Embracing Ehrin (Ashland Pride Book 8)

by R. E. Butler

  Ehrin sometimes wondered if her DNA knew she wouldn’t be happy in a mating like that, and her hawk had hightailed it far away so she could be on her own.

  “Good morning,” Ehrin said. She took a mug from the cabinet and filled it with coffee from the pot.

  “Good morning, dear,” her mother replied.

  Her father cleared his throat, which was his way of saying ‘good morning.’ “The alpha called.”

  “I spoke to him.”

  She heard the rustle of the newspaper but didn’t face her parents until she’d fixed her coffee. Lifting the mug, she turned to them.

  Her father’s hands were folded on top of the newspaper. “Alpha Addison wanted me to remind you that Calvin’s offer still stands.”

  She didn’t say anything because she wasn’t sure what she should say. Part of her – the lunatic hawk-less female – wanted to tell them to jump off a bridge because the male was an asshole. Instead of giving in to the anger that surged through her, she took a sip of coffee and said nothing.

  “He’s very handsome,” her mother said, brushing her hands on the table as if she were wiping away invisible crumbs.

  Ehrin stifled the urge to roll her eyes. He was passably decent-looking, at best, but the fact that he was a huge jackass made him about as attractive as a troll under a bridge.

  “He thinks I’m flawed. How could you want me to mate a male who wants me to have surgery just so I don’t accidentally pass on my non-shifting genes?”

  “You’ve never lived on your own,” her father pointed out. “You don’t know what the real world is like. You need to mate Calvin because he can provide a stable home for you. If not having children is the price you pay for a secure future, you need to pay it.”

  Her eyes stung but she gritted her teeth and pushed the feelings way down in her gut. “I won’t give up on someday having a mate and a family. Why can’t you be on my side? Why do you have to side with the alpha and the nest’s archaic laws?”

  Her father’s eyes flashed, and his face turned as red as his hair. “You’re walking on thin ice, young lady. The alpha is our law. Perhaps you’re better off outside the nest if you have so little regard for our laws that you won’t take the opportunity to better your station.”

  “Better my station?” she huffed. “By going into a relationship with an asshole who thinks there’s something wrong with me?”

  “There is!” Her father’s voice thundered.

  She’d known since her teen years that her parents thought something was wrong with her, but they’d never said it outright until now. Maybe their hearts were in the right place, wanting her mated to know she’d be provided for. But could they honestly believe she’d be better off in a loveless mating than out on her own?

  “I’ll come back for my things after I’ve spoken to the alpha.”

  She poured the coffee into the sink, set the cup on the counter, and walked out of the house. The early spring morning was crisp, and she could hear birds singing in the decorative plum trees her father had planted for her mother. With the blue sky and sun shining, it seemed a shame to mar the day with an eviction, but that’s what was going to happen.

  She walked to the alpha’s home, a grand three-story mansion with big marble columns and an aviary filled with tall trees and flowering plants. Guards stood at the front door, and she ducked her head in deference to their status as warriors of the nest. “The alpha’s expecting me.”

  They didn’t say a word, simply opened the door and allowed her to walk inside.

  She felt oddly detached from things as she followed the sound of voices into the alpha’s study. Barnaby Addison was in his early fifties, and the lines that creased his face weren’t from smiling. He was very no-nonsense, especially when it came to the nest. Rules were rules, period.

  She would watch the news and see humans changing the world by protesting against unfair laws. But she didn’t have that option, and a lot of other shifter groups didn’t either. The only way to make a difference was to leave, but it wouldn’t change the nest after she was gone, except for the fact that she wouldn’t be seeing her parents again unless they chose to come visit her.

  Her heart ached a little, and she absently rubbed the space on her chest.

  “Sit,” Addison ordered. He was seated behind a grand mahogany desk that looked like it weighed about two tons. Standing on either side of him were the two highest ranked hawks in the nest, his beta and theto, and next to the beta was Calvin. He didn’t look happy, but then again he hadn’t ever smiled at her, not even when he offered to mate her as soon as she was barren.

  Taking one of the chairs across from the desk, Ehrin waited for several moments and tried not to fidget. It didn’t matter how old she was, she never got over being nervous in the alpha’s presence.

  He set a pen down on a notepad and steepled his long fingers. And then he raised his head and looked at her. She felt as though he could look right through her, see right into the core of who she was and know her innermost thoughts. It wasn’t possible, of course. Mind-reading wasn’t a hawk trait, thank goodness.

  “Calvin has graciously agreed to extend his offer one last time,” Addison said. “If you choose to mate him, you’ll first have a complete hysterectomy to ensure that you will never be able to procreate, and then, after you’ve healed, Calvin will mate you as required by our laws.”

  She opened her mouth to answer, but nothing came out. She was more shocked and insulted than she’d been when Calvin gave her the mating terms previously. Then, he’d suggested a tubal ligation, but now the alpha was telling her that she had to have a full-blown hysterectomy, for no medical reason other than the fact that Calvin didn’t want to chance having children like her.

  She couldn’t stop herself from placing her hand over her abdomen to protect her future unborn babies. He wanted to take her future away just to keep her in the nest. As if it were such a privilege that it was worth doing untold damage to her body by taking out her reproductive organs.

