Free Shifting Crossroads 8 - Ocelot of Trouble by Zenina Masters

Chapter One
     
     
    The party raged on, but Mina was miserable. Every member of her family was here to support her aunts’ efforts to send her to the Crossroads. It was well known that Mina wouldn’t find a mate any other way.
    Nine of the blind dates that she had had in the last year were in attendance, dancing with her cousins. They had paid to come to the fund-raising social in an effort to get her a mate. Even the men she had bruised and broken were supporting her in her effort to find a man who wasn’t them.
    Mina was a klutz, and there was no way around it.
    “Hey, Mina! You will be able to spend a month or more at the Crossroads with all of the donations rolling in!” Her cousin Leevi grinned and gyrated to the music.
    “Yes. It’s great. I am so grateful to you all.” She mumbled it with the same tone she had been using throughout the entire evening. She was grateful. Really. She was just humiliated by her family banding together in order to send her somewhere else where the men had no idea what they were getting into.
    It seemed unfair to her that she was going to be circling around in search of a mate and the men wouldn’t know that they were walking into the path of the Lancaster jinx. No man could possibly withstand her skill at causing injuries while simply trying to make a good impression.
    She looked across the dance floor and saw the tables that were taking hair and nail clipping samples for payment to the transporter. It was heartwarming that her family was getting the community together like this, but Mina’s soul felt heavy.
    There was nothing like knowing that you were the biggest loser that your friends and family could think of. She dragged in a deep breath and plastered a smile on her face. She forged into the crowd and shook hands and grinned at everyone she met, inwardly wincing at their eager faces as they told her how happy they were to support her chance of meeting someone outside their community who didn’t know who she was.
    No, that didn’t hurt at all.
     
    * * * *
     
    Robar sat with his mother and grandmother glaring at him. “What?”
    His mother tapped her fingers on the rich tablecloth. “I said you need to stop screwing around and find a mate, Robar. I want grandchildren and your flirtations are not going to get them for me.”
    “Stop fucking bimbos, Robar.” His grandmother sipped her tea and smiled beatifically, but there was steel in her gaze.
    “But, Nana…I have yet to find the woman for me.” He tried to put an innocent look on his face, but his elegant grandmother saw right through him.
    “Zip it, Robar. You have been enjoying the good life for over three decades. It is time to do your duty to your family and be a man, not a boy.” His grandmother glared at him with her dark bronze eyes still keen. “Grow up.”
    He blinked in surprise. “You are serious.”
    Arduna Pickwik looked over at her mother. “She is serious. She is talking about cutting you out of the will.”
    That sent a flutter of panic through him. “Nana?”
    Loreada Alenfleur gave him an impassive look. “I have arranged for a transporter. You are going to the Crossroads, and you are not coming back until you have a mate. I don’t care how long it takes. Your time as a bachelor is over. Settle down and start making babies. That is an order.”
    Robar Pickwik stared into his grandmother’s eyes, and his predicament came home with a thud. He was going to have to find a wife.
    “May I call some of my previous women?” It was the last effort he could muster to get the process over with quickly.
    His grandmother smiled. “Of course. If they will meet you at the Crossroads, you will be able to choose one of them. Good luck with that. You leave next weekend.”
    She waved her hand lazily at him in dismissal, and Robar got to his feet. He had some calls to make.
    This was not the way that he was planning his luncheon to go. Normally, his nana was very cheerful and reasonable. Something must