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

by R. E. Butler

  “Callie.” Ethan came into the bedroom and sat down on the corner of the bed. It dipped with his weight. She didn’t turn over to look at him. She couldn’t.

  “I’m sorry that you had to, well I’m just sorry. She’s not anything to either Eryx or I, just one of the pride females. They’re very bitchy I guess is the right word. I’m sorry if she made you feel bad.”

  She hoped to crap she didn’t sound like she was trying not to cry. “No problem, Ethan.”

  He growled slightly in frustration, “Callie, would you please look at me?”

  “Ethan, I’m pretty tired. If you don’t mind?” She hugged herself tight. She was afraid to move, because she knew if she did that she’d crawl right into his arms.

  The room got very quiet. She could hear him breathing, feel his eyes on her back, and finally, thankfully, he stood up. “About 7 tonight our family is coming over to watch the UFC fight on pay-per-view. There will be a couple humans and a couple females, but not Farrah. Eryx and I would like you to join us, as our guest.”

  Oh fantastic. Now the whole house was going to be swarming with people who wanted to get to know her. She would be the new toy that everyone wanted to see. Spotlight on her.

  “I’m not much for crowds.”

  He let out a slow breath. “Fine.”

  The door shut and she was alone, and she let herself have a little self-pitying cry. Why was she so weak? She was like a leaf in the stream, going wherever the current took her. She certainly wasn’t doing her wolf ancestors proud. Weren’t dogs supposed to be better than cats? She scoffed at the notion in her head. Yeah, maybe if they weren’t three times her size. She could maybe give them a scar to remember her by as she lay bleeding and broken. Maybe. And then she’d be shuffling off this mortal coil right quick.

  The voicemail that had broken her heart the night before rang in her mind. She’d had several calls, all hang ups except one from Cadence.

  “Callie, I wish you’d pick up the phone when I call. I’m starting to get a complex.” The laugh was nervous, emotional. Not really like Cadence except when it was just the two of them and there were no pretenses. “I told Jason about the baby and he was so sorry he tripped all over himself apologizing for putting me down and I’m making him suffer for it, just like you said I should.” The pause was significant, and then her voice was thick with tears, “Callie I miss you so much. I know you think that you’re not good enough or strong enough to be in the pack, but you’re wrong. The females, they picked on us so much because we were a threat. It wasn’t because we were weak, Callie, you have to know that. You were meant to lead, to fight, to be great. All you need is something worth fighting for. Please call me, let me know you’re safe. I love you, my friend.”

  Callie hadn’t called. Last night, she was so angry at her situation that if she’d called Cadence she would have driven up here herself and taken her back to Allen. Callie didn’t want to be rescued; she wanted to make her own way. But she missed the hell out of her best friend. And Cadence was wrong, at any rate. Callie left so Cadence didn’t have to fight for her. Cadence wanted to keep her apart from the other females and protect her, and the alpha couldn’t really do that without making herself look weak and screwing up the hierarchy of the pack. It would have torn her apart eventually, ruined her relationship with Jason. Callie was a lot of things, but she wasn’t that selfish.

  So her new plan, that she had hatched early this morning while she was hunting, was to get a car and get on her way. She’d find a job in some big city. She could be a teller at a bank or do customer service somewhere. She’d get a place, start her life over, and no one would know that Calliope Marie Hunter was a werewolf until she found the man she was going to marry. And it wouldn’t be twin mountain lions that were cops in a small town in northern Pennsylvania. Definitely.

  She dozed off and on fitfully, thinking about the car accident, her growing attraction to the boys, the bitch Farrah, and the party. Several hours later, against her better judgment, she got up and showered. With a towel around her head and one around her body, she opened both suitcases and looked at the contents. It was much colder up here than back in Allen. By about twenty degrees at least. Her wool winter coat wasn’t thick enough to withstand this blistering cold. She should head west instead of east. Seemed like there were some wide open places in Kansas without packs. She wasn’t sure she had enough money for that trip, though. Unless she didn’t replace the car. Her insurance company said once she had a mechanic take a look at the car and send them a letter saying it was totaled along with pictures, that she’d get the value of the car. Which wasn’t much. It had been a loaner from Peter when she got her license and he gave it to her on her 18th birthday. It was old and run down when she got it.

