by R. E. Butler
The Wolf’s Mate Book 6
Logan & Jenna
by R. E. Butler
Copyright 2012 R.E. Butler
The Wolf’s Mate Book Six: Logan & Jenna
by R.E. Butler
License Notes
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
Cover by Ramona Lockwood
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 over the age of 18 only.
* * * * *
I would like to extend sincere thanks to Alexis Arendt at Word Vagabond for editing this story. Thank you.
To my Aunt B.L., for her encouragement and to my husband, B.B., I love you both. To Jacq H - I’m so glad we’re friends. Thanks to Jackie G. for her kick-butt beta-reading and her friendship. And to my new friends and fans…thank you for your support!
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Contact the Author
Other Works by R. E. Butler
Chapter 1
“No,” Logan Anderson said, glancing down at the flyer that Ben Snow pushed at him across the table at Lonestar’s.
Were-Animal looking for a mate? Human looking for love? Find your truemate at the Were-Alliance’s mixer, the third Saturday of every month. Music! Free Drinks! 8 pm to Midnight!
Whoever had designed the flyer liked exclamation points far too much.
Ben pushed the flyer towards him again and Logan frowned at the young wolf. At twenty-two he was too young to be worrying about mating. But then again, Logan had been idealistic once. Young. Foolish. That seemed like ages ago. He’d just turned thirty-one last week. Suddenly middle age felt like it was looming over him, and he had nothing to his name but a tiny farmhouse in Allen, a garden that refused to grow no matter what he did to it, his job as a bouncer at Jake’s bar, and his pickup.
No family. No mate. No kids. When he first got a job at age twenty-one as a bouncer, he thought it would be cool to do until he ‘found his niche’. But ten years, and many different bars later, he still hadn’t figured out anything else he’d rather do.
Moving to Allen last summer, he’d had high hopes of finding a mate and settling down. Leaving his pack in Indianapolis had been brutal, his old alpha wanting his pound of flesh much the same way that gang youths beat the hell out of the ones that wanted to go straight. He’d come out alive and taken his place as fifth in rank in the Tressel Pack, in this tiny town in Kentucky. He’d bought his house and took the bouncer job, working with another wolf, Toby, to keep the peace between the wolves and humans who frequented the town’s only bar. Now, as winter wound down and spring started to creep into the air, he still hadn’t found a mate. Hell, it had been so long since he’d taken a woman to bed that his balls probably had cobwebs hanging from them.
“A few of us want to go, and Jason said that we needed a responsible older wolf to go along with us, make sure we stay out of trouble,” Ben said, grinning in a way that suggested he didn’t think needing a babysitter was a bad thing, but rather a hilarious thing to saddle said older wolf with.
“So you picked me?” He raised a brow at him, stopping long enough to tell the waitress that both of them were having the Friday all-you-can-eat meat buffet with the pack discount, and then standing up to head to the two long buffet tables laden with meat.
Ben was a chef at the restaurant and had joined the pack in the winter when his sister, Reika, had mated to Bo, pack third. Bo and Logan had been close friends before Bo mated Reika and they were still friends now, but he was busy with his wife.
Babysitting a bunch of barely-legal wolves on a Saturday night? That was not how he’d pictured his life turning out.
Across the buffet from him, as he speared a thick wedge of pot roast, Ben said, “Look, there’ll be lots of human and wolf females there looking for a good time, but there will also be other males as well. It just makes sense to have someone who’ll be the voice of reason. Plus, you’re big as hell, man. With your tattoos and everything, no one will mess with us, except maybe some tasty ladies.” Ben grinned broadly and Logan was struck by just how young Ben was and how old that made him feel.
“When is it again?” he grumbled, taking his meat-laden plate back to the table.
Ben plopped down across from him with an equally piled-high plate, and lifted his fork and knife. “Tomorrow. It’s in Somerset, so we need to be on the road by seven. There are four of us going, so we can’t fit in your pickup. Want to take my Jeep?”
Logan snorted but conceded there wasn’t really a choice, since his truck only held two comfortably; three if they squeezed onto the bench seat. “Fine. But I make the rules for the trip. No leaving anyone behind, no bringing anyone new home, and if any of your buddies annoy me I reserve the right to toss them out of the Jeep without stopping.”
Ben shook his head with a chuckle. “No problem. I’ll let Jason know. You won’t regret it, Logan.” His grin softened slightly, and he looked older than he was. “There’s a female out there for you somewhere. I know you’ll find her.”
Suddenly uncomfortable, Logan cleared his throat and turned his attention back to his plate. “Eat your food, kid. Dancing takes lots of energy.”
The following day, Logan endured ribbing from his fellow pack members. Michael, pack second, sent over a delivery of four boxes of condoms. Bo emailed him several articles with dating tips. And Jason, pack alpha, called to let him know that his mate, Cadence, had volunteered to let his future bride wear her wedding dress.
