The Wolf's Mate Book 2: Linus & The Angel

by R. E. Butler

  He shut the door on the dead body and closed his eyes. Bo pressed his hand on his shoulder and handed him something. It was Karly's shoe. "Teller found it at the tree line and I brought it back for you."

  Linus took the shoe and squeezed it in his hands and let loose a howl of rage that the others echoed.

  Phoenix took his mate! He would suffer slowly when he was found.

  Chapter 13

  She had the worst headache ever. She tried to roll over so she could get up and get some aspirin, but something on her wrist tugged and prevented it. She pulled harder and the feel of something enclosing her wrist made her try to force her eyes open. She was met with a wooden ceiling that didn’t look at all familiar, and dropping her slightly blurry vision to her arm, she saw that her wrist was tied with a thick length of rope to an iron headboard. The knot had been pushed down to the mattress and there was a foot of rope between her wrist and the headboard.

  Fear spiked through her as a door creaked open and she jerked up but was prevented from doing anything but scooting against the headboard as her eyes found the door and Phoenix walked through it, a paper grocery sack in one arm.

  His eyes lit up when he saw her. “Hey, you’re awake!” He kicked the door shut and put the sack down on a tiny kitchen table and walked towards her.

  She screamed, “Stay back!”

  He paused and quirked his brow and then kept walking, sitting on the end of the bed. “How do you feel?”

  “Why am I here? Where am I?” Panic clawed at her throat and she tried to tamp it down. She focused on slowing her breathing to calm her racing heart.

  “You’re here because you belong to me, Lynnie. And where you are isn’t as important as why. Because you’re mine. We belong together. I told you that when we were kids, and I’ve let you have your fun playing around with other wolves, but enough is enough.”

  “No, Phoenix. It’s not as if I chose this life, but I have to follow my nature. You’re not my mate, or I would have chosen you right away. You’ve known that all along.”

  His pleasant smile disappeared as if someone poured hot water over his face and melted it into a severe frown. Standing abruptly, he snatched the hair at the side of her head and jerked her off the bed until her arm wrenched painfully against the rope. “You. Are. Mine.” Releasing her so she bounced hard on the mattress, she sobbed loudly at the pain where he’d pulled strands of hair free in his anger and gritted her teeth together until she could quiet the waves of despair that threatened.

  He went back into the kitchen and unloaded the supplies from the paper sack. Groceries. A few loaves of bread, peanut butter, jelly, and bottled water. She looked around while he put the things away. It looked like a one room cabin. Everything was made of wood, from the floor to the ceiling. If there were windows, they were boarded up now. There were three doors. One that led outside that he’d come through, and two others. A bathroom and…a closet maybe? Or another bedroom? The furnishings were dusty from disuse. A worn couch against the wall looked over a large stone fireplace. There was a small kitchen table and chairs and a short counter by the sink and stove.

  “Like what you see, Lynnie? I found this empty cabin when I first was scouting a place for our honeymoon. No one’s been here in years, but even if there’d been a whole family here, it wouldn’t have mattered. It would be empty now.” Phoenix sat down and smoothed her hair away from her face. She flinched and he gave her a sad smile. “Aw, don’t be like that. I can’t have you trying to get away from me over some ridiculous thing like destiny. You and I were meant for each other and now that I have you, I’m never going to let you go.”

  She licked her dry lips. “How did you, how did you bring me here?” Her thoughts flashed to Linus, to his family and friends. Had Phoenix killed them all to get her? She couldn’t remember anything after kissing Linus goodbye at the rest stop.

  A smug smirk crossed his thin lips. “Ah, that was easy. I masked my scent using some strong deer musk and watched your activities for the last few days. When you were heading back to West Virginia, I knew that you’d hide out there with the old pack because your pathetic cub of a boyfriend can’t handle me.” Snorting, he relaxed and leaned over her legs. “Anyway, I just followed you, figuring you’d stop eventually and the rest area was perfect. I broke in through a back service door and waited until you were all in the stalls and then I tossed in a little bomb. It was a potion mixed in a thin glass vial. It knocks anything out in less than two seconds and spreads incredibly fast in small areas like that. Caught everyone with their pants down.” He laughed and patted her thigh like it was a big joke. Her heart dropped into her stomach.

