Read Caleb's Tempting Mate (Saber Chronicles Book 3) Online
Authors: R. E. Butler
Caleb's Tempting Mate (Saber Chronicles Book 3)
Caleb’s Tempting Mate
Saber Chronicles Book Three
By R. E. Butler
Copyright 2015 R. E. Butler
Caleb’s Tempting Mate (Saber Chronicles Book Three)
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
S. Frost Designs
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 Jennifer Moorman for editing the story.
To Joyce - you’re a gem and a true friend.
Many thanks to Shelley and Jackie for beta-reading.
To BB & BL - I love you both.
Table of Contents
Caleb’s Tempting Mate
Saber Chronicles Book Three
By R. E. Butler
Lia Carmichael is thrilled two of her three brothers have found their truemates. As soon as her third brother finds his, she’ll start having the mating dreams that are part of being a saber-tooth-tiger shifter. Fate has other plans, when she goes to a club with her new family and scents her mate – on another woman! Hell hath no fury like a pissed-off saber-tooth tigress shifter, and she’s one furious cat.
As vampire master of the city of Belle Terra, Caleb Night has seen just about everything. When a gorgeous saber-tooth tigress female finds him in his private club, he knows he’s staring into the golden eyes of his truemate. He never expected his truemate to be a shifter, but nothing makes him hotter than when she purrs.
When a master vampire and a saber-tooth tigress get together, expect lots of neck biting and purring.
Lia Carmichael stood in front of the long mirrors at a boutique in Belle Terra and looked at herself critically. She wore a short, black dress that fell to mid-thigh. It was made of silk and hugged her body like a second skin, cut low in the back with daring cleavage.
“That’s gorgeous,” Aubrey, Lia’s new sister-in-law, said from where she stood next to the small platform in their shared dressing room. “I don’t think any males will be able to form coherent sentences when you wear that. It looks amazing on you.”
She smiled at her sister. Aubrey was human. Lia was a saber-tooth tiger shifter, the last female of her kind. Her brothers – Alaric, Slade, and Galen – were the last males of their kind. It sucked being the last sabers, but she was hopeful that now that Slade had found his mate in a she-wolf named Gretchen, and Alaric had found Aubrey, she would soon find her own mate. She had to wait for her other brother, Galen, to find his mate first. Sabers only found their mates after having mating dreams, which would strengthen as the sabers drew closer to where their mates were.
It had taken a year for Alaric to find Aubrey. Their family had joined the National Were-Fighting Association, headed by alpha wolf Jonathon Black, and traveled with him. Weres, although known to human society, were restricted from randomly moving from town to town due to government laws. She never fought, but her brothers were well known in the were-fighting world.
“Tell me about the club we’re going to tonight,” Lia said as she stepped off the platform and walked to the rack.
“Caleb owns Heat. It used to be a bank, but he gutted it when he took over as master vampire of the city. What had been the underground vault became the kiss’s daytime chambers, and the second floor, which had been executive offices, became his private playground. The first floor is an enormous dance floor with bars on each wall,” Aubrey said. She stepped onto the platform, wearing a cute navy dress and looked at herself.
“You look great,” Lia said, undoing the zipper on the black silk dress and letting it slide down her legs.
“Thanks. Anyway, most of the kiss work there, but some wolves and humans do, too.”
“I like that one better than the red one,” Lia said. “You look pretty in both of them, though.”
“I wonder if guys worry as much about what they’re wearing as we do?” Aubrey asked.
Lia snorted. “I doubt it. It’s a good thing you told Alaric to dress nicely or he’d probably have wanted to go to the club in jeans and a T-shirt.”
They tried on a few more outfits before making their selections and taking them to the register. Lia hadn’t had any females to be friends with when she was traveling with the NWFA. Although there were some females who traveled with the group, they stayed with their own people and never attempted to befriend her. She loved her brothers dearly, but she was thankful to have two sisters now.
After they returned to the hotel, she dropped off her things in her room and then joined Aubrey and Gretchen in Aubrey’s suite on the fourteenth floor. Alaric had moved into the suite right away, and Gretchen and Slade had moved into the suite next to them.
“How do you feel about only having Galen left to find his mate before you find yours?” Aubrey asked.
Lia settled onto the comfortable couch. “I’m excited and nervous. It took Alaric a year to find you. He was really tortured with the dreams. Sometimes I could hear him thrashing in his bed.”
“I still think it’s strange that Alaric had sex dreams about me when I was totally clueless,” Aubrey said.
