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

by R. E. Butler

  “Ah, Linus!” She screamed, digging her nails into his wrists and twisting on him as her body tried to split apart and liquid heat spilled from her.

  He came right after her, “Fuck, Karly!”

  She slipped carefully to his chest, gasping for breath and slick with sweat. A shiver wove through him and he kissed her forehead. “You’re okay, baby?”

  “I’m wonderful, Linus, thank you.”

  “Well, I couldn’t have you falling in love with a toy that has unbelievable staying power.”

  She laughed and sighed. “Nothing’s better than your cock, Linus, and that’s the truth.”

  “Good to know,” He chuckled.

  “I love you, Linus.”

  “I love you, too, Karly”

  With the danger of her past erased except from memory, they decided to go back to their original plan of going to her parents’ pack before the March full moon and having the Angel ceremony as well as the full moon hunt. Linus’ family was coming but because it was a full moon, Linus decided not to ask any of his friends to join them. He reasoned that they could enjoy a full moon hunt with her family on the full moon for their pack joining and Angel ceremony for the Tressel pack, and he wanted to enjoy their time together with her parents with the two families coming together.

  Linus spent a lot of time with Pops and Alpha Jason’s grandfather Abraham, talking about the “old ways” and what the pack used to be like. She knew he was worried about being deficient in some way to Alpha Krayne or her father and she wanted him to ease his own mind. Her father understood that Linus had not been raised in a pack like theirs, and without his father as a strong influence on him, he was like that last leaf on a branch in fall, left to fend for itself.

  The night before their trip, after they made love and were tangled together in her favorite way, he broke the silence of the dark bedroom. “I wanted to tell you about my father and his family.”

  She tried to move, to sit up and look at him but he locked his arms around her and said with a rough voice, “It will be easier, baby, if you don’t look at me right now, okay?”

  “Okay.” She settled back to where she was splayed across half his body, her head against his shoulder and her arm and leg spread across him.

  “Jack Mayfield got my mom pregnant and married her out of obligation. He didn’t want to be married or have a child so he began to drink and whore around town, or rather, he never stopped doing it even after he got married. He would come home smelling like perfume and whiskey. He didn’t bother to hide it. When I was 8, I was playing in their room and I saw the edge of a picture sticking out from the drawer, one of those Kodak pictures. I pulled it out and turned it over, and it was the girl that babysat me and she was naked. I didn’t understand why there was a naked picture of her in my father’s drawer, so I took it to my mom and she freaked out. I was in bed when he got home that night and she confronted him, and then the yelling started. I crept from my room in time to see him slam her against the wall and tell her to stay out of his things. I cried and ran to her and he kicked me, like a dog, and told me I was the worst thing that ever happened to him.”

  He stopped talking for a long moment and she blinked back the tears that threatened.

  “Once he hit her that first time, he started to hit her all the time, and when I would try to protect her, then I was in the crosshairs, too. She tried to protect me, but he was a big man, not muscular just big, and he just hit her all the more when she stood up for me. She hid the abuse from everyone. Then one night I went to stay at my grandma’s house and she walked into the bathroom when I was getting out of the shower and saw the bruises on my back. Pops went over there with some of the other men in the pack, but he was already gone. He grabbed that underage babysitter he’d taken the picture of and ran off. Maybe he knew it was just a matter of time before his behavior became pack knowledge, or maybe he just got tired of the pretense of being married, I don’t know. But he was gone and he never contacted us again. His parents were part of our pack. They never wanted anything to do with me or my mom. They thought we were beneath them, just so much trash. It wasn’t too long after my father left that they left the pack and went out west somewhere.” His fingers traced invisible patterns on her back in the silence that followed. She waited for him to say more or not, but to let her know either way, and eventually he did.

  “I worry sometimes about being a father, because I don’t have a very good image in my mind of what a father should be like, but Pops reminded me a few days ago that I did have that all around me. In the men in the pack that looked out for us. And the men in my mom’s family are all the examples that I ever needed. All the stuff that I’ve been learning about the history of our kind has just made me all the more determined to raise our children right. To give them that sense of belonging and family that comes with being a werewolf, but also to teach them the weight that such a special family carries. If my father had been a better man and wolf, he would have just walked away and left us be, but something kept him around long enough to torment us.” He tipped her chin up so she could see him.

  “I just needed you to know about some of the things that haunt me. I know you’re smart enough to have figured out that I have issues with my father, and before we make the commitments to each other with your parents’ pack, I wanted you to know what creeps around in the dark parts of my mind.”

  She kissed him tenderly, and thanked him softly for telling her about his demons, and they made love once more and chased the darkness away from both of them before coming down from the heavens to sleep.

