The Wolf's Mate Book 2: Linus & The Angel
Read The Wolf's Mate Book 2: Linus & The Angel Online
Authors: R.E. Butler
Tags: #kidnapping, #mating, #werewolf mate
The Wolf’s Mate
Book 2: Linus & The Angel
by R.E. Butler
Copyright 2012 R.E. Butler
Smashwords Edition
The Wolf’s Mate Book 2: Linus & The Angel
by R.E. Butler
Smashwords Edition, License Notes
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of this author.
**Cover Design by Kameko Gay. Photographers: Stuart
Paton (image "Bird in flight over trees, Winter) and CP Cheah
(image "Full Moon and passing clouds").**
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 over the age of 18 only.
* * * *
To my husband B.B., and to B.L., whose
support gives me wings. A special thanks to Kameko Gay, my
reader-editor-designer-friend-extraordinaire....you are the
best.
Table of Contents
A Word from the Author and Other
Titles
Preview of The Wolf's Mate Book 3:
Callie & The Cats
Chapter 1
Linus
was woken from sleep by the buzz of his cell as it danced across
the nightstand next to his bed and sounded like an out of control
woodpecker. He blinked the sleep from his eyes and picked up the
phone, his eyes barely registering the alarm clock that read 2:17.
Shit, it was early.
He should have checked the display, because
he wouldn’t have answered it if he’d known it was her.
“Linus!” Brenda whined, “Linus I need a
ride.”
He sighed and sat up, swinging his feet down
to the carpet. “It’s fucking late, Brenda.”
“But there was like a blizzard, Linus, and I
don’t want to get trapped at this guy’s house for days.”
His sluggish brain picked up on part of that.
“Wait, are you on a date and you’re fucking calling me for a ride?
You have got to be kidding me, Brenda. That’s low even for
you.”
Her voice tipped whinier, “But you’re my
husband.”
“Not any more. We’ve been divorced for three
years. This has to stop. Just don’t fucking call me anymore.”
He hung up and sat staring at his cell phone
while she proceeded to call him four more times and leave both
voice mails, emails, and texts. He finally turned it off. In one of
the kitchen drawers, he found the paperwork for his cell plan and
called the 24 hour customer service number and had his number
disconnected and exchanged for a new one. As he sat at the computer
to send a message to the pack about his new number, he also decided
it was a must to get a new email address, so he did that first and
then sent all the new information out to everyone. Except his ex.
He was sure to get a ribbing from the pack, especially Jason the
alpha, on what a whipped puppy he’d been the last three years for
her. Six months ago he would have gone running to rescue her and
then begged her for sex.
But three months ago he watched Jason finally
claim his rightful mate in the hybrid wolf Cadence. They’d grown up
together and it had been a hot mess for years, but finally she
realized what he meant to her, what it meant to all of them, and
they’d become true mates, taking her rightful place as his alpha
mate. That didn’t technically have anything to do with him, since
he was only fourth ranked in the Tressel Pack. But because of some
other shit with Cadence, their pack had to handle the next in line
alpha of the Garra Pack. The Garra Pack had shared their small town
of Allen, Kentucky, and it was their next in line alpha who had to
be handled, because he wanted to claim Cadence as his own.
When it came right down to it, Linus had let
Brenda walk all over him because he wanted her back. She was
completely human and he was completely wolf, but he’d loved her
enough to marry her, or at least he thought he loved her. Was it
really love if it wasn’t reciprocated? They hadn’t even made it a
year. She refused to be around the wolves, accused his friends of
trying to sleep with her, and then in the end she’d threatened to
leave him if he didn’t turn his back on the pack. She was what the
others called a Chew Toy, and he’d broken the cardinal rule of
wolves which was you didn’t marry the girls that just wanted to
fuck the big bad. He’d helped her pack, given her money for her own
place, and hell, he’d sat by the phone waiting for her to call and
want to come home. And she did, sometimes. When she needed
something or when she had an itch that needed scratching.
But this was it. He was done with Brenda,
done with that part of his life, and now, he was tired as hell but
restless and couldn’t even think about going back to sleep.
Oblivious to it while he’d slept, a storm had blanketed their town
with a few feet of snow. He was very glad he’d gone to the grocery
yesterday and stacked firewood in the garage.
Most of the wolves his age, which was 27,
lived in a trailer park on the north side of Allen. The next
generation up, their parents, lived in regular homes scattered
around town. Allen was a low income, blue collar sort of southern
town. There was one garage where he worked as a mechanic for Jason
who owned the place, one nice restaurant, one bar, and one grocery.
There was a post office, too, but it had been shut down and blended
with the next town up which meant their mail was always late.
The Shrew had been too high class for the
trailer park, so he’d sold his trailer to one of the younger wolves
and bought a three bedroom modular home that took six weeks for the
pack to build. And then she left. He’d wanted to sell it, but Jason
had convinced him to keep it and just get rid of everything that
made him think of her, so he’d done a thorough housecleaning six
months ago, and this was the first time he’d heard from her since
then. It was easier to talk to her, think of her now, since he’d
watched Jason fight for his woman.
