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^“G
eek Bear to Delta Team. Confirm your location,” Corey Bright said into his walkie-talkie.

A group of college girls had gone missing during a day hike on Fate Mountain, and the Rescue Bears were called into action to find them before time ran out. They’d already spent one night in the forest, and temperatures were getting hotter by the minute in the midday summer sun.

Big Bear repeated Delta Team’s coordinates, and Corey checked the data scrolling down his computer screen. Corey usually didn’t run Alpha Station during rescue missions, but his alpha Levi was busy with his mate and their new cub.

Corey didn’t mind taking over Alpha Station. It wasn’t the first time he’d had to lead the team like this.

“Head west when you reach the fork in the trail,” Corey said.

“Copy that,” Big Bear said over the walkie-talkie.

“My analysis indicates that the missing hikers are probably somewhere along the creek that comes down that western hillside.”

Corey continued to study his random probability generator. His software was so advanced he hadn’t even applied for a patent yet. He knew the government would swoop in the minute he tried. Corey just didn’t have time for that. All his most amazing programs he had to keep to himself.

Aside from Levi, everyone was out in the field looking for the missing girls. Corey sat under the tent of Alpha Station and drank a sip of his ice cold tea. He took another look at the screen, anticipating a message from Delta Team any second.

“Delta Team to Alpha Station, we have eyes on target. Initiating extraction.”

“Copy that,” Corey said, not hiding the smile on his face.

He picked up an orange and started to peel it, proud that his data analysis had saved the day yet again. Not that the guys in the field hadn’t done their part. They always did.

He’d known his buddies on the Rescue Bears, the search and rescue team on Fate Mountain, since they’d all served together as Navy SEALs back in the war. After the shifter draft, all the young shifters Corey’s age had enlisted. Even geek bears like him were considered badass enough to be on active special forces teams.

But the Navy wasn’t dumb. They’d utilized Corey’s computer skills in the field, and he’d worked with his team back then in much the same way he did now. Being with them was like being in a big, semi-functional family. They were like brothers. Their loyalty meant everything.

That’s why Corey had settled on Fate Mountain and rented a cabin at Fate Mountain Lodge when he could have lived anywhere in the world. He had high speed cable internet and industrial grade electrical wiring he’d put in himself. He really didn’t need much of anything else.

After he peeled his orange, he dropped the perfectly spiraled peel into the waste basket and picked up his cell phone to call the EMTs to tell them to standby. He wanted them here as soon as the guys brought the missing college girls out of the forest.

If the crew had been human men, they might have thought it was a treat to go rescue college coeds. But the Rescue Bears only had eyes for their mates. Everyone on his crew had been matched with their fated mates on the dating app he’d invented called Mate.com.

Unlike the rest of the guys, Corey didn’t want anything to do with mating, fated mates, or any of it. He knew it was all just a bunch of heartache and drama. Maybe the guys on his crew had found happiness, but Corey knew for a fact that it didn’t always end up that way.

No matter how many times the guys pestered him to sign up for the site and find his own mate, Corey refused to do it. Just because they were content didn’t mean that he would be. Nothing in life was guaranteed.

It used to be a lot harder for shifter men to date human women. After the Great Shifter Council had announced the existence of shifters twenty years ago, humans lashed out violently against them for years. Most of the people he knew had grown up with decades of violence.

But when shifters played a critical role in ending the war, and the government passed the Shifter Equality Act, suddenly shifters were heralded as heroes all over the media. When dating a shifter had become the hottest topic on celebrity gossip media, Corey knew that starting Mate.com would be a huge hit.

Just because human women were signing up to date shifters in droves didn’t mean Corey wanted to be part of the mating scene. The rest of the shifter community was definitely happy about it, though. Since male shifters outnumbered females five to one, most male shifters had to find their mates among human women. And there seemed to be no shortage of human women in line to date them these days.

Corey watched Delta Team’s position on his computer screen and alerted the EMTs to come up the mountain to meet them. As soon as Angus and Shane arrived with the girls, the ambulance pulled into the parking lot next to Alpha Station.

Drew and Zach came out of the forest a few minutes later. While the EMTs took the girls down the mountain to the hospital, the Rescue Bears started to tear down Alpha Station and load the equipment in Angus’s truck.

With everything broken down, Corey climbed into the back of Angus’s crew cab for a ride down the mountain. Drew got in the front seat and Angus slid behind the wheel.

“Where are we celebrating tonight?” Shane asked through the walkie-talkie.

“I vote for the brewery. I need to get home to Quinn and Max,” Drew said into the walkie-talkie.

Corey rolled his eyes. Ever since the guys had started mating with women, they’d all started having babies. No one wanted to properly celebrate anymore.

