The Wolf's Mate Book 1: Jason & Cadence

by R. E. Butler

  “She started it.” Alice sniffed.

  Callie whined, “She did not you jerk!”

  Renee gave a little shake to Alice’s arm and said, “You don’t pick on your own, Alice.”

  “The mutt’s not one of us.” She sniffed and her two friends joined in.

  “That’s enough. Go on and play or I’ll have to speak to your fathers.” The girls walked away without another glance and Renee helped Callie off her knees and gave long looks to both of them. “You two go on and play.”

  After that, they’d been joined at the hip. There was safety in numbers, and they were fortunately in classes together so they were as close as two kids could be.

  “I was so glad when Alice and her cronies left to go to that other pack in Tennessee after graduation. She was such a bitch.” Cadence said, finishing up her plate.

  “Yeah, me too. Did I ever say thank you for that? No one ever stuck up for me before. Or believed I was worth anything much.”

  “You mentioned it a few times over the years, Cal. You were my first real friend, too. It would have been much harder for me if you weren’t in my life.”

  After her fourth cup of coffee, Grey, the man who had bought the restaurant from her father's estate and was part of Jake’s pack, came up to the table with a large cardboard box with numerous styrofoam boxes in it. "Hey, darlin'. Drop this off at the garage, would you?"

  Cadence raised her brow over her coffee. "Do I look like a delivery girl?"

  He sighed. "Come on, I'll comp your meal."

  "You comp all my meals." She pointed out, irritably.

  "I'll comp Callie's, too. Please? I'm shorthanded and the lunch rush is going to start. I'll owe you." She would have rather stayed to help serve lunch, honestly.

  She narrowed her eyes at him. "Tell me why everyone is acting so strangely towards me since I got back."

  He went pale and swallowed loudly. "What are you talking about?"

  "You know what I'm talking about. Chris is hitting on me, I'm getting weird eyes from Jason's pack, and Jake's fit to be tied about everything I do."

  His lips pursed and she could hear his teeth grinding together. "I can't honey, I just can't. It's nothing bad, but that's all I can say. That's all anyone can say." He glanced at Callie who darted a look away.

  "You guys fucking suck." She motioned him away and groused at Callie over her coffee. After a trip to the bathroom, Callie and Cadence drove to the garage. Cadence carried the box in after Callie hopped out and disappeared around the back, forcing her to go inside alone. Michael was leaning over the counter expectantly.

  "Sweet. Did Grey guilt you into bringing it over?"

  She nodded, sliding the box to him. "Hey, do me a favor." He said digging into the box and pulling out a box. "Take this to Jason, so I can deliver the rest of this stuff."

  "Nope." She turned to leave and he begged.

  “Please, Cades. It’s just a box. It’s not like I asked you to deliver military secrets to China.”

  Just a box. Yeah, and a Harley was just a bicycle. “You could have delivered it yourself in the time it took to argue with me.”

  “So could you.” He arched a brow at her.

  She gave up eventually, because Michael was very persuasive when he wanted to be, and annoying when he set his mind on something. She grabbed the box, stalked down the hallway to Jason's office and tried to ignore her hammering pulse and suddenly sweaty hands. Without knocking, she opened the office door and Callie yelped in surprise and then looked guilty. She was around the side of the desk by his chair, leaning very close next to him.

  Cadence stared slack jawed at the two of them for a long moment, absorbing her guilty and flushed face and his blank face. Jason cleared his throat. “Is that for me, Cadence?”

  Cadence chuckled, and it came out sounding a lot more upset than she intended it to, because she wasn’t even sure why she was upset. She mumbled an affirmative, dropped the box on his desk, and walked away without another word. Something about the whole situation bothered her.

  She walked out to her car, ignoring Callie as she called her and Michael as he said goodbye and when she opened the car door and Callie was standing in the door of the garage she realized what her brain had been trying to tell her. Was it possible that Jason and Callie were together?

