by R. E. Butler
Because their people were male-centric, a female’s opinion on her future only mattered as much as her mate allowed it to.
“I saw a TV show where a female told a male to go to hell and started her own business,” Rory said with a low voice. “You could do that, you know. Go your own way, make your own dreams come true.”
“I could, but I’d lose everything. Not just my family, but every single possession. I’d be tossed out without anything. I don’t know how I’d survive without a penny to my name. I’d probably be lucky if they let me leave with clothes.”
“Shit. I thought they just let you go. I didn’t know they took everything away.”
“It’s not supposed to be a good thing to leave. They make it difficult so no one wants to make that choice. Plus, if I left, I’d lose you, too.”
“I could leave with you.”
Jess looked at her best friend, who looked as serious as she’d ever seen her.
“What?”
She shrugged. “We could leave together. I could go grab a bag, and we could hit the road without letting anyone know where we were going.”
“They’d come for us,” Jess said. She sat next to Rory and put her arm over her shoulders. “You’re like a sister to me. I’m going to miss you so much, but I can’t ask you to leave for me when it would be dangerous for both of us. We’d end up imprisoned until the king decided what to do with us, and I have a feeling it wouldn’t be just letting us go on our merry way.”
“You’re probably right.” Rory pushed a lock of auburn hair behind her ear. “I was just thinking out loud. I don’t want you to be miserable.”
“I don’t want that either, trust me.”
There was a knock at her bedroom door, and her mother opened it. “It’s time. Say goodbye to Rory.”
Picking up her leather pouch, Jess stood and hugged her best friend. “The next time you see me, I’ll be mated.”
“I’m sending positive vibes your way,” Rory promised. “I don’t know if that actually does anything, but I’ve seen humans post that phrase online, and it seems to make them happy.”
“Ugh, humans,” Jess’s mom said, rolling her eyes. “You two shouldn’t be worried about them. Let’s go, Jessica.”
She hugged Rory one more time. “Love you, bestie.”
“Love you, too.”
Because Rory wasn’t an owl, she wasn’t allowed to be at the gathering place where their people were going to fly with Jess all the way to meet her mate. She really wished Rory were an owl. She’d love her support.
The sun was setting, and the king raised a hand, calling for silence. Jess stood with him, the queen, and her parents on a wooden stage in front of the nest. As the crowd quieted, the king began.
“We come tonight to fly with Jessica to meet her future mate. As we hunt at the neutral grounds, keep in mind that any kills belong to the other nest, who willingly take one of our own into their nest. Fly fast, and hunt well.”
Jessica stripped swiftly, anchoring the leather pouch across her neck and shoulder so it would remain on after she shifted. Taking on her shift, she changed forms into an owl and took flight, hovering over the stage with the others as they lifted into the air. She loved to be in her shift, and even if this was the night that would change her life forever, she still reveled in it.
Their nest took off for the hunting grounds. She flew between her parents, right behind the king and queen. The nest was all around them, offering hoots of congratulations. She chose not to think about where the flight was taking them, to a male she didn’t know and an uncertain future, instead focusing on this last flight with her parents and nest.
The late summer night was cool, and a hint of coming rain was in the air. The flight was long, and she was growing weary as they neared the hunting grounds. Her wings were fatigued, but she knew she couldn’t stop until she met up with her future mate and hunted with him. Then she had the flight to his home nest afterward. She pushed on, knowing stopping wasn’t an option.
The other nest approached in the distance, loud hooting communicating that they were friendly and ready to hunt together. Her nest answered. She knew she’d recognize her future mate because he’d be wearing a similar pouch containing clothes.
A shot rang out.
The owls around her screeched in alarm, wheeling in the air as more bullets whizzed by them. Shot after shot flew into the sky as humans on the ground shouted in glee about the bounty of birds to kill. Jess flapped her wings hard, trying to get away from the bullets zinging by.
Heat seared through her right wing and she screeched in alarm, flying as fast as she could away from the hunters. Her eyes watered and her vision was blurry as she ducked down into the trees and raced for cover. She kept going, past the trees and over roads and highways, disoriented and in pain. When her wings finally gave out, she tumbled to the ground, too tired to even cry for help.
Jess landed hard in tall grass that smelled a lot like lions. Alarm filled her, but her exhaustion was so great, she couldn’t move.
As darkness took over, she hoped she was safe, and that someone from her nest had seen her go and would come find her.
Before whoever lived in the tall grass came to investigate.
Chapter 3
Auden grabbed a sandwich from the buffet and ate it as he walked through the wolves who were celebrating a mated couple’s anniversary. He’d already wished them many more years of happiness together, said hi to his parents, and had a beer.
“Heading out?” Greg, one of the pack enforcers, asked.
“Yep. I just gotta change into my uniform.”
“Thanks for taking a shift,” he said. “My mate is growling at me about being gone overnight so often.”
“Happy to do it. I like the tours, but it’s nice to do something different for a change.”
Auden finished his sandwich as he left the market and headed to the wolves’ private area. Inside his den, he changed into his security uniform, then went topside to the security office, where he checked in with Javan, a lion shifter.
