One True Mate 1: Shifter's Sacrifice by Lisa Ladew

until she was pretty sure she was walking ok.
    “I have a few strange questions for you, but please answer them honestly. They might shed some light on who this guy was.”
    “Ok.”
    “Were you downtown at all yesterday? Anywhere near 15 th Street?”
    Ella stiffened, unable to help herself, and a sudden fear shot through her. “No,” dropped out of her mouth, completely unbidden and before she could correct the lie, the cop asked another question.
    “Are you married?”
    “No.”
    “How old are you?”
    She could answer that one. “Twenty-five.”
    He turned glittering blue eyes on her and she almost shrank at their intensity. “And your parents?”
    “Ah, what? I mean, what do you want to know?”
    “Are they here, in Serenity?”
    “No. My mother and father are both dead.”
    The cop pressed his lips together, and she expected words of condolences. Instead, he said, “Tell me about your father.”
    Ella knew the question was strange, knew it made no sense at all, but she wanted to please the man. Wanted to keep talking to him, because it seemed to make her feel better, seemed to ground her in reality. So far, she hadn’t zoned out. Hadn’t lost it. She was still there, talking coherently. “His name was Howard. He sold insurance for Country Home. He was a sweet man, always laughing, but he never had a ton of money. That didn’t matter, though. He was still the best dad that ever existed. He came to every play I was ever in and always had time to talk to me. Everyone told us how much we looked alike.” She put a finger to her nose. “I’ve got his nose, his eyes, and his smile.”
    She smiled as if to prove it, feeling suddenly sick to her stomach. Howard had been her imaginary father, the one she’d retreated to her room and made up every time Shay hit her or their mother had told her to quit being strange, why can’t you just be normal every once in a while . Why was she lying? Why was she spilling out this story, this absolute fabrication ? Her mother would never, ever discuss her father, and when Ella tried, her mom would go still and silent and not speak to her for weeks. Shay loved that, and used to whisper about it when she really wanted to hurt Ella.
    You’re so fucked up your own father didn’t even want you!
    The cop turned slightly towards her, his eyebrows furrowed and his nostrils flaring slightly. She could tell he was disappointed, but she couldn’t understand why. Could he tell she was lying? Oh God. She opened her mouth and tried to tell him it had all been a mistake, but the words wouldn’t come. Her mind drifted instead, as it tried to cope with everything that had happened that day, with what was still happening.
    The cop stopped walking and she realized they were next to one of the patrol cars. He opened the back door. “Just sit in here, Miss Carmi. Officer Adin will take you somewhere safe in just a moment.”
    Ella climbed inside, unable to meet the big cop’s eyes, her mind unable to reason any of it out. She just needed a moment to think. A moment to breathe. A moment to recover.
    He slammed the patrol car door behind her and walked quickly away, giving her the moment she no longer wanted.
     

Chapter 14
     
    Trevor drove back to the station slowly, thinking hard, confused as to his reaction to the woman, Ella. He’d never in his life reacted to a woman like that. Like most of his kind, he found human women attractive on a sexual level, but he had never had that chemical and emotional attraction to one that made him think about… more. He knew it happened all the time, more so now that there were no female shifters, but it had never happened to him.
    Idly, he wondered if she could be a one true mate, even as he knew she wasn’t. Her name was not like flora , and she knew who her father was. The only thing she had going for her was her age. Trevor wanted to kick himself for his attraction to her.
    He shifted into low gear and let his truck coast to a halt at a