Rafe's Mate

by Rianne Thaxton

  Rafe stood almost over her with a purple-faced and gurgling Flagg dangling from where Rafe had one hand wrapped around his neck. Flagg weakly pushed at Rafe’s extended arm while his feet kicked.

  “Rafe, get Dex,” she whispered.

  His gaze flew to hers as he threw Flagg aside where he landed on top of a coffee table and then slid off into the floor. Rafe nodded as he went behind her. The jaguar and panther closed in on Flagg, although she doubted he was going anywhere.

  “Uncle Rafe!”

  Tears pooled in her eyes at finally hearing the little boy's voice. She struggled to sit upright until she was able to lean her body against the front of the couch. Seconds later a scowling Dex—the look reminiscent of his uncle—dropped to his knees in front of her.

  “Are you okay?” he asked as he wrapped his arms around her neck—nearly choking her. “I was worried about you.”

  “I’m fine,” she croaked. “But are you okay?” After the trauma the child had already lived through, once the adrenaline of the moment of being an actual witness to so much bloodshed and violence wore off, it would probably send him spiraling into—

  “I’m great,” he said, letting her go and sitting back on his haunches. The smile on his face spanned from ear to ear. Or maybe not.

  “Um… Well… Okay.” What else could she say?

  “Dex,” Rafe’s creature stepped into her field of vision. “Need Aubrey.”

  Dex looked up and grinned as he scooted away from her. She found herself lifted by her shoulders high off the floor and then held against Rafe’s chest, where one of his large hands held her head pressed to his furred chest.

  Rafe’s rapidly beating heart pounded in her ear as he buried his face in her hair. “Mate.” His hot breathed huffed against her neck, sending goosebumps racing over her skin. “Mine,” he said in that same rasping voice as his hands moved down her body. One anchored her to his front as the other sliced away the bindings at her wrists.

  “I’ve got her feet,” she heard Max say as she wound her arms the best she could around this incarnation of the man she loved.

  And there was just so much of him at the moment to love. Later she would grill him about how all of this came about, but right now she was happy to find herself feeling safe in the arms of a… Well, basically a monster.

  She ran her hands over the slick fur of his shoulders and the part of his back she could reach. Soon the ties on her ankles loosened and she was able to kick free of them. Aubrey wasn’t sure what to say as Rafe wrapped his massive arms around her and held her close.

  “Sorry,” he growled. “Not to frighten.”

  She managed to lean enough away to search his sorrowful, amber eyes. “Nothing about you scares me,” she whispered as wonder filled her. “Nothing.” He held his breath as she kissed his nose, and then he closed his eyes and let out a deep, rumbling purr as she rubbed his ears. Her fingers then traced down his face—over his ridged brow and prominent cheekbones and then down to his mouth where she touched the tips of her fingers over one of his viciously sharp tusks. He opened his eyes, his languorous gaze searching her face. “You’ve never shown me this side of you before in my dreams.”

  His eyes widened as he took a quick breath. Then what she supposed was a smile crossed his face. It was hard to tell with all the teeth and tusks and…

  But whatever it was, it was glorious and full of joy. “Awakened,” he rumbled before gently gathering her close and nuzzling back into her neck. His rough tongue licked over her shoulder and up toward her ear, filling her with the urge to press into his teeth—to have him bite her.

  She shook that thought away and instead snuggled into him—content to be held. But her arms tightened as his body trembled and the muscles under her hands rippled.

  “Rafe?” The arms banded around her squeezed in an almost crushing embrace, nearly taking her breath before he relaxed them. “What’s happening?” She couldn’t help the rising panic in her voice.

  “Shift.”

  He groaned, his body shuddering as his harsh pants blew into her ear. Then she winced at the unmistakable sound of bones popping and snapping, his arms constricting with each one. Through it all, she clutched onto him, his deep in-and-out shuddering breaths and occasional grunt of pain telling her it had to be an agonizing transformation.

