The Wolf's Mate Book 7: Lindy & The Wulfen

by Butler, R. E.

  “Me, too.” She snuggled into him with a happy sigh. “Just how many pups are we talking about?”

  “I don’t know,” he said, “is tons a good number?”

  She laughed and tipped her face up to his for a kiss, which he gladly gave.

  After their meal, the group headed out to hunt. The mates wished them a good hunt, and he held Lindy’s hand as they walked back to what she referred to as the “full moon meeting place.” The large clearing had a firepit in the center that was lit on the full moon. Darkness had descended, but wolves could see better in the dark than humans, and they had no trouble navigating the woods.

  When the group began to strip, Crimson pushed Lindy behind a large tree. “I don’t want anyone to see you naked but me.”

  “They’re my pack. We’ve been seeing each other naked for years, it’s no big deal.”

  His wolf didn’t much care for that, and he snarled. “It’s a big deal now.”

  She laid her hand on his neck and stroked her thumb on his pulse. “I’m sorry, you’re right. I don’t really want anyone to see you naked either.”

  He watched her strip behind the safety of the tree and was mesmerized as her body changed from beautiful human to lovely wolf. He’d never watched another wolf shift before. She shook herself out and made a soft, growling sound, bumping his leg. Quickly stripping, he shifted into his form. He was much bigger than she was, and he made a mental note to his wolf not to outrun her because his legs were so much longer than hers.

  With a chuff, he nuzzled her neck and inhaled her scent. The sweet scent of her made his wolf salivate, and he wanted to sink his fangs into her neck to mark her in this form, too. But he had no idea if wolves did that. She licked his cheek and motioned with her head to follow her, and they met up with the other wolves in the center of the clearing. The wolves all froze and stared at him, and he realized that some of them had not seen him in his shift.

  The silence was broken after a long moment when Jason barked sharply, and the wolves snapped to attention and took off as a group. Crimson kept his stride short so he didn’t pass Lindy by and stayed close to her as they followed Jason, who led the pack on the hunt. The scents and sounds of the woods surrounded him. He smelled birds and small animals and heard the sound of the packs’ paws hitting the ground rhythmically as bushes and tree limbs rustled with animals making their getaways. Jason increased his stride, so Lindy and Crimson did as well, as the group twisted and turned through the woods.

  The pack wheeled to the right as Crimson heard the distant sound of hoof beats and knew they were following deer, and his heart rejoiced at a real hunt with wolves. He couldn’t wait to show Lindy that he was a worthy mate in both forms.

  At the moment the deer came into view, a tingling sensation descended Crimson’s spine, and every nerve ending in his body screamed danger! He scanned the area quickly, and he sensed something was out of the ordinary in the dark woods. Leaning to the left, he snagged Lindy’s scruff and pulled her to a quick stop with a loud growl. She whined and then went still as Crimson’s eyes roamed around the area. The wolves had left them behind, but not for long, as he heard the sound of them coming back toward them. Crimson shifted into his human form and raised his hand. His palm glowed brightly as his fire abilities allowed him to hold a small flame in his hand to shed light on the area.

  Glinting under some leaves was a trap. The same kind of deadly trap that had almost killed his mate. Rage boiled up inside him as he realized that Lindy had almost run into the trap the others had miraculously missed.

  Jason shifted. “Fuck me, how did you know that was there?” He lifted the leaves from the trap carefully to expose it.

  “I sensed it.”

  Lindy leaned against his leg, whining softly. He rested his free hand on the top of her head.

  “We can’t figure out who’s leaving the traps. It smells like the woods. I think they’re coating it with some kind of artificial scent that keeps us from detecting it. The first trap we found had fresh meat on it, but the trap that caught Lindy and this one are empty.”

  Michael, who had also shifted, said, “The traps keep getting closer and closer to our full moon meeting place, Jas. Who the fuck is leaving them?”

  Jason looked at Crimson. “Do you want to help us capture the fuck that’s leaving these things?”

  “Of course.”

