by Hazel Gower
Arden’s Mate
by
Hazel Gower
Arden’s Mate
Copyright © 2014, Hazel Gower
ISBN: 9781940744407
Publisher: Beachwalk Press, Inc.
Electronic Publication: September 2014
Editor: Pamela Tyner
Cover: Live Love Media
eBooks are not transferable. No part of this book may be used or reproduced without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations in articles and reviews.
This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the author’s imagination and used fictitiously.
Back Cover Copy
Can you run from fate, or is destiny’s pull too strong?
Remy, a young woman with the ability to harness fire, finds herself helping a group of werewolf shifters and other paranormal beings in a battle against demons who want to take over the world. When she is badly injured and on the brink of death, Arden, a werewolf shifter, bites her, giving her supernatural healing abilities. The last thing she expected was for it to also mark her as his mate. With her choices for her life slowly disappearing as it becomes clear what being with Arden will entail, Remy flees.
Arden is devastated when his mate runs from him. Hope for his future disappears and his wolf takes over, turning him into a feral mess.
Remy soon realizes she’s made the biggest mistake of her life. Returning to the shifters and a changed Arden, Remy has to not only gain their forgiveness but also build their trust in her while helping Arden overcome his feral nature.
Will Remy be strong enough to be the mate Arden needs or will she let the fire she controls consume her and run again, this time never looking back?
Content Warning: contains graphic sex, strong language, and violence
Dedication
To my wonderful family, thanks for all your support and love. I couldn’t do it all without you.
Acknowledgements
A huge thank you to Beachwalk Press and Pamela Tyner for accepting the Armageddon mates series and making every book shine.
Thank you to my best friend Jess Buffett for helping me and putting up with all my crap.
Author’s Foreword
This book is set in Australia, where healthcare is free for every Australian citizen, it is legal to drink at eighteen, and we speak English Australian.
Prologue
Two and a half months ago
She was dying. Remy knew she couldn’t fight the pain any longer. She hurt all over, and for the first time in her life she just wanted to give in and go in peace, no more pain. Remy hoped Bengie would live. She loved that kid. He’d been awesome fighting all those demons. Who would have thought the gentle giant of a boy was stronger than two massive, sixteen-feet-plus demons?
Remy groaned as she heard Kane’s voice. “Don’t you dare die, Remy. Faith needs you.”
Kane wasn’t telling her anything new. Of course Faith needed her, she had him for a boyfriend. Remy would never say ‘mate’, and she wouldn’t call him Faith’s husband unless he married her.
She screamed as Kane touched a nasty cut on her stomach. White clouded the black of her vision, and Kane swore.
“Fine. If being nice won’t keep you alive, I’ll be your fucking worse nightmare. Look, if you die, they’ve won. I’ve won, because I won’t have to put up with your shit and I know Faith won’t get into as much mischief. I know it’s you who encouraged her to stay away from me and move overseas. Hell, it was probably you who encouraged her to date other men.”
Remy felt him pause in his action, and she swam away from the bright white light and back to see what the hell Kane was doing. She cracked her eyes open and dim light greeted her.
“Come to think of it, those demons did me a favor getting rid of you. My life will be peaceful without you there whispering words to my mate.”
Remy could see Kane’s hands hovering over her and his eyes glaring at her. “God. You whine worse than a teenage girl, Kane. Just fix me and go away so I don’t have to listen to your bitching.” Crap, was that her voice? It sounded like sandpaper scraping wood.
Kane snarled, but she could tell he wasn’t really angry. His hands got back to work cleaning wounds and stitching her up. He put a drip in her arm and hung it from her bedpost.
The pain started to ease, and she heard quiet voices.
“Will she make it?”
“I think so. She probably will just so she can annoy me.”
“That’s not nice.”
“Remy is a pain in my arse. I can’t stand her. She’ll live just to piss me off. I feel really sorry for Arden.”
“If Faith hears you talking like this, you’ll have hell to pay.”
“I know...”
The voices got softer until Remy couldn’t hear them anymore.
Kane was an arsehole. She couldn’t die and leave her best friend to put up with him for the rest of her life without a buffer, someone to shrink the idiot’s bighead. Remy loved Sara, but she had her own lughead to deal with. And poor Kirby had been saddled with one of those huge baboon werewolves as well.
Nope, Remy couldn’t die. This time when the bright light came toward her she told it to fuck off, she wasn’t going anywhere.
* * * *
Arden wasn’t happy to be called away from his team. He knew they were going to the demon compound to rescue the paranormal people and they needed more wolves, but Canberra, where he’d been stationed, needed his presence. The demon problem there was getting worse. Why call him back when he was needed elsewhere? Something else was going on, he could feel it. When his dad phoned and told him to come home he’d sounded worried and unsure.
Arden had taken his time getting everything in order before he left as he knew they weren’t going to the demon stronghold for a couple of days. It wasn’t until he got a call from Kane telling him ‘get your arse home now before she dies’ that he knew he had to leave quickly. Arden had no idea who the ‘she’ Kane spoke about was, but he’d heard Faith’s voice in the background telling Kane to shut up.
