by Jordan Marie
His Innocent Mate
Unforgiven Country Book One
Jenika Snow
Jordan Marie
Contents
The Wolf’s Innocent Mate
Blurb
1. Kendra
2. Wyatt
3. Kendra
4. Wyatt
5. Kendra
6. Wyatt
7. Kendra
8. Wyatt
9. Wyatt
10. Kendra
Epilogue One
Epilogue Two
Bonus Epilogue
Sneak Peek
Read More Jenika and Jordan
Contact the Authors
The Wolf’s Innocent Mate
Unforgiven Country, 1
The Wolf’s Innocent Mate
By Jenika Snow and Jordan Marie
www.JordanMarieRomance.com
[email protected]
www.JenikaSnow.com
[email protected]
Copyright © January 2019 by Jordan Marie and Jenika Snow
Photographer: Wander Aguiar Photography
Cover model: Andrew Biernat
Photo provided by: Wander Book Club
Editor: Kasi Alexander
Proofreader: Read by Rose
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED: The unauthorized reproduction, transmission, or distribution of any part of this copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in federal prison and a fine of $250,000.
This literary work is fiction. Any name, places, characters and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or establishments is solely coincidental.
Please respect the author and do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials that would violate the author’s rights.
Created with Vellum
Wyatt’s a shifter. A big bad wolf.
I’m a human girl.
I may be back in town to take care of my sick grandmother, but this is no fairytale.
I love him. I’ve loved him for years, but he’s forbidden to me.
I’ll never belong to him and if I tried, he’d not only devour me, eventually his one true mate would come along.
A wolf like him.
Even knowing that, I still seek him out—only wanting one small taste to live on before I return back to the city and leave him behind forever.
But something has changed.
Wyatt is refusing to let me walk away again. It can never work. Nowhere in the bedtime stories does the girl get to keep her wolf.
I try to resist, to be logical. Then, he whispers two little words that makes my heart stutter in my chest. Two little words that promises me everything I’ve ever wanted.
My mate.
Will it be safe to share my basket of goodies when the wolf I love flashes those big teeth at me, promising forever?
1
Kendra
I step into Billy’s Burnout Bar, my heart racing as I look around.
I still don’t know why I decided to come to Billy’s, aside from the fact I know the only man I’ve ever loved will be here.
The bar is packed, the jukebox in the corner blasting out some old country song. There are a few couples dancing on the worn and scuffed-up wooden floor, their boots making this clacking sound that can be heard over the music and conversation that fills the small interior.
It has been years since I’ve been back to Billy’s, since I’ve even stepped foot in the small town of Unforgiven Country. But with a name like that, who would want to come back?
I take several more steps inside, the front door closing behind me, my shoes crunching on the peanut shells that litter the floor. Billy’s is the local hangout in Unforgiven, actually, the only place anyone ever goes to let loose. It is situated right on the outskirts of town, and because of that, local law enforcement doesn’t bother this place or the patrons who frequent it. Here, there are a different set of laws and shifters enforce them, not the cops.
The town is too small, too close-knit to have any big chain businesses setting up. Everything is a mom and pop shop, and Billy’s is no different.
I knew he would be here. It’s the place where he hung out back in the day, a place most shifters frequent.
I look around the interior of the bar, some people I recognize. I don’t know if they’ll realize who I am. I’ve certainly changed since last time I was here.
Gone is my long, dark red hair, and in its place is a bob cut, dyed brunette.
New life. New city. New me.
Or at least that was my thinking when I left.
I push my bangs out of my eyes and scan the room. The music is so loud, the volume of the people laughing and talking giving me a headache. I close my eyes and inhale deeply. Exhaling slowly, I open up my mind and search out who I’ve come here to see.
Wyatt.
The man—wolf shifter—I’ve always loved.
He is also the one person I will never admit my feelings to. How can I? Wyatt is in line to be the Alpha of his pack. He’s expected to mate with one of his own kind. I’ve known that all along, but that didn’t stop my feelings for him from growing. It doesn’t stop this deep yearning and attraction I have for him. I’m not sure anything can.
Wyatt has always had this edge to him, has kept to himself, and I’ve always wanted him as mine, even though it is impossible. An Alpha wolf shifter and a psychic? The whole pack would revolt. I’m an outsider, but I know how things are done. I might love Wyatt, but he is not mine to have.
My dreams of being mated to Wyatt, of having children with him, a life … they’re just ridiculous fantasies. Or at least that’s what I’ve told myself, how I’ve talked myself out of telling him how I feel.
Instead of being honest with him and saying screw all the what-ifs, I ran from this place, from him.
Maybe we aren’t the best of friends, but I trusted him more than I ever have anyone in my life. So, I told him I needed to see the world, to find myself. And although I saw something move across his face, an expression that would forever be ingrained in my head, he let me go.
