The Sixteenth Moon: A Rejected Mates Romance

Chapter 12: I Can Do This...

Dinner was nice; the food was delicious, the company was comfortable, the conversation flowing easily. He asked about her job, she asked about his—he owned a construction company, and they'd met when he came to her apartment at her landlady's behest, to replace water-damaged baseboards in the bathroom and bedroom.

When he'd first asked her on the date, she'd hesitated. Shifters weren't a secret from humans, but they were a curiosity. To some, they were an abomination. There were those who welcomed shifter-kind, then there were those who hated them, wanted them eradicated at the most, and rounded up and branded at the least. Which one was Cole?

It wasn't like she was really a shifter anymore anyway. Without her wolf spirit, she was basically no different than the average human female. The only real difference was that Kana knew what it was to house a wolf spirit...and lose her. It was like losing a beloved twin sister. The other half of her soul. And there had been nothing she could do to stop it.

"So, Kay, why is it that you are still single?" Cole asked, his eyes focused completely on her. Kana didn't miss how the waitress had basically thrown her boobs in his face, but he hadn't even given the tall, sexy ginger a second glance. His total and utter attention was on Kana. And that was a heady sensation. No man had ever given her such regard before.

Not even her own fated mate.

Refusing to give him another moment of her time, she grinned at Cole, her stomach flipping when he smiled back.

"Why am I still single?" she repeated, knowing she couldn't tell him the truth, that she was rejected by the one male Sister Fate had chosen for her. So she told him, "I guess I haven't found the right guy yet." Truth. Because, obviously, her fated mate wasn't "right."

Dammit! Get him out of your head!

Cole smirked, his lips curling wickedly.

"And what would make a guy right for you?" he asked, his tone both teasing and curious. Another flutter in her chest that moved down into her belly.

She was doing it. She was flirting with a human male who was actually interested in her.

I can do this.

Fuck Fate and fated mates.

"Well, he would have to be a good man, a steady job, but not so steady that he works all the time and can't give me the attention I deserve. He has to make me smile more than I cry—though never crying at all would be preferable. He has to be kind, considerate, and dedicated to me." Unlike some other males....

Dammit!

Cole nodded sagely, as though giving her list a twice-over.

"And what about looks? Do looks matter in your Mr. Right?"

She shook her head. "No. I found that even the most beautiful of people can have the ugliest hearts. I don't give a crap what he looks like, as long as his heart is beautiful."

Cole leaned back in his booth seat, his gaze on her face.

Another tummy flip, this time one of apprehension. Did she say the wrong thing?

"What about you?" she inquired, genuinely curious about the man across the table from her. "What is your idea of Ms. Right?"

Cole's slow smile warmed her from the inside out.

He shrugged, his smile still in place on his handsome face. "Well, she looks a lot like you, actually. Beautiful without being flashy"—Kana immediately thought of Boobies the Waitress— "sweet, fun, smart, and maybe a little sassy."

Kana couldn't help the hot blush that raced up her neck and into her cheeks.

He thought she was beautiful...and sassy?

She knew she wasn't plain, but she also knew she carried a little more curvature than some women. It didn't help that she was short—especially when compared to shifter females. Then again...she wasn't a shifter female any longer. She hadn't been blind; she'd always known she was different in looks and temperament than the females she'd known in the Yuba City Pack. She didn't even look like her own parents. She'd been some sort of genetic anomaly—not tall and fair like her mother, nor tall and exotic like her father. She was short, plumpy, and a weird mix of fair and dark. Dark hair and eyes like her father, but with her mother's Irish features. One couldn't look at Kana and say she was the daughter of Moira or Hiro. She was just...Kana. A category all her own. And she'd always resented it.

As a shifter, she'd been an outcast—she'd been rejected by her mate, for Ailune's sake. But...as a human, she was just another curvy brunette. One who'd caught the eye of a sexy human male who made her insides fluttery.

She cleared her throat. "Uh...thanks," she bleated, immediately tucking her chin into her chest in embarrassment.

Cole chuckled, then reached over the table to take one of her hands into his larger, calloused one.

"I mean it, Kay. You're beautiful...and I'd really like to go on another date with you."

Her heart skipped a beat.

Really? He wanted to go out with her again. Her.

This really was it...her first step to a love life without Fate's interference.

Curling her trembling fingers around his hand and squeezing, she said, "I'd really like that."