  “Anyway, I grabbed you from the stall after pulling your pants back up and carried you through the back door and into the woods. Had my car waiting on a service road, put you in the trunk, and they didn’t know what hit them, that’s for damn sure.”

  “What are you going to do to me, Phoenix?”

  “Do?” He sat up and loomed over her, his eyes wild. “I’m going to mate with you, Lynnie so we’ll be together forever.”

  She stared at him in shock. He was completely delusional. Fear trickled through her again and he closed his eyes and took in a deep breath. “Ah, that smells great. You should be afraid, because I’m pretty pissed at you for walking away from me. And spare me about your fate and all that bullshit. You’re mine and I’ll kill you before I let you go.” She knew that was as true a statement as any that she'd ever heard.

  He gave her a long look. “I know he won’t choose her over you, Lynnie. But I know you’ll choose her over freedom, so you’re not going anywhere. She’s my little insurance policy.”

  She looked at him in confusion but before she could ask him who he was talking about, he crossed the small room and opened one of the two doors revealing a small closet, and to her surprise, Linus’ ex Brenda, tied up, gagged, and totally freaked out. She whimpered as she sat in the tiny space and Phoenix looked down at her as if she were not a person but something insignificant like a pair of old shoes. Her throat tightened. She knew the look in her eyes spoke volumes to what she’d suffered already at his hands. She had a black eye. There were probably more bruises she couldn’t see. And the simple fact that she didn’t appear to have clothes on at all made Karly's eyes sting with tears. Dirty, disheveled. How long had he had her?

  “Why do you have Linus’ ex-wife, Phoenix?”

  “She’s the one that contacted me.” He continued to look down at Brenda and she started to hyperventilate. “I could take her; show you how submissive I like my women now. Would you like that, Lynnie?” He looked up at Karly and the man staring back at her was a virtual stranger.

  “I don’t want to watch you rape her.” Her voice trembled and she tried to keep the fear away but it was damn, damn hard.

  He snorted and slammed the door shut. “Can’t rape a willing accomplice. She wanted me to get you out of the way and I snagged her two days ago and have been keeping myself busy with her. She tried to escape so I had to tie her up. But,” he shrugged and sat down next to Karly again, “that didn’t stop me from playing with her. I could let you play with her. I think I’d enjoy watching her eat your pussy, Lynnie. Maybe while I fuck her.”

  Karly's eyes went wide and she wondered how she’d been so devastatingly wrong about him. He was so casual. So cruel without thought, like some kind of mindless robot. She knew her best defense was to get on his good side so he would let his guard down and she could escape. Brenda was a complication for sure, and she didn’t want to leave her behind. He had her by the scruff.

  She tried not to jerk on the tie around her wrist. “I don’t, I don’t remember you being so aggressive, like this, Phoenix.”

  His brow arched and a sneer pulled up half his mouth. “I was vanilla for you because it’s what you wanted, what you would tolerate. That,” he gestured towards the closet, “is what I’ve always enjoyed. There were some she-wolves from another pack that I used to fuck around with bac
k then so I didn’t go crazy being so boring in bed with you. You’ll learn soon enough that pain for pleasure’s sake can be quite enjoyable. At least in my opinion.”

  Her poor heart stuttered to a dead stop and her breath seized in her chest. When a jolt made her come back to awareness again, she blinked hard to keep the tears away and said, “Was all of it a lie? All those sweet promises in the dark in my bed?”

  The sneer deepened. “Maybe. Maybe not. We could have kept things like that for our whole lives. Vanilla for you and not-even-close-to-vanilla for me with other she-wolves. Perhaps if you hadn’t walked away from me, if you’d believed me to be your mate in truth, then I wouldn’t have indulged my darkest fantasies for the last year and a half. Now, I don’t think I could even get it up for vanilla.”