When the loud engine belonging to Ben’s Cherokee pulled in front of Logan’s house, he tucked in his black T-shirt and wondered if he should have shaved. Deciding that there was absolutely no chance of him finding his one-in-a-million truemate at a single shifters’ dance, he opened the door and stepped out into the warm April night.
Ben opened the driver’s door and stepped out, dressed nicer than Logan had ever seen him, in slacks and a button-down shirt. The other males in the second row were dressed similarly, which made Logan stick out like an underdressed sore thumb. Too late. Not that it matters.
The four young males didn’t shut up once during the forty-five minute drive to the Were-Alliance’s rented hall in Somerset. Logan had never been so glad to turn off a vehicle and step outside. His ears were actually ringing from all their chatter. Whoever said that teenage girls talked a lot had never been in a truck full of eager young male wolves.
“Remember the rules,” Logan said gruffly as the boys piled from the Cherokee.
“Don’t worry, Logan,” Ben promised, patting him on the shoulder. “Just relax and have a good time.”
Easier said than done, but he would give it a try. Being design
ated driver meant he wouldn’t be drinking, but he could hope that the music mentioned in the ad would be decent and he could at least listen to some tunes.
The pop rock that blasted through the doors when they opened grated immediately on his nerves. It had to be pop music. Heaven forbid it was country, which he enjoyed. He wasn’t sure he could handle four hours of non-stop bubble gum. Paying the cover for the five of them, Logan watched the boys slink along the edge of the empty dance floor and look over the crowd. The hall easily held two hundred, which made the people standing around near the folding table that served as a bar look…pathetic. With a quick glance around he counted twenty-one people standing in small groups around the perimeter of the cleared dance floor, a bartender, and a DJ with a black-and-white striped mohawk that gave him a distinctly skunk-like appearance.
Logan took a breath, scenting discreetly to see what he could pick up, and caught only a few wolves amongst the humans. There were four wolf males, young like the ones he had brought along, and the remainder were human females, giggling and checking out the young men. Hell. Logan felt even older suddenly.
Resigning himself to an evening of surfing the net on his cell, he walked over to the bar and asked for a bottle of water. The human male said, “No beer? It’s free.”
“I’m driving.” He motioned with his head to the four males, who were eyeing a small group of females like they were does.
The bartender nodded and handed him a bottle of water and a clear plastic cup. “Sorry it’s not cold, but there’s ice in the kitchen.”
Logan went to sit down at one of the round tables against the wall, decorated with plastic tablecloths, glitter, and a few flowers in a vase in the center. Keeping an ear out for trouble, he turned his attention to his inbox and checked his email, deleting the ones from his pack continuing to torture him about his babysitting duties, and then opened up the local news site and began reading.
A slow song came on, and Logan noticed that none of the males made any move to dance with any of the females. He looked at the females critically, wondering if his wolf was even aware that potentially willing women stood just feet away from him, but his wolf seemed to yawn in his head and ignore them.
He couldn’t remember the last time a female had meant something more than a night between the sheets to him. His last relationship had ended three years ago. Amber was a highly ranked she-wolf in his old pack, and she had pursued him, which was something she hadn’t been used to. Before him, wolves had fallen to the floor at her feet, drooling and senseless, but Logan hadn’t been one of them. They dated and fucked. She was his steady after-work fuck. The heat that had simmered between them had cooled quickly, until going to see her had become more of a habit than a desire. After a heated argument during which she complained that he wasn’t paying enough attention to her, things had gone back to the way they’d been. They lived in separate places, had separate friends, and only came together for occasional dinners and a few tumbles in the sheets a week. One night he went to her apartment like he did every Friday, and walked inside. He called her name but heard only muffled sounds coming from the bedroom. Following them, he opened the door and found her in bed with a human.
Even now he could remember just how little he’d cared. He stared at her as the male moved on top of her, and when their eyes met and he saw her defiance, saw that she’d wanted to be caught, he couldn’t have cared less. Yes, it had sucked to be cheated on, and so blatantly, but he was more annoyed with himself for letting the relationship go on well past when it had rolled over and died. She showed up at his place later and wanted to argue, but he didn’t want to. She was looking for a man to fight for her, but he wasn’t that man. His friends in the pack hadn’t understood what his problem was, but the truth was that Amber wasn’t his truemate, and he wasn’t ready to settle for less than the one woman meant to be his. Of course, he hadn’t had any clue how to find her; now, three years later, he still didn’t know, but he hadn’t given up yet.
He found the kitchen after a while and hunted down some ice for his water. By the time ten o’clock rolled around, he’d read every article he found interesting, several he hadn’t, and was drumming his fingers on the tabletop, ready to leave. His wolf had suddenly grown restless.
