The Wolf's Mate Book 3: Callie & The Cats

By R.E. Butler

Callie Hunter, best friend to alpha half-wolf Cadence, has had enough of the pack life. Setting her sights on anyplace without wolves, she heads north only to be sidetracked by a devastating car crash that brings her face to face with twin mountain lions.

Ethan and Eryx, small town sheriff's deputies, knew the moment they touched Callie that she was the mate they'd always wanted. But mountain lion females don't take kindly to sharing their males with anyone else and will do anything in their power to discourage Callie from sticking around. Will Ethan and Eryx's desire for Callie cost them everything, or will Callie find her inner wolf and the home she's always dreamed of?

• Language: English
• Publisher: R.E. Butler
• Release date: Jun 8, 2012
• ISBN: 9781476240114

R.E. Butler

A Midwesterner by birth, R.E. spent much of her childhood rewriting her favorite books to include herself as the main character. Later, she graduated on to writing her own books after "retiring" from her day job as a secretary to become a stay-at-home mom.When not playing with her kids, wrestling her dogs out the door, or cooking dinner for her family, you'll find her typing furiously and growling obscenities to the characters on the screen.Her best-selling series Wiccan-Were-Bear, The Necklace Chronicles, Hyena Heat, Wilde Creek, Were-Zoo, Arctic Shifters, Norlanian Brides, Saber Chronicles, and Ashland Pride are available now.

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The Wolf’s Mate Book 3

Callie & The Cats

by R.E. Butler

Table of Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Excerpt from Michael & Shyne

Other Books by R. E. Butler

About the Author

Copyright

Chapter One

I’ll have a cub with you Ethan, but that’s as far as things will go, Melania sniffed at him. She was lovely, like any other mountain lion female; all sharp angles and thin, willowy frame like a supermodel. But she was also cold and detached like any other mountain lion female. In their culture, it was the males that craved affection, that wanted marriage and children and a home, not the females. The females would bear a cub with a male whether they liked him or not, drop the baby off on the doorstep and not look at it again. It was an oddly upside down world compared to what he knew of human relationships, where the females were often the ones that wanted for love and affection and the males didn’t have the desire for it. But lions couldn’t be with human females, it was too risky. The lion females, while they didn’t want to be in relationships with the males, held their kind in esteem and would drive any human females far away through fear and intimidation, and violence if necessary.

I don’t just want to have a child with you, Melania. He sighed, running his hand through his hair. He needed a haircut. It was starting to dust the collar of his shirt and his father frowned on that on the force.

Her golden eyes showed no emotion at all as she looked at him once more, It is what it is, Ethan. You ask too much. You want to fuck, that’s fine. You want a cub, that’s fine, too. But a relationship, a marriage? It’s impossible. You’re worse than your father. You and that brother of yours.

With a rustle of the pages, Melania Travers turned back to her magazine at the desk in the police station, where he, his two brothers, two uncles, and his father made up the entire police force of King, Pennsylvania. The tiny town, barely on any map, was nestled in the mountains in the northern part of the state, and currently covered in snow that wouldn’t disappear until April. It was the perfect place in his mind, except for the one glaring missing piece of his life: a wife.

He turned and walked out of the station into the blistering wind of the beginning of January. Today he’d woken up with an itch he couldn’t scratch, an aching in his bones as if he were on the verge of something big. Over breakfast this morning, in the small home he shared with his twin Eryx and their younger brother Alek, Eryx had shared that he too was feeling strange, as if a change were coming.

Weather, snorted Alek. Younger than his brothers by only two years, twenty-four year old Alek wasn’t the romantic that his older brothers were, but he still wanted more than what they’d been relegated to with the mountain lion females. Even if he refused to admit it.

Eryx leaned over the table and stuck his finger in his brother’s bowl of Fruit Loops and Alek growled and jerked his bowl away. Don’t dismiss our feelings, little brother.

Fine, fine. You guys sit around and pant after the females and try to get them to see the light for a relationship. I’m sure it will work as well for you as it did for Dad.

Before they could make him sorry for bringing up their father’s situation, he scooted out of the kitchen with his bowl of cereal. He’s not wrong. Ethan scrubbed his fingers along his unshaven jaw. Why were our kind made like this? Why do we yearn for relationships and enduring love and our females want nothing of the sort?

I ask myself that question at least as much as you do. We are made as we are, brother. I don’t relish leading the life our father does, but we seem to have no choice.

