The Wolf's Mate Book 7: Lindy & The Wulfen (6 page)

Preparing the portal, he began to spell for his truemate.  He was shirtless and wearing leather trousers, his wings extended from his back like shields to increase his power.  His beast rolled under his skin, howling in his mind.  As he finished the spell, he felt a great urgency fill him.  The portal began to shimmer, and the spell altered the portal to allow him to go straight to his mate.  He felt himself begin to shift, and he struggled to contain his beast, but the wolf would not stay confined, and he was unable to stop the shift.

His wings receded into his back as his body morphed from fae to wolf.  Before he had finished shifting completely, he was aware of a female’s pain and terror, and he roared in anger.  His mate!  He knew the female in agony was his truemate.  He lunged though the portal with fangs bared and claws extended, ready to protect his mate to the death.

Chapter 6

Lindy parked her car in front of Jason and Cades’ home on the night of the full moon.  Her wolf was practically prancing in her mind at the thought of the night to come.  She couldn’t believe how a few small changes, plus a really big attitude change, had made her feel.

Faith climbed out of the passenger side and looked at her reflection in the window, patting at her hair.  “Oh, the humidity is going to make me look like a big old puff ball by the end of the night.”

“You’re still gorgeous,” Lindy promised, chuckling at the forlorn expression on her friend’s face.  “I always wished I had curly hair.”

Faith had beautiful red hair that was wavy most of the time, but curled when it was wet.  Or extremely humid like it was that evening.

“I always wished I had straight hair like yours.”

Linking their arms, they walked up the steps to the front porch and through the open door of their alphas’ home.  It was her first full moon since she’d made changes to her life, and she felt like a true member of the pack for the first time since she’d joined when she shifted at age sixteen.

The large kitchen was mostly empty, as many of the pack members were milling around outside where Jason and several other males manned grills and cooked steaks, burgers, and hotdogs.  Cades was standing next to her daughter, Lyric, who was sitting in a booster seat at the kitchen table.  Karly’s son, Remy, sat in a chair next to Lyric.

Remy, only a few months older than Lyric, picked up his pieces of steak and put them on Lyric’s plate.  She squealed with joy and fisted the pieces, quickly shoving them into her mouth.

“Oh that’s so freaking cute,” Reika, one of the mates, said with a chuckle.

“Remy’s going to waste away to nothing if he keeps giving Lyric all his food,” Cades said, smiling.

“He eats like a horse, and he had three hamburgers before we came over here.  I’ll go get him another steak, though,”  Karly said, heading for the back door.

“And one for Lyric, too, I guess,” Cades said.  She looked at Lindy and Faith.  “Hey!  Are you hungry?  There’s plenty on the grill.”

“Thanks,” Lindy said, accepting Cades’ welcoming hug.  Shyne and Jenna said hello to them as well, and they headed out to the back deck to get something to eat.  The pack got together before the full moon to cook out and visit.  Lindy grabbed a plate and stood in line behind Karly, looking over the backyard and the wolves gathered there.  The pack wasn’t that large, around forty wolves that could shift, but the non-shifting mates and young children made it seem much larger than it was.

“Good to see you, Lindy,” Jason said, placing a steak onto her plate.

“Thanks.”  And she meant it.  She and her friends had never come to the before-the-hunt get-togethers.  They’d always hung out at one of their homes beforehand, showing up just before the full moon to hunt with the pack.  And even then, they’d stayed together in their trio, not really interacting with others.

Faith and Lindy stepped off the deck and down onto the grass.  They spied Mac and Drake sitting at a picnic table with some of Drake’s friends, the males who hadn’t been kind to her before.  Not that she hadn’t deserved the slutty title, but they didn’t need to be such assholes.

“Lindy!  Over here!”