  She wanted to lash out and throw something at the alpha, and hopefully hit Calvin in the process. She wanted to rant and rave, go on social media and call out the archaic nest, demand reform. But what she did instead was what she’d known she would do when she faced him.

  “I won’t be accepting Calvin’s mating, now or in the future. I have every right to find a mate and have a family. If the laws say I have to mate or leave, then I choose leaving.” Her hands began to tremble as the alpha’s face turned a deep red and his eyes flickered with the gold of his hawk.

  He rose slowly, planting his hands on the desk and spreading out his fingers so she could see that the nails had darkened and lengthened into talons.

  “You’re not choosing to leave, you’re choosing to exile yourself from our nest forever. You will be like a cancer that we cut from our ranks, a diseased body part sawed off and tossed to the fire. If you set foot in our territory, you will be killed on sight.”

  Now she knew why her parents had pushed for her to stay. They’d known – but hadn’t shared with her – that exiling meant she wasn’t allowed to come back under penalty of death. It was a very harsh punishment for wanting to follow her heart.

  She glanced at Calvin, who looked at her with indifference. She knew she couldn’t abide having a mate who didn’t care about her one way or the other. What the hell kind of life was that?

  “I’m still choosing exile.”

  Her heart was pounding in her ears now, and her skin was clammy.

  The alpha moved so swiftly that he was a blur, behind the desk one moment and in front of her the next. He grasped her collar and lifted her from the chair, tossing her to the floor with an angry snarl. She hit hard and rolled to her knees, and when she straightened, he slashed one hand at her, catching her jaw and cheek with his talons. She screamed in surprise and pain as the cuts to her face burned and bled. Pressing her hand to the wound, she fought the tears that filled her eyes.

  “Now you’re marked
in exile,” Addison said. “No nest will accept you, and all who see you will know that you’re unworthy. You have ten minutes to get out of the nest’s territory or my males will finish what I started.”

  He turned and moved back to the desk, and she stared mutely at how easily he’d gone from furious to calm, from deadly to passive. It could’ve been worse, she supposed – he could’ve killed her or taken half her face off.

  Scurrying to her feet, she rushed from the den and raced for her parents’ home. It didn’t surprise her to see her father standing next to her car. Her mother wasn’t outside, but she thought she saw a shadow through the curtains of the front room.

  In the back seat of her car were two trash bags. Her purse was on the front seat.

  “Did you know he would use his talons on my face?” she asked her father. Her skin prickled where blood was running down her neck from the wounds.

  “If you had read our history, you would’ve known that for yourself.”

  “How could you let him do that to your only child?” she demanded, betrayal licking at her insides like a flame.

  “We have no children anymore.”

  Turning on his heels, he strode to the house, leaving Ehrin alone. The front door shut and the deadbolt slid into place, another reminder that she wasn’t welcome in the home of her childhood any longer.

  Tears slipped over her cheeks and made the wound hurt more, which kicked her into gear. She needed to get out of the territory. Getting behind the wheel, she pulled her cell from her back pocket and texted Zelda, explaining she was on the way. Then she put her foot on the gas and backed out of the driveway. She shifted into gear and didn’t look back as she drove away from the only home she’d ever known.

  When she was an hour outside of the nest’s territory, she stopped at a pharmacy. She hadn’t looked at her face yet, but she pulled down the visor and lifted the lid for the lighted mirror. She had four slashes from under her jaw across her left cheek. They were already healing thanks to her shifter genes, but she knew she needed to clean and bandage them or they would look terrible as they healed.

  She wanted to cry at how awful she felt inside and out, her parents’ betrayal like a hot knife through her heart, but she knew having a meltdown in the parking lot wasn’t going to change anything. She unbuckled her seat belt and turned in the seat, tearing open the two trash bags and seeing what her parents had packed for her. The suitcase she’d started packing wasn’t in the car. Finding a stocking cap and a scarf, she pulled the hat down low on her head and tucked the scarf around her neck in hopes of not drawing attention to her face. Checking her reflection again, she grabbed her wallet and hurried into the building.

  After buying what she needed, she returned to her car, cleaned her face, and used steri-strips to close the claw marks, smeared healing ointment over them, and covered the area with a wide gauze pad. She secured the pad to her skin with medical tape, then cleaned up the items and looked at herself in the mirror.

  The alpha had assumed his claws would leave a terrible scar, maybe because she couldn’t shift. Her healing wasn’t as quick as it would’ve been if she could shift and accelerate it as her people could, but she still had pretty good healing genes, which was one of the few things she was currently thankful for.

  Exhaling, she turned on the car and got back on the road, heading for Zelda’s. At least in her friend’s house, no one would think she was flawed. That was no way to live.

  Chapter 3

  Friday afternoon, Domino finished taping up the last of the third-grade art projects on the wall in the school’s cafeteria. It was ‘parents’ night,’ when the kids would bring their parents to take part in different school activities, including the art show. It was his first year as a part-time art teacher at Ashland Elementary, and he freaking loved his job. He'd thought he was happiest when he was creating a carving for a client from his website, or spending time with his family, but teaching young kids how to create things was so cool he thought he’d even pay to be able to do it. That he could get paid to hang out with kids and teach them art was something he’d always dreamed about.