Javan gave him a walkie and flashlight, which he hung from his utility belt. “Anything I should know?”
“Nope. It’s all quiet so far tonight, which is a good thing. Start off by walking the exterior perimeter, and then you can hit the paddocks. Xavier is out on patrol, too, so you’ll probably pass each other at some point.”
“Sounds good.”
“Check in on the hour unless you see something that needs to be investigated.”
“Got it.”
Auden checked that the walkie was tuned to the right channel, then walked out of the security office. He headed for the front gates of the zoo, which were made of iron. Looking up at the security camera, he heard the locks clank before the gears began to grind and the gates swung slowly open, then walked out and turned to watch as the gates shut before beginning his rounds.
The zoo was surrounded by high stone walls. For as long as he could recall, the zoo had relied on video cameras perched on the walls to alert the security team of intruders. But after a group of panther shifters had climbed the walls and gotten into one of the paddocks with the intent of finding one of the shifter’s soulmates, they’d realized what had passed for security wasn’t enough. Now there were cameras and alarms as far as twenty feet from the wall, to give the security officers a chance to get to anyone who tried to get into the park.
Because he was a shifter, he had heightened senses of sight and smell. Being a wolf also meant he could hear better than some of the other shifters, too. He kept his senses alert as he walked, just passing the gorilla paddock when he heard a distress call in the air that sounded like a bird. He scanned the night sky, narrowing his eyes and reaching for his wolf to give him access to even more heightened senses. Auden heard the sound again, a high-pitched screech, and he saw something in the sky that looked as if it was flailing.
His wolf became frantic, scrambling in his mind to help the creature. He couldn’t figure
out why it was so suddenly crazed, but as he watched the bird plummet into the lion paddock, the thud of its body hitting the ground resonated in a strange way through him. He needed to get to the bird.
He didn’t know why, but the frantic howls of his wolf told him all he needed to know.
Get to the bird, and figure out the rest later.
Turning on his heels, he raced back to the front gate.
“Something fell into the lion paddock,” he said into the walkie. “Open the front gate!”
“Did you say something fell? Like, from the sky?” Javan asked.
The squeak of the front gate opening echoed ahead, and Auden pushed himself to run faster.
“Yes,” he said. “A bird I think.”
“Okay, and?”
Auden slipped between the gates and continued to run toward the paddocks.
“I don’t know!”
“I’ll send Xavier to help.”
Auden pushed the walkie back into the holder, passing the different paddocks on the way to the lions’. The only lions in the zoo were shifters, so the paddock was empty. He was instantly grateful for that; if there were natural lions in there, the bird certainly would’ve been eaten, if it had even survived the fall. Auden reached the paddock and unlocked the gate, hurrying inside. He then skidded to a halt, letting his eyes adjust to the moonlight and searching for the bird. His heart clenched in a strange way, and his wolf howled.
Opening all his senses once more, he closed his eyes and scented, finding a smell that didn’t belong among the tall grass and trees: something sweet mixed with the metallic tang of blood. He opened his eyes and sprinted in the direction of what he’d scented, his mind racing.
He clicked on the flashlight and the beam it bobbed ahead of him, landing finally on an owl. Dropping to his knees, he shined the light on the bird, which had a wound on one of its wings that looked like a bullet hole. With his enhanced hearing, he could pick up the owl’s heartbeat, relief twining through him. He frowned as the light caught a strap across the owl’s chest, and he followed the piece of leather to an attached pouch.
“What the hell?” he whispered.
The owl’s eyes opened suddenly and it stared at him intently, the brilliant yellow orbs boring right through him. In that moment, he knew without a doubt that he was in the presence of his soulmate, an injured owl that had seemingly fallen from the heavens.
The owl screeched loudly, hurting his sensitive ears, and then it shifted. Feathers disappeared in the wake of skin and long red hair. The eyes remained yellow for a brief moment before changing to emerald.
She was simply the most stunning female he’d ever seen in his life.
And his sole purpose now was to take care of her.
He heard Xavier draw close and was aware she was naked. Auden drew off his shirt and laid it over her, then lifted her carefully into his arms.
She gasped and then fainted, the wound in her arm bleeding.
“Is that a person?” Xavier asked as he jogged toward them.
“Yeah, stay back.”
Xavier paused. “Why?”
“Because she’s my soulmate and she’s naked.”
“Seriously?”
He grunted out a snarl.
“Okay, okay, I’ll stay back. I smell blood. Is she injured?”
“It’s a bullet wound. It was healing when she shifted but it started to bleed again. She passed out.”
“I’ll have Javan wake Doc Paula. Let’s head down below. I’ll open our entrance for you.”
In each paddock, the shifter groups had a maintenance shed with a secret floor that allowed them access to their private areas underground.
“Thanks.”
“No problem. Let me go ahead of you so your beast doesn’t get all bitchy because I’m unmated.”
“I’d apologize, but my wolf won’t let me.”
Xavier snorted. “One of these days, I’ll find my soulmate and I’ll be the one being bitchy, so don’t worry about it. How does it feel?”
“Amazing. So fucking amazing.”
