The Wolf's Mate Book 4: Michael & Shyne

by Butler, R. E.

  "Not females?" Shyne asked between bites of fried chicken.

  "Only when we're pregnant, and, of course, on the full moon we tend to want to eat more red meat," she winked at her.

  Michael was really thrilled with the day so far. Shyne got to spend time with his family. He was reminded that she didn't have any family, and he made it a point to ask her about her past once things had settled down. Conversation flowed easily around the table, and everyone included Shyne, which he loved. His family and pack were world-class all around. He was lucky in so many ways, and now he was going to get to share the rest of his life with the most amazing woman he'd ever known.

  After the meal was over, Jason informed them that they were going to meet the hyenas in a diner fifteen minutes north of Allen to discuss the situation. Jason pulled him out onto the porch privately. "Have you told Shyne you don't want her working there any longer?"

  He shook his head. "I can't just take that away from her, Jas. She worked so hard to get where she is, and we've only known each other a few weeks. It would be righteously unfair of me to impose my will on her."

  Jason folded his arms. "Maybe, but you're going to be twisted up in knots every time she's there, and you have other responsibilities. I can tell you one thing for damn sure: if it was Cades in that situation, I would argue against it."

  Smiling, Michael said, "That would go over real well with her."

  Jason shrugged. "She's your woman. You need to protect her. However that happens, you just make sure you get it done. I sure as hell don't want to have to take the pack up there to kick their asses because they do something stupid like kidnap her. It's one thing to settle their debt against you with a fight. It's an entirely different thing for your mate to be in their place daily when you aren't there."

  True.

  Nodding, he turned back to the house to say goodbye to Shyne. She was going to stay with Cades, Karly and his mom until they got back. Because Cades was pregnant, Jason wasn't letting her come to the meeting, and she had already declared she didn't need to see any more male posturing than she did on the full moons.

  Pulling Shyne into his arms in a corner away from prying eyes, he kissed her soundly and held her close. "We'll be back in a few hours, and then I'll take you back to my place so you can change for work."

  She nodded, breathless. "What's going to happen?"

  "I'm going to challenge one of them to a fight in our animal shift. When I win, they'll have paid their debt against me, and they will know that you're mine."

  Her fingers gripped his shirt, twisting. "I don't want you to get hurt because of me. I should just quit."

  He was glad for her to say that, but he could tell that she wasn't happy. She wasn't going to quit to keep him from confronting them, he wouldn't allow it. Tipping her chin with his fingers, he stared into her dark brown eyes. "Baby, I love you. I know you don't understand this, but it's our way. They came into our territory, they used you to get to me, and they completely terrorized you. When this is over, there will be nothing but professional courtesy between you four."

  "When will the fight happen?"

  "I don't know, possibly as early as tonight."

  He kissed her once more and left, joining Jason in his truck. Linus, Bo and his father followed in Bo's truck.

  "Love's hard as hell, right?" Jason laughed, and Michael nodded.

  "I had no idea."

  "I'd like to tell you it gets better, but once they get your love, they know you're toast."

  As they drove to the diner, he told Jason about his desire to get a car and a house for Shyne and to find some way for her to leave her job but still get to do what she loved.

  Jason turned off the truck. "My baby brother is growing up."

  Snorting, he opened the truck door, "And all it took was the love of a good woman."

  They sighted the three hyenas through the windows of the diner and walked inside. They were sitting at a long table at the back of the small restaurant, and they stood when they approached.

  Jason said, "My name is Jason Gerrick, and I'm alpha of the Tressel Pack."

  The one Michael recognized as Dante, with the short, black hair, stood up, and extended his hand. "I'm Dante Stone, eldest of our clan. These are my brothers and clanmates, Cairo and Mason." Cairo was the boxer, and Mason was the youngest. Michael's wolf tensed at the sight of Mason. Shyne liked Mason more than the others. If it weren't for their mating habits, she might be in his arms right now.