  He absently ran his hand over his white hair and then looked around the room. Each wall had a grade on it for kindergarten through third, and then fourth through sixth-grade lined the halls. He felt someone watching him, and he turned slowly, his panther ready to defend if necessary.

  Sara, an office secretary, smiled at him from the open door. He stifled a groan. Sara was a thirty-something divorcee with two kids, an ex who was apparently an ass, and a desire to be more than just friends with Dom. It was always a little flattering when a female thought a male was attractive, but she wasn’t his mate and he’d been clear about that from the beginning. He figured at this point, she was just trying to wear him down. He could take her to bed for a tumble, but he was a package deal – he and his stepbrother Henry were planning to share their truemate, whenever they found her. So far, she hadn’t made an appearance. And while Dom had dated in the past, once he and Henry had become family through Dom’s mother, Rue, mating Henry’s father, John, and also Henry’s uncle, James, Dom felt like waiting until they found their mate was good for both of them. Ashland was a conservative town, but mountain lions shared mates, and although Dom and Rue were albino panthers, John, James, Henry, and the rest of the pride were lions.

  “Hello, Sara,” Dom said.

  “Looks wonderful in here,” she said. “You’ve done amazing things this year.”

  He hung up the final picture and gathered his things, knowing he had just enough time to run home and grab a bite to eat before he came back for the show. Sara put her hand against the opposite door and gave him a sly smile.

  “The kids are with my ex. Want to grab a bite at the diner?”

  She made a strange purring sound in her throat, and it made his cat’s hackles rise. He didn’t mind a female who knew what she wanted, but Sara was barking up the wrong tree.

  “No, thank you.”

  “Aw, we could just have dessert, if you’d rather.” She smiled and looked up at him through her lashes.

  “Sara, I’ve explained that I’m a shifter and I only want to be with my mate. You’re not her, so I don’t have any interest in being with you.”

  Her eyes widened and then she frowned, swiftly dropping her arm that was blocking the doorway. “I see.”

  For a moment, he considered saying something to take the sting out of his statement, but he didn’t want to do anything that might encourage her to continue asking him out. Although harsh, it was better this way. He didn’t want to hurt her feelings, but she needed to take a hint. He stepped past her and strode down the hall, his phone buzzing when he left the building.

  “Hey, Henry.”

  “I couldn’t get anyone to cover my shift, so I have to work tonight. I wanted to come see your show.”

  “It’s no problem.”

  “Since our parents can’t come, I wanted to be there to take lots of pictures and embarrass you.”

  He unlocked his truck with a snort. “Thanks.”

  “That’s what bros are for, right? I think I read that somewhere.”

  “You’re reading the wrong things.”

  Henry laughed. “Good luck with the show. Mom made an enormous meatloaf and left a plate for you, but I can’t guarantee that one of the cousins didn’t get to it first.”

  “Thanks for the warning. See you later.”

  “Bye.”

  Dom and his mother had moved into the boarding house the pride called home three years earlier. She’d been exiled from her panther clan when she shifted as a teen and was albino. Her dark hair had changed to white, too. Her clan was so ass-backward and archaic that they believed her white fur and hair were a sign of evil, so they branded her on her back and tossed her out. She spent most of his life afraid of being caught. Having him was in direct violation of the clan laws, and both of them could’ve been killed. He’d actually almost died at the hands of the clan leader, but wi
th the pride’s help, Rue had fought and won their freedom. Now they lived out in the open, not caring what anyone thought about their white hair.

  He parked and walked into the house, poking his head into the kitchen and waving at his mom.

  “I’m gonna change.”

  “I saved you a plate,” she said as she dunked her hands into a sudsy sink.

  “How was work?” John asked.

  “Good. It’ll be cool to meet the parents tonight.”

  After grabbing a fast shower, he changed into jeans and a button-down shirt. Rolling the sleeves to the elbows, he headed down to the kitchen, where he ate two thick slices of meatloaf topped with American cheese and extra ketchup, plus a generous helping of au gratin potatoes.

  “Anything interesting happen today?” John asked as he joined Dom at the table.

  “That secretary asked me out again.”

  His brows rose. “Humans are funny like that.”

  “Yeah. They can’t take a hint.”

  “Well,” Rue said as she sat next to John, “more likely she doesn’t understand why you need your cat to be on board with your mating choices. Humans date someone, then they fall in love and get married. There’s no being inside them that pushes them to one particular person.”

  “I guess so,” Dom said. “I’d really like to find our mate soon.”

  John chuckled. “I was in my forties before I found your mom.”

  “Don’t jinx me!”

  Rue nudged John and winked. “You’ll meet her when the time is right for all of you.”

  Dom knew his mother was right. He finished eating and went up to brush his teeth. “Can I wear one of your ties?” he called down the stairs.

  “Sure! Help yourself,” John answered.

  Dom found one that matched the dark green shirt he was wearing. He put it on and returned to the kitchen, giving his mother a kiss on the cheek.