Mate of Her Heart
Authors: R. E. Butler
Tags: #Literature & Fiction, #Romance, #Paranormal, #Fantasy, #Werewolves & Shifters
Mate of Her Heart
Wilde Creek One
By R. E. Butler
Copyright 2013 R. E. Butler
Mate of Her Heart (Wilde Creek One)
By R.E. Butler
License Notes
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of the author.
Cover by Ramona Lockwood
This eBook is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination and not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locations is coincidental.
Disclaimer: The material in this book is for mature audiences only and contains graphic sexual content and is intended for those older than the age of 18 only.
* * * * *
I would like to extend sincere thanks to Alexis Arendt at Word Vagabond for editing this story. To the wonderful Amanda Pederick - thank you not only for beta-reading, but for being a great friend, brain storming queen, and all around fab gal.
To the
Wild Shifter Babes Street Team
- You are amazing!
To my Aunt B. L. my husband, B. B., I love you both.
To my friends and fans, thank you all for your support!
One week. That’s how much time Eveny Moore had left before her first heat-cycle struck and her body would try to attract a male to impregnate and mate her. She looked at the calendar on the wall of her father’s kitchen and touched her stomach through the thin material of her top. A week seemed like both an eternity away and a very short time period. She could do a lot of things in a week. Break a habit. Learn a new song on the guitar. Go on a vacation. But the one thing she couldn’t do in a week was tell the one male on earth who meant more to her than anything – her best friend, Luke Elrich – that she wanted to mate with
him
.
He deserved to know. But every time she looked into his big blue eyes and noticed the dimples in his cheeks when he smiled, all her good intentions fled. How had the boy that she’d been stuck to like glue since they were kids turned into such a gorgeous specimen? And why was life so unfair? If life were really fair, he wouldn’t have turned into such a hunk with a compassionate personality. He’d have wound up looking like Quasimodo, and she wouldn’t be so torn about her biological duty as a wolf shifter. She needed more time. She’d had plenty of time over the last several years to talk to him, of course, but she was a big fat coward and now she was nearly out of time. She could feel her heat-cycle coming on, and knew that at most she had a week before she would be consumed by it.
“Dinner’s ready, Eveny,” her father called from the back deck.
The warm September Saturday evening had inspired her father to make his famous beer-can chicken, and she’d spent the afternoon peeling and marinating vegetables for the grill pan, which he’d begrudgingly allowed her to place alongside his chicken.
She peeled her eyes away from the calendar and exhaled loudly. She couldn’t stop her coming heat-cycle by willing it away. Her whole life, she’d known that she would experience her first heat-cycle during the month of September in her twenty-fifth year. She’d known it as a harsh truth of her werewolf biology. But she hadn’t welcomed it. Most of the females in her pack assured her that the heat was all good times and hot sex, but Eveny knew that no matter the good times, or the hot sex, if a male came inside a female during her heat-cycle, he was the one that she was mated to. And for wolf shifters, mated meant married. And married meant
forever.
Joining her father on the deck, she sat on one of the wrought-iron chairs and lifted her plate. He set a chicken quarter on it and she set it on the table, reaching for the grill pan full of teriyaki-glazed veggies.
After scooping a generous portion onto her plate, she held it across the table and waited for her father to take it.
He wrinkled his nose. “We’re wolves, Eveny, not rabbits.”
“Last time I checked we’re also human, and humans eat a variety of things, including vegetables. And rabbits don’t grill their vegetables, the flames singe their fur.”
Her father, Dade, smiled warmly and chuckled. “Fine, baby girl,” he said, placing a scoop of her medley of snow peas, zucchini, yellow squash, and carrots on his plate.
She pulled the meat from the bones and made a neat pile on her plate, placing the bones on a separate plate. Eating slowly, she considered a hundred ways to start a conversation with her father about her concerns with the coming heat. She wasn’t embarrassed to talk about the physical aspects of the heat with her dad – after her mother passed away when she was eleven, her father had become both parents to her and they had no secrets.
Well…one secret.
