Saving Scarlett
Saving Scarlett
(Ashland Pride Five)
By R. E. Butler
Copyright 2015 R. E. Butler
Saving Scarlett (Ashland Pride Five)
By R. E. Butler
License Notes
This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This book 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
Valerie Tibbs
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’d like to thank Carol Davis at
A Better Look: Editing Services
for her time and knowledge.
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My heartfelt thanks to Mandy Pederick at
The Picky Bitch
for helping me get unstuck with Scarlett’s story, beta-reading, and being a great friend!
Thanks to Shelley Chastagner for beta-reading.
To my best sisterfriend & the twin of my heart, Joyce, your support means the world to me.
Aunt B. L. and my husband… I love you both!
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Thanks to the Wild Shifter Babes Street Team for promoting me and for being the most amazing group of readers I’ve ever had the pleasure of knowing! You rock! XOXO
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Saving Scarlett
Ashland Pride Five
Scarlett Jamison, the daughter of a powerful alpha wolf, knows her freedom is slowly slipping away. As a Breeding Queen, her hereditary destiny is to be given away to a male of her father’s choosing. She’ll have no say in the choice of her mate; her only duty will be to give her future mate as many pups as he wants. What her father doesn’t know, though, is that Scarlett took her best friend Melody’s wedding as an opportunity to spend the night with two amazing male mountain lions. They rocked her world and stole her heart, and then she had to leave them behind and cut all contact. Even though her heart protests that Wesley and Ray Fiero are her truemates, she has no choice but to obey her father…until a certain quirk in her DNA changes everything.
Ray and Wesley won’t give up on Scarlett. One night was not nearly enough for them. Finding Scarlett turns out to be easy. Taking her back to Ashland to live happily ever after? Now, that’s going to be dangerous. Ray and Wesley are willing to go to any length to protect Scarlett’s right to choose them no matter the cost, but when an innocent life is on the line, will the payment for her disobedience be blood?
This book contains one female who has her choices taken from her, two males determined to make her theirs, and a pride willing to help. Expect plenty of m/f/m interaction, abundant use of the word ‘mine,’ and inappropriate use of a horse statue.
Table of Contents
Scarlett Jamison stood next to a female minister and waited for her best friend, Melody, to walk down the aisle with her uncles, Jax and Holden. She’d never been around a group like the mountain lion pride before. They were an amazing mix of sweet and protective. Her lucky bestie was marrying two sweethearts named Micah and Tristan, who had saved her life more than once. Scarlett and Melody had been best friends since they were little, and she’d never seen Melody as happy as she was now.
There was a
click
as a young male named Owen pressed a button on a stereo and the strains of the “Wedding March” filled the great room of the boarding house where the lion pride lived. Melody appeared with her uncles and they walked her slowly down the aisle between the folding chairs that had been set up. Melody looked beautiful in her gown, and Scarlett’s eyes stung with tears as she watched her best friend draw closer to the two males who already loved her more than their own lives.
A twist of sadness gripped Scarlett as she glanced at Micah and Tristan standing on the other side of the minister. Their faces were so filled with love that they were almost glowing. Her own wedding wouldn’t be like that. Sure, it would be a grand affair – only the best food, the most elaborate gown, the most important wolf pack leaders in attendance – but she wouldn’t be walking down the aisle toward a male whose eyes would be brimming with love for her. She could hope that maybe eventually he would come to love her, as her father had loved her mother in time, but her happily-ever-after might never come. There were Breeding Queens like Scarlett who never loved their mates. She didn’t want to be one of them, but with her father choosing her mate and her having no say in the matter, that seemed like the most likely outcome. She couldn’t guess what sort of male her father would choose. Probably someone just like himself, a male who would place duty over family, who would see her as a way to leave a legacy of numerous children and not a mate to be loved and cherished.
Tears blurred her vision and she blinked rapidly. She didn’t want to wallow in self-pity. This was Melody’s special day and she deserved to have everyone’s attention focused on her alone. Scarlett banished the thoughts of her dark future into the furthest corners of her mind and decided to make the most of the night. She might never have an opportunity to be on her own like this again, and she wasn’t going to let it slip through her fingers.
Accepting Melody’s bouquet, she smiled at her bestie and listened as the minister began the ceremony.
* * * * *
Ray Fiero tugged on his collar. He didn’t like wearing ties. They made him feel like someone with tiny hands was trying to choke him slowly. His cat yowled in his mind and he mentally shoved the creature aside. His cat had been acting up all afternoon and he had no idea why. All he knew for sure was that he was feeling anxious and horny and his cat wouldn’t shut up.
