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

Chapter 8

Lindy
.  His mate’s name was Lindy.

After assuring the woman that he would take care of Lindy, he raced through the portal, sealing it behind him as he darted into his home.  He tugged a thick blanket from the back of the sofa and laid her on it.  Her wound was still bleeding.  He called the lights to come on in the room, and the lanterns and candles blazed to life.  Moving to the kitchen, he opened a temporary portal and called one of the military healers who lived nearby.

A bleary-eyed Viscount stumbled into view.  “You bellowed, Crimson?”

“I found my truemate, and she’s seriously injured.”

Viscount’s eyes widened, and he snapped to attention.  “I’ll be right there.”

The connection broke, and Crimson grabbed a pair of trousers from his bedroom and tugged them on, picking up a towel from the bathroom and going to Lindy.  He pressed the towel to the wound and settled his ear on her furry chest.  Her heart was beating slowly, and her breathing was shallow.  He didn’t know if a werewolf from the Mortal Realm could actually die from blood loss, or if her accelerated healing would stop the wound before that happened.  His heart clenched as worry settled over him.  He’d just found her.  He didn’t know what would happen to him if she died.

The door burst open, and Viscount strode in, a leather satchel slung over his shoulder.  Crimson was surprised when Riyad and Merik followed close behind.

“What are you doing here?” he asked the brothers.

Riyad jerked his head toward the healer.  “He told us to come along.  We were just on our way home from the tavern when he came rushing by like his ass was on fire.”

Viscount said, “Hold him while I check her out.”

Before he could blink, Riyad and Merik pinned him to the wall opposite the sofa, their bodies pressed against his and their hands gripping his shoulders.  “What the fuck?”

Viscount looked over his shoulder.  “I’m going to have to examine her and possibly hurt her so she can heal.  I don’t want you ripping my head off, Crimson.  You’re a
wulfen,
and this is your truemate.  You have no idea how protective you’re going to be.”

The healer turned his attention back to Lindy and put his hands on her body.  Everything in Crimson’s world narrowed down to Viscount’s hands on his mate.  He growled and tensed his body, his claws springing free from his fingertips as his fangs descended.

“Hades, Crim,” Riyad grunted, “calm the fuck down!”

Viscount pulled the bloody towel away from her leg and began to stretch the damaged leg out.  Blood dripped onto the floor, and she whimpered in pain.  Crimson roared.  “Don’t touch her!  I’ll kill you!”

“Keep a good hold on him,” Viscount warned.

“If he kills me when he shifts, I’m going to haunt you forever, Visc,” Merik snarled angrily.

“It’s about to get worse,” Viscount warned.

Crimson’s shoulders were shoved hard against the stone wall, the rough material cutting his flesh.

“Calm down!  He’s helping her!”  Merik said harshly.

Crimson struggled.  He knew that Viscount was helping Lindy, but his beast didn’t want anyone touching her, let alone hurting her.  The sight of her blood on the floor, coupled with the sound of her pained whimpers, was driving him insane.  His beast was rolling and twisting under his skin to protect her at any cost.

“Hurry up, Viscount!”  Riyad yelled.

Rage colored his vision red as the healer put one hand on her hip and the other on the paw of her injured leg and jerked hard.  There was a snapping sound, and she whined in pain, her body twisting and writhing as she shifted from her wolf form to her human form.  Still unconscious, she rolled to her back, her face ashen and her leg covered in blood.

Crimson felt his skin prickle as his fur sprouted.  He fought not to shift, knowing he would hurt his friends, but the urge to protect her was almost overwhelming.

Viscount poured clear liquid from a bottle over her leg and cleaned it up with a cloth.  The scent of antiseptic filled the room, and slowly his rage began to ease as he realized that her leg was now entirely healed.

His beast retreated some, and he relaxed with a sigh, his head slumping forward.

Before Merik and Riyad relaxed, Merik asked, “Are you
resh
now, Crimson?  Can you control yourself and your beast?”

“He’s good,” Riyad said.

“I want to hear it from him.  There are certain parts of my body that I’m fairly fond of, and I don’t want him to suddenly shift and slash off the protruding parts.”

Crimson swallowed thickly and shuddered violently as his beast settled finally.  “The female population can rest easy.  I’m not going to tear off your cock.”