  Long moments of holding Rafe through this shift, her arms finally wrapped around his body as the fur under her hands turned to smooth skin. Her feet touched the floor as Rafe lifted his head, his gaze intense before he swooped down and took her mouth in a mind-numbing kiss. His lips parted from hers, and then he pressed his forehead to hers, whispering, “Aubrey.”

  “Don’t you mean, mate,” she said, still a little breathless.

  He tensed and then lifted his head from hers to gaze down into her eyes before a slight grin kicked up the side of his mouth. “This wasn’t how I’d intended to tell you.”

  She ran her hand over his face, much like she had before, finishing by stroking over his soft lips. A slow grin spread over her face as she leaned up for another kiss.

  “I hate to interrupt you two—again,” Max said from somewhere behind her as Rafe’s eyes closed. “But we’ve got Flagg secured and we have this mess to get cleaned up.”

  Rafe let out a harsh breath. “I swear you have the worst timing.” He opened his eyes, saying. “I…” He glanced over her head and then frowned, his gaze moving around the room before he clutched Aubrey’s head and pressed it against his chest with his hand over her eyes. “Upstairs. Master bedroom. Find clothes. Now.”

  “The naked form of a man is a beautiful thing.” That had to be Bash.

  Aubrey let out a little laugh and wrapped her arms around Rafe’s waist, as Slater said, “Depends on whose you’re looking at.”

  “I’ll show them,” Dex said.

  Both she and Rafe tensed, with Rafe voicing the same concern she felt. “Are you sure you should do that?”

  A heartbeat of silence passed as the tension slowly left Rafe’s body.

  “I’m okay, Uncle Rafe.”

  “Yes, you are, Dex.”

  “All right, squirt,” Max said. “Lead the way.”

  Talking and, strangely enough, laughter followed as the three men and Dex left the room before Rafe finally removed his hand from her face.

  “So,” she said, glancing around and shuddering as her eyes skipped over some of the more graphic carnage. “How is all this going to get cleaned up?”

  He pulled her close and breathed her in. “Believe it or not, we have people for just this kind of situation.”

  “That’s good,” she said, not sure where to start with the million questions she had. But there was something she had to let him know. Something she’d known for a while—perhaps even longer than she had realized.

  Maybe for as long as she had been dreaming of him.

  “I love you, you know.”

  Rafe’s heart set up a rapid tattoo under her ear as his body hardened and that growling purr she kept hearing finally made sense.

  “I love you too, my mate,” he murmured, lifting her face to his. “More than you can know. I—”

  “I brought you down some clothes.”

  “Max,” Rafe grumbled as he looked over her head. And all she could do was laugh before grabbing his face and pulling him in for a kiss—happy to know she was Rafe’s mate.

  Epilogue

  “Look at me, Mom!”

  Rafe held the hand of his wife of two months and bonded mate where she lounged next to him on one of the reclining deck chairs surrounding their pool. He smiled when she squeezed his hand and released it before sitting up.

  “Just be careful,” she called out loudly enough to be heard over the clamor of more than twenty children and their parents at the class party they were hosting a month after school had started back. “And don’t run. You might fall and hurt yourself.” She relaxed back into her seat and shielded her face from the sun as she watched Dex do a cannonba
ll off the diving board into the deep end, sending water splashing on several of his laughing friends. “He’s just a different child.”

  He took her left hand again and kissed the wedding ring set gracing her ring finger. Then he traced his lips up to the intricate design wrapped around her wrist that had appeared at their bonding ceremony the month before—one identical to his own—the extra flourishes proclaiming to all shifters they were not only mates, but destined.

  He leaned toward her and placed a soft kiss on her lips. “He’s once again the child I knew before.” He traced his fingers over the faint scars at her neck and shoulder from the night he had mated her and then brushed them down her side to rest his hand over her barely rounded belly. “You’re a good mother.”