  “Good. Logan and Linus, take the others and head back to the house. Be careful.” Logan, still in his wolf form, chuffed and waited for Faith, McKenna, and Drake to join him. Crimson squatted down and kissed Lindy’s snout. “Stay close to them. I’ll be back soon when the threat is gone.” He didn’t want her to be apart from him, but he knew that Logan and Linus were fierce males and would see them safely back to the alphas’ home.

  She whined in protest but seemed to accept what he said, and after licking his chin, she trotted over to the others and left. Jason said, “You can shift back into your form again, right? Because I’ve got an idea.”

  Jason relayed his plan to them, and after some preparations, the plan went into action. Crimson disabled the trap the same way he had manipulated the one that had captured Lindy. Then he shifted into his wolf form and lay down on his side, and Jason carefully arranged the broken trap around his back leg to make it appear that he had been caught.

  Bo appeared a few minutes later with a dead rabbit between his jaws. Jason ripped the flesh of the rabbit open and rubbed its blood along Crimson’s white fur to mimic a wound.

  “However long it takes, we’ll be right here,” Jason said. He and Michael turned to the nearby trees. Each one scaled a tree on either side of Crimson and climbed high until they were obscured by the leaves. Bo slinked back into the shadows and slipped underneath a thick bush. As instructed, Crimson began to howl in distress.

  The night passed slowly. Crimson howled a few times each hour, but otherwise listened intently for the sounds of someone approaching. Dawn came, the sun cutting through the trees and warming him as he lay prone with the trap around his leg. He was restless and wanted to shift back into his human form, but he knew how important it was to find whoever was laying the traps and put a stop to it. He couldn’t abide his mate or his pack being harmed.

  He smiled inwardly. He had a pack now. Resh.

  He distantly heard a twig snap and made himself appear to be unconscious. He hadn’t raised his voice to howl in about an hour.

  “Well, well,” a rough male voice said, “lookie what the trap caught.”

  Three males came into the clearing. Their bodies stank of alcohol mixed with body odor, and it took all his willpower not to wrinkle his nose in disgust.

  “I ain’t never seen such a big wolf before,” a thin, reedy voice said.

  “No matter. We’ll call him a rare species and get a good price for the pelt.”

  “But I thought there was people inside them wolves?” another, younger voice said.

  “Not when they’re dead. The law says if they die in their wolf forms that they’re wolves and we can do what we want to with them. Skeet, go check his pulse,” the rough voice said.

  “You go do it!” the reedy-voiced one said.

  “Harry said we was supposed to leave the dead wolves in the traps as a warning,” the younger voice said.

  “I need the money,” the rough voice said. “And they’ll get the hint anyway when one of their animals goes missing.”

  A bird sounded high above them and Crimson knew it was not a real bird, but Jason’s signal. In a blink, Crimson shifted into his fae form, his wings sprouting from his back quickly as he manifested his sword. Jason and Michael landed on the ground on either side of the small group of hunters, and Bo joined them, growling angrily.

  Crimson pointed his sword at the center male. All three were as white as sheets, their mouths gaped open in shock.

  Jason growled, “Why are you laying traps in my pack’s territory?”

  The center one gathered himself and made a disgusted face. “
You animals don’t own property. These here woods are for anyone to hunt in.”

  “The law,” Jason ground out through clenched teeth, “states that my pack’s territory is private property and no humans may hunt on it without my express permission as Alpha. Since I’ve never seen your ugly face before, I know you didn’t get my permission.”

  Bo snarled loudly and lunged at the younger male, who fell backward onto his butt and started to cry. “Don’t let him kill me, please! It was Harry Smith who hired us.”

  The center male kicked at the young male. “Shut your hole, Jerry.”

  “I don’t want to get eaten!” the young male wailed.

  Crimson stepped closer and sent a flame up the blade of the sword that swirled and danced along the metal. He could see the sweat beading up on the male’s skin as he closed the distance between them.