Casting his gaze around the room, he ignored the wedding ceremony of his friends and their mountain lion mate, and tried to figure out what – or who – was making him so nuts. His fraternal twin, Wesley, sat next to him, and Ray noticed that he, too, was acting like he couldn’t sit still.
Ray’s gaze swept the room again, more slowly this time, and stopped on Melody’s best friend, Scarlett. His breath froze in his chest and his pacing cat sat down with a quiet murmur of appreciation. Scarlett was beautiful. Her golden hair fell past her shoulders in a glossy wave and the pale blue dress she wore hugged her generous curves in just the right places.
He hadn’t met her, but some of the other lions had told him who she was – a she-wolf from Melody’s old home town. He closed his eyes and inhaled slowly, trying to pick out her scent among
the myriad of others in the room. It was there, a sweet scent like vanilla sugar. Once he had identified her scent, his cat went crazy, and Ray had a hard time remaining in his seat. Part of him – the howling, batshit crazy part – wanted to rush down the aisle, pick her up, and run from the room. The slightly smaller, less suddenly-nuts part of him knew that wasn’t a good idea. He didn’t want to scare her.
Wrangling his cat and forcing himself to calm down, he focused on her while the minister said words like
forever
and
love
and
commitment
.
That was exactly what he had in mind for Scarlett.
* * * * *
Scarlett felt a single drop of sweat roll down her neck and struggled not to wiggle as it hit her collarbone and made its way down to her cleavage. She was feeling flushed and she wasn’t really sure why. The room was air-conditioned, and it was a beautiful September evening, not too hot and not too cold. But standing next to her best friend as she exchanged vows with her mates, Scarlett felt a strong desire to tug off her dress and run naked from the room.
Snorting inwardly at the mental image, she tried to force herself not to think of how hot she felt. Letting her gaze drift around the room, she saw Melody’s uncles sitting in the front row, tears in their eyes. Melody hadn’t known her uncles until this past July, when she’d gone to King, Pennsylvania, to meet them. Her mates, Tristan and Micah, had rescued her from the pride and taken her to meet her family. The mountain lions were a strange shifter group. The females were under an ancient goddess’s curse that compelled them to poison younger females and take away their emotions. Because Melody had been raised away from females, she’d never been poisoned, so she was entirely normal. Females who had been poisoned could be cured by blood-sharing with their mates, which had been proven by a young female named Jilly who was mated to two young panthers.
Two mates. Scarlett shivered at the decadent images that coursed through her mind. Two males to touch her, for her to touch. Two sets of arms around her at night. Two males to fall in love with her, the way that Tristan and Micah loved Melody, as if they couldn’t breathe if she wasn’t near them. Her eyes stung as a wave of self-pity stole over her. Melody was mated not only because Tristan and Micah were her truemates, but because they loved each other. The sort of soul-deep, heart-pounding love that people like Scarlett only read about in books and would never experience in real life.
Clenching her teeth, she forced herself to stop feeling sorry for a situation she couldn’t alter. Her fate was sealed. Her father would choose her mate for her, the way it had been done for generations. Scarlett could no more change her destiny than she could make the clouds turn green.
Her gaze landed on a pair of males in the small crowd. About halfway back in the center of the row sat two of the most handsome males she’d ever laid eyes on. Her stomach flipped and her heart clenched in a funny way. Both males were staring at her. They looked very similar, almost like twins, but one had short, dark blond hair and bright green eyes, and the other had very short black hair and pale green eyes. She licked her lips and both of them tracked the movement with their eyes.
She didn’t know what was going on, but she wanted to go to them. To be near them, to touch them, to see what the night would bring. Because she did only have
one
night. Tomorrow she’d be back in Bent Creek with a noose slowly tightening around her neck as her father chose her future mate. Tonight, however, she didn’t have a mate, and nothing would banish the darkness from her mind more than being with those two males who were watching her intently.
But just for tonight.
* * * * *
Wesley didn’t have a jealous bone in his body. He and Ray had grown up sharing everything because they were twins. They never kept secrets from each other, and although they argued from time to time, they were each other’s best friend. He was aware that Ray was staring intently at Melody’s maid of honor, and he wished that he could talk to his brother right then and ask him if
he
was feeling the same strange, unquenchable desire toward the female as Wes did. He’d never been so singularly captivated by a woman before. Sure, he’d seen pretty girls around Ashland and had even gone out on the odd date or two, but he’d never found himself entranced like this. It was all he could do to stay in his seat without fidgeting and hold tight to his cat, who wanted to stalk over to the curvy female and find out if she tasted as good as she looked. He bet she tasted like sweet cream.