  “I gotta run, Callie, I’ll...catch you later.” She had to clear her throat twice. Callie didn’t protest as Cadence drove off but she did look hurt. Her brain filled up the silence in the car with more thoughts. This was why everyone was acting so weird? Because her best friend was screwing the love of her life? Callie knew her feelings for Jason and she had been fucking him? Cadence felt like her heart was being squeezed in a vise.

  When she sat in the drive in front of her house and turned off the engine, she listened to the errant train in her head and then growled at herself. She was stronger than this, wasn’t she? If Jason and Callie were together now, then she could be happy for them. Couldn’t she? Didn’t she want Callie to be in love and find a husband and have babies? Didn’t she want Jason to be happy? He was so moody and brooding, he deserved a little happiness, even if her own was leaking away fast.

  Her cell phone buzzed and it was Callie. She didn’t want to talk to her. Not right now. She went into the house and turned off the cell and unplugged the house phone because the near constant ringing was getting on her nerves. Burying herself in her pillow on the bed, she let herself feel bad and be all pathetic for a while, and then she shook all that off. She had survived a childhood with a drunk father who thought wolves were the devil incarnate and had made her feel like she was some unholy spawn and not his own child. She could get over this. She would. Even if a part of her was dying inside, she could put on a tough front and not let them know that she was aching and falling apart. Her heart was shattering in the wake of the idea that Callie and Jason were together, even if it wasn’t confirmed.

  She loved Callie like a sister, but the thought of her in Jason's arms poked holes in her façade of calm. She shoved those thoughts aside like a bad dog begging for table scrapes and drifted off into a restless sleep.

  Staring into her closet before work, she impatiently shoved the hangers back and forth before finally settling on black jeans, Harley boots, and a fitted tank with a silver dragon that stretched from one side around to the back. Almost the polar opposite of what she’d worn the night before, her teasing, sexy attitude hadn’t reared its head because she was feeling a little more broken than she had been when she’d driven into town.

  She wanted to be able to pretend that she could handle seeing Callie and Jason together, so she steeled herself as she walked into the bar, prepared to watch him with his arm around her, whispering in her ear all the things that she wanted him to whisper to her. When she put her hands down on the bar top and let her gaze drift across the crowded bar to the table where Jason and his closest friends were sitting, she was surprised that Callie was not sitting next to him. Jason met her eyes and she wanted to believe that there was love in the depths of those pretty blue eyes, but the little nagging voice in her head reminded her that Callie and Jason together explained a lot of what had been happening since she got to town. Callie telling her that she had choices – she meant choices other than Jason. Chris telling her that she could choose a pack, he meant Jake’s because the only reason she would choose Jason’s pack was for Jason. Sure, she loved Michael, but in a completely non-sexual way. Like a lamp. She loved him, but didn't want him like that.

  For one shining moment, she let herself sulk in pity at losing the man she’d loved for nearly her entire life, and then went to work. Drinks flowed and the clink of glasses against the bar top like something of a song, and although she was not nearly as flirty and fun as she’d been the night before, she buried herself in work.

  It wasn't long before Callie came up to the bar. "Cadence, can we talk, please?"

  She gave her blank face. She could be civil but she didn’t want to have any soul
baring conversations right now. "Did you want something to drink?"

  She looked like she was going to cry. "Cades, please, tell me what's wrong."

  She ground out, "I said I'm working, Callie." She walked away trembling and tended to others that were waiting. Eventually, Jake pulled her aside. "What's bothering you? It's like someone sucked all the life out of you. Where's the ballsy girl that knocked Bruce backwards with my baseball bat?"

  She sighed. "I don't know, Jake, I just, too much is changing. I thought that I knew what I wanted and it's like I have no idea anymore." She wasn't sure she could tell Jake that she didn't know how she would handle Jason and Callie together, if they really were. She was afraid to ask anyone for confirmation, because if she was right and they were together, then that meant everything she'd loved was gone in a blink. She could get through it, get over him eventually, she hoped. But it would take time. Lots and lots of time. For now, it felt as though her heart had been cracked into a million pieces.