Ben walked over to the table, hands in his pockets. “You look like you’re ready to head out.”
He held back his automatic ‘hell yes’ and said, “I said I’d stick with you guys until midnight, I don’t mind staying.” Inside his mind, his wolf howled in dismay at his statement. What the hell was wrong with him?
The three other young males – Paul, Drake, and Luka – joined them, and Ben said, “The girls here are like the chew toys at the bar. They only care what rank you are and what color your beast is.”
“Sorry, kid.” Logan stood up and crushed the empty water bottle.
Luka dragged his hand through his short blond hair. “Could you drop us off at Jake’s?”
“Sure.” Logan decided he’d stick around there, too, and drive the kids home.
Inwardly, his beast was rejoicing at leaving and urged him on. Wondering at the sudden strange feelings he was having, as if he needed to be somewhere, as if someone was calling for him, he started the Jeep and pulled away from the rental hall, thinking someone needed to tell the Were-Alliance that their mixers sucked.
As the lights of Somerset faded into the distance and they drove towards Allen, the antsy feeling grew stronger with each mile, until he could practically feel hands pulling him, a voice whispering for help in the darkness. The long stretch of highway cut through a wooded area, and as Logan wrestled with the strange feelings, he thought he saw something flash on the right side of the road. He cut over to the shoulder, ignoring the boys’ alarm, and jerked the Jeep to a stop. Leaping out of the truck, he ran to the edge of the woods and narrowed his gaze, straining to see what the flash had been. The clouds had been covering the moon and it was too dark to see anything much, but when they cleared and light filtered through the thick trees, Logan saw it again. Silver. Something silver was deep in the woods.
Without thought, he ran towards the flickering light, his wolf scrambling in his mind to get to the light.
“Help…please,” a rasping whisper, so soft he could barely hear it, met his ears and he growled in worry as he closed the distance to the light, branches scraping his skin.
A blade of moonlight cut through the trees suddenly and he stopped in his tracks as the body of a woman was made visible, just feet from him. She lay crumpled on the ground, wearing a dress that was dirty and torn. Cursing under his breath, he tore off his shirt and laid it across her body, pressing his fingers against her pulse as he crouched next to her. Around her neck was a thick metal collar. He glanced down at her body and saw similar cuffs around her wrists and ankles. His wolf howled in his mind to protect her, to save her, and when he found her pulse was weak but thankfully there, he stroked her hair away from her face. “Sweetheart.” His voice cracked, and he cleared it. “Can you hear me?”
She didn’t respond, and he lifted her carefully in his arms and carried her quickly back to the Jeep. Barking for someone to open the door, he waited while Ben got out and held the passenger door for him, and he climbed inside, carefully maneuvering the woman onto his lap as Ben shut the door.
Ben ran around to the driver’s door and got in. In the overhead light, Logan tipped her head back and brushed her hair away. Her long brown hair was streaked with silver. Purple lines snaked around her face, growing from a thick purple welt underneath the collar around her neck. Similar snaking lines and thick welts were on her wrists and ankles under the cuffs. It looked like someone had drawn over her pale skin with a marker.
Logan inspected the collar and found that a simple latch unlocked it. Pushing the pin until it popped free, he pulled the collar off, dropped it onto the floor, and went to work on the cuffs.
“Where’s the nearest hospital?” Ben asked as he pulled out onto the highway.
“Drive faster, Ben,” Paul urged.
Luka leaned forward. “Is she alive, Logan?”
Logan’s throat felt like a hand had constricted around it and he could barely say, “Yeah.”
When the word left his mouth, the female’s eyes popped open. Fear came from her, so thick he could taste it on the back of his tongue, and then she relaxed slightly, as if she realized that he wouldn’t hurt her, that she had found safety in his arms.
He felt a sharp pain in his chest and he looked down to see she had dug her nails into his skin and broken through, drawing blood. “Swear to me,” she rasped in a soft voice, the voice he had heard in his head. “Keep me safe.”
“I swear.” He pressed his hand against hers and caught a bit of his blood on his fingers, stroking lightly across her neck to leave the blood on her skin. “I swear on my wolf’s blood that I’ll see you safe.” By sealing his words in blood, they became an unbreakable vow. No matter what, he would see her safe from whatever had happened to her.
Chapter 2
As her eyes closed, he was only peripherally aware that they had pulled off the highway. Ben and the others were following the directions from Drake’s cell. All of Logan’s focus was trained on the female in his arms as he dropped the last cuff onto the floor. He could pick up her faint, irregular heartbeat and shallow, slow breaths. He could also feel small muscle twitches and occasional shivers. A dress shirt appeared in front of him and Logan blinked at Drake, who was now shirtless.
“Thank you,” Logan mumbled to the young wolf.
“What are those cuffs made of?” Ben asked, flipping on his blinker and braking as he turned right around a sharp corner.