In the beginning, he’d thought he was in love
with Brenda, but he could see now that he’d been foolish. She was
attractive but not pretty, too thin for his normal tastes, but
she’d wedged herself into his life and he’d let her. And then he
didn’t want to live without her. No one liked her; everyone thought
he was a complete idiot for being with her, but he’d mistaken her
desire to be with him because he was a wolf for real affection.
Now, he vowed not to rush into the physical side of things again,
because that’s how he’d gotten trapped with Brenda in the first
place.
Granted he didn’t want to take 14 years to
finally get another girl, the way that Jason and Cadence had danced
around each other since they were children, each too chicken to
admit that they craved the other. They were hard to be around, even
now, because they couldn’t keep their hands off each other and they
didn’t care if it was public or not. During get-togethers at his
home, he’d walked in on them a dozen times in one of the spare
bedrooms. He tried not to be jealous - wolves were notoriously
horny creatures - but he couldn’t help it. Seriously, if he wasn’t
having sex in his own house, than no one else should have sex in it
either.
It just wasn’t fair. He wanted a woman that
he could lose himself in like Jason did with Cades. A woman that
only wanted him, only loved him, not because he was a wolf, not
because of anything else he had to offer, but just because she
loved him.
He shook his head at his own pipe dream and
decided to go for a run. If there was a woman like that out there
for him, she certainly wasn’t anywhere he’d looked. He stripped at
the sliding back door and tried not to let too much snow in when he
opened it, crossed onto the deck, and shut it, shifting as fast as
possible.
He shook the snow off his dark gray coat and
was glad he wasn’t prone to getting chilled in his wolf form. It
was easy enough to let his mind go to his beast, like turning the
faucet from cold to hot. He took in the scent of the fresh snow,
the cold air and the smell of the woods outside his back door, and
leapt over the snow draped stairs from the deck and landed with a
fluff of snow before darting off into the woods.
He just ran. Darting between trees, leaping
easily over fallen logs and low brush. The woods at night in the
snow. Was there anything better to a wolf?
He lazily chased a small herd of deer, just
for fun. He had no intention of taking one down, although he could
easily. In the leanest winter months they were on the thin side and
their meat would not be as succulently tender as it would be in
another two or three months, as they fattened themselves up in the
spring. He’d rather wait, thanks.
On and on he ran, changing directions for no
reason, not really running anywhere in particular, just totally
digging letting his wolf free. And then two distinct scents caught
his nose and he skidded to a stop to scent them better. One was
canine, not wolf, and one was human. It was far too cold for a
human to be out. Worry and curiosity hit him at the same time and
he took off for the scents, running at top speed.
He crested a small clearing and found what
looked like a snow covered body lying near the bank of a frozen
creek. At this point, he was a few miles from his home. He nuzzled
the forms and found them to be a woman, alive, and a dog, dead.
She didn’t rouse when he nudged her harder,
so he shifted to his human form, prayed she didn’t wake up freaked
out that he was nude, and jerked her stiff body into his arms and
took off for home. He’d never run so fast in his human form in his
life, and his heart pounded in his ears as he closed the distance
to his home as quickly as possible. There was something about her
that he couldn’t put his finger on, but he desperately wanted her
to live.
Nearly frozen himself, he dropped her on the
couch and began to pull off the clothes that were frozen to her
body. Her lips were blue, her face dead white, but she was
breathing in a shallow way and that was good.
Right?
His own frozen fingers shook and ached as he
pried off her thick coat and threw it aside, joining it soon with
her ice caked tennis shoes and socks. He couldn’t get her jeans
off, so he darted to the kitchen and came back with shears,
carefully cutting the material up one leg and then the other,
peeling it from her before he made quick work of her sweater. She
started to shiver, tremors rocking her petite body, and he pressed
the back of his hand to her panties and found them wet and frozen
too, so he put aside his thoughts of her modesty and cut them off
along with her bra and wrapped her in a blanket from the couch.
With his comforter and two other blankets on
top of her, he kicked up the heat, trying not to bite off his own
tongue with his chattering teeth and he started the fire that had
long died in the fireplace. Within ten minutes, the fire was
roaring while he pulled the mattress from his bedroom into the
family room and moved her from the couch to the mattress.
“I’m really sorry, sweetheart, but, naked’s
best and I’m still a fucking icicle.” Maneuvering under the
blankets he curled her into himself, finding her slightly warmer
than freezing, and he shuddered against her as the fire slowly
warmed them both.
He had a thought that he should call his
mother, see if there was anything he should do for her besides just
warm her up; but he was suddenly too sleepy to do anything except
absorb the warmth of the fire and take in the scent of the woman in
his arms that had suddenly come to mean everything to him.