The Keeper's Lost Love

(The Keeper's Lost Love is a short story about second chances and the love of fated mates. It is a complete standalone.)

Ferris VanAllen has been the lighthouse keeper on the coast of the Valtameri peninsula in Finland for fifteen years having taken over from his ailing grandfather. Vacationing on Valtameri in the summer was always one of Ferris' favorite things growing up. At least, until the summer he turned seventeen and the boy he'd been in love with suddenly disappeared, never to be seen or heard from again.

Laken Key is a narwhal shifter who lived on Valtameri with his blessing. As a teenager, he'd been in love with the human boy who lived by the lighthouse. They were inseparable and he'd hoped they were fated mates but wouldn't know for sure until his eighteenth birthday. Only Laken never got the chance to find out. Captured by other humans while shifted and swimming of the coast, Laken was taken away.

Now, twenty years later, the boy Ferris once knew has become a man and he's coming home. Laken fears what he'll find when he returns but he decides to face it head on. Ferris has spent years wondering what happened to Laken and why he disappeared. Can Laken undo the heartbreak Ferris has felt over the last twenty years or will he be too late to stop Ferris from giving his heart to someone else?

(Warning: Contains graphic sexual content and explicit language. Not recommended for those under the age of 18.)