Every Angelic Moment

by R. E. Butler

  But that hadn’t happened. She and Angel had come to the campground, and Ally and her family had welcomed them both with open arms. For the first time in her life, Brierley didn’t have to be afraid for her future, because she could make her own choices. It was a heady feeling.

  She turned on her side and yawned, closing her eyes. As sleep claimed her, she became aware of a feeling of falling, wind rushing around her and cold rain splashing against her. Her feet hit solid ground, and she straightened and looked around, peering through murky darkness as the rain fell faster and blurred her vision. She could smell blood and sweat, and a weird combination of testosterone and fear that saturated the air. A door opened, lit from within, and she hurried to it to escape the rain. The scents were stronger here: More blood. More sweat. Much more fear. She found herself in a plain room. The light she’d seen from outside was coming from down a set of stairs.

  A compulsion settled over her. She walked down the steps, aware that she was dreaming, but feeling as if something more important was going on than an average dream. As she walked down the steps, she inhaled and sorted through the scents, finding one that intrigued her. It was like leather and vanilla, manly but sweet, and wholly enticing. When she reached the bottom of the stairs, she found herself in an enormous concrete room. There were boxing rings scattered around the space, and she wondered if she was in a building belonging to a fight club. Something moved in her peripheral vision. She turned, her owl ready if she should need to shift and fly away.

  A male appeared. He was shirtless, with a darkly tanned body that was ripped with muscles. On the inside of his right forearm was a tattoo, a string of black symbols she didn’t recognize. Obsidian hair, eyes that glittered like rubies, and shining horns that curved above his ears made every fiber of her being seize in wonder. He towered over her, and the heady scent of leather and vanilla surrounded him and saturated her.

  His large hand settled on the small of her back, and he drew her close, lowering his head until his lips were just a whisper from hers.

  “Who are you?” she murmured.

  “Yours,” he said, his gruff voice making her heart sing.

  “Where are you?”

  “I’ll find you, I promise.”

  He sealed his lips over hers, and her owl hooted in happiness. Butterflies flew into a frenzy in her belly and her nerve endings snapped to life. This male was hers, and so help her she wanted every inch of him, in every possible way. Everything began to shimmer around them as the kiss broke, and she found herself grasping at him.

  “No! Don’t leave me!” she cried out as he slowly faded.

  “I’ll find you,” he said, his voice a low echo.

  He disappeared, and she felt the rush of wind surround her as she came out of the dream and back to her bedroom. Her pillow was wet with tears, and her heart ached. She rolled to her back with a groan and rubbed her eyes to dispel the wetness. She didn’t even know his name, but she knew they’d meet. He promised he would find her, and she trusted him.

  He was her mate, after all.

  Chapter 2

  Axtyn listened to Wallace ranting at Ian early Sunday morning after the male finally answered his cell. Wallace had been furious that Ian hadn’t shown up, and from what Axtyn could overhear of the conversation, the male wasn’t planning to come back at all because he’d found his mate.

  Which was good for him, but bad for Wallace and the fights.

  Axtyn wondered if Ian knew how volatile Wallace was. He not only had a hair trigger himself, he had a squad of shifter guards who would do anything he asked. Axtyn was one of the guards, but he wouldn’t do anything to harm a male who was simply following his destiny.

  “Fucking asshole!” Wallace shouted when he ended the call. “Who does he think he is?”

  “What do you want us to do?” Stan asked, keeping his distance from Wallace, who was known to take out his rage on the nearest person.

  While Wallace discussed how to force Ian’s hand, his cell rang. Ian promised to fight once more and to give up all his winnings, in exchange for being free from future fights. Wallace agreed, but Axtyn could see that the male wasn’t telling the truth. As soon as the call ended, Wallace got to work planning fights for the following Friday.

  “Here’s what will happen,” he said, looking at Axtyn. “I’m going to set him up with a lot of fights, make a shit-ton of money off him, and then I’m going to force him to continue to fight for me.”

  “How will you do that?” he asked.

  “I don’t know yet, but I’ll figure it out.”

  “You could just let him be done. There are other fighters.”

  “He’s the best.”

  Axtyn knew that Wallace wouldn’t be reasoned with. He wanted Ian to continue to fight for him, and it was just the hyena’s bad luck to be on Wallace’s radar. Whatever Wallace was planning, it wouldn’t be good news for the male.

  When the warehouse was empty and Wallace and his guards had headed off to their private quarters, Axtyn followed suit and went to his room. The room, which he’d called home for more years than he cared to count, was sparsely decorated, but it was comfortable enough for him. The sturdy bed supported his big frame, and the attached bathroom ensured his privacy, which he always appreciated after being surrounded by so many people during the fights.

  After showering off the stink of the fights, he climbed into bed, his skin feeling too tight and his beast bellowing in his mind. There it was again – that slim feeling of hope that he might find his mate soon, mixed up with the devastating certainty that he was going to turn into a monster forever.