By the time Auden was at the doctor’s office in the marketplace, a million questions were swimming through his mind, chief among them how she got a bullet wound.
Paula was a wolf and one of the doctors for the shifters in the park as long as Auden could remember. Although shifters didn’t generally get sick, they could get injured from time to time.
“Javan called,” Paula said as she waved Auden into one of the patient rooms. “I heard we have a soulmate with a bullet wound.”
Auden laid his mate on the hospital bed and drew a blanket over her. He couldn’t stop the snarl that erupted as he stared at the wound. Although it had stopped bleeding, it had only just started to heal and looked ragged and painful. Wishing she was awake so he could talk to her, he realized it was good that she was still unconscious so she wouldn’t be in pain.
Paula snapped on gloves. “Tell me what happened.”
Auden watched as she looked his mate over and cleaned the wound, explaining what he’d witnessed. She removed the leather pouch and handed it to him, and he tugged it open and looked inside.
“What’s in there?” Paula asked.
“A dress and shoes.”
“That’s it?” Her brows rose.
“Yeah.”
“Well, when she wakes up, you can ask her what’s up with that. I’ve never heard of a shifter carrying clothes like that, but then again, we don’t leave our territory in our shifts, so that might have something to do with it. It’s pretty amazing that she made it to safety with an injury like this, and also that there weren’t any natural lions in the paddock.”
“When will she wake up?”
“When she’s ready.”
Auden helped Paula put a gown on his mate, and then he laid another blanket over her to keep her warm.
“Shouldn’t her shifting to human have amped up her healing?”
Paula leaned on the railing of the bed. “She’s healing, but not as quickly as I would’ve expected. I don’t know much about owl shifters because their kind are fairly reclusive. Her healing rate is what it is for her people, and there isn’t anything I can do to speed it up. She took a hard fall, but nothing appears to be broken. She most likely passed out from shock or pain. The best thing for her is rest. I’m going to give her fluids and something to help her sleep. You’ll stay here?”
As if anyone could get him away from her side for any reason.
Nodding, he said, “Yeah. I need to call Xavier.”
“I’m sure Javan filled him in. I already spoke to Joss, but I didn’t know the extent of the situation, only what Javan told me. I’ll send him in to speak to you.”
Auden nodded and pulled a nearby chair close to the bed, sitting and settling his hand on hers. He didn’t plan to sleep, needing to be alert when she woke, able to answer any questions. He didn’t want to miss a thing.
He wasn’t sure how much time had passed, but Alpha Joss appeared, along with Felix, who had taken over as the second-in-command after the death of the previous male who held the position. Auden lifted his gaze from his beautiful mate’s face to his alpha’s.
“I heard from Paula and Javan, but I wanted to hear it from you.”
Auden nodded and related the tale, rubbing circles on his mate’s wrist with his thumb.
“No one has come to the gates looking for her or crossed any of our security cameras outside of the walls,” Felix said. “When she’s awake, she can tell us what happened – if she remembers, that is. The trauma of being shot and the fall from the sky might have blocked the memory.”
Auden nodded. “I’ll alert you when she wakes.”
Joss put his hand on Auden’s shoulder. “It’s a good thing when a male finds his soulmate. Celebrate the meeting first, then focus on the circumstances. If someone is after her, the pack will ensure she’s safe and the threat is put down.”
A lump welled in Auden’s throat and he nodded, not trusting his
voice to remain steady if he spoke.
When he was alone once more, he turned his attention back to his mate.
He couldn’t wait for her to wake.
Chapter 4
Jess opened her eyes and frowned as she looked at an unfamiliar ceiling. She tried to recall where she was, but her mind was fuzzy.
“Hey, you’re awake,” a masculine voice whispered from nearby.
She turned her head and stared at the male sitting in a chair next to the hospital bed she was in. Her owl hooted softly in her mind, urging her to cuddle the male despite the fact that Jess had no clue who he was. She inhaled and picked up the scent of wolf, realizing quickly that he was a shifter. As she stared at him, a little glimmer of memory was revealed and she knew she’d seen him before.
After she’d fallen from the sky.
“I’m Auden James. You had a bullet wound in your shoulder, and I found you while you were in your shift.”
“I’m Jessica Thompson. You’re a wolf.”
He nodded. “You’re safe here.”
“Where is here exactly?”
“The Amazing Adventures Safari Park. My people live and work here. I was on patrol and saw you fall from the sky. Do you remember what happened?”
She tried to sit up, but her shoulder ached sharply. Auden handed her the remote for the bed, and she used it to lift the head of the bed slowly, so she was more comfortable. Clearing her throat, she pushed away the noisy owl in her head that wanted to climb into Auden’s lap and kiss on him for a while.
Thinking for a moment, she related the story as best she could recall. “I was with my nest, and we apparently flew over hunters because bullets started flying. I was hit, and I flew as fast and far as I could. I had no idea where I was, but when I fell, I remember smelling lions.”
“You were in the lion paddock.”
“It’s probably a good thing you found me so I didn’t become a midnight snack.”
“The paddock was empty. Our lions are all shifters. Even if they’d been there, they wouldn’t have harmed you.”
“Oh. Lion shifters? With wolves?”