“What would you have done if you’d had sex dreams about
him
?” Gretchen asked.
Aubrey blushed. “I have no idea. I don’t think I would have thought they meant I was going to be meeting my truemate. I’m human. I never expected to be with a supernatural guy in the first place.”
Lia looked at her. “Did you ever consider becoming a vampire?”
“Caleb offered to turn me, but it was so soon after our parents died that he did it as a knee-jerk reaction to worrying about my safety.” Aubrey had shared earlier that when her brother was turned, her dad, who hated vampires, had attacked and killed the female vampire who turned him. That vampire’s kiss had retaliated by killing her parents. Caleb protected Aubrey and that made him golden in Lia’s book.
* * * * *
After having dinner with her family in the hotel’s restaurant, Lia talked to Aubrey further about taking a job in the hotel. There were positions for hostesses in the restaurant or concierge within the hotel. She liked the idea of the concierge, and she’d get to work with Aubrey, who was the hotel manager, and Gretchen who was her assistant.
“I’m going to take a shower and get ready,” Lia said as she pushed away from the table and stood.
“We’ll meet you back here in an hour,” Alaric said.
“Sounds good!”
She took the elevator to the eighth floor and parted ways with Galen. “See you in a little while,” she said.
He nodded and opened his door. She hoped he would find his mate soon and that she’d be a real sweetheart. Her youngest brother had a tendency to be a pessimist, although he said he was just being realistic.
“Something good will happen tonight,” she whispered as she shut her door.
It was a hopeful promise.
Caleb Night rolled to his back and stretched. He could feel the sun setting, signaling the beginning of his day. Or night, as it were. Lifting his cell from the bedside table, he opened his calendar and scanned his evening. It was going to be a busy night. He’d never expected running a kiss to be so involved. The Belle Terra kiss had been his for three years. When he’d been turned, it hadn’t been his choice. He’d gone home with a female, not realizing she was a vampire. In the throes of sex, she’d ripped open his throat and as he lay dying on her bed, she’d slashed her wrist and fed him.
If someone had asked him if he’d like to almost die and be reborn as an immortal, he would have said no. He liked being human and living with his human family. Turning cost him nearly everything, including his parents. He wasn’t sorry the vampire who turned him was dead, or the members of her kiss who had killed his parents. She’d turned him not because she cared for him, but because she liked the color of his eyes. He’d vowed to never turn anyone based on anything as shallow as that. If, when he met his mate, she was human or shifter, he’d turn her, but only after she agreed.
The only person he would turn now would be his sister. Aubrey would be safer as a vampire; plus, she’d live forever. But she didn’t want to be a vampire, and now that she was mated to a saber-tooth tiger, he doubted she’d want to be changed ever. There was something inherently depressing about knowing he’d outlive his sister, her kids, and their kids.
Sitting up, he swung his legs over the edge of the bed and stretched. Glancing down at his phone, he clicked the app to request a hot meal and then changed his mind. He was going to the club later, so he’d eat then. If he drank from a live donor now, it would delay him.
As he showered, he thought about what Aubrey had said about his taste in donors. He’d been feeding from a dwindling number of donors for the last few months, finding honey-bloods, females with sweet tasting blood, and keeping them close. He hadn’t meant to encourage them into believing there was anything more than his enjoyment of their blood, but a few days earlier, Aubrey had pointed out that at least one of the females was starting to act like a jealous lover.
He didn’t need that shit.
After drying off, he went to the kitchenette and removed a bag of blood from the mini fridge, poured it into a coffee mug, and heated it. When he opened the microwave and lifted the mug to his lips, the scent of the warmed blood hit his nose and his fangs punched from his gums. He preferred fresh blood, but reheated did the job well enough.
Pushing thoughts of finding a mate, stopping his donors from trying to wiggle their way into his bed, and his sister’s lack of immortality into the back of his mind, he dressed and left his suite on the top floor of the supernatural hotel in Belle Terra. He had the entire floor to himself. Dialing his right-hand, Nash, as he strode down the carpeted hallway to the private elevator, he punched the button to go to the lobby.
“My schedule says there’s a private meeting at ten. Who is it?”
“Good evening to you, too.”
The door slid shut, and he rolled his eyes. “Well?”
Nash chuckled. “Jeff Riggs has proposed to his mate, Belinda. He wants her to become a kiss member.”
“Is she human or vampire?”
“Human.”
“She can’t be part of the kiss.”