There is a choice. Ethan leaned on the back two legs of the kitchen chair and drummed his fingers on the table.

Eryx stood up and refilled his travel mug. As usual, his twin was ready to go well before their eight a.m. start time. Push the thought from your mind, brother. Would you really try to seduce a human woman and watch her be driven away by the females? No human woman can stand up to the females and they know it. Cody had that human for a while and she nearly lost her eye because of it. I wish it could be different. He walked out of the kitchen and left Ethan to brood, So do I.

* * *

Eryx didn’t doubt that Ethan wanted a wife and family as much as he did, but it wouldn’t ever happen. Their own mother didn’t treat them any differently than a stranger on the street. There were times when he would sit in the cruiser in the park during the summer and watch the human mothers with their children, and wish he’d had something like that for a childhood. His father had given them everything he could in the way of nurture and affection, but it was one-sided. A true family, he was certain, had two parents. One picking up the slack for the other, one strong where the other lacked. A partnership. But more than his own wanting for female affection as a child, was that he wished he wasn’t dooming any of his future children to the same motherless fate.

When he walked into the station, his face must have been a picture because his father asked him immediately what was wrong. The strong hand on his shoulder was as reassuring as anything else he’d ever known and it was enough to make his eyes sting. Of the two, Ethan was the most tenderhearted, but Eryx was not without his emotions. He just needed an outlet. He needed a woman that would let him show her love and affection, a woman that would want his attention and comfort.

You look for all the world like someone tried to poke your eye out. What’s wrong, son?

He steeled himself thoroughly before meeting his father’s intense gaze. I just, I just wish it were different, Dad.

The soft smile, the gentle crinkle at the corner of his eyes, nearly undid him, but it was the words that cut deeply and, unfortunately, gave him hope. Maybe it will be different for the two of you. I feel a change coming, deep down in the marrow of my bones.

Fantastic. Now all three of them were feeling twitchy, but as far as the eye could see, there were only human females that were too fragile and weak to be with them or to stand up to the mountain lion females, and the mountain lion females themselves who were unwilling to be more than incubators and booty calls.

As quickly as he could, he clocked in and went out on foot patrol. He needed the icy wind in his lungs to chase away the sorrow that had lodged there. The dull ache in his chest refused to go away, however, and eventually he made two circuits around their small downtown before heading to the cruiser to make the rounds.

It would be a long, cruel winter.

Chapter Two

I have to go, Cades, I can’t be the reason things are so strained between you and Jason. Callie looked over the two large suitcases open on her bed and then went into the closet to make sure she had gotten everything. Her best friend, alpha werewolf of their pack, strike that—her old pack—sat on her bed with tears in her eyes and pouted.

Last week, her husband Jason, alpha male of the Tressel pack, thought that Cadence was being too lax with the females of the pack and demanded that she put them all in their place with some pack discipline. The long and short of it was that she harangued the females within an inch of their lives until they were all but pissing themselves in fear, but kept Callie out of it, and Jason said that made Cadence weak.

He wanted her to include Callie in the discipline, bring her under her thumb of guidance and rule, and she didn’t want to. Cadence was the most fiercely protective friend a gal could hope for. She was a ruthless alpha female even though she was only a half wolf and couldn’t shift. When Jason insisted she bring Callie to heel, she refused. And for the first time, Jason made her submit to him in public and it had broken Callie's heart. And strained Cadence and Jason's relationship severely.

Callie knew he felt bad. She knew that he hated that he’d had to do that, but he couldn’t appear weak to his own people by letting his mate get away with disobeying a direct order. What he didn’t know, but Callie did, was that Cadence was pregnant, very early, just two weeks, but still...it would hurt him to know he’d potentially put her and the baby in harm’s way by putting her down. You didn’t bring a wolf to heel with a gentle nudge, you did it by force and she had growled and fought him the whole time. Callie wouldn’t wish that on her worst enemy, let alone her best friend.

I’ve already cut ties with the pack. Jason gave me his blessing. It has to be this way, Cades. You can’t defy your husband for my sake and I have to, damn it, I have to stand on my own two feet for a change. Her whole life she never stood alone. As a child, Cadence was her defender and stood up for Callie at every turn. Even when Callie joined the pack at sixteen when she came into her abilities, then she was under the leadership of the alpha, which at the time had been Jason’s father Peter until he was injured in a hunting accident and Jason took over. From that point on, Jason had abused his position of power in the pack to get her to spy on her best friend for him, because he had a wicked case of unrequited love for her. And whenever she tried to go against him, he asserted his power over her and brought her to her knees. Now was as good a time as any to start fresh. Callie left in honor; she was rogue but she could join another pack if she wanted to. At the moment, all she wanted to do was get to know herself all over again and find the bitchy werewolf that she believed was hovering somewhere under the surface. She was secretly terrified to walk away from everything, but this wasn’t home for her anymore.