The secret that was the cause of her balking against the traditions of her people. If she couldn’t have Luke, then she didn’t want to take a mate. Not this heat-cycle and not for any future heat-cycles. Her beast liked Luke, cared about him, and she loved him and had always loved him. But her people’s specist attitudes towards humans kept her from having more than a friendship with Luke. If she chose to go through her heat-cycle with him, knowing that she wouldn’t be able to stop herself from making him her mate completely, she’d be kicked out of the pack in shame and any children they had together would be rogues. Rogue wolves weren’t welcome in their hometown of Wilde Creek. Pack members were not allowed to associate with rogues. She’d never see her father again. Or her brother, Acksel, the pack alpha.
Shivering as she thought about her brother having to kick her out of the pack and watching people she’d known her entire life turn their backs on her as if she were worthless, she tried to switch her mind to a kinder topic. Except all she could think about was how little time a week was to spend with her best friend before she had to go through her heat-cycle.
“You didn’t save me any chicken? What the hell?” Acksel asked, plopping down in the chair next to her. The chair creaked under his weight and she winced, wondering if it would survive the meal.
She elbowed him. “You snooze you lose, bro,” she said with a laugh.
He scowled at her. “I got tied up in a council meeting.”
“Aw, heavy is the head that wears the crown.”
Their father got up and went to the grill, returning with another chicken. Acksel’s eyes lit up. Even if he was a badass alpha, he was still a kid at heart. And no one liked their father’s beer-can chicken more than Acksel.
“Have some veggies, Acksel,” she touched her fork to the edge of the grill pan.
Acksel’s wrinkled nose was an exact replica of her father’s, and she stifled a giggle.
“I’m not human, Ev. I don’t need vegetables and fruits to round out my diet.” He took a bite of chicken and stabbed his fork in her direction. “You’re no human, either.”
Their father had always tolerated her friendship with Luke. He was friendly with the humans who lived in Wilde Creek. But Acksel didn’t like humans at all. He had been a scrawny kid and the humans in school had treated him badly. No one treated him badly now, though. He was six-and-a-half feet of muscular, fit male with the enhanced strength and speed of their shifter genes. After he fought and beat the former alpha at twenty-six, no one said Acksel’s name without respect.
She let the dig about not being human go and turned her attention to the meal. Acksel and their father talked pack politics. Their father had never been alpha, but Acksel often talked to him about the goings-on in the pack. Their father had served on the council to the former alpha, but as was Acksel’s right when he took over, he had disbanded the council and filled it with an entirely new group who he could speak to when decisions needed to be made.
Their father said, “You chose to fight for the position of alpha, Acksel, and I’m certain I don’t need to remind you that it’s not a position that can be taken lightly. You’re the center of influence for the pack. What you say is law, period, which means choosing your words carefully.”
Acksel grunted. “You never fought for the position of alpha.”
“I didn’t want to. It’s a big job and requires balancing the needs of the individual pack members with the overall good of the pack.” Their father looked at Eveny for a moment and then looked at Acksel. “When the former alpha took over the position, yes I could have gone against him and probably won. But I had your mother to think of, and you were both little. I didn’t want to take on a role in the pack that meant that I would be away from the people who mattered most to me, and one where my life would always be on the line with challenges. But don’t think for a moment that I don’t understand what you went through to become alpha or what you deal with now. I served on the council for many years.”
Eveny spoke up. “If you’d been single, would you have wanted to be alpha?”
Their father smiled at her. “Maybe. It does have its perks.”
Acksel grinned lasciviously and Eveny made a face. She was pretty sure her dad was talking about sex with females as a perk of being alpha, and she didn’t want to think about her father — or her brother — in that way.
Their father said, “I’m proud of you, Acksel, and all that you’ve accomplished at such a young age. But even if you weren’t the alpha, I would still be proud of you, because you’re my son and I love you.”
The meal passed and she was no closer to talking to her father about her concerns than when she’d sat down at the table.
“I’ll do the dishes later,” her dad said as he put the last of the plates on the counter. Turning to face her, he leaned against the counter and folded his arms. “Why don’t you tell me what’s bothering you?”
Acksel walked into the kitchen and froze. “Is something wrong?”