  Jason sat down, and Michael took one side while Bo took the other, Linus and his father completing their group. Jason folded his hands on the table in front of him and said, "Let's cut to the chase. You know why you're here. You lured one of my wolves away from the pack with the scent of his woman, drugged and kidnapped him, and dumped him in a habitat with natural wolves."

  Dante's nostrils flared. "Shyne is no one's woman. She's single and fair game."

  Michael tensed and gripped the underside of his chair to keep himself from smashing Dante's face into the table. Jason was in charge. "She wears Michael's mark, she's agreed to be his mate. That is the very opposite of a woman that is fair game."

  Mason frowned, "And just when did that happen? Last night she had no marks." Arrogance seeped from him and made Michael wrinkle his nose in disgust.

  Jason leaned back in the chair and said, "Last night. When she reached out to Michael for help because she was terrified over what you'd done. I don't know how you hyenas do things, but wolves don't go around breaking into women's cars and marking up their homes as if they're property."

  Cairo flexed his fingers, and his knuckles cracked. Michael might have been impressed, except he really wasn't anymore. Yes they were big and kinda fucking scary, but they were just shifters like them, immature ones at that. "We were not doing anything that caused permanent harm."

  Jason shook his head. "Regardless, you owe a debt to my second for what you did to him."

  "Debt?" Dante asked, raising a dark brow.

  "Yes. You caused injury to not only Michael but his woman and our pack. That makes a debt against you, and you must rectify the debt."

  "And just how the hell do you suggest we do that?" Mason snarled.

  "A fight," Jason said, and Michael was amused by the smug looks on their faces, at least until Jason continued to speak. "One of you against Michael at a neutral place. The fight will be in shifted form to first-blood. When the fight is over, no matter the outcome, the slate is wiped clean."

  "And when we win?" Dante said smugly.

  "If you win, there is no more challenge." Jason shrugged. "But when my brother wins, you will keep your hyena-mating paws off Shyne and admit that they are mates."

  "She works for us, and he can't be there any longer," Cairo said.

  "She will work it out."

  Dante shook his head, "So, wait, if we win, then we get Shyne, too?"

  Michael growled and felt his fangs begin to elongate. Jason put a firm hand on his shoulder, and Michael tried to reign in his beast. "Shyne is a woman of her own making. She decides who is or is not her mate. What I said was that you will stay away from her in any capacity except professional when we win. If you win, then it's up to Shyne to tell you to stay away and for you to honor her request."

  The three looked at each other quietly, and then Dante said, "We'll meet you at midnight tonight in the clearing where we took Michael. And we want Shyne to be there."

  Michael growled and couldn't stop from speaking, "You cannot think I'd allow my mate to be near danger like that!"

  Dante spoke with amusement, "She needs to see the truth of your people. When this might have been solved with a simple apology, you demanded brutal satisfaction. It will be our pleasure to school both her and you in the many ways that hyenas are better suited mates than wolves." The three stood at the same time, towering over the table, and then walked away.

  When the hyenas were gone, Michael put his head in his hands and let out a relieved breath. Just having them
gone made him feel better, even as he worried over having Shyne at the fight tonight.

  "Smart fuckers," Bo muttered.

  Linus grunted, "No doubt. It's not as if Michael will be bringing another wolf to the fight who would understand what is going to happen. Shyne is human. She might be completely terrified."

  Running his hands through his hair he stood up, and the others followed suit. "Then I just have to make sure that she understands everything."

  They handed a few bills to the owner of the diner to thank him for the use of the tables and headed home. When they were on the way, Jason asked how he planned to show Shyne what wolves were like in a fight without getting into one in front of her. Because the truth was that shifting now would tire him out, and he needed to be in top condition.

  Shyne ran into his arms when he stepped into the house, and he could practically taste her worry as she buried her face in his chest and squeezed her arms around him. He took a moment to savor the feeling of her in his arms, and then he pushed her away gently to arms' length. "Put your shoes on, sweetheart, we're going for a walk."