When he was a couple of hours away from home he called his dad to tell him where he was. Minutes later he was told to detour so he could come and help. Instead of driving down the coast he turned and went toward the mainland country, heading to meet his pack at the demon stronghold.
* * * *
The pain didn’t go away, but it reminded Remy that she was alive. The crying was getting annoying. Everyone broke down when they came to visit her. Remy had no idea what they were crying about—she was the one in excruciating pain.
Bengie was getting better, and that made Remy happy. Faith was acting stranger than usual, which said a lot since she was always odd. Remy didn’t know how much longer she could hold on. Everything hurt and the white light kept coming back. She gave herself pep talks, that when this was over she would take a break from all the werewolf drama, and she would go away and explore. Those talks were what were kept her living—that and the thought that if she went her poor friends would be stuck with the Neanderthal men and no sane people to talk to.
The light came calling her and she groaned, telling it to stay the fuck away. It went, but Remy didn’t know how much longer it would listen to her.
* * * *
Exhausted from the fight with the demons, Arden went to his house and crashed, sleeping like the dead.
When he woke it was to small hands shaking him. “Come now. Get out of bed and come now. If you don’t, she will be dead.” Faith was yelling at him and yanking him.
Groaning, he eased off
the bed and Faith tossed a pair of jeans at him. He put them on, and she dragged him out and they ran through the forest to her house. They walked into a bedroom and the smell of orange and passion fruit hit him. He staggered back as he looked around, and his gaze fell on an almost dead woman on the bed. Drips and machines were everywhere.
“What the hell is this, Faith? What’s going on?”
“It’s your mate.”
“I know that. I figured it out as soon as her smell hit me and I saw her. Why is she like that?”
“She got in a fight with a bunch of demons. I think they might have won.” Faith broke down into gut wrenching sobs. “Oh God. She’s my best friend. Save her, Arden.”
“I can’t save her, Faith. She’s practically dead. I can hear her fighting to take each breath. She hasn’t got long.” Arden felt his world close in around him. His mate was dead. Without her in his life, he would eventually go feral and be put down. He would never have a family of his own. Never have the other half of his soul. He would never have someone to love and hold through the long days and nights.
Faith jumped up, whacking him on the head. “You idiot, she is not dead yet. You are going to mate and live happily ever after.” She grabbed him and dragged him to the side of the bed, placing his hand over the woman. “See, she’s still warm.” Faith shoved him. “Mate her now.”
He stared down at the woman, his mate. She was blonde, with hair to her chin. Her eyes were closed, so he couldn’t see what color they were. Her lips would be big and plump when she was healthy. She was small, and as he gazed down the length of her he realized she would be short, maybe even shorter than Faith. She was beautiful even in her sickly state. Now that he was closer he could see the faint pulse at her throat and her chest slowly rising and falling.
Faith shoved him again. “What are you waiting for? You can save her, all you have to do is bite her, mate her.”
Arden’s wolf came roaring to the surface, howling at him not to lose their mate. This was not how he wanted to mate his soul mate when he found her, but he never pictured her to be human or dying. Taking a deep breath of her orange and passion fruit scent, he leaned down and brushed her hair out of the way. With a prayer to the gods that this would work, he let his wolf out and felt his canines lengthen, and with a groan of frustration at the situation, he bit down on where her shoulder and neck met, breaking the skin and completing the mate bond.
* * * *
Remy screamed as pain unlike any she’d ever experienced ran through her. It felt like her body broke into a million shards of tiny glass and stabbed back into her. The white light that was always hovering on the edges, waiting for her to give in, vanished. Remy felt like she went from floating to crashing back down, and the pain that had slowly been fading as the light took over came back full force.
She tried to move, but a heavy weight was holding her down. Struggling, Remy gave her body a mental check, noticing a pulling on her shoulder. Using all her strength, she turned her head, but it didn’t go far, because a head was on her shoulder. Remy saw pitch-black hair with hooded brown eyes, light tanned skin, and a perfect, handsome jaw, lips, and chin. The man’s mouth was wrapped around her and that was when, like a lightbulb going off, she realized what he was doing. Faith had told her what shifters did to make their mate theirs.
Remy had seen how shifters acted with her friends—possessive, domineering, and all-round controlling. Trying to pull away, she cried out, “No. Don’t.”
Faith came into Remy’s line of sight. She was nibbling her lip and wringing her hands. “I’m so sorry. We had to. You almost died. We had no choice.”
With the last of her strength, Remy screamed and pushed at the man. “Get off me. Get out of here now.” The man licked her shoulder, and Remy growled, “Get the fuck off me.”
He seemed surprised and staggered back. Remy narrowed her eyes on the gorgeous specimen before her. Oh, he was definitely a shifter. He was perfection personified—over six feet tall with a body a Greek god would be jealous of, all muscular and defined. The air around him cracked with authority, power, and strength. He was alpha.
