by R. E. Butler
Auden
Were Zoo Book Seven
By R. E. Butler
Copyright 2019 RE Butler
Auden (Were Zoo Book Seven)
By R. E. Butler
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Cover by CT Cover Creations
This ebook is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination and not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locations is coincidental.
Disclaimer: The material in this book is for mature audiences only and contains graphic sexual content and is intended for those older than the age of 18 only.
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Editing by Hot Tree Editing
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Thanks to Shelley & Joyce for beta reading.
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Auden (Were Zoo Book Seven)
By R. E. Butler
In the tradition of their people, owl shifter Jessica Thompson’s parents have chosen a mate for her. On the way to a celebratory hunt to meet her arranged mate, a group of hunters spies them and she’s separated from her nest among the flurry of bullets. Injured and disoriented, she crash-lands in a zoo.
Wolf shifter Auden James has lived at the Amazing Adventures Safari Park his whole life, and he loves working on the VIP tours they’re hopeful will bring soulmates to the shifters who live in secret underground. When he takes a shift as a security guard, he watches something crash in the lion paddock and rushes to the scene, where he finds an injured owl. As the owl slowly changes into a beautiful female, Auden knows he’s in the presence of his soulmate.
But Jess’s nest isn’t about to let her go without a fight. When a betrayal puts everyone in danger, will Jess and Auden survive?
Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Coming Next from R. E. Butler
Contact the Author
More Works by R. E. Butler
Holding Honor (Ashland Pride Book Nine) Coming Soon
Chapter 1
Auden James climbed behind the wheel of the fourth Jeep in line at the safari tour in the Amazing Adventures Safari Park. He not only worked as a driver for the VIP tours, he also lived underneath the park with his pack of wolf shifters. He’d been at the park his whole life, along with his parents and younger brother, Evan.
Brent walked toward them with a human female. She was smiling and waving at another female in line behind her, and Auden figured they were friends.
“Hey, guys, this is Lacey. Lacey, these are my friends, Auden and Jasper. They’ll take good care of you.”
“Hi, Lacey,” Jasper said as he offered her his hand. “Have you ever been on a VIP tour before?”
“No,” she said, brushing her blonde bangs out of her eyes. “My friend and I got coupons in the mail a while ago, but we weren’t able to use them until now. I wish we could be together in the Jeep.”
“We like to keep it to one VIP in each vehicle so you’ll get a personal tour instead of a group one, which isn’t as fun,” Jasper explained.
“Cool.”
A voice crackled over the radio. “Paddock One is clear.”
“Heard,” Auden said into the radio. “Jeep Four heading out.”
“Hold on, it gets a little bumpy,” Jasper said.
Auden pressed on the gas, and the Jeep rolled forward with a lurch before it continued on toward the first paddock, where the elephant shifters were waiting. The VIP tours were started when the leaders of the shifter groups who called Amazing Adventures home had wanted to do something about the lack of their people finding their soulmates. After much thought, they’d come up with the VIP tours and sent out coupons to single males and females in the tri-state area. In all the months the tours had been going on, however, only three mates had been found through them – Adriana, Celeste, and Rhapsody.
Auden wasn’t sure if they were effective or not, but the alphas of the shifter groups weren’t going to stop them anytime soon.
He stopped at the elephant paddock and watched as Jasper led Lacey to the tall chain link fence. He gave her some facts about the big creatures and took her picture. They waited for the telltale sign that one of the elephants had recognized Lacey as its soulmate, but none came, so they moved on.
When the tour was finished and they dropped off Lacey, Auden parked the Jeep with the others and signed out.
Silvanus, a wolf in charge of the tours, took the keys from Auden and hung them up in a cabinet. “How were the tours?”
“Fine,” Auden said, rolling his shoulders. The tours ran once an hour from three to eight, Friday through Sunday nights.
“Just fine?” he asked, arching a brow.
“Well, how long have we been doing these and hardly any mates have been found?”
He hummed. “The alphas won’t stop them. They believe it’s the right thing for our people.”
“I know,” Auden said. “It just seems kind of futile.”
“The way I look at it is, if my soulmate was out there holding a ticket and just hadn’t had time to come for a tour, I’d be pretty pissed if there weren’t any for her to go on because our people lost hope.”
“Good point.”
“I heard your parents talking about Evan going to visit another pack.”
He nodded. Evan wanted to be mated, and he didn’t want to wait for his soulmate to show up on the tour. Even though he was only twenty-two, he was ready to start the next chapter of his life. The wolf alpha, Joss, had ties to a large pack in Virginia, and there was talk of the two packs exchanging unmated males for a while to see if any of them would find a mate.