  The sneer disappeared and he stood up and walked over to the small kitchen. “I’ll make you something to eat, I’m sure you’re hungry, Lynnie.”

  She gaped at his back. It was like someone had flipped a switch. Sadistic rapist one minute, kind hearted gentleman the next. He looked over his shoulder, “Are you hungry?”

  Remembering her plan to get him to let his guard down so she could get free, she licked her dry lips and nodded, “Yes, Phoenix, thank you.”

  “I take care of my girl. I remember how you liked to eat peanut butter and strawberry jelly sandwiches. I made sure to get what you liked, so I don’t have to risk taking you out of the woods anytime soon.”

  While his back was turned at the counter, she inspected the knot that bound her wrist to the headboard. It was a double knot of some kind. She wriggled her wrist back and forth and it could move but was not loose enough for her to even consider trying to pull her wrist through. And she knew if she tried, that her wrist would swell and then she’d be even more miserable. Keeping an eye on Phoenix’s back, she worked at the knot, stopping just as he turned towards her.

  He sat next to her on the bed and put a paper plate in her lap with two peanut butter and jelly sandwiches in it and held a bottle of water up to her mouth. She reached for it with her free hand but he knocked it away. “I’ll take care of you, Lynnie.”

  Accepting the water, she drank half before he pulled it away and then tugged a corner of the sandwich off and held it up to her mouth. She so didn’t want to be hand fed by a nutcase, but she couldn’t exactly do anything about that so she opened her mouth dutifully and he placed the wedge on her tongue. In truth, she didn’t really have much of an appetite. She hadn’t, really, since she saw his wolf form outside of Jason and Cadence’s house. That seemed like an eternity ago.

  “Do you remember, Lynnie, when we found that small creek near the lunar meeting place and made love on the bank?”

  “I remember almost getting busted by the alpha.” She smiled at him even though it was the last thing she wanted to do.

  “That was a long time ago. A lifetime.” He quieted as he fed her the rest of the sandwich and the last of the water. He ate the other sandwich and then put the plate in the trash.

  Phoenix was on edge, bouncing on his heels as he wavered between talking about their past and their future. Every opportunity that he turned his back to her, she worked on the knot, millimeters coming free and filling her heart with hope.

  She wondered where they were. She wondered how long she’d been unconscious. She wondered how long it was before Linus realized something was wrong. For the thousandth time she shouted Linus’ name in her head and begged him to find her.

  Phoenix lit a match in front of the stone fireplace. Sulfur filled the air for a moment as he knelt down. Crumpled newspaper flared to life underneath a stack of wood that began to crackle. She tugged on the knot while he was absorbed in the fire.

  “I thought,” he said, turning around, “that you would prefer me to burn off the tattoo on your shoulder over cutting it off with my hunting knife? And then there’s the business of your marks from your former mate, those will also have to go.”

  Holy shit.

  She swallowed hard and opened her mouth, but words failed to come out. His brow cocked, “Would you rather me cut them off you? I will, but I’d think a burn would be less devastating than me slicing a few layers of skin off. If I cut your skin open with a knife, it’s going to make my wolf go nuts with all that blood and I might not be able to control what happens after that. What do you think?”

  Finding her voice, she squeaked, “It won’t change anything, Phoenix. The tattoo is just a part of my history, it isn’t where my power comes from, and the marks are only a symbol not the source of love for my mate.”

  He moved across the room and climbed up onto the bed. “I am not an idiot; I know that. I simply do not want to see them, or ever be reminded of the reason that you left me. I’m going to get rid of them tonight, and while you recover for a while, I’m going to fuck that human at least once more before I kill her, and then you and I will celebrate our first night as mates, our honeymoon.”

  Tears stung and she nearly drowned in the wave of helplessness that threatened to crash over her. Phoenix had completely lost his mind. She found some strength, buried deeply underneath that fresh taste of fear, and said, “You can let Brenda go. You got me, you got what you wanted. She doesn’t have to die.”