Lindy was surprised to see Sunny waving excitedly.  Sunny was sitting with two younger females.  Lindy looked at Faith, who shrugged.  They walked over to the table, and Sunny said, “Sit down.  These are my besties, Laura and Honor.  They’re human, but Alpha Jason said they could come for the cookout.  They’re going to hang out with the mates until I’m done hunting, and then we’re going to have a slumber party.”

Lindy introduced herself and Faith and sat down, looking around surreptitiously.  Just a month earlier, Sunny’s parents had told Lindy to steer clear of their daughter, and Paul had been instrumental in that.

“Don’t worry,” Sunny said, drawing Lindy’s attention to her.  “Alpha Cades told my parents that you were a really nice girl and that they were judging you too harshly.  She said I’d be lucky to have a friend like you.  And,” she lowered her voice conspiratorially, “she read Paul the riot act for being such a dick.”

Laura giggled.  “He
is
a dick.”

Honor elbowed Laura, who stopped laughing as Paul came up to the table.  He looked down at Lindy.  At first, she saw concern in his eyes, but then, slowly, his expression changed to one of acceptance.  “I’m sorry for what I said.  If you and Faith would like to hunt with Sunny tonight, I’d like to come along and keep an eye out for you all.  If you don’t mind the company.”

Lindy looked at him in surprise.  He was only twenty, and she’d always thought he was kind of immature, even if he was very cute, but he looked a lot older and wiser in that moment.

“Faith and I are guarding the mates tonight, otherwise I’d take you up on your offer.  And thanks for apologizing.  It wasn’t necessary.”

“Um, yeah it was,” Sunny protested.  “He was a dick.”

Paul cuffed her lightly on the back of the head.  “Stop cursing, or I’ll tell mom.”

“Next month, then?”  Paul asked, and Lindy nodded.

Paul left, and Faith cleared her throat lightly.  Lindy looked at her, chuckling at her friend’s wide eyes.  “That was totally weird,” Faith said.

“He’s afraid of Alpha Cades,” Sunny said.  “Mom and Dad are out of town, and when Cades came over to talk to him, she gave him the impression that she’d tell on him if he didn’t stop being so rotten to you.  I told Mom and Dad that I was old enough to make my own choices in friendships.  There aren’t any females my age that want to run with me, and Paul doesn’t really like me tagging along with him.  I think he’s afraid that I’ll end up mated to one of his friends.” She made a face while her human friends laughed uncontrollably.

Lindy was an only child so she didn’t know what it was like to have an older sibling watching out for her, and with her mom constantly bouncing from one lover to another in her quest to find her mate, Lindy had never had a father figure either, or a good female role model.  But she wanted all of those things for her own pups — to be there for them whenever they needed her, their father by her side, and to have lots of pups so they were never alone.

Lindy and Faith mostly listened to the young girls chatter about the cute males in the pack while they ate.  The girls reminded her of her own friendships with Faith and Mac, when they’d been young and excited about the future.

When the meal was over, she and Faith walked with Sunny to the full moon meeting place.  Cades and Jason stood near the roaring bonfire and called for the pack to shift and hunt.  Tina, Jason’s mom, came over and said, “I’m going to help guard tonight.  Do you mind if I hunt with you two later on?”

“Not at all,” Lindy answered, dropping her shorts and T-shirt to the ground.

“Thanks.  Usually, Peter guards with me so we can go hunting together afterwards, but Jason asked Peter to hunt with him tonight.”

Lindy nodded.  “We’d be happy to have you along.”

As she shifted to her wolf form, she shook herself out and sat down on her haunches, waiting until the others had followed suit.

“It’s times like this that I wish I could shift,” Cades said with a wistful sigh.  Lindy and the others followed Cades back to the house where Karly, Shyne, Reika, Jenna, and the kids were waiting.

Lindy spent the next few hours watching the woods from the back of the house while the others guarded different sections of the house.  The mates were inside along with the children.  When she finally heard the call of the males coming back, she barked to her fellow guards, excited to get to hunt while the moon was still overhead.

