Technical Threat (Westin Force #4) - Julie Trettel Page 0,3
hard stuff head on. In the end it had cultivated a family I had desperately desired and friendships that were stronger than blood.
I smiled thinking back on it all that had changed in my life over the last three years, much of it was thanks to Nonna even, but I was happy with my life just the way it was, and I absolutely had no desire to take a mate not now, and maybe not ever.
Susan
Chapter 2
“You wretched girl, where are you this time?” my mother yelled.
I tried to stifle my yawn as she barged into my bedroom. It had been a late night, not that I’d dare tell her that.
She threw open my curtains. “You’re late.”
I looked at the clock sitting on my nightstand. It was 7:30. I yelped and jumped from the bed pushing past her as I ran to the bathroom.
I never slept in like this. I was always up by 5:30am no matter how late I stayed up. I didn’t feel sick or anything, heck, I was a shifter, so I didn’t even know what it really felt like to be sick, but something was certainly wrong with me.
I knew I had been staying up into the wee hours of morning every night for weeks, but I hadn’t realized it was wearing me out quite so badly.
I was still groggy as I took a shower, quickly applied enough makeup to look sort of human, and ran out of the house. In record time I was across the street to Shay Vous Café. My mother thought it was a cute play on words with her name. The problem was, we lived in the middle of nowhere in Idaho. People here had no idea it was a play on the term “chez vous” which was French for “at home”. And since it was mostly over their heads, and the café was really more like a small-town diner, the locals had shortened it to simply Shay’s.
Shay Dubois was a force to be reconned with. She was larger than life and often self-absorbed. She wasn’t very good with commitments. She was only seventeen when she got pregnant with her first born, Sapphire.
She’d met Sapphire’s dad visiting distant relatives in the arctic. Supposedly he was as exotic and perfect as my sister. It had been a whirlwind romance, but when he found out she was pregnant, he’d freaked out and ended things quickly. My mother had been sent back to the states with her unborn child.
Sapphire was exotic and perfect. I could certainly admit that. She had inherited her father’s fox traits. Where the rest of us were common red foxes, Sapphire was a beautiful arctic fox. Her most unique trait was her eyes though. She had one bright blue eye and one green. Even in human form her eyes and naturally frosted silver hair captured the attention of everyone.
She had a quiet confidence about her and tolerated the spotlight because she had to. Our mother saw to that on a daily basis. In trust, Sapphire was shy and hated every second of the attention. I had never envied her or wished I had that kind of focus on me. I was happy to just live quietly in her shadow.
With a small pup, my mother sought out a husband quickly. She’d manipulated my father into marrying her when Sapphire was only six months old. It wasn’t long before she was pregnant with me.
My father was smart and solid. That’s what Shay had wanted, or so she thought. Apparently marrying an insurance adjuster that doted on her and her children wasn’t enough. She grew bored quickly and left him. Sometimes I wish she’d left me with him.
I didn’t really know my father. He lived in Boston and sent birthday and Christmas cards with money for me every year, money that Shay took to spend on herself. I saw him two weeks out of the year growing up, and rarely found time for a visit now. He had remarried and was happy, but they had never had children and he had never really had the chance to be my father. I knew he felt that our shifter genes were a curse, and he hadn’t wanted to pass them on to offspring. Knowing that, I could only assume that Shay had lied to him or somehow manipulated him into having me. Either way it was clear I wasn’t exactly wanted by either of my parents.