  “You will tell my alpha everything, or I will carve you into pieces and leave them on your mother’s porch.”

  The fire along the blade began to blister the male’s skin, and although he appeared to want to stand firm, he shouted, “Okay, okay! I’ll tell, just don’t kill me!”

  Jason said, “Stand down, Crimson. I think you made your point.”

  Crimson stepped back so Jason could get in front of the three males, raising his flaming sword high enough to light the area well. Within minutes, the males had shared the story of the traps, that they had been hired by a local farmer who wanted to scare the pack away from town and force them to settle in another area.

  “For what purpose?” Jason demanded.

  The center male, who had lost all his bravado, said, “I don’t know, Harry never said. He just said that if a few of you got hurt you’d take off.”

  Jason stepped closer and gripped both males who stood before him around their throats. They struggled, but Jason’s grip was far too tight. Their faces turned red, and their eyes bulged as he cut off their air. “You came onto my territory. You terrorized my people. You injured my wolf. By rights, I could kill you now.” The threat hung heavily in the air for several moments as the hunters’ eyes widened with fear, and the scent of urine filled the air as their bladders emptied. One of the males’ eyes rolled back in his head, and he fainted. Jason dropped him to the ground, and Crimson saw his fingers flex tighter on the throat of the remaining male. As his face turned purple, he stopped struggling, and Jason dropped him.

  The youngest of the three was still on the ground, blubbering that he didn’t want to die and he was sorry. Jason told the male to shut up, and he did with a squeaking sound, trembling from head to toe as he curled up into a ball.

  Jason said to Crimson, “Can you get back to my house quickly and have Cades call Trick at the police station and then lead him and his people out here? I don’t want to take these assholes anywhere near my house.”

  Crimson nodded, released his sword so it disappeared, and lifted into the air with a flap of his wings. He moved through the woods quickly, stopping at the clearing and picking up his pants, and racing on to the alphas’ home. He landed behind a tree at the edge of the backyard and tugged the pants on, and then walked the rest of the way to the house. Lindy, dressed in borrowed clothes, was waiting on the porch for him and leapt into his arms. He carried her into the house and relayed the message to Cades, who pulled her cell from her pocket and dialed.

  Standing inside the kitchen, Crimson waited with Lindy, Cades, Linus, Faith, McKenna, Drake, and Logan. The mates and the two children were still sleeping, camped out in the front room. The police showed up, and Crimson led them to the hunters in the woods where the males were arrested and then taken to jail, while the farmer who’d hired them, Harry Smith, was arrested as well.

  Crimson and Lindy went home after the males were arrested and taken away, and Jason called later in the afternoon to share the story of the hunters.

  “Harry spilled his guts pretty quickly when faced with jail. His brother-in-law is a developer and said that the pack’s territory is prime real estate and could be turned into upscale homes on small parcels of land. Apparently there is a market for luxury homes in small towns. At any rate, the territory belongs to the Tressel Pack, and the only way it can be purchased is if the pack leaves the area. Then we would forfeit the land, and it would be sold at auction. His brother-in-law told him that if he could get us to leave, Harry could buy up the land and then sell it to his brother for a tidy profit.”

  “So he hired the hunters to set the traps, knowing that wolves could be killed by them,” Crimson said.

  “Pretty much. He told Trick he didn’t know the traps were deadly, but no one believes him. The hunters are trying to roll on Harry to get less time in jail, and Harry is trying to lay the blame on the hunters, but they’re all going away for a long time. It’s a federal offense to lay traps on shifter territory.”

  Crimson didn’t understand the male’s desire for money that could blind him to hurting innocents.

  Jason said, “He was never our biggest fan, but he’s been in town since I was a kid, and we thought he lived in peace with us. I guess some people are really good at hiding their true feelings.”

  “I’m glad he’s gone,” Crimson said.

  “Me, too. We’re going to do a sweep of the area tomorrow, and I’d like you to help. It will take all day, but afterward we can visit the man I told you about and then discuss your job prospects.”

