When she’d asked, he’d looked offended and told her it wasted gas.

  Um. Okay.

  She checked her phone. It was only seven o’clock, but the two hour drive was still ahead of them. Maybe they could make it home before ten if they left soon.

  Ugh. Did he just blow his nose?

  “Allergies, doll. Say, you gonna eat that?” he asked before scooping a fry from her dish and swallowing it down.

  Elissa was gonna kill her roomie. Gretchen was a hair and nail stylist. A lot of her clients were elderly, and they just loved her. They were always offering to set her up on blind dates with their nephews and grandsons.

  Mostly, the sweet old ladies were kind. They swore they could find her curvy roommate the right man, assuming she was single because she was new to town. Well, when Elissa got home tonight, she was going to tell Gretchen she needed to fire the old lady who set this date up from being her client.

  Like ASAP.

  No one who liked Gretchen would’ve sent her out with this guy. Gianni reached over and touched her hand and Elissa pulled back, reaching for the napkin.

  Gross.

  "I sure hope you ain’t a cold one, doll,” he said, shaking his head.

  “What?”

  “Ain’t gonna matter. I know just what you need, doll.”

  She was still wiping the greasy residue he’d transferred to her skin from the food he ate sans utensils. This was too much. Elissa was beyond uncomfortable with all the leering and bad attempts at innuendo.

  Plus, she was starving. One look at the dump he’d taken her to, and she knew she could never eat there. The chef in her wouldn’t allow it.

  To think they drove two hours for this! She’d practically frozen to death in his maroon Cadillac, listening to a CD of the Rat Pack, while Gianni crooned loudly, and off key, to the music.

  Normally, she was a fan of the famous group of legendary singers. Having grown up in Hoboken, she couldn’t not be a Sinatra fan. Though, to be honest, Dean Martin had always been her favorite.

  Still, Elissa was a firm believer that there were just some people you did not try to imitate. Especially not if you were Little Gianni. While he was belting his heart out, he’d been trying to get his right hand on her thigh. She’d asked him politely to stop.

  Twice.

  Then she’d been forced to try something a little more drastic. Like spilling her hot tea on the offending hand the third time he’d tried it. Finally, he’d removed his hand from her leg. Not making a fourth attempt, which she was grateful for.

  Elissa should’ve taken that behavior as a sign and gotten out of the car. But no. She’d wanted to do Gretchen a solid. So, against her better judgement, she gave the creep another chance.

  Idiota, her grandmother’s voice echoed in her brain again.

  The old woman had loved her. Elissa knew that without a doubt. She’d raised her after her own parents had passed on in a tragic automobile accident when Elissa was just twelve.

  Her grandmother was a no-nonsense kind of lady who dished out priceless wisdom with brutally honest insights. It was the same way she dished out huge bowls of pasta with her amazing meatballs and homemade sauce. Not to mention a side order of back-breaking hugs that Elissa still missed.

  Nonna cooked like that all the time. She made a huge pot of sauce every weekend, and she was happy to serve it to Elissa and her teammates and friends, especially after games and tournaments.

  Soccer had been her sport of choice, and cooking had soon become her favorite hobby. Her grandmother had encouraged her in both pursuits. Guiding her in one and cheering her on in the other. Elissa still missed her terribly.

  “Hey babe, ain’t you gonna eat nothin’? You know they charge twenty dollars just to sit down,” Little Gianni interrupted her train of thought.

  Elissa was forced to turn her mind back to the present, which unfortunately included watching, and hearing, him as he sucked on his teeth and stuffed another breaded shrimp down his throat.

  “I’m fine,” she answered with a polite smile plastered on her face.

  Just get home, Lissa. Just get him to take you home.

  Elissa closed her eyes when he looked back down at his dish. Thank God for small favors, she mused. At least he was more interested in eating at the moment.

  He’d taken her to the rattiest looking hotel and casino she’d ever seen in her life. And the buffet room?