There was a difference between a mate and a soulmate, though. A mate was chosen based on criteria other than fate, but soulmates were made for each other and, in his opinion, it was worth waiting for. His parents weren’t soulmates. They’d chosen each other and started a family. But Auden didn’t want to just choose a mate; he wanted to find the one female on the planet meant for him, and if he had to wait for her, then he would. He just wasn’t sure if the tours were going to bring her to him or not.
However she appeared, he hoped she’d show up soon.
“He’s ready to start a family,” Auden said.
“Me, too, but I don’t want to settle.”
“It feels like that, doesn’t it? Just choosing a mate and not waiting.”
Silvanus nodded. “My parents never mated. Eventually my father found his soulmate, but my mother still hasn’t. She might never, but she said she’d rather be unmated than have mated my father and prevented him from finding his soulmate. You have to wonder what happens to the soulmate if one of them mates someone else.”
“I’ve wondered myself. Hopefully the fates aren’t too cruel and they’re able to find someone to love. It would be a shame if they were just wandering around miserable for the rest of their days.”
“That’s damn depressing.”
Auden chuckled. “Sorry. You going to the party?”
“Yep. You?”
“Yeah, though I agreed to take a shift to patrol tonight,
so I can’t stay too late.”
“I’ll see you there,” Silvanus said, watching as the last Jeep rolled into the parking area and stopped.
Auden headed out of the safari tour area to the employee cafeteria. Entering a code at the door, he walked in, finding a few of the shifters inside, eating a late meal. He greeted them as he wove through the tables to a short hallway, where he entered another code, then walked down the steps that led to the market underground. He often ordered meals there, since he wasn’t much of a cook. After walking through the market, he unlocked the door to the wolves’ home, a large room full of dozens of personal dens.
The walls and ceiling were painted to resemble a forest, and what looked like rock-covered dens was actually the façade on the exterior of small homes. Auden and Evan shared a den with two bedrooms, a small kitchen, and a family room with an electric fireplace.
Eventually, he or his brother would have a mate, and one of them would move out and find another den. He wanted his brother to be happy and find a mate, but he really, really hoped he’d find his first.
And not just a mate, but his soulmate.
Wherever she was, he couldn’t wait to meet her.
He just hoped she showed up soon.
Chapter 2
Jessica Thompson knew something was up when her father came into her room and told her to join him and her mother in the family room. It wasn’t that she didn’t normally hang out with her parents; the request from her stoic father had just seemed very formal, even for him. She climbed down from the perch on one of the branches of the tree their house was built around. Her bedroom was on the second floor of a treehouse her father had built for her mother before their mating day. She loved her bedroom because of the huge branch that wove through the middle of it, and the perch that had been added when she was young gave her a place to hang out.
Being an owl shifter meant Jessica loved nature, particularly trees. Unlike natural owls, who were generally solitary creatures, owl shifters stayed in big groups called nests and were ruled by a king and queen. Their nest was in the area of New Jersey known as the Pinelands, where their territory spanned two hundred acres of forest. Every family within the nest had built a treehouse high off the ground.
“I’ll be right there,” she told her father.
He left the room without another word. She scanned the floor for her shoes, which she’d tossed down after deciding to read for a bit on the perch. Finding one under the perch and one in the far corner, she slipped them on and headed for the family room.
Her brows lifted when she walked into the room and found the king and queen sitting on the sofa, her parents on the love seat.
“Hello,” she said tentatively.
Something major must’ve been going on, because the king and queen didn’t just show up at homes for no reason. Her mind spun as she sat on a kitchen chair that had been placed next to the love seat.
“We understand that congratulations are in order,” King Ahar said.
Her mind blanked for a moment, and in the pause, her father explained, “Your graduation.”
“Oh,” she said with a forced chuckle. “Thank you.”
Owls didn’t go to public school. Not only because their people were reclusive, but also because humans didn’t know about their existence. It would be devastating if humans discovered shifters were real, so they took every precaution to ensure they weren’t revealed. After being homeschooled along with others her age, Jessica had attended college online, completing a double major in ornithology and horticulture.
Her parents hadn’t been terribly supportive of her interest in attending college; owl females traditionally didn’t work outside of the home, preferring instead to be housewives and mothers. But ever since she was little, she wanted to do something more. Exactly what that more was, she didn’t know, but going to college had been the first step. Her best friend, Rory, had supported her 100 percent and helped her find the courage to attend college. She’d graduated two days ago, and the only acknowledgment she’d gotten from her parents had been a simple “Congratulations.” Rory, on the other hand, took her out for a night on the town at a beachside bar, where they’d danced the night away and talked about their futures.