  Her brow furrowed lightly, and she opened her mouth to say something, but closed it without a word and went to find her shoes. On the drive home, he and Jason had devised a way to let her see what two wolves fighting would look like, and it was a good way for the newly shifted young wolves to let off some post-full moon steam.

  By the time he and Shyne reached the clearing where they held their full moon gatherings, two teenage boys stood with Jason and their parents, and two slightly older teenagers waited nearby. When he and Jason were younger, his father used to send them out to tussle in their wolf forms when they were getting on his nerves. Jason could always kick his ass, but he never gave a beating that didn't include a lesson in how to be a better fighter.

  "Tell me," Shyne said as they stopped at the edge of the clearing. A handful of other wolves were there to make sure the matches didn't get out of hand, along with the top ranked and his own parents.

  He turned to her, caught her in his arms and dropped a kiss to her mouth. He explained quickly what the hyenas had said and the point of the matches now. Her hands fisted in his shirt as she listened without speaking, and although he wasn't surprised that tears formed in her eyes, he still warmed at the sight.

  "This is all my fault," she said thickly.

  "No, it's not love. I knew they were interested in you the first day I met you. And I knew that going to the gym every day and spending time with you was going to ramp up their interest. If it's anyone's fault, baby, it's mine. But I'm going to fix this tonight."

  She blinked, and a tear slid down her cheek. He wiped it away with his thumb. "I don't want you to get hurt."

  "I probably will get busted up a little, but no matter what happens tonight, you need to understand that I'm fighting for honor here...yours and mine. They insulted the pack by coming into our territory uninvited. I'm second, baby, I have to answer that. And if I lose," she closed her eyes and bit her bottom lip, and he waited until she opened her eyes again before he continued, "baby, if I lose, it doesn't change anything between us. I'm still yours completely, and you're still mine if you want to be. All you have to do is tell them what happened between us, and they'll leave you alone."

  Jason called his name, and Michael looked up and saw that the two youngest wolves were getting ready to shift. Shyne tried to turn around, but he stopped her, keeping her back to the young wolves while they stripped. "You don't get to see anyone naked but me."

  She arched a brow. "So you keep teasing."

  Leaning down, he let his teeth graze the shell of her ear, and she shivered. "No teasing...promising."

  The familiar sound of paws on the ground told him that the two young men had shifted, and he turned Shyne around. The group had moved to the edge of the clearing, and Jason reminded the wolves of the rules before walking away and signaling for them to begin. Shyne questioned the rules, and Michael explained that these were play-fights, meant to relieve stress and begin to teach the young wolves how to fight. For these sorts of fights, it was over when one pinned the other to ground to a count of five.

  The difference for the fight that night was that first-blood meant that one of the two fighters had to draw a large enough wound so that the blood was visible. He wrapped his arms around Shyne as she stood in front of him, and she clutched his arms with her hands and held onto him. From time to time he explained the young wolves' actions and how it felt to be a wolf. During any given time, he could feel his beast in the back of his mind, a quiet wraith that waited patiently to be brought out. Sometimes, that creature would manifest itself more prominently, during times of stress or anger or even extreme passion, which his sister-in-law could attest to with Jason, when his claws came out during a wild night of sex.

  There was a yelp of surprise, and the older of the two boys had the other one pinned. Jason counted to five loudly and declared the one wolf the winner. They would need to stay in their shift for several hours, until their bodies were ready for the strain of shifting back to human form. Jason sent them off to hunt and explore with their fathers who had watched with pride as the two battled, before calling the two older wolves to shift.

  Shyne turned dutifully into his chest and snaked her arms around him. She sighed deeply, and whatever she was thinking about she didn't voice, and he didn't press her. The second match went longer because the boys were older and more knowledgeable, and Michael watched with pride as they tried to take each other out. When the match was over, they left to catch up to the other wolves out hunting, and the rest of the wolves disbanded.