They relaxed and moved away from him.  His body sagged slightly, but he was too determined to get to Lindy to take care of her, so he stumbled forward.  Viscount tossed the cloth and bottle into his bag and stood up, moving to the other side of the sofa.  Riyad and Merik joined him.  He snorted inwardly as he knelt next to his mate and pulled another blanket from the back of the sofa to cover her body.  As if the sofa would stop him or his beast if he wanted to tear them apart.

“She’s okay?”  He looked up at Viscount.

“Her leg wasn’t going to heal in her wolf form; it was broken and bleeding too fast for her healing to stop it completely.  If she’d stayed in her wolf form, she might have remained lame for the rest of her life.  I pulled the leg straight to align the bones and the pain forced her to shift back into her human form.  That shift sped up her natural healing, and her bone is now completely healed and her leg is fine.”

Relief flooded him.

“Thank you for coming so quickly.”

All three men nodded.  Viscount said, “She’ll probably sleep for a few hours.  She will most likely be starving when she wakes up, so make sure she eats and drinks plenty.  If she has any lingering pain, give me a call, and I’ll drop off some medicinal herbs to help, but she should be fine.”

He watched his friends walk out and close the door, and he slumped against the sofa, his head resting on Lindy’s bare shoulder.

“Hades, Lindy,” he took a few deep breaths and the scent of her calmed him, “let’s not tempt fate again.”

He pressed his lips to her cheek and got up, going into the bedroom.  He pulled the covers back on the bed and willed several candles to light.  Returning to the front room, he lifted her gently into his arms and carried her to the bed, laying her down and tossing the blanket from the sofa on the floor.  He pressed the back of his hand against her forehead and decided she was a little on the warm side, so he only pulled a thin blanket over her before pressing a kiss to her cheek and going out to the front room to clean up the mess.

He marveled at the events of the evening.  It had happened so quickly.  He’d known that he would go through the portal somewhere in the vicinity of his mate, but he’d never imagined that his first interaction with her would be so stressful.  He didn’t think he’d ever been quite so worried for one person’s well-being in his whole life.

After the wood floor was free of blood and he’d washed the blanket and towel and hung them to dry in the backyard, he went into the kitchen and opened his cooling unit.  From inside the rectangular, metal-lined box, he pulled out packages of meat and set them on the marble counter, along with vegetables and fruit for juicing.  He’d never cooked for anyone but himself before, but pride flared through him as he lit the thick ring of oil underneath the metal burner on his cooker and placed a pan on top to heat.  After coating the pan with
wials
oil, he placed two thick blue-furred boar steaks in the pan and listened to them sizzle.  He turned his attention to the fruit and sliced apart the green-fleshed
yumonmi
, twisting each half on the wooden juicer that drained into a small stone jug.  When he’d juiced enough for several glasses, he set the jug in the cooling box to chill and flipped the steaks.  He chopped vegetables, and after removing the steaks from the pan, he tossed the vegetables into the hot pan and cooked them until they were tender.

He plated the steaks and vegetables and set them on a tray inside the oven to keep warm.  He put out the flame under the burner and washed his hands.  He knew he needed to make a few calls, so while she was still asleep and since the sun was now up, he placed the calls.  First, he opened a portal to call his father to share the news of his mate and the strange circumstances of their meeting.

“She’s well now, though?” his father asked, his brow furrowing with concern.

“She’s still unconscious, but yes, her leg is healed.”

His father said, “Your mother will be back from the spa in six days.  I would suggest that you head to the Mortal Realm before she returns.  I will speak to her and let her know what’s happened to you, and hopefully by the time you are ready to return here for your mating ceremony, she will realize how fortunate it is that you found your mate so quickly.”

Crimson sighed.  “Do you think she’ll accept a she-wolf as my mate?”

His father’s brow arched.  “Does it matter?”

“Of course not.  But I don’t want Lindy to feel as if she doesn’t belong with me just because mother wanted me to mate to a high-born female so she could go to all the high-society parties.”

“The important thing is that you care for her and want her to be part of your life.  Your mother will change her tune when you show her your first child.  She melts around babes and will be helpless to deny her own grandchild.”

Crimson couldn’t help but smile at the thought of Lindy, pregnant with his child.  Shifting his thoughts away from those that threatened to turn his cock to stone, he said goodbye to his father and promised to keep him updated on her condition.  After ending the call with his father, he called his commanding officer and took a leave of absence to tend to his mate.

