ONE
Gerri Wilder, matchmaker extraordinaire, stared at the hologram of Karel Yahgar. In the years she’d known Karel, she’d never seen him so serious.
“You need me to find you a mate?” she inquired with a frown, her curiosity piqued over his intense look. Even through a hologram, she knew something was wrong.
“Yes,” he told her, sounding emotionally drained. “Urgently.”
She’d never seen him like this, and it worried her. “I have a lot of things to catch up on.” She’d arrived at her apartment only moments before. Her mail was stacked high, and too many things needed follow-up. It was impossible to leave so quickly without prepping things all over again. Three trips in a row had been more than she had undertaken before. “It is going to be a while before I can get back to Aurora.”
The admission brought a deep, frustrated frown over Karel’s eyes. Gerri realized he didn’t want to give her more information so she sighed and shook her head.
“If that’s the case,” he said, his gaze directly at hers, “I will come to you.”
Her jaw dropped. She’d joked with him many times, trying to get him to visit earth and have some fun on her side of the galaxy. As head of security for the king of Aurora, Karel worked nonstop. Still, most times she saw him, there was an air of relaxation around him she didn’t see at that moment.
“You want to come here?” She glanced around her messy living room. There were special apartments in one of her godson Noah’s properties specifically for those from Aurora to stay.
Karel stood tall and proud and gave a short, hard nod that reminded her of his military background.
“I guess we can figure out how to find you a mate here.” She bit her lip and contemplated where the hell her list of prospective clients had been the last time she’d been home. “Karel,” she said. His stress and sadness concerned her; it wasn’t like him to be so serious. “I will do my best to help you as soon as possible.” She leaned forward on her seat. “I do need to know why the sudden need for a mate. You said nothing about it when I was last there.”
He made a pained face and glanced away. “It’s my mother.”
“Ah, shit.” Gerri knew about the jaguars. Last she heard, Karel’s mother was dying. Her illness was unexpected because it came on suddenly and she started to deteriorate immediately. Being such a protective and important figure in Karel’s life, he’d do anything his mother asked as her final wish. “She wants to see you mated.”
“Yes. This needs to happen as soon as possible.”
Gerri nodded, now ready to ignore the mess in her apartment and help a son giving his dying mother a final wish. Karel was a good man. Tall with a killer smile and hazel eyes, not to mention muscles that could make any woman stutter.
“I’m in. I will do my best to get you what you need. Get your cute ass to this side of the galaxy and I will arrange a place for you to stay.”
“You’re a lifesaver.” He finally smiled. There was the handsome man she had come to love like family. “I will be in your debt if you help me.”
She laughed and winked. “I will help and you will most likely fuck up at some point. It’s what men naturally do. Be warned. I will kick your ass if you make the lady I match you with cry.”
His hand slapped against his chest, mouth gaping. “I’m not heartless.”
She grinned at his flabbergasted expression. “Darling, you don’t have to be heartless to make a woman cry. Most men do it because they use their penis to think.”
His lips quirked and eyes crinkled with amusement. “Not everyone is like that. Some men can, and do, use their real brains.”
She twined her fingers on her lap. “I’ve lived through too many matches to know better.”
“Whatever happened to the benefit of the doubt?” He laughed.
“It died with the dinosaurs,” Gerri replied cheekily. “Now, let me go. I have to get your big pussy an earth girl. And don’t believe the hype. Not all of them are easy.”
He nodded, a grin still covering his face. “Thank you.”
Yeah. Great. Now she had to figure out who in the world would mate a giant jaguar with hazel eyes, a sexy body, and a face that made panties drop. Shouldn’t be too hard.
TWO
Alivia Vela, or as her friends and family called her, Liv, glanced at the card in her hand. A woman dropped it when she paid for wrapping paper in front of her at the card store. For an older woman, she moved damn fast. Liv had just paid for the get-well card for her stepsister when she noticed the woman’s card on the floor.