Corey spent all his time alone in his cabin with his computers. He wouldn’t have wanted to work for someone else, or with other people. But still, he needed some social interaction, and he was starting to miss his friends.

“Everyone is starting to puss out on our celebrations,” Corey said as Angus drove down the mountain.

It was late in the evening and the summer sun was starting to set beyond the western mountains. Pink and yellow light glinted on the rocky hillsides and the bright green needles of the pine trees.

“We have obligations,” Angus said.

“You’re the only one who prefers to spend his time in hermit mode,” Drew said as they pulled up in front of Fate Mountain Brewery.

They got out of the truck, and Corey shoved his hands in his pockets. His friends just didn’t get it. He liked his alone time. That’s the only way he was able to keep things in control. That’s the only way he could keep it all balanced.

If he brought someone else into his life, it would throw it all off. He couldn’t have that. He’d carefully erected a life that kept him comfortably productive. It kept his mind alert but calm so he could do his work. The work was all that mattered.

He couldn’t go a day without creating, programing, or dreaming of the next invention. All of that had netted him billions of dollars, and he didn’t want to mess with what worked for him. He was happy alone. He just wished his friends would believe him.

They walked into the brewery to the sound of a classic rock song playing on the jukebox. Zach was already showing off in the middle of the dance floor.

Drew went to the bar and got a few pitchers of beer to bring to their table. Corey slid into his chair and poured himself a beer.

Shane was sitting across the table, sipping from his own pint glass. He had his phone plastered to his ear, having some kind of thinly disguised phone sex with his mate Lily.

WTF, those two never quit.

Drew sat beside Corey, flipping through baby pictures of his son Max and forcing Corey to look at them.

“See him in this one? He’s crawling already,” Drew said, flipping to another photo that was basically the same as the last.

“It’s a baby,” Corey said.

“Look at him pulling up on the couch,” Drew said, pointing at the phone’s screen.

“Really? Then what did you do?” Shane said in a raspy whisper into his phone as he stood up to walk to a secluded part of the room.

Zach walked over and slid into a chair, taking his pint in hand with smiling eyes.

“Any of you guys notice your mate getting super randy when she was about four or five months pregnant?” Zach asked.

“I wouldn’t know,” Drew said darkly. “I missed that part of her pregnancy.

Drew’s mate Quinn had run away the night he’d marked her as his mate. She’d completely dropped off the map. That was just one example of how ridiculous fated mates could be to each other.

“Maybe you should ask Levi,” Corey said sarcastically.

Levi would probably not appreciate Zach asking about his and Juliet’s love life. At least, Corey hoped he wouldn’t. This whole mate thing was getting out of hand. It was ruining their crew. Pretty soon there wouldn’t be a crew left. They would just be a bunch of gooey-eyed husbands and fathers. And Corey would be the only rational one left.

That’s when Angus started asking him questions in that thoughtful, measured tone of his. It made it impossible for Corey to not answer him.

“And if you were a vegetable, what kind would you be?” Angus asked.

“Wait a minute,” Corey protested. “I know what you’re doing now.”

“Just answer the question,” Zach said, shoving Corey’s shoulder.

“No. I told you all. I’m not signing up for Mate.com. That’s final.”

“What are the choices again?” Zach asked.

“Squash, celery, cucumber, corn, sugar pea, or green bean.”

“Let’s narrow this down,” Zach said. “I chose sugar pea.”

“I was corn,” said Angus.

“Cucumbers are the coolest, like me and Lily,” Shane said, hanging up his phone.

“I was celery, and Levi was squash. Quinn told me that’s what Juliet told her, anyway,” Drew said.

“That just leaves green bean for Corey then,” Angus said.

“That isn’t how the algorithm works,” Corey protested.

“Is it the right answer or not?” Zach asked.

“You’ll never know,” Corey said stubbornly.

“You don’t know what you’re missing out on,” Shane said, throwing on his leather jacket. His motorcycle was parked outside. “I need to go take care of my beautiful wife’s sexual needs. Toodle-oo, gentlemen.”

Corey watched Shane walk out of the bar, then looked back at the rest of the guys. They better not be planning anything. If they did, he’d kill them. He hoped he’d been able to throw them off by not telling them the answer to the vegetable question.

The problem was, they already had the right answer.

“I need to get back to Quinn,” Drew said, standing up from the table, his eyes not leaving the pictures on his phone.

“I need to get home too,” Angus said.

“Me too,” Zach said.

One by one, the guys all took off. Corey was left sitting there wondering what the hell had just happened. Angus had taken off with all of Alpha Station in the back of his truck. How was Corey supposed to get home now? Walk?

He slammed his beer down on the table, surrounded by the summer crowd on a Friday night at Fate Mountain Brewery. There were a lot of tourists he didn’t know. Mostly human. There were a few local shifters, but none were close friends.

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