Warm, chocolate brown eyes narrowed on her, and he whispered, “Mine.”
Terror ran through her, and she took big gulps of air.
At that one word Remy became one hundred percent sure of what he’d done…he’d mated her. Remy was now mated to a shifter. Doors seemed to close all around her, and options and choices she thought she had vanished. Blackness clouded her vision and Remy let it take her, but not before she glanced at Faith and knew who had betrayed her.
* * * *
Remy fainted soon after he’d mated her, but not before she made her anger known. Arden now sat in a chair next to her bed and glared at a worried Faith. “Who the hell is she, Faith?”
Faith looked from him back to his mate, her hands wringing the edge of her baggy shirt. “Remy. Your mate is my best friend Remy Morris.”
“Holy shit, Faith. Why the fuck did you not tell me before this?”
“Because this is not how I envisioned you mating. It’s all wrong. The fates hadn’t let you meet yet for a reason. I just didn’t know what it was. I may be psychic, but I only see what they want me to see.”
Arden was pissed off. He had a mate and Faith had known and kept her from him. “How long have you known?” he snarled.
Faith paced back and forth in the small room. “You have to understand that she wasn’t ready. I wanted you to come back from Canberra and get settled in before I told you.”
“When?” he yelled.
Faith stopped pacing and looked everywhere but at him. “When I moved in with her because I’d left Kane.”
His heart sank, and if he was standing he would have fallen. How could Faith have kept that from him? Blinking, he stared at Faith. “You made sure I didn’t meet her, didn’t you?”
Kane came barreling into the room and went straight to Faith. “What’s going on?”
“Ask your selfish fucking mate,” Arden yelled.
Kane growled, then stopped, shocked at Arden’s words. He never spoke to Kane, or anyone, like he just had. “Faith?”
Faith ignored Kane and answered what Arden had asked. “Yes, I did. You were supposed to meet her someplace else and mate her later. I saw it all.”
Arden ran his fingers through his hair. He needed air, he needed to change into his wolf and run. If he didn’t, he would say something he’d regret. Standing, he nodded to Kane and walked out of the room, down the hall, and out of the house. Right now he couldn’t even look at Faith...she had kept his mate from him.
* * * *
Remy couldn’t believe her friend would betray her like this. Faith knew how she felt about the werewolves. Why the hell would she send one to mate with her?
The pain was easing fast, and she knew it had something to do with the bite Arden had given her. When she’d awoken Faith had been in her room and told her the man’s name was Arden, and he was Kane’s frigging brother.
Arden had come back an hour or so after she’d awaken and introduced himself. He was gorgeous, with shaggy, midnight hair that fell over intense, brown eyes, and plump, kissable lips with a strong jaw, and the thing that made it super hard to resist him was when he smiled his dimples would pop.
Arden was charming, and the last couple of days she’d started recovering at a rapid pace. He sat by her bed and told her he was part of their military, he told her where they would live, that she could decorate his house, which was now theirs, that her job was now gone, and she wasn’t going to fight anymore. All her choices and her freedom disappeared, and she felt like a caged animal.
She glanced at the clock beside the bed and eased herself up. Arden was due for a visit. Her body started to come alive at just the thought of him, and that scared the hell out of her.
Remy wasn’t an idiot. She’d seen what had happened to her friends when they mated a werewolf—they became owned, controlled…and restricted. Arden was already taking cho
ices away from her and telling her what to do. Remy didn’t belong to anyone but herself, and she’d never been good with rules and restrictions.
Werewolves also seemed extremely potent. Her friends were proof of that as they all got knocked up pretty quick. No way was she ready for a baby...puppy...whatever. She needed to get out of dodge...well, shifter territory.
Remy wasn’t ready to lose her freedom. Arden already barely left her side. She wasn’t used to not having any alone time. She’d been on her own now for so long she didn’t know what to do with someone else in it.
The only thing holding her back from leaving was Faith, Sara, and Kirby. She didn’t want to leave them to fight this fight without her. Remy liked that she was helping fight the evil demons, but the werewolves that came with it were too much.
* * * *
Remy was surprised when Eve, Arden’s sister, came to visit her. Eve was different. She reminded Remy of herself, and Remy found it easy to talk to her. After she explained everything to Eve, Remy did something she’d never done in her life...she begged.
“I need to leave. I know you’re fighting the demons to stop them from taking over the world , but this life isn’t for me. I need freedom. Please help me. I promise I will come back, but right now, I need to be free. Please.”
Eve’s eyes darted around the room before they fell back on her. “I understand. Promise me you’ll come back.”
Remy eased out of bed, her feet shaky from weeks of healing and rare use. “I promise. Look, we’ll buy a cellphone and you’ll be the only number on it. I’ll talk to you all the time. Please, just help me. I feel like I’m being strangled and I can’t get air. I need to recover on my own. I need to be free.”
Eve sighed. “They will kill me if they find out I even helped you, let alone that I’m the one you escaped with.” She groaned. “But I can’t not help you, because I know how you feel. Get dressed. We have to go now before everyone comes back.”