  He grunted and climbed closer to her, gripping her chin between his fingers. “Of course she has to die. She knows my face, my name, hell even how to get in touch with me. She’s very resourceful and on top of that, she’s also pretty evil. She knew what I’d done to you, and still she called for me, practically drew a map on how to get to that pack’s lunar meeting place so I could find you and take you with me. She just didn’t know that I planned to also take her along for insurance. She’s outlived her usefulness, though. She’ll be my bachelor party. And the bonus is that you get a front row seat to how I like to fuck now. I won’t go so hard on you this first time, but I’ll warm you up to what I like in time.”

  “How did you…how did she find you if no one knew where you were?”

  He shrugged and played with a loose string on the blanket. “She sent a letter to the address in the DMV file. It showed up at my old rental house in West Virginia and the guy that rented it after me sent it to the owner of the house who looked up my emergency contact and it happened to be my cousin Eddie. You remember him, don’t you?” He paused until she nodded. Eddie was two years younger than her and not playing with a full deck of cards.

  “Well, he had instructions to send anything he got for me to a PO Box up in Canada and to keep his mouth shut. When I got the letter, I shipped a box of clothes down to a motel near that pitiful excuse for a wolf pack and then I shifted and crossed the border. It's why no one knew I came back down to the states; they were looking for Phoenix Thompson, not a rust colored wolf. I ran in my shift all the way down to Kentucky. The box was waiting for me in a room that I’d rented ahead of time and I found some clothes so I could check into the room and then I met up with Brenda and began to plan how to get you.”

  She sure didn’t like the way he said he found clothes. It sounded like someone had been killed for their pants. She shivered and swallowed against the permanent lump in her throat. Her palms were sweating and her eyes stung with tears.

  “So, branding or knife? Ladies choice.”

  His face was expectant like a child at Christmas. She stared in his blue-blue eyes and knew that she’d die by his hand someday. Maybe not today, but sometime in the future he would kill her. She’d never faced her own death before.

  She hadn’t wanted to give up hope, but in a short amount of time, Phoenix was going to get rid of the reminders of what she really was, and then rape and kill Brenda before he raped her and did who knows what else to her. She didn’t know the meaning of the word hope anymore when she said, “Burn.”

  He nodded, kissed her cheek and climbed off the bed. As he turned to tend the fire, she worked frantically on the knot. While he’d been spouting off his insanity, she’d made the decision to free herself and leave if she cou
ld. She was certain that if she could free herself, if she could get out of the house, that he wouldn’t kill Brenda and she could get help for both of them. There was just no way to free both of them, not that she could see. She didn’t want to be the girl that ran out on someone who needed help, but if she couldn’t get free then they were both as good as dead.

  She watched him, moving her hand to her stomach instead of at the knot when he turned back around, rummaged in a large duffel on the couch, and pulled out a long handled object that was dark gray like it was made out of iron. It ended in a small, flat disc. He met her eyes and walked over to her. Running his finger across the smooth bottom of the circle he said, “I had a plain brand made especially for this occasion. I’ll heat it red hot in the fire and it will melt that tattoo off your shoulder in a blink. A painful blink, but still, pretty damn quick. And as far as those old marks go, it’s wide enough to cover them, but I’ll probably have to do it twice to get all four.”

  If he was waiting for her approval, she couldn’t think past what looked like a huge object he was going to shove into her skin. He waved it at her a little, smiled, and then walked over to the fire. He angled the end of the brand into the fire and leaned his free hand against the mantel, seemingly lost in thought. Again she snapped to careful motion and worked on the knot. She finally got the tip of her finger underneath one of the loops and pulled and it slid free. She would have hollered for joy if it wouldn’t have been the stupidest thing on record.

  She saw his muscles tense and she stopped moving, just seconds before he turned and walked over to the closet. The door opened and he bent down to pick up Brenda. She fought him. He had apparently only gagged and bound her wrists not also her ankles. Karly saw her feet kick out and she screamed through the gag. He cursed, scrambling to get to her past her kicks.