  Crimson smiled inwardly. “Sounds like a plan.”

  * * * * *

  The night of the full moon, Crimson found himself nervous for the first time in a long while. He could stand at the front lines in battle without breaking a sweat, but the mating and induction ceremonies for the pack were filling him with nerves. He and Lindy had spent the entire day in bed, and it had been a sweet, sweet day of sharing pleasure. His wolf, far more content than he’d ever been, had reveled in the love of his mate, and he looked forward to hunting with her once more.

  When it was nearly time to head to the alphas’ home for the pre-hunting cookout, Lindy slipped from the bed with a groan and gave him an impish smile before walking into the bathroom and shutting the door. He quickly donned a pair of jeans and a shirt and grabbed an envelope and a small box from underneath the stack of jeans in the closet. By the time she came out of the bathroom, he was sitting on the bed once more, waiting.

  Her steps slowed, and she looked at him curiously.

  “Get dressed, chelle, and then we need to talk.”

  Her brows arched, but she simply nodded and walked into the closet. She came out a few moments later wearing shorts and a shirt.

  “My father told me once that males who couldn’t provide for their mates were unworthy males, lower than the lowest scrugbeetle.” He patted the space on the mattress next to him, and she sat down. “Our home in the Fae Realm had been my father’s before he mated my mother, and I had few needs, so I saved my earnings for the future.” From inside the envelope, he pulled out a clipped stack of paperwork. “Jason was kind enough to take me to a broker who helped me exchange my earnings for the money of your realm, and I used it to buy two things.”

  He handed her the papers, and she looked down at the top page. Confusion flitted across her features. “This is a deed with my name on it.”

  “I bought the house for you.”

  “What?” Her eyes rounded in surprise, and her grip tightened on the papers.

  “I went to the mortgage company and made arrangements to buy the house for you. These papers mean that the house is yours and no one can take it from you.”

  Her mouth opened then closed, and she made a soft, squeaking sound as tears glistened in her eyes. She threw herself into his arms and buried her face in his neck. “You didn’t have to do this for me, Crimson,” she whispered thickly, “but thank you.”

  He squeezed her tightly, and a small growl of contentment rippled through him. “I did have to do it. I want to provide for you and any pups we have. I don’t want to be a bad mate. I want to take care of you in every
way. Make you feel safe and secure in our future.”

  She eased away, and he brushed the tears from her cheeks. “I do feel safe with you. And I love you so much. Thank you.” She sniffled. “But the deed should have your name on it, too.”

  “It will.” He smiled. Slipping to the floor on his knees, he opened the box that contained a diamond ring flanked with rubies and emeralds and said, “Will you marry me, Lindy? Will you share my name, my future, my life? My heart is yours forever.”

  Fresh tears slipped down her cheeks as she let him put the ring on, fell into his lap with a resounding “Yes!”, and kissed him.

  His wolf growled happily and Crimson shared in the beast’s excitement. Their mate was agreeing to be theirs in every possible way. Once they were officially joined by the pack and then married by human standards, she would be his forever, and he would be hers.

  At one time, Crimson hadn’t thought much about his future outside of his military service. Now, his future was filled with thoughts of taking care of his mate and their future pups. He couldn’t wait for what would come.

  Chapter 23

  Lindy’s left hand trembled in Crimson’s as Jason wound the mating strap around them, joining them officially as mates within the pack. She’d never been so nervous in her life. She must feel how a bride felt when she walked down the aisle, like it was a dream, and she might wake up at any second.

  Crimson squeezed her hand slightly and smiled at her. His eyes were red, the same color as the rubies on her engagement ring, and she saw a hint of his fangs as he smiled at her. Jason spoke the words of the mating ceremony, and Lindy and Crimson responded, vowing themselves to each other for the span of their lives.

  Crimson pulled her toward him, their captive hands pressed tightly between them, and growled, “mine” before he kissed her deeply. The pack howled and cheered, and Lindy was happy that the pack was so accepting of her mate and their joining.