The Wolf's Mate Book 7: Lindy & The Wulfen (2 page)

After some much-needed girl talk and reconciliation, Lindy left their home and went back to her own house to enjoy the rest of her day off.  She didn’t work weekends at Books & Beans, the bookstore and coffee shop where she had been working since she graduated from high school.  Stella, the owner, had taken Lindy on even though she had no experience and hadn’t read anything other than fashion magazines in high school.  Stella made her read at least one new book a week as part of her job so she could make recommendations to people who came in to shop.  After six years, and a few hundred books later, she really loved reading and talking to people about books and even lead a weekly children’s story hour on Friday mornings.

But it was easier in Grawly, where no one knew her name or her reputation for being a pack whore.  There, she was simply Melinda Vincent and nothing more.  And that was okay with her.

Chapter 2

The following Thursday night was the full moon, and Lindy and Faith stood in front of the pack in the full moon meeting place, watching as Jason and Cades presided over McKenna and Drake’s official mating.

As Jason unwound the mating strap from their joined hands, Lindy and Faith led the pack in cheering and howling in happiness for their friend.  Lindy hugged McKenna tightly.

“I’m so happy for you, babe,” Lindy said.

“Swear on your hair?”  McKenna rubbed at the tears on her cheeks.

“Definitely.”

“I’m going to miss hunting with you,” Faith said as she stepped in to hug Mac.

Drake sidled close and pulled Mac against him.  “Sorry, ladies, she’s mine on the full moon.”

“Just on the full moon?”  She batted her eyelashes at him.

“All the time,” he said with a growl.

Smiling, Lindy and Faith both rolled their eyes as Drake and Mac began to kiss.

“I got drafted to be a guard for the mates,”  Faith said.  “Wanna go to lunch tomorrow?”

“I’m supposed to work.  I’ll drop by with takeout for dinner, though.  Okay?”

“You bet.”  Faith left Lindy, walked over to where Cades and the other mates were waiting, stripped from her clothes, and began to shift.  Each full moon, several wolves were chosen as guards for the mates that couldn’t go hunting.  Aside from Cades, who was a hybrid and unable to shift, Jenna, Reika, Karly, and Shyne didn’t shift either.  Shyne was human, Jenna was fae, Karly was an angel mate, and Reika was pregnant.

Looking around the clearing, Lindy knew she needed to find someone to hunt with.  For the last few months, someone had been leaving traps around the pack’s hunting territory.  No one had been able to figure out who was leaving the traps, so Jason had declared that all wolves had to go out in groups of two or more to ensure that if someone did get hurt, there was another who could get help.  She, Faith, and Mac had been hunting together since they were teenagers.  It was strange for her not to have her friends with her.

For a moment, she almost asked Cades if she could stand as a guard so that she and Faith could go hunting together later, but the mates and guards were already on their way back to the house.

Spying Luka, one of Drake’s friends, pulling his shirt off near some other males she said, “Hey, Luka, can I talk to you for a minute?”

Luka was cute and lightly muscled, with pale skin and a dimple in one cheek when he smiled.  He gave her a funny look and then walked over, his shirt held loosely in his hand.  Taking a breath, she decided to put herself out on a limb.

“Want to hunt with me?  I need a partner.”

A small part of her hoped he would say yes, but the larger part of her expected him to say no.  What she hadn’t expected was for him to laugh loudly.

“Are you kidding me?  Why would I want to hunt with the pack bicycle?”

“Pack bicycle?  What are you talking about?”

He chortled louder.  “You’re the pack bicycle.  Everyone’s had a turn.”  He gave her a condescending pat on the head and said, “Tell you what,
bike
, if I feel like getting sucked off later, and no one better is around, I’ll text you.”

All the blood drained from her face for a heartbeat before shame made her cheeks flame.  Her eyes filled with tears, as he began to laugh, and she ran blindly away from him.

She almost plowed right into a young blonde named Sunny.  “Oh, shit, sorry.”  Lindy rubbed at her eyes and tried to get her emotions under control.  She’d never been so humiliated.

“It’s okay.  Are you all right?”  Sunny asked.

“Yeah.” Lindy sniffled and straightened her spine.  She would just go home and shift and run around in her backyard.  She only needed a full moon hunting partner if she was going to be in pack territory.  If anyone asked her why she’d headed home, she’d just say she was overly tired and didn’t want to have to drive home after the hunt.

“Are you, um, going out to hunt?”  Before Lindy could answer, she continued, “My parents told me to go out with my brother, but he ditched me for his friends.  My parents thought that he was going to hunt with me, so they went out on their own and I can’t find them.  I don’t want to get in trouble.  Alpha Jason said we couldn’t hunt alone.”