  "Look, I'll tell you something I should have told you a long time ago. You either fight for what you want or you roll over and take what's given to you. You do have choices. There is always a choice." Again with the word choice. She nodded at him and went back to work, very thankful when she had nearly zero interaction with Jason's wolves although she was very aware of exactly where he was all the time.

  All night she felt like she was being watched intently from the direction of Jason’s booth, but every time she looked that way he wasn’t looking at her and by the end of the night she was beginning to think she had a serious screw loose. Chris and Brett appeared to walk her out when Jake decided he’d had enough of her not being her normal self, whatever that was. The man couldn't be pleased no matter how she acted. It was before closing and she was relieved to go. She wouldn't have to think about the bar again for another week, although she would have to face everyone at the bonfire.

  "Come on, sweetheart." Chris pulled her against him, his arm around her shoulder, and walked her out with Brett on her other side. They talked about the bonfire, and she said she didn't think she was going to go. "Of course you are." Chris said. "It's the first one since you're back in town. And plus you owe me a dance."

  "Chris." She protested, blandly.

  "Nope. I'll even pick you up. How's that sound?"

  She gave him a narrowed look and he held up his hands. "I swear it's on the up and up. Come on, I'll bring you flowers. I even know your favorite."

  "Do you?" She was curious now. A few guys in college had sent her flowers but no one had ever gotten her favorite right.

  "Yep." He grinned and wiggled his brows at her and she felt one of the very tiny cracks in her heart heal a bit. Chris, was he a choice that Jake had referred to? Chris didn't like her that way, did he? Why now? Why this time when she'd come home? Because she was not leaving, although she hadn't decided that officially, or was it more than that?

  "Okay. But it's not a date."

  He pretended to be insulted. "Of course it's not a date. I wouldn't take you to something ridiculous like a community bonfire at my dad's house for our first date. Give me a little more credit than that, sheesh." He leaned down and gave her a lingering kiss on the cheek and said, "I'll pick you up at 8."

  Brett gave her a quick kiss and they both disappeared back in the bar once she was locked in her car. She did notice when she pulled out of the parking lot that Callie and Michael were outside, talking quickly, gesturing angrily. Whatever.

  She finished painting her room on Sunday, a pretty taupe brown color with a little pink in it, that matched the new comforter and curtains from Bed Bath & Beyond. She had calculated and bought enough paint to paint the entire inside of the house and she was determined to do it no matter how long it took. It was kind of like exorcising her father’s demon from the house and making it hers. Painting over the eggshell white of the master bedroom and replacing all the furniture had been the first part in making the house her own and making it into a real home.

  Both Michael and Callie called all day, but it was easier to ignore them than to face a painful truth. She dressed for the cool night in dark jeans, hiking boots, a white fitted tank with a dark purple pull over that looked like it had been splashed with black paint, and her leather jacket.

  When the doorbell rang at 8, Chris was standing on the front porch with a bouquet of sweet peas, her favorite flower. She felt another little crack heal and took the bouquet and pulled him down for a tight hug and kissed his cheek. "You are adorable, Chris. How did you know what my favorite flower is?" He followed her into the kitchen, looking delicious in dark jeans and a tight black t-shirt. Nearly every wolf would be wearing just about the same thing, at least the ones in their age group. He had a leather jacket on, not one of the motorcycle jackets but a fitted dark brown one that was very soft.

  "I think it's just one of those things I've always remembered. My mom used to grow them, in the flower beds, and you always picked them, made crowns for yourself. And I think you tried to put one on me, once, too." He grinned, leaning against the refrigerator, watching while she pulled a vase down from the cabinet and filled it with water. They were very pretty and they smelled incredible. She had no clue where he got them in the fall, but they'd probably cost him a good bit from a florist.

  "If I ask you something, will you be straight with me?" Turning around, she leaned her butt against the kitchen table where she set the vase down in the center.