  Her hand stroked over his. “I asked him yesterday what he thought about having a baby sister,” she said with a grin. “He kind of scowled at me.” Rafe laughed. She accused him all the time of teaching him that, but honestly it was a family trait of the men in his family. “And then he said he had wanted a brother, but maybe we could get it right the next time.”

  He hoped there would be many more next times. “He’ll love her.”

  “Oh, I know he will.” She pressed down on his hand. “Because then he said, nobody had better touch her or they’d have him to deal with.” She chuckled. “He even managed a little growl when he said it.”

  “Mrs. Navarro.” He and Aubrey both glanced over at the snow cone station they had set up where one of the moms was helping out and now held an empty flavoring jug lifted up over her head.

  “That’s me,” Aubrey said with a grin before getting up and going over to the woman needing assistance.

  Rafe let his gaze go up and down the back of his mate as she walked away, paying special attention to her ass. He hadn’t mentioned it yet to her, but he appreciated how much fuller it was. He couldn’t wait to get his hands on it later as he took her from behind.

  Laughter from Dex caught his attention—a distraction he needed to keep his thoughts out of the bedroom. It wasn’t an ideal time to be getting a hard-on for his wife. So he searched through the different groups of kids in and out of the pool, finally finding their now officially adopted son on the far side where he stood chatting with the same little blonde-headed girl he’d ignored all those months ago.

  “See, Dex,” he murmured. “I told you she was cute.”

  A peace settled over him at Dex’s open expression and relaxed pose. Aubrey was right. He was a different child than the one who had sat all by himself drawing while the other children had played around him. Now? Now he was jumping right in and having fun along with the rest of them. Dex still drew whenever he could. But his art wasn’t his only outlet of communication. And what he drew now was dramatically different than before, with his pictures being full of color and life. And, of course, his gray wolf.

  He checked his watch and his mood darkened. He had a conference call scheduled with Law and his fellow Alpha Regents in less than an hour. Aubrey hadn’t been happy that he had to leave the party early, but she’d understood.

  One topic was to be a final report on the business with Flagg. It had been settled weeks ago without much information being gleaned from the man. They had, however, managed to squeeze one piece of information out of him. He now knew how Javier, and then later Max, had been laid out by tasers—if you could call them that. The voltage settings on the boxes they’d used on Max had been modified to discharge anything from a mild stun to something akin to electrocution from a live power line. He grimaced. Thankfully the one they’d used on Aubrey hadn’t been set higher than it was. Even at the highest voltage, they weren’t deadly to shifters, but it was enough to lay one out to where anything could be done to them.

  It was concerning to think humans somewhere out there right now—maybe even some standing around his pool—hated shifters enough they had no compunction at killing them. But at least right now there were five less.

  Flagg was currently considered a missing person by his wife and local law enforcement. The body would be found—eventually. Maybe. And Norman and his friends? Rafe doubted anything was left of them after being buried in the local preserve’s swamp.

  There would also be talk of Lewellyn, whose trail was still cold.

  But perhaps more troubling than their missing former Alpha Prime was something Rafe had never considered would be an issue—a threat from within their own kind.

  Namely, Elders and the number of sanctioned challenges the Alpha Prime and most of the Alpha Regents from each state in the Southeast had faced. The numbers were exponentially larger than before any of them had taken power. And it was troubling—almost more troubling than concern over The Coalition of True Souls.

  At least with the humans, you knew what was going on in their heads—for the most part.

  Now they had a growing Elder body whose ranks were being filled with mostly Purists. It raised some interesting questions about several overlooked incidents such as the ones Bash had mentioned. Because shifters and their human mates hadn't only faced problems in Florida. Now evidence said similar events had taken place throughout the region before Law had taken over as Alpha Prime.

  It was a well-known fact Purists saw themselves as elite among shifters due to the lack of intermingling within each of their species—thus pure. They had a tendency to look down on most every other shifters who weren’t, but they would at least tolerate them. For those who had human in their DNA? Well, they were considered not worthy of being called a shifter.