  She put on a matching satin pink bra and panties, and slid into a pair of artfully distressed jeans. Besides the pair that had been cut off her, these were her favorite. She layered a fitted white tank with a dark green brushed cotton long sleeved shirt and left it unbuttoned, and finished with her black Champion tennis shoes.

  Taking the time to dry her hair, she pinned the sides back with little twists. It was starting to get long, dipping past her shoulders in a soft wave, the color all browns and honeys. In the summer it got lighter and went a little red. While she put on enough makeup to cover the dark circles that little to no sleep had garnered her, she looked at herself in the mirror. Short, curvy, cute. That’s her. Like a bunny rabbit on two legs. Men didn’t fall at her feet and beg for a kiss. She'd get the punch on the arm, good-buddy attention.

  “You’re not going out there for anything except to be nice and respectful to Ethan and Eryx for their hospitality, and to not embarrass them in front of their family. That’s it. If the females give you attitude, you just walk away. You’re not sticking around anyway.” She glared at her reflection as she spoke out loud and willed herself to believe that she could spend the evening with Ethan and Eryx and not want to stay. Yes, she would. She had no choice. That female’s reaction to her was all the proof she needed that the hierarchy for lions was like the pack. And she was trying to avoid that at all costs.

  It was 6 when she walked out of the bedroom and there were two extra men in the kitchen besides Ethan and Eryx. All four turned towards her when she walked out, and Ethan and Eryx’s eyes lit up like they’d just seen something incredible. She was tempted to glance behind her to see if there was anyone else there.

  They moved quickly to her and a rush of their spicy scent hit her and she might have swooned if she wouldn’t have been completely mortified at the thought. “Are you feeling okay? Are you hungry?” Ethan worried.

  “I’m fine, thanks. I wanted to see if you needed help?”

  They looked pleasantly surprised. “We don’t yet, but you can keep us company in the kitchen, and meet our family.” Eryx said with a grin. She followed dutifully.

  “This is our dad, James, and our younger brother Alek. Dad, Alek, this is Callie.” Ethan positively beamed. It was so strange.

  She shook their hands and then let Ethan lead her to the table where she sat, and James and Alek joined her while Ethan and Eryx busied themselves at the counter. She’d never seen men that were so adept in the kitchen before. Michael, Jason’s brother was a good cook, but he was also powerfully lazy unless he was properly motivated. He was happy to sit back and wait to be waited on. She frowned internally at herself for comparing everything to the pack, except it was hard not to. Different were-animal, same bullshit hierarchy.

  James, a very handsome man who looked about in his mid-40s, had the boys’ dark hair but had brown eyes. Alek looked about her age, but she was a bad judge and not even sure how old the twins are. Alek had light brown hair and different facial features. She wondered if he looked like their mother. And she also wondered where their mother was.

  All police officers, James peppered her with questions about her travels, never sounding like he was prying and she found herself telling him, and the boys by exten
sion, that she’d been on the road for a week and was looking for a place to settle when she’d gotten sidetracked by her accident. She felt compelled to say, for all their sakes, that she wasn’t staying.

  James smiled and patted her hand, “I’m sure that you’ll be able to find something at the car lot tomorrow. Gordy’s pride, he’ll take good care of you.”

  She thought he meant it to be reassuring, but he passed a look to Eryx and Ethan that said something more was going on there. Once again she felt a little left out.