  Closing his eyes, he tuned out his beast, and thought of everything but how strange he felt as sleep took over. He dreamed that night about a beautiful female with white-blonde hair. She had blue eyes flecked with gold, and she smelled like snow. In the dream, they met in the warehouse where the boxing rings were, and he’d been compelled to kiss her and hold her. Even in his dreams, the kiss had rocked him to the core, and he hadn’t wanted it to end. But it had, far too abruptly.

  He woke up, his heart pounding and his beast banging in his skull to find her. Whoever she was. Wherever she was. He didn’t know how he’d find her, but he knew with absolute certainty that she was his mate, his one hope for not becoming a monster. He lifted his arm and looked at the tattoo on the inside of his right forearm. The symbols were from the ancient Greek language of the minotaurs, and were part of his family’s creed: loyalty, honesty, bravery.

  He decided that when he found his mate, he’d add to the tattoo: family and love.

  If only he knew where to look for her.

  * * *

  The following Friday night, Axtyn took a moment to warn Ian about the fights. Wallace had heavily promoted them, and the free-for-all was going to be no holds barred, including partial shifting.

  “Why are you telling me this?” Ian asked, eyeing him speculatively.

  Axtyn could feel his beast bellowing inside. His chest ached over his heart, and he rubbed the spot with his fingers. He hadn’t felt right since he’d dreamed about his mate. He hoped the dream meant he’d find her soon, but the pessimistic side of him was certain the clock was running out. Soon he’d be a monster forever.

  “I don’t know,” he answered.

  Ian thanked him for the advice, and Axtyn went to find Wallace and take up his position as guard. Although he could do his job, he felt oddly detached from things, and he knew it was because of the dream. He’d spent every available moment looking for his mate, but he had no idea how to find her. Because he didn’t have a car, he’d borrowed one and simply driven around, hoping to get a feeling that she was near. Since she’d been in the warehouse, he’d hoped she might show up at one of the fights, even though he didn’t want her anywhere near the place, with its violence and out-of-control-males.

  He scanned the crowd as the final battle commenced, but didn’t see his white-haired mate. He cursed himself, not for the first time, for not asking i
n the dream where she was or what her name was. If he hadn’t been so consumed with getting a kiss from her, he would have asked for her address.

  When the free-for-all was over and Ian was the victor, Wallace went into the ring and lifted Ian’s hand to the cheering crowd. Axtyn stared at Ian. He felt a strange connection panging between them.

  Did Ian know his mate?

  The crowd surged, and Axtyn lost sight of Ian and the brother who had accompanied him. He raced to the parking lot, but didn’t see either male. When he returned inside, Wallace was behind locked doors and wouldn’t see him, and none of the guards knew where Ian lived. After waiting for hours to talk to him with no success, Axtyn went to bed. When he woke, he was faced with the same situation: Wallace wasn’t seeing anyone, which left him with no way to find Ian and inquire about a white-haired female.

  Chapter 3

  Brierley straightened and looked at the hardwood floor in the cabin, which was gleaming in the sunlight. There was something very satisfying about the way wood looked when it was clean and oiled. A job well done.

  She’d never thought she’d be happy cleaning cabins in the Pennsylvania mountains, but she’d enjoyed her life more in the last few months than she had in all her years before. As a female owl shifter, her people believed she was born to be a servant – a mate ready to please her husband anytime, a mother to as many fledglings as possible, a cook, a cleaner, and all the other duties that came along with running a household. She might not have minded that life if she could’ve chosen her own mate, but her people didn’t believe in truemates. The king chose the mates, and he never considered the females’ opinions on the matter.

  Aside from often matching old males with young females for mates, their people also had a ceremony that went along with the mating, which was done in full view of the entire nest. The chosen female would be drugged into a sexual frenzy, and given to the male the king had chosen for her to mate with in front of the nest. Male owls glowed when they were turned on, almost feeding off the sexual energy of the mating couple. Brierley had seen it happen many times as she’d gotten older, and she’d known that her own time was limited before the king would mate her with a male she didn’t love.

  So she’d slipped away to a human town and had sex with a human male, hoping that not being a virgin would make her less desirable as a mate. It hadn’t worked. The king had chosen a male for her who was old and cruel, and the rumors in the nest were that he’d beaten his first mate to death. She’d taken one look into his eyes and known that her life would be hard and loveless.

  Seizing the opportunity of strangers stumbling into their midst, she’d snuck away on her mating night with a trio of hyena shifters and their shared wolf mate, who had agreed to help her make a new life for herself. Some owls had come to the wolf pack looking for her, but she’d already left with her human friend, Angel, and moved to New Hope, where she worked as a jill-of-all-trades at the Clear Water Campground.

  For the last nine months, she’d been cleaning her way through the cabins in the camp, and enjoying the hell out of being free to do what she wanted. She wouldn’t have thought that freedom would come in the form of a scrub brush and bucket, but with the hyena shifters who ran the campground, and her friend Angel and her new mates, Ian, Brin, and Quill, Brierley felt more at home than she ever had before.

  “Hey hon,” Ally said. “The floor looks great in here!”