  Ew.

  Seriously, the place had to be violating at least a dozen health codes. When Gianni had said Atlantic City, she’d thought at least the atmosphere would be exciting. But they were so far from the real glitz and entertainment, they might as well be anywhere else.

  She sighed, looking at the plate she’d made for herself. Elissa couldn’t even fake an interest in the food. As a chef, it was hard enough to dine out.

  She was always judging the food, the service, the ingredients. How could she not? It was her business. And that was when the food was good!

  This was not good. Not at all.

  She’d been to hospitals that served better food. Old yellow lights buzzed and blinked around the buffet, giving it an abandoned kind of feel. The menu was made up of mostly frozen then fried or baked cuisine.

  Reheated actually. It was like a giant TV dinner buffet where every item was previously frozen when already cooked and warmed up in an oven.

  It was the kind of food sold cheap at restaurant supply stores in bulk. Yeah, this was much worse than hospital food, in her opinion.

  There was a worn carpet on the floor, a handful of scattered tables in the dining room, elevator music on in the background, and the entire place smelled like canned soup.

  Not to mention not one of the five people there besides them was under sixty years old.

  “Gianni,” she said, leaning forward so as not to hurt his feelings.

  “I thought you mentioned something about seeing a show tonight. Is it here?”

  Please don’t be here.

  If he was taking her somewhere else, she could beg off and hire a cab to take her home. There was no way she was sitting through anything else with this man. Not now. Not ever.

  “Ah, I see, babe, you want some entertainment first, I get it,” he snickered loudly, and she blanched.

  Whatever he thought was going to happen wasn’t. She needed to disabuse him of the notion, and fast.

  “Alright, alright. Lemme finish this, babe. Then we’ll go up to the room I got for us,” he said.

  Before she could make sense of the ludicrous statement, he slurped another fried shrimp, don’t ask how. Then he grabbed her arm and yanked her from the seat before she could even react.

  Elissa tugged on his hold, but the man was immovable. Tossing a five-dollar bill on the table, Little Gianni snatched a toothpick from the hostess stand before dragging her outside.

  Great, he was a cheap tipper, too.

  All she wanted was to go home. Figuring the best way to do that would probably be to get him to the car, she let him lead the way.

  Once inside, she would ask him to drive back to Hoboken so she could wring Gretchen’s neck. Fuming, she pulled her arm out of his hand and walked behind him.

  The rain was really pouring, and the cheap bastard had refused valet. Elissa ducked her head so she wouldn’t get so wet. Of course, the jacket she’d brought was light and had no hood.

  Gianni had an umbrella, but he didn’t offer to hold it for her, and honestly, she did not relish the idea of getting any closer to him than necessary.

  Seriously, not happening.

  Now all she had to do was break the news. She had no intention of watching a show or returning to the hotel with him.

  What could go wrong?

  Grab your copy at https://www.cdgorri.com/books/purrfectly-mated!

  Excerpt from Bound by Air

  Troy Waman looked down at his smartphone to the little red arrow blinking on his map app, indicating he had reached his destination. He frowned pensively before shaking his head.

  “What a fucking shithole,” he murmured to himself as he exited the nondescript black SUV his Station Master, Rex, had given him for the job.

  “Try not to scratch it,” the tough Bear shifter had said with a barely contained growl after their meeting the day before last. After a thousand years of waiting, The Wardens of Terra were being called to duty and this was Troy’s first assignment.

  It took him a day and a half to make his way to Shadowland, New York from the little suburb in Virginia Beach where his Station was located. There were dozens of them across the continental United States and even more overseas, though he’d rarely been out of the county himself.

  Troy rolled his shoulders and exhaled. He was the first from his Station to be called to duty. A fact that left him both proud and humbled at the same time. He’d trained damn hard since he was a child waiting for such an opportunity. Now he had it, and it was almost too much to bear.