  People started to drift into the house. She was introduced to their uncles John, Aaron, and Grant, and Aaron’s three sons, John’s son and daughter, and Grant’s two sons. The girl, who was oldest at about 14, gave a superior once-over to her and ignored her, walking away to sit in a chair by the window. How odd. The boys, who except for one that looked pre-teen were all around elementary school age, crowded around her and asked her a hundred questions about being a wolf. She caught smiling, happy looks from Ethan and Eryx.

  Two female lions walked into the house and all the boys went very quiet and then scattered. They looked just like Farrah. Tall, leggy, blonde, and pissed off. James introduced Callie as a friend of the family, and the two women didn’t just look past her, they looked through her as if she didn’t exist. She got a chill just being in their presence.

  “Callie, want to make good on your offer to help?” Eryx pulled her away from the unfriendly females by her elbow. “You don’t have to take any bullshit from them.” He said in a low voice as he steered her back into the kitchen.

  “I’m not looking to make any enemies, Eryx, and besides, I’ll be on my way soon enough. Getting into a fight with two girls that could break my neck with a hard thought isn’t exactly my idea of a good time.” She opened the bag of chips he had gestured to and emptied it into the bowl.

  “Why are you so determined to leave?” He asked her suddenly.

  “You already know why.” She looked up at him and there was a desperation to his eyes that made her heart clench.

  “No, I don’t. You know that Ethan and I care about you and we want to make you happy, but you don’t seem to want to even get to know us. Why did you come out here tonight?”

  “Because I didn’t want to be rude.”

  He snorted and looked away, his jaw working. “I didn't think it would be a chore to get to know us.”

  Ouch. “What do you want from me? I’m a wolf, you’re lions. It was a fluke that I got stranded, and as soon as I can get a car I’m out of here. I never promised anything.”

  Somehow when he turned away without a word, it felt worse than if he’d yelled at her. She took the bowl of chips and put it in the family room on the coffee table. She was planning to sit in the corner somewhere out of the way and inconspicuous, but James patted an open spot on the couch. “Sit, Callie. You like UFC, right?”

  She didn't know. She never watched it. She faked a smile and said, “You bet. Who doesn’t like to watch men beat the hell out of each other for money?”

  He laughed, all the men did, and to her surprise, the male children all sat down in front of the couch on the floor, as close to her as possible. How weird. “Are you married, James?” She took a handful of popcorn from the bowl he offered to her.

  “No,” He sighed in a wistful way, “our kind don’t live like wolves, Callie. I think you’d be very surprised by how things are here, if you took the time to ask questions.”

  She opened her mouth to protest, but he stopped her, “You want to leave because you’re on a mission of some sort. I get that. But it’s not right to walk away from something that might be great, just because you’re scared.” He took a long drink from a beer and turned his attention to one of his brothers sitting next to him. She stared at the back of his head and then finished eating the popcorn in her hand as she mulled over what he said.

  When Eryx and Ethan came into the family room, James got up and moved to another couch and she was suddenly in the middle of a twin sandwich. Or was that manwich? Both of her sides touched one of each of theirs, and her body warmed considerably at the close proximity. Ethan put a plate in her lap that contained a large piece of lasagna and she thanked him and he gave her only the smallest of smiles, just a curve of the corner of his lush mouth, and then he tucked into his own plate of lasagna.

  It was possibly the best lasagna she’d ever had. The meat sauce was just the right combination of spicy and sweet, and the melted cheese was gooey and plentiful. Except it tasted like cardboard to her. She could feel how upset the twins were. The hairs on the back of her neck had been at attention since they sat down. Her fingers itched to hold their hands, her mouth watered at the thought of kissing them, and her body refused to ignore the heat and sex that wafted from them. They wanted her. There was no mistaking that.

  She put the half finished lasagna on the coffee table and focused her attention on the two men on the screen beating on each other and wondered if that is what would happen to Ethan and Eryx if she decided to stay.

  She thought, "I could just sleep with them tonight. I could do the whole casual sex thing with the gods on either side of me. I could pull them back into the bedroom and take out all my aggression on their gorgeous bodies until I was just a boneless mass of goo. Take off tomorrow anyway." Sure, sure.