  He went very still and then relaxed. "If I can be. You know that there are things that I'm not allowed to tell you, because you're not technically pack."

  "Never mind then." She sighed and reached for her jacket. He picked it up for her, holding it open, and she slid her arms into it while he pulled it up over her shoulders, sweeping her hair aside and lingering with his hands on her shoulders. "If you're wondering why I've picked now, to be extra sweet to you, then you have to know that part of it is because you're done with college and not taking off again."

  "This is you being extra sweet?" She gave him a smirk, turning around to look at him.

  "Well, sweeter than I used to be, anyhow." He laughed. "Cadence, I've known you my whole life. Hell, I was in the hospital when you were born, screaming little thing that you were. I've never had a friend, a real friend that was a girl, except for you and I think I haven't really been as nice to you, or as friendly, as I should be. I just want you to know that you have options, for your future." He held out his hand to her, and they walked through the house and out onto the front porch, stopping while she locked up.

  "What's your future look like, Chris?" He opened the passenger door of his sleek black pickup truck and she sat down. He looked thoughtful as he shut her door and walked around to his side, opening his own door and sitting down.

  “Well," He started the truck up, glancing at her with a half smile and said, "I'm not really sure. The pack wants my dad to step down in the next few years, and that's going to be tough to deal with. He's a great alpha; it will be hard to fill his shoes. And I can't exactly have the get togethers at the condo. Somehow I think the association would frown on about 70 wolves showing up to hang out and blare rock music."

  She laughed as he pulled out of the driveway. The darkness enveloped them, the headlights bouncing along the dirt road that led from her driveway out to a rural route that led across town to his parents’ house, nestled back in the woods on a hundred acres. "I should probably find a mate, too." He said suddenly, picking up their conversation. "Packs don't like it when the alpha is single."

  "Why is that?" She looked at him in surprise.

  "Well, because it makes the females fight for the position, for one. You see how the females in Jason's pack act. Any female that even looks at him sideways gets trouble from the others. Until he chooses someone, it will always be like that, and that screws up the men, too."

  "Why?"

  He sighed in an exasperated sort of way but smiled. "Because the females don't want to pick a mate on the off-chan
ce that the alpha might pick them. His pack wouldn't be so volatile if he had a mate, he's hobbling his own people. It's the natural order of things for wolves. Alphas are supposed to come in pairs, one male and one female, to balance each other and protect each other, and to protect the pack. A female alpha can't really protect the males, anymore than a male alpha could deal with the females, so for a pack to be in harmony, to feel safe, there have to be two. Get it?" He gave her a rakish raise of his brows and she laughed.

  "Yeah. Your dad has explained a lot of werewolf hierarchy to me over the years."

  When they parked in the grass at the front of the farmhouse, Chris came around and opened her door for her and held out his hand. "A lot of the hierarchy is bullshit, but when it's working right, it just - works. I meant what I said earlier about making choices. Our pack runs smoothly, and you're already part of our family. You should give it some thought." She was thinking, actually. Was he asking her to be his mate? So casually? Was that how they did it? She'd never asked before, how a male and female end up together, but she’d always assumed it involved something physical like dragging her back to his house by her hair. Wolves did everything over the top. Even though she cared about Chris a great deal, she had to think that when she did decide to be with a man forever that she’d want to know he at least loved her, not that he was just making a good business decision.

  He held her hand the whole way around the house and pulled her inside where his mother practically tackled her. She held her face in her hands and smiled broadly. "Sweet heavens, you get more beautiful every time I see you. Doesn't she, Chris?" She gave him a look and he rolled his eyes, "I think I may have mentioned that to her once or twice."

  Renee was thick waisted but tall, and a real bitch, but in a good way. She was female alpha for a reason, not just because Jake had claimed her as his alpha mate, but because she could take out anyone, anywhere. Even now, when she was closer to 60 than 50, she looked as young as ever. She made Cadence miss her mom.