  Fuck and damn. It’s time Troy, get your ass in gear. That was all the sympathy he had for himself. Why the hell should he have any at all? Troy Waman was no tenderfoot normal. He was a Warden of Terra. He didn’t need to remind himself of the honor and duty that went along with his position.

  The Wardens of Terra were an ancient group of elite warriors. All of them Shifters. Identified in their youth and trained throughout their preternaturally long lives, they were guardians as well as fighters. Station Masters led teams of Wardens across the planet.

  Though they’d been deactivated sometime in the last millennium, Wardens were born, chosen, and trained every day with the distinct knowledge that someday, they’d be called upon to defend the earth. That day was here.

  Troy Waman had been trained as a Warden since before he learned how to spell the word. His heritage was a mix of Anglo and Native American. His father’s blood was a mix of tribes including Algonquin, Lenape, Cherokee, and a few others. He hadn’t stuck around long enough for anyone to learn the rest.

  He supposed he could get a DNA test, but that might raise too many questions with the normals. Especially in this day of advanced technology in biogenetics.

  Besides, it was quite common in today’s world to find Native American peoples descended from multiple tribes. Troy Waman was uncommon for an entirely different reason. He was a Shifter, a special race of dual natured beings with one foot in the supernatural world and one in the human. Troy was a Thunderbird Shifter to be exact. Something unique even amongst Shifters.

  He stretched his long, lithe body as he stepped away from the vehicle. It was already dark out despite it being fairly early in the evening. Daylight savings my ass. He sniffed the frigid air. The unusually high winds made the cold seem even more bitter. The street lamp stuttered on the corner, a rusty fence squeaked, and a black cat crossed the street, ducking under some parked cars. Troy’s frown deepened.

  It looked like the setting of a B-horror flick. All it needed was some half naked co-ed to run down the street with a masked bogeyman stalking behind her, traditional blood-coated knife in hand. Oh yeah. They might call it Shadowland Nightmare or something equally cheesy.

  He stopped his musings and used his heightened senses to take in the downtrodden area around him. It would seem upstate New York wasn’t all orchards and sprawling suburbs. He smirked as the “I love New York” song ran through his head. Yeah, right.

  Apparently, parts of the Empire State were as fucked up as the street where he was born in Newark, New Jersey. He’d visited that shithole back when he was in his teens just out of curiosity. What a mistake that had been! He’d left almost as soon as he’d arrived. His extended family had been, shall we say, less than welcoming.

  His gray-haired grandmother had screamed and crossed herself when he stepped over her threshold. He was what they called a skin walker. They feared and loathed him as something evil. Him evil? Like he was the motherfucker who knocked-up some unsuspecting normal and left her ass with a Shifter baby.

  He was not evil, but he was something they did not understand. He’d been angry and ashamed that day. He’d crashed through his grandmother’s kitchen to hitch a ride back down to his Station in Virginia Beach.

  In his youth it was more like a military training camp, but it was all he knew of home. After all, it was where he’d lived his entire life. He’d made his peace and settled fully into his life there.

  The incident with his grandmother had happened over a decade ago, when Troy had stolen his records out of Rex’s office. Still, the memory remained fresh in his mind as if it were only yesterday. The fucked-up street where he was standing only brought back the painful reminder that he’d come from the same kind of squalor. Fuck this, he thought.

  The pungent scent of despair washed over him. Reminding him. A young man with a hood pulled up over his head, eyed him from the street corner. Drug dealer. Shadowland indeed. It was an apt name for this shamble of a neighborhood.

  The young man continued to stare until Troy allowed his beast to shine through. His golden eyes pinned the errant youth through the inky darkness of the night. Startled, the kid dropped the bag he was holding and ran down the alley.

  Punk. Troy walked over and picked up what he had so hastily left behind. A couple of grams of crack cocaine and heroin, probably cut with Fentanyl. There were also various sized baggies full of what smelled like some below average marijuana and half-rotted psychedelic mushrooms.