“I hadn’t expected to come home so quickly, so I wanted to let you know that I’m still taking my leave of absence even though I’m home with my mate now.”

“That’s fine, Crimson.  You’re quite lucky to have found your mate so soon.  I hope she recovers quickly from her injury.”

Ending the call, he rolled his neck with a sigh and straightened up the kitchen before walking back to the bedroom.  Lindy was still asleep.  Although the part of him that had been raised a gentlemen didn’t think he should crawl into bed with a nude, unconscious woman, the bigger, less-gentlemanly part of him decided that she was his mate and there was no better place for him to be than by her side.  Even if she was naked.

The image of her pretty wolf form shifting back into her human form flashed through his mind.  He’d caught a glimpse of her curvy body before he’d tossed a blanket over her to preserve her modesty in front of his friends.  He couldn’t wait to familiarize himself with every inch of her body.

He drew off his trousers and laid them over a leather armchair in the corner, extinguished the lights, and climbed gingerly into bed.  Drawing the blanket up over his hip, he settled on his side and rested his hand on Lindy’s stomach.  The thin blanket separated his hand from her flesh, but he could feel the heat of her body against his palm, and it settled his beast to be able to touch her even in such a small way.

Closing his eyes, he fell asleep quickly, content that his mate was now home.

Chapter 9

Lindy rolled over and shivered.  She reached down for her comforter to pull it up over her shoulder but couldn’t reach it.  Yawning, she rolled to her back and stretched.  As she lifted her arms up, one of her hands bumped into flesh, and she froze, her eyes popping open.  She’d gone to bed alone last night, hadn’t she?  Wait.  How had she even gotten into bed?

The wall in front of her looked like it was made of black stone. 
That’s not right
.

“You’re safe now, Lindy,” a male voice rumbled to her right.

She leapt off the bed as if it were on fire and slipped on a rug.  As her legs went out from under her, strong arms prevented her from hitting the floor.  He’d moved faster than her eyes could track. One minute he’d been in bed, and now he was setting her back on the bed.

“Calm down, Lindy.  My name is Crimson, and I’m your truemate.”

She looked at him in shock.  “Excuse me?”

The corner of his mouth quirked up, and she forgot how to breathe.  She’d never seen a more beautiful man in her life.  He had short, dark brown hair, piercing green eyes, and a gorgeous body.  Oh my.  What a body.

“Did you really not hear me?”  He raised one brow.

“I heard you.  I just think you must be mistaken.  I’m no one’s truemate.”

She shivered at his intense gaze and glanced down, quickly realizing she was naked as the day she was born.

Jerking a blanket around herself, she growled.  “Just what the hell is going on here?”

“Crimson.”

“What?”

“My name is Crimson.”

She blew out a breath.  “Fine.  Crimson, what the hell is going on here?”

“Your truemate.”

She clenched her teeth together.  He was infuriating!  She was naked and had no idea where she was or how she’d gotten here, and all he cared about was that she got his name right.

He smiled in a way that said he wouldn’t tell her anything unless she cooperated.

“Look, Crimson, I’ll say your name all you want, but I don’t know you, and I don’t know why you think I’m your truemate.  We’ve never even met before. You can’t possibly know.”

He put his hands on his hips, and her gaze dropped without her permission to drink in his incredible body.  Every inch of him was lean and muscular, and she couldn’t stop herself from looking at his very erect cock.  It took all of her willpower not to drop to her knees and see how good he would feel in her mouth.

Shit!

Shaking her head to clear the wicked images from her mind, she scooted back on the bed to put more distance between them.

“I know that you’re mine, Lindy, because I spelled for you.  I’m fae, and the spells aren’t wrong.”

He moved to come closer, and she put her hand up.  “Put some pants on, please?”

He grinned.  “Are you sure?  It’s more fun to talk when we’re both naked.”

“I’m sure.  And where are my clothes?”

“Your clothes are wherever you left them before you went hunting on the full moon.”  He turned his back and walked through an archway.  She ogled his ass while his back was turned and imagined how nice it would look with her fingernail marks on it.  He came out of what must have been a closet with a pair of leather pants on.  Instead of a zipper, the pants laced up the front and he’d conveniently forgotten to lace them closed.