  No, she couldn’t. She didn’t do casual sex. The fact that she’d gone for almost a year without having sex was a testament to that. There were a lot of females that just had to have sex on the full moon. Callie wasn’t one of them. Or, rather, she forced herself not to give into the baser urges and went with hunting. It was almost like sex, except without the hot bodies and orgasms and screams of pleasure. Oh. It’s not like sex at all.

  She needed to clamp her knees firmly together. If she kissed them, she’d come undone, that much she knew. Because it would turn into more and she was feeling needy and twitchy enough as it was. She sat for about thirty minutes of the two hour fighting tournament and couldn’t have said what happened during that time if there was a gun to her head. She got up quietly and went into the kitchen to get a drink.

  A door was open and she heard kids laughing and running around. She had wondered where the little ones had gone. Except for the girl. She was sitting with the other two females in the front room looking superior and bored to tears. She wondered why they’d even come.

  Callie walked down into the basement. The boys were chasing each other and acting very much like rowdy little boys. As she watched them playing chase, she wondered why the females were so cold and distant. It wasn’t a bare minute that she was down there when the atmosphere shifted and the three females came downstairs and stood looking disapprovingly at the boys playing, and her. She decided to be perfectly quiet and ignore them. She had a good rule of thumb that if she didn’t open her mouth and give someone a reason to pound her, then they probably wouldn’t. She was hoping that would hold true with female lions.

  One of the little boys, a sweetheart with sunshine bright blonde hair, tripped and fell, and he sat up with a surprised gasp as his cousins gathered around him. He started to cry, holding his arm. The other little boys all tried to comfort him, but they were not much older than him, and he couldn’t have been more than 7. She looked at the females and they watched the whole thing dispassionately.

  “Aren’t you going to help him?” Callie demanded.

  The one she’d been introduced to as Layla sniffed. “Why would we help that cub?”

  “Because he’s a child and he’s hurt. Are either of you his mother?”

  The other one, Tanya, looked at the boy like she’d never seen him before. “I have no idea.”

  In confusion, her mouth fell open. “How can you not know if you’re his mother?”

  “Because we don’t, dog.” Layla said with an annoyed tone.

  Callie sucked her teeth at the dig. She didn’t particularly care for bitch cats calling her a dog. It was derogatory. A wolf and a dog were no more alike than a housecat and a pu
ma.

  She moved over to the throng of little boys and the injured one looked up at her with big blue tear filled eyes and the other boys separated for her as she knelt next to him. “Hey, cutie. Did you fall?” She took his hand in hers as gently as she could.

  His lower lip quivered, “I got cut.”

  On his forearm, through a rip in the fabric of his shirt, was a narrow gash about an inch long. “Aw, it’s not so bad.” She stood up and held her hand out to him. “Come on, kiddo; let me clean it up for you.”

  He took her hand with his uninjured one and she pulled him gently to his feet and they moved like a little throng with the other boys until they reached the stairwell where the females were blocking their way.

  “Excuse us.” Callie said, beating down the fear licking at the back of her throat. She would not be afraid in front of the kids. She could do this.

  “All you’re going to accomplish, dog, is to help make that boy like all the other males around here. Whimpering, pathetic things that they are.” Tanya looked derisively at the injured boy holding her hand and he shrank against her.

  “There is nothing wrong with helping a child that is hurt. What kind of people are you, anyway?” Callie growled, her desire to protect the children from these uncaring women came roaring to the surface. With amazing clarity, she realized that her earlier thinking was true: she found she could be strong if she had something to fight for. She could be strong and get the kids away from the females. She would stand up to the females to protect the boys. Even as she didn’t understand why they were afraid of the females, why the females were so cold and callous towards them, she instinctively drew herself up trying to stretch her 5’4” frame to match their close to six foot ones.