Every Sunset Forever (23 page)

Chapter 18

*Three Weeks Later*

Whisper ate a cupcake topped with powder-blue frosting and made appropriate cooing noises at the adorable infant footy pajamas which were covered with little wolves.  She sat between her mother-in-law and Bliss, who had come along to help with the baby shower.

After her wedding, Whisper and her mates had stayed the weekend at a hotel in Atlantic City, and did nothing but order room service and make love.  After their weekend, they’d driven to Dalton and packed up their belongings, and then formally left the
baro
.  She thought that Dante would be angry at her mates for walking away from the
baro
for her, but he was very understanding.  Alyssa and Sydney were sad that she wasn’t going to be staying, but they were still family, even if she lived in New Jersey instead of Kentucky.  And organizing the baby shower had been her way of showing the two sweet females that she had no intention of forgetting about them.

For the time being, Whisper and her mates were living in a rental home in Beyton.  It was on the other side of town from the bar.  When spring came, they were going to start building their home.  Mack’s property was quite large and included the bar as well as his house, so there was plenty of room for their own home.  Close enough to walk to work in nice weather, but far enough away for privacy.

Alyssa opened another gift, the paper tearing loudly and drawing Whisper’s thoughts back to the present.  “Oh, thanks, Mom!” Alyssa said, holding up a picture of two cribs.

Whisper raised a brow in confusion and Alyssa’s mother-in-law said, “Mason hid the cribs in the garage after we shipped them here.  Since they were so bulky, I just wrapped a picture of the two cribs.”

“I didn’t know you were having twins,” Bliss said.

“I’m not,” Alyssa put the picture down and took the next gift handed to her by Sydney.  “We have two nurseries in the house; one upstairs and one in the den.”

“Oh, duh, I keep forgetting about the den.”

“You’ll get used to having two of everything with the den,” Sydney said with a sweet smile.  “It means twice as much shopping.”

“Oh, I like the sound of that,” Bliss quipped.

“I better warn my brothers of your penchant for shoe hoarding,” Whisper elbowed her bestie.

Whisper’s phone buzzed in her pocket, and she discreetly checked it.  A text from Nyte told her that he was thinking of her and missed her.

“I miss you, too,” she typed back.

She slipped the phone back into her pocket and watched as Alyssa opened the gift from Whisper and her mates: a Coach diaper bag filled with supplies.

“Oh my gosh!  I didn’t know Coach made diaper bags!”  Alyssa held the pretty bag up, her eyes wide with surprise.

Whisper smiled graciously and didn’t share the story behind the bag.  Fade had seen her looking at Coach computer bags online and decided to surprise her with one.  He’d shopped in a Coach store in the mall, but hadn’t realized that the one he chose was actually a diaper bag.  He offered to return it, but when she asked if she could give it to Alyssa instead, he agreed, after replacing it with a computer bag.

After the shower was over, she helped clean up and texted Nyte that she and Bliss were ready to leave.

Alyssa sniffled as Whisper hugged her goodbye.  “I wish you didn’t have to leave so soon.”

“Me, too, but I have piano lessons the day after tomorrow and need to get home.  We’ll be back after the baby is born so I can spoil the newest addition to my extended family,” Whisper promised.  She hugged Alyssa once more, and then Sydney, and said goodbye to the rest of the guests.  Then she headed outside with Bliss, where her mates and brothers were waiting in a rental SUV.

Her mates got out of the SUV and hugged and kissed her as if they had been separated for weeks instead of just hours.   Nyte was driving and Memphis was manning the GPS from the passenger seat.  Bliss, Rome, and Link were in the third row of the SUV, and Az climbed inside and sat in the second row, patting the space next to him.  “Come on, sweetheart, let’s get to the airport and go home.”

“Did you have a good time?”

“It was a lot of fun, but I’m ready to go home.”

Az settled his arm over her shoulder and hugged her to him.  “This was never really home for any of us, but New Jersey feels just right.”

“I’m glad.”  She leaned against him and took Fade’s hand and squeezed it.

“Anywhere with you is home,” Az said, kissing the top of her head.

The SUV headed away from her former
baro’s
territory and towards the airport.  She’d enjoyed coming to visit, but she was glad to be going home.  Fade rubbed his fingertips along the inside of her right wrist, which now bore a new tattoo.  He had designed a tattoo for their clan; a simple outline of the head of a hyena, surrounded by a circle of ivy. They’d gone together to get the tattoo, and she wore it with pride and loved knowing that her mates had the same tattoo on the inside of their right wrists.