  So the idea they had Elders and other Purists who might be collaborating with The Coalition was something that had to be looked into. And looked into hard.

  “Okay, what’s got you all grimacy?”

  Rafe attempted to clear his expression and let his gaze fall on his wife, who had sat back down on the side of her lounger, her own gaze full of concern while she ran a hand over his still-furrowed brow.

  “Nothing,” he said sitting up and grabbing her hands. He then stood and pulled his mate up along with him. “Just thinking about having to leave in a few minutes.”

  “You don’t have another challenge coming up. Do you?”

  She’d insisted on going to the last one and had held up well during it, but afterward she had admitted she’d had to keep from having what she’d termed a come-apart, even though she’d had no doubt he would win.

  “Not anytime soon.” At least he hoped not. “So no need to worry,” he said as he pulled her into his side while their son ran over to them.

  “Hey, Dad.” Rafe’s heart swelled at the term as he squeezed Aubrey to keep himself from picking Dex up and giving him a hug he was sure would probably embarrass his son in front of everyone. “Can Nikki stay for a while after everyone leaves and meet Chaparrita? Her mom said it was okay if you could bring her home.”

  “Sure, son,” he said and was then surprised when Dex gave him a quick hug before rushing back to his friends.

  “You’re a good dad.”

  He pulled Aubrey into his embrace. He doubted anyone was paying attention to them, and he didn't care if they were. He gave her a kiss full of promises for later when they were alone, but he couldn’t help his slight groan against her lips when her skin heated under his touch.

  “We’re a good family,” he said moments later as she tucked her head against his chest. He held her close but stilled as his keen shifter hearing made out the almost imperceptible rapid beating of a tiny heart.

  Our daughter. Sophia Catherine.

  Rafe’s heart settled as he breathed in the scent of his mate snuggled against him while his gaze took in a happy Dex and the promise of a new life filled his ears. In that moment, Javier’s words after his and Catherine’s bonding ceremony so many years ago came back to him.

  His brother had been right.

  The journey to my mate was worth everything.

  THE END

  MORE SHIFTERS ARE COMING

  OCTOBER 14, 2020

  HIS
DESTINED MATE

  Book Two in the Southeastern Alliance of Shifters

  Featuring Alpha Prime Law Michaelson and Rachel Todd

  Rachel Todd, a widowed, 44-year-old writer of paranormal romance who dreams of a wolf shifter—one who brings her body to life—only to leave her wanting more in the morning and unable to capture the image of her dream lover's face. But with her dreams come inspiration, filling her imagination with scenes and stories she uses to create a world she and her readers love—one she wishes deep down was her own. But then, "Once upon a time, the Big Bad Wolf came to her door..."

  * * *

  Law Michaelson, wolf shifter and newly-appointed Alpha Prime of the Southeastern Alliance of Shifters has his hands full with conniving Elders, alpha challenges, and the search for the previous Alpha Prime who disappeared before his corruption could be dealt with. What Law isn't looking for his Destined Mate, but finds her in Rachel. Now he just has to get her to believe that he is—as cheesy as it sounds—the shifter of her dreams. Easy, right?

  * * *

  But Law isn't the only one who wants Rachel for his own. A man who has already claimed and taken the lives of other Destined Mates has Rachel in his sights—and he's ready to close in.

  * * *

  Keep reading for an excerpt from Chapter One and preorder links at the end.

  His Destined Mate

  Preview

  Rachel pushed her fingers through his thick, black hair and gripped the strands tight when he ran his tongue from her ear to the base of her neck—his teeth nipping at her sensitive skin along the way. She shivered in response and tilted her head, and then rolled her eyes at his deep chuckle when he lingered over the curve of her shoulder. He was well aware of what she wanted and he still wasn’t giving it to her.