She put on her brave face as she finished zipping up the two suitcases and rechecked the bathroom to make sure she had everything. Her whole life was in two suitcases and a box in her car. Her apartment was a studio and came furnished. The only things that were hers were her clothes and toiletries and a handful of DVDs, books, and knickknacks. Everything was paid for and turned off. All her mail was stopped. She quit her job as a teller at the credit union. Calliope Marie Hunter, low ranked werewolf of the Tressel Pack, was no more. Callie Hunter, rogue wolf, was ready for anything.

Outside in front of her ancient Ford Taurus, she hugged her best friend, for possibly the last time. Tell Jason about the baby, Cades, sooner rather than later. Let him feel guilty for being such a dick and then forgive him for everything, for me.

Sniffling, her best friend turned emerald green eyes to her that were shining with tears. I don’t want you to go, Callie. Please stay.

I can’t. I’m rogue now. And you can’t be yourself with me, because the person you are now isn’t the same as who you were before you became alpha. You’re trying to hold onto that person, but it’s time to let her go and embrace who you are now. And I need to find myself, too. Somewhere out there is a place for me. I’ll be fine. You’ve taught me a lot about courage and love, Cades. I couldn’t ask for a better friend than you. I love you.

I love you too, Callie. She kissed Cadence on the lips once and hugged her tightly, and managed to hold back the gut wrenching heartbreak so she didn’t make her feel worse than she did already. When she was several miles outside of town, she pulled over to the side of the road and cried, saying goodbye to the only life she’d ever known.

So where does a twenty-four year-old rogue werewolf female with no job and no family to speak of go to start over? No clue. She only knew for sure that she didn’t want to stop in any towns with wolf packs, so she asked Peter to help her by scouting out a map of surrounding states and marking the pack territories. Wolf packs lived more toward the Midwest and south, so she opted to go north east, skirting along the border of Ohio and crossing into West Virginia and then up into Pennsylvania. She had enough money to last her a few months until she found a job, and planned to take her time meandering through West Virginia and southern Pennsylvania, stopping at small hotels and B&Bs along the way, waiting for a town or an area to catch her eye.

A week into her trip, and nothing had. So far, the only thing she’d accomplished in her plan to find herself was to figure out that she really hated driving in January. If she’d been smarter, she might have waited until the weather turned, but the truth was that come the January full moon, Jason was going to want Cades to be alpha for all the females and Callie didn’t want to be the reason they weren’t happy. Of course if Callie had been really smart, she would have bought a plane ticket somewhere warm to start over. Like Hawaii.

She hit the tiny town of King, Pennsylvania with a quaint clapboard sign announcing Welcome at the city limits, and followed the signs toward a bed and breakfast. It was dark and sleeting, and she was very thankful she was going to be stopping for the night. Her knuckles were white on the steering wheel as her car crested the top of a hill and started over, spying the stop sign at the bottom of the road that dead-ended into a two lane road. The car eased over the hill slowly enough, but picked up speed and she gingerly pressed her booted foot to the brake and it didn’t slow down.

Panic laced through her and she pressed harder, then pressed her foot into the floor. Nothing happened except that the car picked up speed and raced toward the stop sign. She prayed that there were no cars coming and closed her eyes when her car lurched past the stop sign and blazed across the two lane road. When her eyes opened for a split second as the car crashed past the small barrier hiding whatever lay beyond the road, she saw nothing but trees and darkness. The car tipped nose downward, flipped, and crashed hard, and the last thing she remembered as her forehead cracked against the steering wheel and the windows shattered around her, was thinking that she should have stopped earlier and waited out the storm.

Chapter Three

Normally he didn’t patrol with Eryx, but they’d both been feeling so out of sorts and twitchy at the station that night that their father had sent them out together. They usually worked mornings, but once a week they took an evening shift to give their uncles a break. He thought approaching Melania yesterday would have made him feel better but it hadn’t. He had been under the impression that he was just starting to want a cub, and he’d known without a doubt that she was going to say no to anything except straight sex or a no-strings-attached cub, but it hadn’t eased the ache in his heart.

