamon waffle cones to go with the maple ice cream he’d made for the first time that morning, adding candied bacon as a topping, since everyone seemed to love it so much.

  He made a tiny cinnamon cone for himself and put a scoop of maple ice cream in it, giving it a test taste with and without the bacon.