Once the males were back with their mates, Lindy, Faith, and Tina took off to hunt.  They raced off in search of game to chase.  Her wolf hadn’t minded watching over the mates, but now she was happy to be free.  They chased rabbits and birds and found a few deer.  She raced with the two females, enjoying the freedom that came from running in her shifted form.

Faith barked sharply in alarm, and Lindy spotted a trap hidden under some leaves and twigs just ahead.  She tried to turn, but her paws slipped on leaves, and she skidded toward the trap.  With a sickening crack, the trap snapped down on her back leg, and she howled in pain.

Tina darted off immediately, howling in alarm, and Lindy struggled, trying to get on her feet and move back to the safety of her alphas’ house.  The trap was staked into the ground with a chain, so she didn’t get far, and each time she moved, the trap bit into her leg, and she screamed in her mind at the pain.

Slumping to the ground as pain washed over her in hot waves, she felt her eyes roll back in her head as Faith shifted into her human form and tried to pry the trap apart.

“Shit, Lindy, shit!  I can’t!  It’s too strong!  Stay with me.  Lindy?  Linds?”  Faith screamed her name, but Lindy was beyond the pain, beyond answering, and sinking down into darkness.

Chapter 7

Faith Radcliffe’s fingers cut and bled as she tried in vain to pull the trap apart.  Lindy had gone very still, and Faith worried that her friend was either passed out from shock or from blood loss.  The fur on Lindy’s leg glistened in the moonlight as blood welled from the wound and pooled around her on the ground.  Tears fell from Faith’s eyes as she gripped the iron trap in her hands and tried once more to open it.

“Help!  Someone, please, help!” she screamed, praying that Tina would bring help quickly.

The hairs on the back of her neck prickled, and the air seemed to shimmer around her.  What first looked like a ray of sunshine just feet from her and Lindy spread until a hole opened, and she swore she could see a house on the other side.

An enormous white wolf leapt through the hole, and Faith screamed in alarm.  It was like nothing she’d ever seen.  It was the size of a small horse, with long, deadly looking fangs and thick black claws.  It sniffed the air and stared straight at her.  Her body shook in fear as she sat frozen on the ground.  It seemed to dismiss her with a chuff, turning its attention to Lindy.  The great beast nuzzled her and made an almost gentle, purring sound in its throat, snarling when it scented down her body and found the trap.

The creature’s body twitched and jerked, and within seconds, the wolf had transformed into a man with white-feathered wings sprouting from his back.  He waved one hand over the trap as he whispered a few words, and it fell apart.  Then he lifted Lindy into his arms.

“What is her name?” he asked gruffly, cradling her close to his bare chest.

It took a moment for Faith’s mouth to work, but finally she was able to say, “Lindy.”

He smiled down at the wolf in his arms.  “Lindy.”  Faith had never heard a more reverently spoken word.

The man moved toward the hole in the air.

“Wait!  Where are you going with my friend?”

He turned enough to look at her.  “To take care of her.”

Without another word, he stepped through the hole, and it disappeared as quickly as it had appeared.  Faith rubbed her eyes and stared at the place where the hole had been.

The sound of rushing feet alerted her to her pack coming, and the reality of the situation finally sank in.  Lindy was gone.  And Faith didn’t know where she’d been taken.

* * * * *

An hour later, Faith was still sitting at the spot where the hole had appeared, waiting for Logan and his fairy mate, Jenna, to come.  The highest ranking members of the pack stood around her and Tina, who had brought her clothes from the full moon meeting place and knelt next to her, one arm around her for comfort.  Flashlights helped illuminate the area.

Jason and his second, Michael, were discussing the trap with Linus and Bo, who were pack third and fourth.  They were all furious that another trap had been found.  Unlike the previous trap that had been right on the edge of the territory, this one had been at least a hundred yards inside.

“Was the trap baited with meat of any sort?”  Linus asked, rubbing his knuckles across his jaw in thought.

Faith shook her head.  She’d answered questions about the trap since they’d shown up.