He let me do what I needed to do.
No stopping me.
No trying to talk me out of it. So, I took that as a sign.
Right then and there, I told myself it was best to keep how I felt to myself. Because if not, he would have broken my heart right in two. If Wyatt shared my feelings at all, he wouldn’t have let me walk away. I might not be a shifter, but I know that once they find their mate, they never let them go.
So, for the past two years, I’ve regretted leaving every single day, even if getting out of Unforgiven took me away from a controlling, drunken mother, and no opportunity.
I let my mind wander, open it up so I can hear the things people are saying, but not out loud.
The majority of what people think is about sex, drinking, and the simple pleasures of giving themselves over to someone. My gift—or at times a curse—allows me to hear what others think. Sometimes it is too much, a burden, something I wish I had never been born with. Other times it gives me insight into how to react to someone, how to approach things.
And right now, I count this as a gift as I sift through the sexual thoughts, the visual flashes of images that fill my head.
And then one string of thoughts catches my attention. It is thick and heavy, filled with this desperation … need, so strong it has me gasping. It’s familiar, like this string wrapped around my middle, pulling me closer. The desperation turns into arousal, hardcore lust.
Wyatt is looking right at me, his big body tucked away in the corner, the shadows partially concealing him. I should have known he’d spot me—sense me—as soon as I stepped through the door. His possessiveness takes me by surprise though. His hunger … his gaze is still locked on me. I look behind me just to assure myself that he doesn’t have someone else in his sight.
I don’t see anyone else, but I don’t try and probe Wyatt’s mind, don’t try and read him. It wouldn’t have made a difference anyway, because he locks it down fast, like he did all those years ago. It is like this thick brick wall, impenetrable, a force to be reckoned with. He’s always been hard to read, even when I glimpsed his mind, even when he gave me consent to see what he thought.
My breath lodges in my throat as Wyatt begins stalking me. His long muscular legs stride toward me, eating up the space between us in moves that are deliberate and precise. It appears my trip to see Wyatt is now going to consist of me facing my fears and talking to him for the first time in two years.
He isn’t giving me a choice.
2
Wyatt
I almost did a doubletake when I caught her scent in this fucking bar. She’s like the sweetest flower on the damn vine and I’ve been grieving the loss of it for two fucking years. The wolf inside of me has been pacing back and forth, barely resisting going wild and chasing my mate down and claiming her. Now that she’s back here of her own free will, nothing will stop me. I’m not letting her walk away from me again.
I zero in on her immediately. A snarl leaves my lips before I can stop it.
What in the fuck has she done to herself?
She’s lost weight. Her damn hipbones are pressing against that black, short skirt she’s wearing. Then there was her damn hair. Kendra had this thick mass of auburn hair that fell heavy around her face and reminded me of dusk, as the sun faded and light danced through the clouds in different hues and tones.
In the past, I couldn’t stop myself from touching her hair whenever the opportunity rose. Fuck, most of the time I made up excuses to run my fingers through it as often as I could. It was gone now, cut short and dyed a brown that looks expensive and pretty, but it isn’t the glory that belonged to my woman.
For probably the millionth time, I want to kick my ass for letting her walk away. For the hundredth time my wolf inside snarls and pulls against the restraints I keep on him. He wants free to claim his woman.
His very human woman.
And that’s the whole problem.
Kendra is human, physically weaker than my kind, and for a shifter who is destined to take over his pack … that can be a problem. Fuck, as many times as I’ve been over it, the scenarios are all the same. The females in my pack will eat my woman alive. An Alpha can’t have weaknesses, even if that was a human as a mate. Kendra would be a huge weakness to them and me.
Logically that’s what I know to be true, but in my heart my thoughts are different. In my heart, I truly believe the Fates have blessed me. They have picked out a beautiful mate who is sweet, smart, and brings me peace when we are together. She is also strong in her own right, holding more power than many shifters in my pack, whether they’d ever admit that or not.
Right now, however, having her this close after letting her go once is slowly killing me. I can’t stay away from her, that isn’t possible. Almost of their own volition, my legs begin moving, bringing me closer to her and with each step I take, a sense of rightness pours over me.
“Wyatt.”
She breathes my name and although she has taken great pains to change her outward appearance in the years since she’s been gone, that sweet, lyrical voice is still the same. It wraps around me like a siren’s call, drives deep inside and strokes across my wolf like a calming, healing touch.
“What are you doing here, Kendi?”
That isn’t what I intended to say, and I can tell by the pain that slashes across her face that my gruff words hurt her. My wolf howls with anger and I know my pack brothers hear him, because I can feel their gazes on me.
Fuck.