“No,” she lied. “I’ve just got some things on my mind.”
Acksel cocked his head to the side and raised a brow. At one time, she and her only brother had been very close. But he was very driven to be the biggest and baddest werewolf, and once he’d shifted and began to train with his eye on the alpha position, he’d become less of a friend to her. They weren’t strangers by any stretch, but she knew very little about the man he had become. It was moments like this, when he looked at her with brotherly concern, that she missed the friendship they’d shared. “I told Jerry that your heat was coming up and you were to get the time off with pay. Is he giving you a hard time?”
She worked part-time in the office of Ferrity’s Construction, a pack-run outfit. Her boss, Jerry, was a friend of her father’s, and she’d been working for him since she was sixteen. “No, Jerry is being kind as always.”
Her father narrowed his gray eyes at her. “You’re worried about the heat?”
She swallowed hard, amazed at how her father always seemed to know what was going on with her. The only thing he had never figured out was how much she cared for Luke. According to her pack’s laws, as a female wolf, Eveny was supposed to take a male wolf as her mate during her heat-cycle and further the wolf species by having the first of many pups. It was unacceptable for her to want to mate with a human. And that was aside from the fact that she’d never even talked to Luke about becoming mates in the first place. It wasn’t a conversation she could have over the course of a week and expect him to understand fully what it all meant, to make a decision that would affect the rest of his life forever.
Nodding, she clenched her hands together, twisting her fingers. “I’m not ready.”
Acksel snorted. “You’re twenty-five. You’ve known about your first heat coming this year forever. What’s to be ready about?”
Her father cut his gaze to Acksel and growled lightly. “If she’s not ready, son, then she’s not ready.”
Acksel’s lip curled up into a snarl. “There’s nothing to be ready for.”
Anger flashed through her and she stepped towards her brother. “Fuck you, Acksel. You don’t have some trick of nature forcing you into a painful heat for a week with the intent of getting you pregnant and settling on a mate. I haven’t dated anyone in months. Do you think I want to get a mate like this?” By the time she finished lashing out at her brother, she was standing toe to toe with him, glaring up at his six-foot-six frame and poking him in his chest.
His eyes flashed to the gold of his wolf and he snarled, grabbing her wrist in his hand. “Watch yourself, she-wolf. You may be my sister, but you will treat me with respect.”
Her father slipped between them and leaned back, separating them. “She’s emotional right now, Acksel. She means no disrespect.”
Acksel huffed and glared at her around their dad. “You don’t have a choice. You can’t undo biology. My advice is to suck it up. If you won’t choose a male to go through the heat with, then I’ll choose one for you.”
All the blood drained from her face. “Don’t you dare!”
This time, Acksel’s eyes changed to gold and his fangs elongated. “What did you say?”
Her father reached behind and shoved her backwards. “Go to your room, Ev. We’ll talk later.”
She considered for only a brief moment arguing with her brother about his Neanderthal views on females and their place in the pack, but one look at his sharp fangs and glowing eyes and she knew sticking around was a bad idea. Backing away slowly, she left the kitchen and then darted for the door out to the garage. She had converted the attic space over the garage into an apartment when she was eighteen. It was normal for she-wolves in her pack to live with their parents until they mated, but she’d wanted some independence and had chosen to leave the house but still stay close.
An hour later, while she still paced back and forth in the room, her father knocked on the door and opened it. “He’s gone,” he announced, coming in and sitting down on the small loveseat in front of the hand-me-down television in the corner. She joined him on the couch, sinking into the deep plush.
“I really messed up. I know better than to talk back to Acksel.” She put her head in her hands. It was bad enough she wasn’t looking forward to the heat because of a bad case of unrequited love with Luke. She didn’t need to add herself to her brother’s shit-list, too.
Her dad rubbed her shoulder. “He’s your brother. It would be hard for anyone to deal with having a family member suddenly become alpha. And he’s having trouble, too, balancing the responsibilities of being alpha with his desire as a brother to keep you safe.”
She looked at her dad. “If you tell me he just wants what’s best for me I’m going to scream.”