“I know. He’s going to change her after their honeymoon. He wants you to meet her beforehand, and he’d like you to come to the wedding, which is Thursday night.”
The elevator reached the ground floor, and he exited through the back and out to his waiting town car. Nash, dressed in a black suit with a blood red tie, stood at the open door.
“Move Jeff and his mate to eight thirty. I’ll tell them I’m too busy to go to the wedding on Thursday.”
“You’re not.”
“I don’t want to go. Besides, who gets married on a Thursday night?”
“It’s the full moon. I guess she thought it would be romantic.”
He stared silently at Nash and then changed the subject. “I’m meeting Aubrey at Heat, and I want to feed before she and her truemate arrive.”
“I can get someone now,” Nash offered after shutting the door and climbing behind the wheel.
“I’ll eat at the club. Just move the appointment.”
“You got it.”
The office where Caleb handled kiss affairs was three blocks from the hotel. Supernaturally owned businesses lined the streets, and the sidewalks were crowded now that the sun had set.
Inside the two-story office building, Caleb greeted the receptionist, a kiss member, and headed up the stairs to his glass-walled office. Nash followed close behind, and in just a few minutes, his first appointments began. When he’d become master vampire of Belle Terra, he’d had no clue how much politics was involved. It hadn’t just been him enjoying being the biggest, baddest vampire around. He had to settle disputes between kiss members, decide who joined, meet with other masters from time to time to discuss territories, and in between all that, he wondered if he’d ever find his truemate.
“Is the human Jeff’s truemate?” he asked.
Nash blinked in surprise. “Um, I don’t think so. I believe they were high school sweethearts and were going to get married. He was turned after a car accident nearly killed him and a doctor took pity on him. Why?”
“Aubrey’s guy is her truemate.”
“Alaric, right? The saber-tooth tiger shifter?”
“Yeah.”
“Did something happen with one of your donors?” Nash looked over his tablet at Caleb.
“No. I was just thinking about whether I’d ever find my truemate. Do you think about that?”
“Sure. I think we all do. Who wouldn’t want the one right person to spend eternity with?”
Nash left and Caleb pushed another unwanted thought away and got to work. He didn’t have much time before he needed to meet his sister and her new family. He hoped like hell the male was honorable and would take good care of Aubrey. She deserved to find some happiness.
* * * * *
Caleb walked up the circular staircase that led to his private floor in Heat. Downstairs on the public level, things were heating up as they always did – humans and supernatural beings moved together under the lasers and strobes to the music that pulsed as if it were alive. The guards stepped aside as he reached the top. For the time being, the floor was empty except for the donors that Nash had sent ahead. Four women stared at him from where they sat on a lounge. They were women he fed from regularly. A she-wolf and three humans.
He pointed to the human who had given Aubrey a dirty look when she’d interrupted Caleb’s feeding several days earlier. She stood slowly, uncrossing her long legs and giving him a flash of her lack of panties.
“Hello, Master,” she said with a husky tone.
Normally, he would have taken her to his private lounge and sucked on her throat for a while, enjoying the extra sweet taste of her blood. But tonight he wasn’t feeling like doing that at all. Although he’d been busy in the office, he had been unable to stop thinking about Aubrey and her truemate, whether he would ever have his own truemate, and what it might mean for his future if he never found her.
Instead of getting comfortable, he spun her to the railing and pressed her hips to the thick protective barrier. Moving her hair from her shoulder, his fangs elongated and he struck, sinking them deep into her throat. She gasped in surprise but then began to grind her ass against his groin. He stilled her movements and drank from her as swiftly as he could without hurting her.
When he had eaten his fill, he healed her marks and grabbed her elbow. “Come with me.”
“Whatever you like, Master.”
Her voice grated on him. He couldn’t explain the sudden annoyance or why he wasn’t happy now that he’d fed. He’d always been happy before. What the hell was going on with him? Knowing a change was in order, he snapped his fingers at the other three donors, and they hurried to their feet and followed him to the stairs.
“These four are no longer welcome on my floor. Escort them to the bar, buy them whatever they want on me, and ensure they don’t come up here again.” He spun on his heels and headed to his private lounge to think.
“Boss, you want us to keep it private up here?”
“No.”
He sat heavily on the comfortable leather couch and ignored the loud protests from the donors as they were roughly escorted downstairs. He’d have Nash secure some new donors who had no interest in what he could do for them. Maybe he’d get lucky and his truemate would be one of his donors.
Not that he had that kind of luck, of course.