“What do you remember about last night,
chelle
?”

Even though her hand was still up to keep him from getting too close, he sat down next to her anyway and kissed the top of her hand.  Jerking it away from him, she willed her body to stop being so turned on by the stranger and thought back to the night before.

“I was hunting with Faith and Tina,” she said, chewing on her bottom lip as her mind replayed the full moon.  She remembered that Faith had barked a warning, and Lindy had seen the metal glinting in the moonlight but hadn’t been able to stop in time.  She jerked the blanket away to look at her leg, certain that it would be mangled beyond repair.  But her right leg wasn’t injured at all.  She touched the smooth, unmarked skin in confusion.

“I don’t understand.”

He told her that he’d cast the spell for his truemate, and when he opened the portal, he’d felt compelled to shift into his beast form and he’d found her unconscious, bleeding, with a broken leg.

“I brought you here, and a healer in my glen helped to fix your leg.  You shifted into your human form, and I brought you back to my bed. 
Our
bed.”

He wiggled his brows and smiled.

She ignored him.  He was delusional.  There was no way a hotter-than-hell guy like him was her truemate.

“Wait.  You said you shifted into a beast? But you’re a fairy, right?”

He nodded.  “I’m a
wulfen
, which means I’m both fae and wolf.  I am unique in this realm.  And very lucky to find such a beautiful she-wolf to be my truemate.”

“Why do you keep saying that I’m your truemate?”  Hearing him say that word so many times was making her heart hurt.

“I already explained to you that I spelled for you.  Besides the spell being infallible, I feel it in my bones that we’re meant to be.  My wolf wants to mark you and mate with you, and my fae side wants to follow the old ways and mate you in a grand ceremony.”

She wasn’t sure if she should blush at his bluntness or be turned on.  Her body decided to keep going with
turned on
, and she cleared her throat and struggled to find something to say.

He chuckled.  “I’m sorry if I’m being forward, but I don’t believe in beating around the bush.  When I decided to spell for you, I had planned to seduce you and convince you to come with me to my realm.  But you’re already here.”

“So what, no seduction?”  She slapped her hand over her mouth.  Had she just said that?

He laughed, and she liked how it sounded when he was happy.  He leaned forward slowly.  His eyes shimmered, changing from green to red.  “Oh, I’m going to seduce you, sweet Lindy, have no doubt about that.  But not right now.  I’m sure you’re hungry.”

He stood, and he was close enough that she could have reached out and touched his muscular abs.  She clutched the blanket tighter to keep her hands to herself.  She still didn’t know what to think, and she was afraid to believe that something so amazingly wonderful had actually happened to her.

“I’ll go get you the meal I prepared.”  He smiled once more and walked out of the room.  She slumped back on the pillows and covered her eyes with her hands.

Taking in a deep breath, she let it out slowly and tried to decipher what had happened.  She recalled hearing gossip in the pack about how Jenna had cast a spell for Logan and it had enabled him to be able to find her when they were mated.  If what Crimson said was true, and he had spelled for her, then it was possible that he was her truemate, that his spell had led him right to her.

Her stomach flipped as elation warred with wariness inside her.  Was it a horrible joke?  Could it be true?

She closed her eyes and touched her wolf in her mind.  Her beast growled in happiness, urging her to find the male that was in the house with them.  When Lindy heard footsteps coming closer, her wolf began to pant and growl.  Crimson walked into the room carrying a large plate in one hand, a stone pitcher in the other, and a cup tucked under his arm.

He paused at the foot of the bed.  “Your eyes are amber,
chelle
.  Are you all right?”

She forced the wolf down, worried that she was going to do something embarrassing like roll onto all fours and wiggle her ass.  “I, um, my wolf was just scenting.”

“She must like what she smells, huh?”  He smiled broadly.

He put the plate down at the end of the bed and filled the glass with a green-tinted liquid.  “It’s sweet
yumonmi
.  It reminds me of 7 Up,” he said as he handed her the glass.

“You know what 7 Up is?”

“Sure.  My uncle is mated to a human in a place called Orlando.  I’ve visited them several times over the years.  And when I graduated from the academy, a group of my friends and I spent a week in a place called Vegas and had a great time.”