“No one ever called me Kendi but you,” she whispers, her voice sounding lost, her head bent as she looks at the ground. I want her looking at me, always, want those bright blue eyes trained on me.
She’s still so fucking innocent.
I like that. I like that she didn’t give another man what is rightfully mine. From the looks of her and the aroma of the city on her, I seriously doubted that she would still be a virgin. And the thought of another man touching my mate fueled an anger inside of me so blazing hot, it is a wonder it didn’t scorch the ground around me.
But she’s still pure.
“What are you doing back in town?”
She takes a couple of steps away from me. Immediately, I want to tell her to stop. I want to reach out, grab her and drag her body next to mine. I want to fuck her right here in this damn bar, throw her across a table and claim her from behind, bite down on her shoulder and mark her in the way of my people. I want everyone to know that my mate is home and she is mine.
I do none of those things.
“My grandmother is sick, so I came back to check on her,” she responds.
I frown. I haven’t heard that about her grandmother. Then again, I try not to get around Kendi’s family. Her mother is a toxic piece of shit and her father skipped town years ago—when Kendi was barely able to talk. Her grandmother seems to be a good woman. How she ever gave birth to Kendi’s mother is beyond me.
“When will you be leaving?”
“Are you so anxious to be rid of me?” she asks, hurt laced in every word. “I’m not sure. She’s not doing well and now that Mom has moved to Nevada she’s all alone. I’ve been thinking of staying.”
Fuck.
If Kendi is moving back to Unforgiven for good, I’m screwed. There’s no way I can stay away from her. Heaven help us both, there’s no way my wolf won’t claim her. I won’t be able to rein him in. Shit, I won’t be able to rein myself in.
We’re all screwed.
3
Kendra
We find ourselves back at Wyatt’s table, a beer for him and a glass of water in front of me. I don’t trust myself to drink alcohol, not when my arousal is already so out of control I’m barely hanging onto my restraint. What I want to do is hurl myself at him, tell him how much I’ve missed him, and make him claim me.
But I do none of that.
As I sit across from Wyatt, I can see how tense he is, as if he’s got something to say. Maybe he wants to tell me to leave, that Unforgiven is no longer my home.
I did leave two years ago, but the truth is I wanted to stay with him, wanted him to claim me, but he never made a move. I just assumed I wasn’t his mate, that he didn’t want me the way I did him.
His jaw is set hard, a muscle working underneath the scruff. His hair is shorter than the last time I saw it, the dark locks maybe a finger length long, haphazardly mussed around his head.
I glance down at his hand, one that’s big and strong, very masculine. His knuckles are white as he grabs his beer bottle. I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s just seconds away from crushing it, glass shattering everywhere.
I can tell my presence here affects him, but whether that’s in a good or bad way is yet to be seen.
“So, you might be staying in Unforgiven?” he asks and brings the bottle to his mouth, taking a long pull from it as he watches me over the rim.
“I was thinking about it,” I say honestly. I saw the flash of emotion cross over his face when I told him I might be staying in town permanently. I saw the way his eyes glowed yellow from his wolf, as if his inner animal was taking stock of how the situation was going.
He doesn’t say anything and I feel this heavy weight settle on my shoulders.
I should’ve called, shouldn’t have just inserted my life back into his like this. It isn’t right, and it isn’t fair to him.
We are so different, yet I feel he is—wa
s—the first person, the only one, who truly knew me. I’m a human, he’s a wolf. Technically, us being together will never work, right? He’s destined to lead his pack, to be Alpha. How will I work in that equation?
A psychic human who is more fragile than the weakest female wolf shifter in his pack.
Yeah, I see that going over real well with everyone, see his pack accepting me as much as a thorn in their paw. I could snort at the very thought.
I avert my gaze and look at how he rests his arm on the back of his chair, his finger slowly moving up and down the edge of it. I can feel him watching me, but I’m too afraid to look into his eyes, to see his emotions reflected back at me.
I hurt him when I left, I know that. Hell, I hurt myself by leaving.
But surely Wyatt would have known I had to leave in order to survive?
“I’m sorry for just barging into your life like this.” I stand and smooth my hands down my skirt, and then promptly curl my fingers into my palms. I don’t want him to see that my hands are shaking.
I see the way his nostrils flare and I know he’s reading me, taking in my emotions. I don’t have to say anything for him to know what’s going on inside of me.
He doesn’t say anything as he stares at me, but I can see the play of thought on his face. He’s thinking hard.
I nod my goodbye because I don’t know what else to say. I turn, ready to leave, to lick my wounds—so to speak—when I feel a big hand wrap around my wrist, pulling me to a stop. I look over my shoulder and see Wyatt holding on to me. I didn’t hear him get out of his chair, but that’s not unusual given the fact that this shifter is stealthy on the worst of days, and a fucking immortal on the best.