“We’ve got some wonderful news,” her mother said.
“Oh?”
“We’ve found an excellent male for your mate,” her father said. He looked so pleased with himself; if he’d been in his shift, he would’ve been preening.
For a moment, Jessica couldn’t breathe. Her chest was tight, and her throat felt like a hand had closed around it. She coughed and then gasped, her owl twittering in her mind with worry.
“I didn’t know you were looking,” she said after what felt like an eternity with four people staring at her.
Her father’s eyes narrowed, and his mouth turned down. “You’re twenty-four, young lady, which is far past the age when our people usually mate. We had difficulty finding a suitable mate for you because of this college nonsense. Once you were finished with all that foolishness, a male accepted our offer.”
A hundred smart retorts flitted through her mind, but she pushed them all away. Owl females didn’t have the luxury of choosing their own mates; their parents did it for them. Her mother hadn’t had a choice, just like her mother before her. Jess wanted to protest, but she knew if she did, she’d be exiled. For her parents and her nest, it would be worse than if she’d died. It would be as if she’d never existed in the first place.
“Who is he?” Jess asked.
“His name is Miles, and he’s the nephew of his nest’s king,” her father said.
She wanted to ask her parents why they’d chosen him. Was he handsome and kind? Would he let her create a bird sanctuary so she could do what she’d been hoping to do after graduation? In the back of her mind, she’d known they’d be choosing a male for her at some point, but it was still a shock.
Instead of asking any follow-up questions about Miles, Jess asked, “When?”
“The celebratory hunt will be tonight at sunset,” the king said. “Our nest is meeting with your future mate’s nest at a neutral hunting ground. You’ll go to his home after the hunt.”
“What about my things?” she asked.
“When he chooses to bring you back here, he will,” her father said.
“Then I should probably get ready to say goodbye.” Standing, she clenched her trembling hands and gave what she hoped was a convincing smile to her parents and the ruling couple. “Thank you.”
Her father nodded, as did the king. She then turned and strode to her room, willing the tears to stay at bay until she was away from prying eyes. Even as she’d been working on her dual degrees, she’d known this future was waiting for her. It was the way of her people, and to push against the traditions was to invite hardship.
When she was a teenager, an older female had rejected the male her parents had chosen for her. Instead of exiling her, the king had forced her to mate with the male anyway, and he’d kept her locked up in his home until she’d given up trying to leave. She’d seen that female and the lifeless, defeated look in her eyes, and she didn’t want her life to be like that. It was better to accept her fate and hope for the best.
Her parents loved her, after all. They wouldn’t choose a terrible mate for her.
Right?
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“Maybe your future mate won’t mind you wanting to work with other birds and trees,” Rory said.
Jess had contacted her best friend after she’d had a good cry over the abrupt change in her life. Rory had rushed over, climbing from her own treehouse to Jess’s. Unlike Jess, Rory was a red fox. When Jess was very young, a group of red foxes had attacked their owl nest in an attempt to take over the territory. The owls had numbers on their side and overwhelmed the foxes, killing many and sending the remaining ones on a run for their lives. The king had found a young fox hiding in an old log and had compassion for it, bringing it into their home. Because fox shifters c
ould change forms at a young age, Rory had shifted once she’d realized she’d been safe with the owls. The king and queen adopted her because her family was gone, and she and Jess had become best friends from the moment they’d met.
“Maybe,” Jess said, blowing out a breath. She finished packing a bag with clothes and toiletries, hoping her future mate wouldn’t mind letting her come back soon to pick up her things.
“It’s really crazy, you know?” Rory asked, rolling onto her side and propping her head on her upturned hand.
“Which part?”
“That you’re going to be in your shift. When you meet up with him, you won’t have any clothes with you. You’ll be entirely at his mercy as far as clothes go. It’s just nuts. I wouldn’t want to meet my future mate naked.”
“It’s not quite that bad,” she said. She held up a small leather pouch. “I have a dress and sandals in here. Once our nests hunt together, I’ll follow him back to his home and shift. Then I’ll be able to get dressed.”
“I wish I could go. I’d like to make sure this fellow is a stand-up male.”
“Me, too. I’m sure my dad chose well. I’m just worried about the future.”
“You mean your dream?”
Jess nodded. Someday she wanted to open an aviary for injured natural birds. With her knowledge of birds and plants, she’d be able to create a haven for them to heal before being set free. She’d gotten the idea after watching a documentary about an ornithologist who rehabilitated hawks and other birds of prey. She didn’t know if her future mate would care about her dreams, or if he’d just expect her to be like any other female – happy to be a wife and mother.
She did want that, but she also wanted more.