She took a long drink of the juice and found that he was right.  Although not carbonated, it tasted like lemon-lime soda.  He put the glass down on a side table and put the plate on his lap.  Using a fork and knife, he cut a piece from a thick steak, speared a wedge of what looked like orange-colored zucchini, and held the fork up to her lips.

“I can feed myself,” she said, reaching for the fork.

“I’m not done taking care of you, Lindy.  You were seriously injured and unconscious for several hours.  You’re also my mate.”

She considered arguing with him because she didn’t want him to think that she was weak.  But she’d never had a man feed her before.  Or care that she was hurt.  She opened her mouth, and he gently pushed the fork inside.  The meat tasted wonderful, and the vegetable did taste like zucchini, even if it was oddly colored.

They didn’t talk while he fed her both steaks and all the vegetables, but they didn’t really need to talk.  There was a connection between them that she was unable to deny.  Her wolf wanted him, the darn thing wanted to roll to her back and let him scratch her tummy.  Her human side was very attracted to him.  More than the physical interest she had for him, she suddenly felt as if she couldn’t handle being separated from him.  He was definitely her truemate.  When she’d finished the last of the juice, she leaned back on the bed and put her hand on her stomach.  “I’m stuffed.  That was so good, thank you.”

He put the plate on the floor.  “It was my pleasure.  Are you ready to talk yet?”

Her heart began to pound.  “About what?”

“Us being truemates.  Do you believe me?”

“I don’t know you, but I do believe that we’re mates.”

“Truemates.”  He insisted.

She smiled.  “Truemates.”

“You’ll get to know me as we spend time together, the same way that I’ll get to know you, too.  But, first, let me give you the grand tour, and then we’ll go take a bath.”

Bath?

He stood and went back into the closet and came out with a tunic.  She slipped it over her head and found it quite a bit too big for her but made of very soft fabric.  It also smelled like him, an intoxicating mixture of spice and musk.

He pulled her to her feet and made a sweeping gesture with his hand.  “This is our bedroom.  You remember the bed.”  He tilted his head and wiggled his brows with a grin.  “This will become your favorite room in the house.”

She didn’t think she’d ever liked someone so quickly before, but she honestly just liked him.  She laughed.  “You’re very sure of yourself.”

He hummed.  “There isn’t anything I want more than to strip you bare and touch every inch of you with my fingers and tongue.  I want you sated and boneless from pleasure.”  He pulled her close, and one hand closed around her waist while he linked the fingers of his other hand with hers.  He kissed her ear and whispered, “Your scent drives me wild.  I want to know what you sound like when you fall apart.  I want to hear my name on your lips and feel your body clutching mine.”  As his lips smoothed down the column of her throat, her knees went weak, and her body throbbed.  She thought she might come from the sound of his voice alone.

He groaned, and it shifted into a light growl.  He placed a kiss on her throbbing pulse and straightened.  His eyes were a mixture of green and red, like emeralds and rubies.

“Your eyes,” she said, staring into the mesmerizing color.

“My beast has red eyes.  When I’m feeling emotional, they’ll change color.  The same as yours.”

She looked at their linked hands.  His skin was tanner than hers, and she liked the contrast.  “That never happened to me.”

“Your eyes going to your wolf when you’re human?”

“When I’m angry, yes, but not when I’m…”

His voice was laced with a growl when he tugged her even closer, and she felt the hard ridge of his arousal against her stomach.  “Turned on?”

She couldn’t find her voice, so she nodded.

“They’re amber now, mixed with blue.  Beautiful.  Just like you.”

Her body was going to combust.  He was going to keep on saying the nicest, sexiest things she’d ever heard, and she was going to go up in flames and turn into a pile of ash on the floor.

He placed a soft kiss on her forehead, and she caught the hint of a smile on his lips.  “Now for the rest of the tour.”

He showed her the bathroom, which he called the
bathing room
.  Like the bedroom, the walls were made of black stone.  In one corner was a curtained area, and he pulled the curtain back to show her what looked like a primitive toilet.  The base was carved out of the black stone and a wooden seat sat atop it.  He showed her a lever in the wall next to the toilet, and when he pressed down on it, she could see the water rushing around the inside of the toilet base.  He pushed up on the lever, and the water stopped.  She’d never seen anything quite like it.  The countertop was gray marble with the sink carved into it.  Another lever allowed water to flow down into the sink.