Maybe we’re coming into a heat of our own? He glanced at Eryx as he drove. His brother was more serious than him, quiet and brooding, but he took love and relationships as seriously as he did. Not that it mattered in the long run.

We’d be the first, he snorted, not taking his eyes off the treacherous roads. It had been cloudy but dry all day, and come nightfall, the sky had decided to pour sleet and with the temperatures dropping fast, the roads turned icy and dangerous in a matter of hours.

Just when he was about to say something snarky to his brother, a car streaked past the stop sign on Perry Avenue, crashed through the small protective barrier, and dropped down the embankment with an enormous crash. Eryx drove up to the scene as Ethan called for the rescue squad. They got out of the patrol car with flashlights and stood on the edge of the road in the middle of the broken barrier and stared down the hillside at the car that had miraculously landed right side up.

You first, Eryx said with a shove to his shoulder and Ethan scanned the flashlight back and forth in front of him as he picked his way down the slick snow covered hill. He’d grabbed their medical kit, but had no real illusions that the human or humans inside the car were alive. As the car came into view, it was clear it had rolled. The windows were shattered, the light from his Magnum picking up the broken pieces like diamonds on the snow.

Fuck me. Eryx said quietly. He agreed completely. The closer they drew to the car, fighting through several feet of snow at the bottom of the hillside, the more edgy he felt, as if there were something horribly wrong about the whole scenario. Not just the potential loss of life, but another thing entirely.

Sleet whipped inside the car from the broken windows, and the blood covered head of the poor human was slumped to the side. He could see the lightly tanned skin of the human’s neck, striped with blood. Delicate and small, it was clear this was a woman. Eryx shined his light inside the car and they both reached their hands to the neck of the woman at the same time. The instant they touched her skin, a sizzle of warmth shot through him and he looked at his brother and saw Eryx had the same startled look.

Eryx? He whispered, his throat suddenly dry.

I feel it, too. Tell me she’s alive, Ethan. Please. Eryx made room for Ethan’s EMT expertise, and he pressed his fingers into the side of her neck for her pulse and found it surprisingly strong.

She’s alive. He assured his brother, and Eryx let out a breath he’d been holding and clicked the radio on his collar, barking for the ETA on the rescue. The crackle of the night operator’s voice over the radio sounded harsh in the quiet stillness of the valley, Ten minutes, boys.

Ethan smoothed the hair gently from the side of her face that was resting on her right shoulder. A gash just above her hairline over her left ear must have happened when she hit her head on the door, and leaning inside, he could see a cut on her forehead that was bruising quickly but had stopped bleeding, probably from the steering wheel.

Can we, should we get her out? Eryx asked, shifting nervously on his feet.

Ethan tested the door after unlocking it and it was damaged enough it wouldn’t budge without considerable force. If we force the door open, we might hurt her more. It’s best to wait for the squad.

So we do nothing while our mate lays there bleeding? Eryx growled and Ethan felt the same raw protectiveness for this stranger who was immediately imbedded in his heart.

He began to unbutton his coat. Not nothing, we can at least keep her warm. Give me your coat.

They didn’t really need the coats. Cats ran warmer than humans, so giving her the wool coats they were both wearing didn’t hurt them any, and they’d both risk frostbite for their mate anyway.

Mate. He let the word roll around in his mind, loving the way it sounded. Mountain lions didn’t have mates, but the woman in the car was theirs. He was certain of it.

They kept silent as the squad used the Jaws of Life to cut the car apart, but they were both worried. He could feel his brother’s concern because it was a mirror of his own. It took a half hour to get the door off, and he had to stop both himself and Eryx from rushing to her side. The locals knew they were lions, but they didn’t go parading around with fangs and claws. And he knew if he touched her even once more that he would never want to let her go, and she was injured enough to need medical attention. Although he desperately wanted to take care of her himself, it was in her best interest to let the professionals handle things.

* * *

If he touches her again, I’ll rip his head off, Eryx growled under his breath as the EMT from the fire station in the next town looked over their mate on the stretcher.

He’s supposed to touch her; he has to make sure she’s okay. Calm yourself. Ethan whispered, but Eryx picked up the same tension in his brother’s voice that he had in his own. They were helpless, while their fragile human mate was being tended over by more humans, and not nearly fast enough in his opinion.