Scarlett was looking at him, at both of them. She looked flushed and he wondered if she was under the same compelling influence as they were. What did it all mean? He didn’t want to dare to hope that they’d found their mate.
The people around them rose as Melody kissed her mates in turn and Wes stood slowly, not sure what the next move should be. The trio moved down the aisle as the guests clapped and Scarlett, escorted by Melody’s uncles, followed. She looked over her shoulder at Ray and Wes and he wanted to run after her and shove Jackson and Holden away.
Ray put his hand on Wes’s shoulder and squeezed. “Tell me you’re feeling it too.”
Wes swallowed the lump in his throat as Scarlett disappeared from sight and turned to face his twin. “You too?”
Ray nodded and whispered, “This is it, right? The sudden attraction, the desire – she looked just as affected as us – she’s ours.”
Wes grinned at his brother. “How do we play this?”
The pride and the other guests were slowly making their way outside, where the reception was going to be held. “Casual? I kinda want to throw her over my shoulder and lock us up with her for about a year.”
Chuckling, Wes said, “Let’s save that for after the introductions. We need to go meet our future.”
* * * * *
Scarlett waited next to her bestie and her two new husbands in the receiving line. She shook hands with and kissed the cheeks of the various guests, but really only wanted to see the two males who had captivated her. Did they even feel the same as she did? Could they feel a burning longing that made everything else downright dull in comparison? Would they understand that anything that happened between them was just for tonight, and then she’d be out of reach forever?
Guilt stirred in her. It would be better if she just ignored them than to start something she wouldn’t be able to finish. There wouldn’t be any dates – no dinners or movies or long phone conversations as they learned about each other. Her future was already carved in stone. Then she saw them walk through the back door onto the covered porch that had been decorated with flowers and tulle and all her good intentions fled. She’d take whatever they offered her today – even if it was nothing – and lock it up in her memory to keep her warm in her sure-to-be-cold mating bed. Because nothing could be hotter than what sparked among the three of them as the two males stopped in front of her. Silence stretched as she looked up at them. They were taller than her petite five-foot-four, both broad-shouldered and well built, and the subtle scent of their cats – like the forest and sunshine – saturated the air.
They reached for her at the same time and a spark shot between them as their hands entwined with hers and the world dropped away.
“Scarlett, I’m Ray,” the one with dark blond hair and bright green eyes whispered before laying his lips against hers in a soft caress. She whimpered into his mouth as their tongues touched and he released her hand to curve his around her back and draw her close. The kiss was both too brief and eternal. It ended and his eyes had gone from solid emerald to beautifully swirled with amber.
“I’m Wesley,” the other one said, drawing her close to him but not entirely out of Ray’s grasp. His lips were soft and full, his eyes a stunning pale jade. She closed her eyes as they kissed, and something snapped in her mind, an awareness that made her core throb and her heart pound. She shoved at the thought as quickly as it had occurred, certain she would start bawling if she gave it wings.
She knew in that moment, as Wes caressed her tongue with his and pulled her even closer, that she would be with them tonight and then walk away. She had no choice, even if it might kill her.
She felt a strange hush as the kiss with Wesley ended and she glanced around to see they’d been left alone on the porch. The wedded trio and the other guests had gathered in the yard but she’d been unaware of any movement around her.
She looked at Ray and Wesley. “I’m supposed to sit at the head table, but you can join me if you’d like. I know there will be room, and Melody won’t mind.”
Ray grinned, showing her a deep dimple in one cheek. “We’d love to.”
Although Melody raised her brows at Scarlett as they joined the head table, Scarlett just smiled at her bestie and concentrated on how much she enjoyed being around the two mountain lions. The reception passed quickly. She danced with Ray and Wesley – separately and together. Every time their hands were on her, she couldn’t think about anything except the heat that spiraled through her.
As the reception ended and she stood on the front lawn with the rest of the guests, watching her bestie and her new husbands leave for their honeymoon, she shivered in anticipation. Ray and Wesley stood on either side of her. They each held one of her hands and their other hands were on her back, the warm heat of them branding her through the thin satin of her gown. She grew more restless by the minute. The crowd began to disperse and Wesley turned her to face him.