  Just your garden variety of illegal substances to be found on most street corners in neighborhoods like this one. Fucking normals. He frowned and dumped the still sealed contents down the closest storm drain. He sent a quick text to Rex earmarking the location.

  Rex would make sure the local police department got an anonymous tip to retrieve the narcotics before someone got hurt. Recreational drug use, mainly the opioid epidemic, was wreaking havoc amongst the humans with more and more of them succumbing to their addictions.

  It was troubling, but not Troy’s problem. Shifters were extraordinarily hard to kill. Most human drugs had little to no effect on supernatural beings. Normals, he growled the thought, such weak creatures.

  To be fair, Shifters had vices too. He just had little experience with it. Cecil, a Station-mate of his, had an adrenaline addiction. He was always putting himself in dangerous situations, even during simple training exercises. Fernandez, a Jaguar Shifter, was always trying to get into some chick’s pants. Sex addict. And he knew of others who channeled their energies into ways he considered to be mostly unproductive.

  His opinion, for sure. He’d always been something of a loner by nature. There weren’t many Thunderbird Shifters around. Hell, he was the only fucking one he knew of in this part of the world.

  He didn’t blame or judge his Station-mates for their proclivities. Most of the Shifters he knew had large appetites which included food, exercise, and sex.

  Troy had certainly explored that part of him. He wasn’t a man-whore or anything, but he’d had his share of women. None of them mattered to him. Just a means to satisfy the occasional itch.

  Troy was determined to live his life as a Warden of Terra alone. He never expected to find anyone willing to share what was a potentially deadly existence.

  Those who followed the Darkness and evil were always looking for ways to gain the upper hand and it was his job to stop them. The way he saw it, it was an honor and a duty to serve.

  He shared this great responsibility with the entire organization. The core belief of the Wardens was based on one indisputable fact Shifters had walked the earth since the dawn of time, even before humankind; therefore, they were responsible for the well-being of the entire planet and all its inhabitants. Especially those who were inherently weaker. Mainly females and normals.

  There were other supernaturals who believed humans, or normals as they referred to them, were a blight on the planet. Those creatures wished to destroy them and take over.

  Demons, Dark Witches, and a whole plethora of evil beings sought the destruction of the normals and the world they lived in. Idiots! Did they even realize if they destroyed the world, there would be nothing left? Where the fuck would they live?

  Of course, the supernatural world had many agencies that worked towards the common goal of saving the planet. The Order of the Guardians, for example, were responsible for policing the various factions of supernaturals.

  Shifters generally tended to ally themselves with the Guardians. Sure, there were bad Shifters, but he’d never come across any willing to follow the Dark. Simply because most agreed the destruction of the world could not be allowed to happen.

  Different Packs and Clans, etcetera, of course, had different ideas. Some wanted to remain secret, others wished to come out, and other still wanted to rule the weaker humans. It was a whole fucking thing, and they argued about regularly.

  Troy didn’t know from any of that. He spent little time in the human world. His efforts better spent making himself worthy of being a Warden. Training, exercise, and following orders. That’s what Troy lived for, it was why he was chosen.

  Thunderbird Shifters were very rare. Special. He scoffed at the stray thought. But no matter what way he looked at it, Troy was indeed unique. In more ways than one. He was born marked by the stars. A Shifter of Terra.

  From infancy, he was told he carried the power of his sign within him. Aquarius ruled his destiny and it would aid him in the never-ending battle against the forces of darkness.

  Every single Warden he knew was a Shifter like him. They were the fiercest warriors on the planet. Like many others throughout the last thousand years, Troy, a Shifter child who was marked, was taken from his parents and trained by his Station Master until the time when he would be called into use.

  All that time, he thought, and here I am. He tried to ignore the pressure building inside of him. He felt anxious. His animal pressed against his psyche, comforting him with his presence.

  The significance of the moment was not lost on him. The Wardens had waited a millennium to be called to act. He had been waiting his entire life.

 

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