She watched the scenery blur by as they turned onto the highway, and she said a final goodbye to Dalton, which had become her home for only a little while.  Ahead of her lay Beyton and the pack, which had welcomed her mates as official members, along with her hyena brothers.

Before she had gone to the
gathering
, she had worried that she would lose everything when she found her mate.  She hadn’t lost anything, but she had gained so much.  Not only her mates, but her birth family and her mates’ family.  Everywhere she turned she now had family, and that includes her bestie.

For a hyena raised by wolves, she was doing pretty well for herself.  She had everything she could ever want, and more than she’d possibly dreamed.

The End

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Contact the Author

Website: 
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* * * * * *

Also from R. E. Butler

Wiccan-Were-Bear Novella Series

A Curve of Claw

A Flash of Fang

A Price for a Princess

A Bond of Brothers

A Bead of Blood

A Twitch of Tail

A Promise on White Wings

A Slash of Savagery

The Wolf’s Mate Series

The Wolf’s Mate Book 1:  Jason & Cadence

The Wolf’s Mate Book 2:  Linus & The Angel

The Wolf’s Mate Book 3:  Callie & The Cats

The Wolf’s Mate Book 4:  Michael & Shyne

The Wolf’s Mate Book 5:  Bo & Reika

The Wolf’s Mate Book 6:  Logan & Jenna

The Wolf’s Mate Book 7: Lindy & The Wulfen

The Necklace Chronicles

The Tribe’s Bride

The Gigolo’s Bride

Ashland Pride Series

Seducing Samantha (Ashland Pride One)

Loving Lachlyn (Ashland Pride Two)

Marking Melody (Ashland Pride Three)

Hyena Heat Series

Every Night Forever (Hyena Heat One)

Every Dawn Forever (Hyena Heat Two)

Every Sunset Forever (Hyena Heat Three)

Wilde Creek Series

Mate of Her Heart (Book One)

The Alpha’s Heart (Book Two)

* * * * *

Coming in 2015…

Every Blissful Moment (Hyena Heat Book Four)

Non-shifting wolf Bliss Roberts imagined the most exciting thing in her future was her honeymoon with her three gorgeous hyena husbands.  She never expected them to get lost in the mountains on the way home and stumble upon a young owl shifter being forced to mate with a much older male.  Stressed out by her own family’s disfunction, Bliss loudly objects to the young girl’s treatment.  When the girl escapes, her people demand that Bliss and her husbands take over the evening’s entertainment, which includes having public sex so the owls can share in the pleasure.

Memphis Gable and his brothers Lincoln and Rome knew their wife was a spitfire with a wounded heart, but they didn’t expect to have to defend her to a group of deadly owl-shifters.  To protect her, they’ll give the owls just a taste of the passion they share with their bride.  When Bliss accidentally drinks too much of an aphrodisiac, the hyena clan’s good intentions may be overwhelmed by her out of control lust.  Can they keep a lid on their sweetheart’s passion, or will the owls demand everything they have to give?

It wouldn’t be a hyena heat novel without scorching m/f/m/m sex, three males who would strip naked in a heartbeat to save their mate, and the sweet woman who has claimed their hearts.  This book contains dangerous owl shifters who glow when they’re turned on, a young woman in need of rescuing, mating, claiming, growled obscenities, and frequent use of the word ‘mine.’

* * * * *

Coming in 2014…

Redeeming Rue
(Ashland Pride Book Four)

As an albino black panther banished by her people, Veruka Jennings knows if her clan discovers she had a child, it would mean death for them both.  Labeled an abomination and forbidden from having cubs, she's spent the better part of her life as an outcast, believing she is worthless because of the color of her fur.  After secretly overhearing traveling clan members discuss a bonding ceremony in Indiana, she decides to spy on the proceedings for one last look at the people who treated her like trash.

When James and John Fallon investigate a shadowy figure in the woods during a bonding ceremony, they do not expect to find the woman they are meant to share.  But instead of enjoying their mating, they find themselves fighting to protect Veruka and her son.  If they can protect her, will they be able to keep her?  Or will Rue believe she's not worthy of their love and disappear from their lives forever?

Warning:  This book contains one spunky heroine who will do anything to keep her son safe, two males who aren’t about to let the slippery female get away, and a ticked off clan of panthers who want bloody revenge for their broken laws.  Expect plenty of growls and snarled curses, love bites, ceremonial mating, and hot m/f/m loving that only happens when two mountain lions finally find the woman of their dreams.  Contains m/f/m interaction.

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