Compassion washed through Lindy.  She’d been young and innocent like Sunny once, but it seemed like a lifetime ago.  Before she’d followed her mother’s example and started having sex with any male who would look her way.

“I’d be happy to go out hunting with you.”

“Yeah?”  She brightened considerably, flashing a wide smile.  “Thanks!”

Lindy and Sunny stripped and shifted into their wolf forms.  Lindy shook herself out from head to tail, flexing her claws in the dirt.  Sunny seemed to be waiting for her to take the lead.  With a short bark, Lindy loped away from the clearing, and Sunny stayed right by her side as they moved into the woods and began to hunt.

Lindy loved to hunt in her wolf form.  There was something very freeing about just letting go of her human troubles and giving herself over to the wolf instincts.  Natural wolves had it easy.  Hunting, fucking, taking care of pups.  The wolf shifters were the ones who had it hard, having to find a balance between the wolfish instincts that wanted to
only
do those things and the more practical human side that knew those couldn’t be the only things in life.

Lindy’s instincts took over, and the last of her human thoughts slid away as she scented a deer and took off toward it.  Sunny stayed by her side the whole way, catching sight of the doe at the same time that Lindy did.  The doe took off as they closed in on it, and they chased after her, bounding over fallen trees, brush, and a small, winding creek that crisscrossed through the territory.  Lindy leapt at the doe and caught her flank with her paws, making her lose her footing and roll to the ground.  She and Sunny fell on her, and Lindy snapped the doe’s neck quickly to end her life and then lifted her head to the sky and howled, rejoicing in the kill.

After they had feasted, they left the remains of the kill to some other young wolves around Sunny’s age and headed back toward the full moon meeting place.  Lindy had enjoyed hunting with Sunny.  The girl had let Lindy lead, and being in charge had brought a sense of satisfaction to Lindy that she hadn’t felt in a long time.

When they reached their clothes, they both shifted back to their human forms.  It was then, as she looked down at her clothes on the ground, that her satisfaction waned.  Short-shorts, crop top, high-heeled sandals.  Luka had called her the pack bicycle.  She certainly dressed the part.

“Something wrong, Lindy?”  Sunny asked as she tugged a very feminine sundress over her head.  Lindy would not have been caught dead in something so innocent looking before this moment, sure that it would have been met with questions about her sanity for abandoning her normally revealing clothing.

Revealing?  She snorted inwardly.  Try slutty.  Hooker chic.

Tugging the shorts and top on quickly, she picked the sandals up by the straps and then looked at Sunny.  “Are you happy?”

Sunny paused in braiding her long hair.  “I guess so.  I just graduated at the top of my class, my dad said I could have his car to drive to college in the fall, and I just found out my mom got me a plane ticket to visit my favorite aunt in New York for two weeks in August.  Why?  Aren’t you?”

“I thought I was.”

Sunny cocked her head to the side as she finished tying her braid and flung it over her shoulder.  “My gram says if you’re not happy then you have to get busy getting there.”

She smiled.  “Sounds like a pretty smart lady.”

“She was,” Sunny said, beaming.  Two adults that Lindy recognized as Sunny’s parents appeared.

“Hey, Sun, you ready to go?” her mom called.

“Sure.  You need a ride home, Lindy?”

“Thanks, but I drove.”

Sunny’s father put his arm around her shoulders and looked at Lindy.  “Thanks for watching out for our girl.”

She was about to answer when Sunny’s brother, Paul, one of Luka’s friends, strode into the clearing.  “Tell me you didn’t let her go hunting with that
female
?”  Paul blocked Lindy’s view of the family as he spoke.  His voice was low, but she still heard every hissed word.

“You planning on letting Sunny whore for the pack?” Paul snarled.

“No!” his father answered in shock.  “What are you talking about?”

Paul’s voice slipped deeper, angrier.  “You’re letting my little sister hang out with the biggest slut in the pack.  What do you think will happen?”

Lindy’s heart fell into her stomach, and her face burned hot with blush.  Sunny’s dad straightened and gave Lindy a withering look.

“Stay away from our daughter.”

Lindy’s mouth fell open.  Paul gave her a dirty look that slid into a sneer as Sunny’s parents pulled her with them through the woods, speaking in angry, hushed tones.  Sunny looked over her shoulder at Lindy and mouthed,
I’m sorry
.

Lindy nodded as tears filled her eyes once more.

Not wanting to run into them in front of the alpha’s house where everyone had parked, she walked the long way around, got into her car, and drove home, devastated beyond compare.