  As they walked back towards Jason and Cadence's home, Shyne said, "Your mom offered to come to my class tonight, Michael. She said you could drive us, and she could, um, keep an eye on me from inside."

  "Are you okay with that?" He really hoped so. He hadn't had a clue how to keep an eye on her from outside in the parking lot while she taught her class.

  She stopped abruptly. "No. No, I'm not okay with any of this."

  "I'm sorry."

  She snorted angrily. "I heard you the first ten times, Michael. For fuck's sake, you're all acting like teenagers."

  He didn't know what to say. It was kind of true. No one said what he was going to do tonight was brilliant, but it was their way. You just didn't insult wolves and get away with it.

  Sucking her teeth in annoyance, she stalked away from him towards the house and called over her shoulder, "Take me back to your place so I can get ready for work."

  He felt a hand land on his back as he stared in mute surprise at his mate. Jason chuckled, "What'd I tell you? Falling in love is hard as hell on the ego."

  * * * * *

  Shyne didn't say two words to him on the way to the gym. The tension in the car was thick and uncomfortable. When he pulled into the parking lot, she got out without a word and waited for his mom to get out. His mom turned to him before she stepped out, "I'll be right there with her. Don't worry."

  "Thanks, Mom."

  He watched Shyne lead his mother into the gym. He could see through the glass front doors that Mason was sitting at the reception desk with the receptionist, and he would bet that the other two brothers were also inside. He turned off his mother's borrowed car and pulled his Smartphone from his pocket. He began to surf the web and try to keep from thinking about being away from her. By the time he had read an article about the deer population in Kentucky and hadn't absorbed anything at all, he knew that he couldn't concentrate enough on anything with her in the gym and out of his sight. He just wished that she wasn't still so pissed at him.

  Relieved when his mom and Shyne walked out of the gym, he got out of the car and held open her door and then his mother's door. The ride back to Allen was quiet, and he took her to the trailer so she could shower and change. At eleven they headed to Jason and Cadence's home to meet up with the rest of the upper-ranked members of the pack that were going to be there for support. Shyne walked into the house,
found Cadence and his mom, and completely ignored him.

  "Your mom said that the one with the long hair said hello to her, but the other two didn't show their faces," his dad said, coming to stand in the front room where Michael watched Shyne and his family talk quietly. They looked as thick as thieves.

  "Thanks, Dad. Except for some curt answers, she hasn't said anything to me since we left the matches today."

  "Well, she told your mom that she's worried about you getting hurt because of her and that she wished she'd told them from the beginning that she wasn't interested in them in any way."

  "That's not her fault, though. They should have been able to tell she wasn't into them."

  "True, but men aren't always smart. Hyenas look for a strong woman for their clans, and Shyne is strong and sweet and friendly. Whatever happens tonight, I'm sure that she'll forgive you in time. There's nothing like a few bruises on her man to make a woman forget how mad she is." Chuckling, his father clapped him on the back and walked outside.

  Michael certainly hoped that was true.

  It was time to head to the clearing where he'd been drugged, and he stepped down onto the grass and caught Shyne's arm. "It's dark as hell out here, and the woods are thick. Climb onto my back, and I'll carry you so you don't trip."

  For a moment, he thought she would argue with him, but she smiled in agreement. He ducked down to one knee, and she looped her arms around his neck and snugged her legs at his waist. Standing, he hooked his arms around her knees and began a slow walk to the place.

  Resting her cheek on his shoulder, she said, "I'm still kinda pissed at you."

  "Oh, really? I couldn't tell."

  She laughed, but it was short. "I just, well, I don't understand any of this. I don't see why you have to fight one of them, or what the point of it is. I understand honor; I just don't see why it has to be so extreme."

  "Because I'm a wolf, baby. We have laws, rules that we have to abide by. If I let this go, it would make me weak in the pack. I'm the alpha's right hand, I can't be weak."

  The silence that followed told him that she was thinking about what he said. He didn't want to expose her to violence, but he had no choice. He was going to set things right and claim her for his own.