“It was covered with leaves.  I saw something metal glint in the moonlight and I barked to warn Lindy.  She tried to turn away from it, but her paws slipped on the leaves, and she landed right on it.”

Logan and Jenna came through the trees.  Logan said, “Sorry for the delay.  What happened?”

They all looked at Faith expectantly, and she told the story once more.

Logan looked down at Jenna.  “Sounds like a portal to me.  But I didn’t know that your people had werewolves.”

Jenna shook her head and walked toward the trap.  “We don’t.”

The trap lay in several pieces like someone had taken a hammer to it.  But Faith had seen the man break the trap with his hand.  And with those wings, he looked like an angel.  A really pissed-off, naked one.

Jenna closed her eyes and took in a deep breath.  Her wings slid from her back, the loose tank top allowing them to slide free without tearing her shirt.  The pale blue and silver transparent wings looked very different from the feathered ones the man had.  Her eyes were bright like silver coins, and she stood slowly and turned toward where the portal had been.

“I don’t know why, but a portal to my realm was opened here.  Someone very powerful came here.  Even without my wings, I could feel the remnants of his power.  He used a spell to open the trap, and then he took her through the portal.  What did you see when you looked through the portal?”  Jenna looked down at Faith.

“A house.  It was dark there like it is here, but there was a light over a door, and it looked like the house was made of black stone.”

Jenna looked at Logan and said, “It was a
wulfen
.”

Logan’s brow arched.  “I thought you said that you didn’t know of any
wulfen
alive today.”

She shrugged.  “I don’t.  But the Fae Realm is enormous, and although it’s ruled by one governing body, there are many different armies that protect the various glens.  Only warrior fae have feathered wings, and the only fae that can shift into large, white wolves are
wulfen
.”

Faith shivered.  “Why did he take her?  What’s going to happen to Lindy?”

Jenna’s wings slid back into her body, and her eyes dulled slightly.  She moved to Logan, and he pulled her into his arms.

She said, “A
wulfen
is a highly skilled, powerful warrior for my people.  I don’t believe that he took her to hurt her.  There’s no reason for a fae to randomly come here and happen to stumble upon a wolf in distress. I think that he spelled for his truemate and found her.”

Everyone went quiet.

Bo said, “You were really far away from Logan when you spelled for him, though.  Why wouldn’t the spell have brought you straight to him if that were the case?”

“Well, first I didn’t travel through a portal on my own; I was kidnapped.  And second, I heard that when
wulfen
spell for their truemates that their power is so great that they are able to pinpoint where their mate is and go straight there.”

Faith said, “He was huge.  I’ve never seen such a terrifying wolf in my life.”

Jenna smiled softly.  “I’ve only seen pictures of them.  They’re very rare among my people, but I have no doubt that he was frightening.”  She looked up at Logan.  “Let’s go home.  The sun will be up soon, and I can portal-call my parents.”

Turning her attention back to Faith, she said, “I’m going to ask my father to find out where this
wulfen
male is, and then Logan and I will go speak to him and find Lindy.  Rest easy.  She couldn’t possibly be in better hands than those of her truemate.”

Tina helped Faith to her feet and hugged her.  “Come back to my house and have some coffee.  The sun will be up soon.”

Jenna nodded.  “I’ll call you as soon as I know anything.”

Linus picked up the broken trap, and Jason said, “Bring that back to my house.  Logan, take your mate home and then call me so you can be conferenced into the discussion.  We’ve got to find out who is planting these traps and stop them before someone else gets hurt.”

Faith was numb from head to toe with worry over Lindy.  Jenna said not to worry, but until Faith could see for herself that Lindy was okay, she was just going to keep on worrying.  Lindy and McKenna were like sisters to her.

Once back at Tina’s home, Faith called McKenna, who came straight over with Drake and sat with her in Jason’s parents’ home, waiting to hear from Jenna.

It had been a very long, horrifying night, and it wasn’t over yet.