Chapter 3

Fae Realm, Winnower Glen

Crimson Ta’rek collapsed against a thick tree and only kept hold of his sword by sheer force of will.  The
rukh
cawed loudly, circling overhead.  The large beast had descended from its home in the mountainous region of the glen and began attacking the fae who called the glen home.  The fae ruling council had called in the military, and Crimson was asked to lead a small army to either kill the beast or drive him back up to his nest.

The bird was not going willingly, however.  Crimson’s army had been reduced by half at least, as the bird tore trees from the ground with its beak and used them like clubs to take out his men.  The beast had dropped boulders on his people, squashing them flat with sickening thuds.

He took a few deep breaths and listened for the beast’s location.  He counted the survivors and found only six of his original thirteen.  His inner beast roared at the loss.  Thirteen fae warriors should have been more than enough to drive the beast back up the mountains or kill it, but the creature seemed hell-bent on destroying all of them.

Sheathing his sword between his wings, he motioned to his fellow men that he was going to try to spell the creature and asked for their help.  Crimson was a
wulfen
, and therefore both fae and wolf.  He was a physically strong fae, with feathered wings that allowed him to fly.  He could also shift into a pure white wolf.

His best friend, Riyad, darted between trees and pressed his back against the same tree.  “You need me?”

“Yeah.”  He looked around the tree and saw that the creature was circling over the homes, shrieking loudly and swooping down to snap and claw at them.  “See if you can send up some vines to grab hold of his legs.  When he’s tethered, I’m going to fly up behind him and try to put a sleep spell on him.”

“If he falls asleep over the homes, he’ll smash them all when he falls to the ground.”

Crimson rolled his eyes.  “Then pull him away from the homes with the vines, Ri.”

Riyad clicked his tongue.  “Gotcha.”

Crimson shook his head and concentrated on the spell he was going to cast.  He could control fire, but he didn’t think the beast deserved to be fried to a crisp.  If this didn’t work, however, he’d have to consider it.

Riyad began to speak his spell, and Crimson felt the trees stirring around him as his friend reached into the earth and called for vines to spring up and trap the creature.  He shifted to look around the tree and watched as dozens of vines shot upward into the sky, wrapping around the beast’s clawed feet.  It squawked in alarm and tried to snap the vines from its legs, but there were too many of them.  Riyad slowly pulled the creature away from the homes.

Nodding at his friend, Crimson shot up into the air and circled high around the enormous bird.  It struggled to untangle itself from the vines, but Riyad continued to send more up to keep him held tightly.  Folding his wings down along his back, Crimson raced through the air and landed on the bird’s back, snagging a feather in his hand.  The feathers were bigger than he was, and his fist barely closed around one of them.  The bird went wild, screaming in fear as it felt Crimson’s weight along its back.  He held on and began to speak the spell to send it to sleep.  It worked quickly, and the bird succumbed to the spell and began to plummet downward.  It hit the ground with a dull thud.

He straightened and flapped his wings a few times, settling down onto the ground as Riyad and his men came out of the woods with a cheer.  Bront knelt down next to the bird’s legs and said, “Good work with the vines, Riyad.”

Riyad practically preened.  “Thanks.”

“What’s this?”  Bront asked.  Crimson knelt next to him and looked at what appeared to be a feathered dart protruding from the meat of the bird’s leg.

He pulled it free and sniffed the pointed end.  He let out a harsh breath.  Bront waved his hand in front of his face with a grimace.  “I can smell the
feltawin
from here!  Someone put a dart in this bird with a tincture meant to drive it insane?  What the hades for?”

Crimson stood up and looked at the homes that were in shambles and then at the sleeping bird.  “I don’t know, but I’m damn well going to find out.”

* * * * *

Crimson paced outside of his father’s study.  He had just come from the formal inquiry into the
rukh’s
rampage.  It had taken less than a day for the authorities to find the maker of the tincture that had turned the normally calm bird into a raving beast that had killed over forty fairies, including seven of his men.  The farmer, who lived in Winnower, had inadvertently created the insanity-inducing tincture while trying to concoct a drug that would kill the bird.  It had carried off several of his livestock, and he was angry at the loss.  Unfortunately, the man had been severely injured during the bird’s rampage and had since passed on into the great beyond.

His father called from behind the closed door.  “Come in, Crimson, before you wear a hole in my floor.”

Crimson straightened his formal military jacket and opened the gilded double doors, striding inside the study.  His father sat behind a desk carved from a large piece of gold-veined marble.  As a child, Crimson had played under that desk while his father, who had attained the rank of general in the military, had mapped out strategies.