Hey! Get her in the squad already! He said loudly, and EMT Edward Batten looked up and narrowed his eyes. I don’t tell you how to do your job, Fallon, you don’t tell me either.

Ethan put a restraining hand on his shoulder but it did nothing to ease the fear that was lodged deep in his belly. They’d both agreed that the odd feelings they’d had over the last few days were clearly because of this woman. According to her ID, which he’d confiscated along with her purse from the floor of the front seat, she was twenty-four year-old Calliope Marie Hunter from Allen, Kentucky, wherever the hell that was. What she was doing in King he didn’t know, and he didn’t care. She was here, she was theirs, and that was all there was to it. The crew was working by floodlights and when they’d pulled her out of the car with a neck brace on, they’d both sucked in a breath at her beautiful face. Her hair was honey brown, what wasn’t covered in dried blood anyway, and she had the lushest mouth he’d ever seen, even with her lips cut and bruised.

Positively aching to hold her and take care of her, it had taken every ounce of willpower he possessed to let the EMTs do their jobs. It was a great relief to see the ambulance take off for the nearest hospital, which was twenty-seven minutes away.

Boys? Their father spoke from behind them and they both turned in unison.

The story spilled from their lips in hushed voices and he nodded, finally. That does explain your feelings; it’s not abnormal for supernaturals to get a sixth sense about mates. For our kind, the males will sometimes feel that mate connection to another female, but she’s not a lion, so I’m not sure why you’d feel that way about her. You know what will happen if you keep her. You risk her life. Again.

Without missing a beat, Ethan said what Eryx was going to say, We’ll go, then. Wherever she wants.

You’d walk from the pride? Their father asked in surprise.

You would have, if our mother wanted you to. Eryx said, feeling in the depths of his soul more connected to that sweet girl in the back of the ambulance than he’d ever felt connected to anyone outside of his family before.

True. Their father sighed. You have to be careful not to freak her out. She may not have any idea what it means to be a mate, and that both of you believe her to be yours together, may prove an obstacle that will take some time to overcome. Get to the hospital. I’ll be at the station after this is all cleaned up.

Grateful to be released, Ethan popped the trunk to see if she had any bags and grabbed the two suitcases. There was a box in the back seat but they couldn't get to it without ripping the front seat out, so they left it to be gathered later at the impound lot. Bags in tow, they lurched up the hill as fast as they could and drove to the hospital.

The nurse at the desk told them she was with the doctor, and he’d come out to talk to them when he was finished.

Well, we talked before about what it would mean if one of us had a mate and the other didn’t. Clearly this isn’t a scenario we contemplated before. Eryx said as they both paced the length of the empty waiting room. For their kind, the males sometimes felt a mate connection to a female, but because the female lions didn't want mates, the connection was one-sided. This was an entirely new scenario—a mate connection to a human. It gave him hope.

It’s better this way, though. We can both keep her safe until we can leave. Ethan said as he shifted anxiously. Eryx sighed and ran his hand through his hair, something he did when he was particularly worried or upset. His stomach was in knots and hadn’t stopped feeling like it was stuffed full of lead. He didn’t dare wonder about her fragile human body and what could have happened to her with the force of that accident. No matter what, he’d take care of her for the rest of his life, gladly.

We could go to Indiana, to Uncle Rhett’s ranch. He could always use another pair of hands. Ethan offered and Eryx stopped his pacing and looked at him, and then nodded. They’d need money, and small town deputies didn’t make much.

A voice they recognized as Dr. Xavier Grace interrupted their discussion, Were you guys waiting to hear about the Hunter girl?

Doc, hey. Ethan shook his extended hand and Eryx did, too. Doc Grace was the only werewolf around these parts and a friend of the family. Yeah, how is she?

Why did you even bother bringing her in? He gave them a look as if they were idiots and Eryx had the urge to punch his teeth in.

Because she’s injured, she lost a ton of blood, what do you mean why did we bring her in? He sputtered at the doctor, his fear taking hold. Did that mean she had died?

The doc looked at them in confusion and then a dawning of awareness scattered through his features. Oh, you guys don’t know? She’s perfectly fine. She woke up when they were cutting her clothes off in the ER, but they wouldn’t let her go until she was completely checked out. If you guys had known what she is you could have saved the ambulance the drive out here. She’s not human; she’s a wolf, like me.

Ethan was the first to get his voice to work. A wolf? Are you sure?

Of course. I know my own kind. She’s rogue, but definitely all wolf. She doesn’t smell like a wolf to you?

They both