To Reject a Mate

To Reject a Mate REDWOOD UNIVERSITY #1 POPPY IRELAND To Reject a Mate ©2022 | Poppy Ireland All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law. This book is a work of fiction. All names, characters, locations, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, things, living or dead, locales, or events is entirely coincidental. If you would like to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), prior written permission must be obtained by contacting the publisher at [email protected]. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights. To Team Poppy: Thank you for not saying we’d lost our minds when we decided to start a new pen name. You may have been thinking it, but we appreciate the fact that you kept that shit to yourselves. 😉 We’re forever grateful for all of your help and enthusiastic cheerleading along the way. About To Reject a Mate Welcome to Redwood University, where the creatures that go bump in the night really do exist… and they’re hiding in plain sight. Attending a small college in the middle of nowhere was never my plan, but when I was offered free tuition and the promise of an excellent education, that plan changed. It would’ve been nice to know I would be one of the only humans on campus. It’d be even better if a certain bossy shifter didn’t claim me as his fated mate. Alexei is arrogant, acrimonious, and the worst A-word of them all: an alpha. But I can’t deny the way my body responds to him. No matter how many warning flags are waving around in my head, we gravitate toward one another. It’s primal. Passionate. Painful. Because regardless of what the fates think, or the supposed destiny we share… Alexei and I could never be. So, if Alexei won’t reject our bond… I’ll have to do it for him. *To Reject a Mate is the first book in the Redwood University Trilogy. It cannot be read as a standalone and ends in a cliffhanger. If possessive heroes, who occasionally turn into wolves, and sassy, headstrong heroines are your jam, you’ve come to the right place. So sit back, relax, and enjoy the ride into this exciting new paranormal world. Chapter One Nicole My future stared back at me from outside of my father’s Honda Civic. Redwood University was situated between two mountain ranges, like a secret tucked away amongst tall trees, sloping hills, and shadows. A blanket of clouds blocked out the sun, giving the landscape a gloomy appearance, and my cell phone lost service about an hour ago, shortly before we passed through the last major town. My last text message to my best friend was “If you don’t hear from me, send a search and rescue team.” “What do you think, Nicole?” Dad’s voice cracked through my thoughts like a whip as he rolled down his window and took a deep breath of pine-scented air. “It’s pretty impressive, right?” It was… something. Redwood University did not offer the sprawling city and skyscrapers I had envisioned, nor did it have the same frenetic pace as New York City, where I had originally intended to study. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but there was something off about this place. Don’t get me wrong; the campus was beautiful from what I had seen so far—some might even say picturesque in a Gothic sort of way—but it was the exact opposite of anything I had imagined as a child whenever I had thought about going to college. It was too clean. Too quiet. Too remote. Truthfully, I was creeped out. I didn’t want Dad to feel bad about bringing me along for the ride. I had plans to attend college at the Parsons School of Design, but he was offered a research position here—his dream job. The free tuition they offered me was too good to pass up, and I didn’t want to be across the country from a man whose idea of cooking an elaborate dinner was tossing frozen chicken nuggets in the air fryer. Dad needed me, and I was willing to follow him to the literal middle of nowhere. “It’ll be great,” I lied. “Are you excited?” I shifted the focus onto him, gave him an opportunity to babble about the grant he’d received to continue his studies as a geneticist. He’d been presenting some of his research at a conference when the university approached him. The team here was eager for his talents, and I couldn’t blame them. Dad was one of the smartest men in the world. “Nine Nobel Prize winners, Nicole. Nine! All from this university. Their contemporary approach to genetics just makes me giddy.” I grinned as he took the opening to discuss his work. Dad got excited when it came to science. “The lab is state of the art, too,” he continued. “They already said I had free rein of the PCR machine. I get to play with a piece of equipment that costs ninety-thousand dollars—and get paid to do it, Nicole! I’m just shocked. Not only that, they’re giving me a top-of-the-line furnished apartment, and the benefits are out of this world. I’m officially the highest paid researcher in the country. Not to mention, free tuition for you. It feels too good to be true.” “I’m really excited for you, Dad.” I was excited but couldn’t hide the disappointment in my tone as I looked out the window at our new home. His brown eyes—that bore far too much wisdom for his forty-five years—assessed me carefully. “Are you excited about your first year at college? Don’t think I didn’t notice you tried to change the subject, young lady.” I swallowed, buying myself time to choose my words carefully. Barring a few hormonal teenage exceptions, my dad was my favorite person in the world. The last thing