  “Thanks,” Brierley said, wiping her hands on her jeans and standing.

  “I came by to see if you wanted me to help you make curtains for your cabin.”

  Brierley smiled. After Angel had met her hyena mates in the woods, they’d chosen to move into another cabin on the other side of the campground. Brierley knew that Ally was worried that she’d feel lonely, but she didn’t mind having the cabin to herself. It was three bedrooms, and had beautiful hardwood floors that she’d painstakingly cleaned and refinished once she and Angel had moved in. She just needed new curtains.

  “I’d love your help.”

  “Great! I also made cookies. Because it’s good to have snacks when you’re working.”

  Brierley grabbed her cleaning supplies, locked the cabin door, and walked with Ally back to the main cabin, where she and her mates lived. It also doubled as the registration desk for campers. There was a commercial kitchen off the registration area, and Ally had a sewing room set aside with a few machines and lots of supplies. Brierley had been taught to sew as a young girl, and her favorite thing to make was children’s clothing. She didn’t think there was much chance of her having kids anytime soon, but maybe Angel and her mates would have a baby and she could make something cute for them.

  Ally opened a cabinet where she kept bolts of fabric, and Brierley examined the different colors and patterns. A navy-blue fabric caught her eye; she pulled the bolt from the shelf and rubbed the fabric between her finger and thumb. It was soft and thick.

  “I was thinking about a simple valance for my bedroom,” she said. “I like this color a lot.”

  Ally’s brow arched. “It’s not super feminine. Do you want to add lace details or soften it up with ribbon?”

  “No. I think it will be nice the way it is.”

  “All right, as long as you’re happy, I’m happy.”

  “Aw.” Brierley smiled.

  After finding a pattern, they began to measure and pin the material. Brierley had thought of Ally as a very good friend all these months, but she also thought of her as an older sister, too. Like Angel, Ally watched out for her and wanted her to be happy. She owed a good portion of her wonderful life to Ally and her mates’ generosity, and knew she’d never be able to repay them for their kindness.

  When they’d finished the two curtains for the windows in the master bedroom, Ally walked with her to her cabin and helped her install them. The room had been Angel’s when they’d lived together, but after she mated her males and moved out, Brierley had decided to take the room for herself. It was bigger, and had a nice view of the woods outside.

  “These look really nice,” Ally said as she folded up the stepladder. “You’re right, the color suits the room.”

  Brierley had felt drawn to the color immediately, although she couldn’t explain why. She was very happy that she’d decided to go with her gut feeling. “Thanks for your help.”

  “Of course!” Ally pursed her lips and then said, “Are you okay to be here alone? You and Angel lived together for so long, and you’re a little removed from things back here.”

  “I appreciate your asking, but I’m fine. I don’t mind living on my own, and everyone is just a phone call away.”

  “Good point. Join us for dinner?”

  “Thanks, but I’m going to make a frozen pizza and veg out.”

  “If you want to hang out tomorrow, let me know.”

  “I’m probably just going to putter around the cabin, clean and do laundry.”

  “Oh, exciting,” Ally said with a chuckle.

  “You know it.”

  After saying goodbye, Brierley turned the oven on and baked the frozen pizza, adding sliced mushrooms and pepperoni to the plain cheese. She couldn’t shake the anxiety that coursed through her every time she thought about going to bed. She hadn’t dreamed about her mate again, but she kept hoping that she’d see him another time. She’d prefer to be with him in real life, but she didn’t know where he was or even his name. He said he’d find her, but how could he find her when he didn’t even know where she lived? For all she knew, he didn’t even live in Pennsylvania.

  Ignoring the pang that speared through her when she thought of facing another day alone, she turned on the TV and ate dinner. When it was time for bed, a little earlier than she usually would’ve gone to sleep, she showered and shaved her legs carefully. Then she opened her dresser drawer and looked at the contents.

  She normally slept in a long t-shirt and nothing else, but as she’d showered and gotten ready for bed, she’d decided it would be nice to wear something else.
Not that anyone would be seeing it but her. She’d been alone since Thursday night, when Angel and her mates had officially moved into a bigger cabin. She wasn’t scared to be alone, but she did miss having someone else in the house.

  Her thoughts drifted to her dream man. Oh, how she wished she knew where he was or when he would find her. She wasn’t sure how someone went about finding a dream mate, but he had seemed so sure. Just in case she happened to see him in her dreams that night, she lifted out the only sexy thing she owned – a blue satin baby doll with matching panties. She’d bought it on a whim when she shopped online for new undies and bras, but she’d never worn it.

  She slipped the soft material over her and pulled the panties up, then went into the bathroom and looked at herself. She brushed her long white hair until it shone, and then leaned against the counter and stared at her reflection. “Something’s in the air,” she said out loud. “I don’t know what, but I hope I meet my big mate tonight.”

  Smiling at her reflection, she turned off the light and climbed into bed. She closed her eyes and willed herself to dream of her mate, vowing that she’d first ask him where he lived and what his name was, and then she’d get some more of his fabulous kisses.