“How was the inquiry?” his father asked.  Although retired, his father still bore the twin braids at his temples that marked him as a warrior for their people.

Crimson settled into the straight-backed chair across from the desk and let out a sigh.  “The council ruled to break up the farmer’s belongings and sell them, using the money to make repairs to the town.”

He arched his brow.  “You’re not satisfied?”

“Of course not.  Over forty fae died because he was upset a bird took a few of his cattle.  And he had the nerve to die before he could be punished!”

His father chuckled.  “I understand your frustration, but the important thing is that the bird was taken back to its nest and the glen will be repaired.”

Crimson ran a hand through his short hair and sighed.  He chose not to grow his hair long and braid the sides like most of the warriors did.  He had never cared for long hair, finding it cumbersome and a hassle.  “You wanted to see me?”

“I understand that you turned Giwyn from your bed last night.”  His father rested his arms on top of the desk and folded his hands.

Crimson tensed.  When he’d returned from the battle, he’d spent hours going to the homes of the families of the men that had perished with the rampage, sharing the news of their deaths.  As captain, the task had fallen on his shoulders.  When he arrived back at his home within the Homelna Glen, the only thing he wanted to do was clean the blood and dirt from his skin and fall into bed for about a week.  As he’d walked from the bathing room into his bedroom, he’d been utterly surprised to find a naked woman stretched out on top of his bed.

She had blinked dark eyes at him and cupped her tiny breasts, spreading her legs in invitation.  She clearly assumed he would be happy to find her naked and willing, but all he was at that moment was supremely pissed off.  Finding her clothes on the floor, he’d tossed them at her and barked at her to get dressed.  At first she looked hurt, as if he’d wounded her with a blade, but then she looked angry.  Dressing, she stormed through the house and declared that he would be sorry that he turned her down.  He hadn’t cared enough to even learn her name.  Which was apparently Giwyn.

“Mother cannot keep sending females to my house, Father.  The one before this one wouldn’t leave, and I had to trick her to get her out of my bed.”

His father shook his head.  “When I was a young male, burying my cock into willing female flesh was considered a good time.”

He snorted, refusing to allow thoughts of his father plowing
willing female flesh
to take root in his brain.  “I don’t want the sort of females she keeps sending to me.  They’re thin as rails, stuck up, and only interested in me because of my status in the military.”

“So you’d prefer a chubby fae for your bride, then?”  His father chuckled.

Crimson stifled a growl.  The beast part of him didn’t appreciate the random females that kept showing up.  His wolf wanted to find its mate, and each full moon that passed made him more irritable.

“I don’t care what my bride is.  Don’t you think that if my female were a fae that I would have found her by now?  I’ve been all over the realm with the military.  My beast is driving me insane.  He doesn’t want anyone but his mate, and I’ll be damned if I can find her.”  He’d long ago lost the urge to just find a random female and have fun for a few hours.  The shallowness of random sex had definitely lost its appeal.

His father hummed.  “You’re twenty-six, Crimson.  You should have mated in your twenty-fifth year.  It reflects poorly on your mother that you haven’t taken a bride yet.”  He paused and settled the weight of his dark eyes on Crimson.  “If you won’t mate one of the females that your mother has sent to you, then you know what you have to do.”

He’d been so busy striving to live up to his father’s awe-inspiring reputation in the military that he hadn’t really focused on mating.  He’d always had one more battle he wanted to win, one more rank to attain.  But if he didn’t do something, then his mother was going to continue to send females to him or, worse…she might try to force him into an arranged marriage.  Mothers less insistent than his had succeeded in trapping their sons into marriages they had arranged.  Judging by the females his mother kept sending to him, she was hoping he would mate with a highbred female so she would be elevated in status as well.  She meant well enough, he was sure, but she was hoping for the best for herself, too.

Nodding, he said, “I need to spell for my truemate.”

His father nodded.  “You have no choice. Your mother will continue to try to find a suitable bride for you, the same way that my mother did.  However, I was lucky enough to find my mate within the first few months of her interference.”

“The practice of the mother choosing the bride for her son is ridiculous.  How can she possibly know what I want in a female?”

He smiled.  “She doesn’t, and that’s why you have to take the choice away from her.  If you don’t spell for your truemate, then I’m afraid she may go so far as to try to force you into a mating.  I would stop her if I could, but you know how determined your mother can be.”

Nodding, Crimson stood up.  “I’ll do it on the next full moon.”

“I wish you luck in finding your mate, son.”

Crimson closed the doors behind him and hurried to his home.  If he was going to spell for his truemate, then he had several things to get done first, the least of which was getting his house cleaned and finding a way to get his mother off his back while he made his plans to find his mate.