  Chapter 16

  Linus couldn’t believe what the Soualit Pack was really like. It was like a small city that revolved around the alpha, a man his grandfather’s age who looked like he could take on anyone, anytime and win. He wasn’t a big man, but lean and muscular with a face that was wrinkled, but not from smiling too much. His hair had been dark once, but was mostly gray now, and his wife was a small woman with short curly white hair and soft blue eyes.

  Karly was hands down the most beautiful woman he’d ever laid eyes on. And it was very clear where she got her beauty from. Her parents were almost too beautiful for words, like living pieces of art, and her brothers were just about the most handsome men he’d ever seen, although he’d never admit it out loud. Karly’s mother Sophia looked like a porcelain doll, with ivory skin and dark hair. Her father Kamren was very tall and well built, with olive skin and thick black hair cut short. Her three brothers were just younger versions of their father, all with the same olive skin and black hair. Bren, Rico and Graise gave him a good once over and then grinned and slapped him on the back in what he assumed was a brotherly sort of thing. Since he had no experience with siblings, he would have to just take their lead.

  Sophia and his mom and grandma dove right into getting things ready for the ceremony at dawn and he felt Karly’s fingers slipping from his hand as she was pulled away from him.

  “Don’t worry, son,” Kamren said, “you’ll see her at dinner. You know women.” Linus' grandfather was invited to visit with the alpha, so he left Linus with his future in-laws.

  “Hades,” Bren frowned as they walked together towards her parents' house, “when Kelina gets wind of this ceremony she’s going to want me to drape her in fucking expensive orange blossoms, too!” Kelina was Bren’s wife and they were alpha-mates of a pack in Ontario.

  Bren said to him, “My wife’s up in my folks’ house with the babies. She just had our third over Christmas, so she’s kind of, you know, busy.”

  “Congratulations.” He offered.

  “Well, you’re their uncle now. Add Angel, instant family.”

  Graise snorted, “You’re so damn lucky. Ma said it’s like love at first sight. You didn’t have to fend off a whole pack full of wolves to claim her.”

  Rico laughed, “You’re just mad because you almost lost your wife to that stock broker!”

  Without warning, Graise launched himself at Rico and they w
ent tumbling to the grass, throwing playful punches and calling each other names. Rico managed to get to his feet, but Graise grabbed his pants leg and he tripped and went down and Rico cursed and flipped to all fours and pounced on Graise.

  “They’re such idiots.” Bren laughed as they stopped to watch the show.

  “Yes, they are. But they’re your brothers, so you’re stuck with them.” Kamren said.

  “And now you are too, brother.” Bren looked at Linus and gave him a sincere smile.

  He marveled at the sense of family that surrounded him so easily here. Bren was the oldest at 32, Rico was 29, Graise was 25. They were all married to she-wolves, alphas of their packs, and all had children. And what was even more amazing was that they just accepted him right into the fold like they’d known him for years.

  Inside the huge home that was more like a boarding house than anything, the first thing Linus saw was a tall blonde woman cradling a baby in her arms and rocking it back and forth while it wailed. “Oh good!” She smiled tightly, “Your son wants his father.”

  “How come when he’s crying he’s my son?” Bren groused good naturedly, crossing the room to kiss his wife on the cheek and take the squalling child from her arms.

  After introductions were made first to Kelina, Bren’s wife, and then Lorna, Rico’s wife, and then Katie, Graise’s wife, Bren handed the still crying child to Linus. “Here’s your nephew Kellan. Get him to calm down, would ya?”

  Linus stared down at the red faced baby in half alarm, and did the only thing he could think of. He put the baby over his shoulder and patted him on the back like he’d seen the she-wolves in the pack do. After a few good pats, little Kellan burped loud enough to wake the dead and then quieted down with a happy sigh.

  “Aw, Uncle Linus has the golden touch. Quick, go grab Metz!” Graise grinned, speaking about his own young son.

  As the day progressed and the pack welcomed them as visitors and soon to be relatives, they prepared for the full moon by way of a large sit down meal at the alpha’s home. The dining room table easily held twenty, and another table set up in a connected room held another ten. Adults-only, the children were spirited away by she-wolves in the pack so the parents could enjoy the meal.

  Alpha Krayne and his mate Mary presided over the elaborate meal that Karly had helped her mother and the three other caretakers make, consisting of different kinds of roasted meats, large bowls of side dishes, and a side table full of desserts. Joining the alpha pair, Karly’s family, and Linus’ own, the table was full and inviting, just like the picture Karly had painted for him. After the Alpha said a prayer of thanks over the meal, everyone dug in, plates were passed and meat was carved into huge wedges for the hungry wolves.

  When dinner was over, Karly pulled him away from the table after assuring her father they would return in less than an hour to prepare for the full moon hunt. Once outside on the porch, she gave him a crooked smile and took off, racing towards her parents’ home. She was fast, but Linus was faster, and although he let her win, he was just a step behind her and swung her up in his arms to carry her through the door and into the empty house.

  “You let me win,” she murmured against his mouth, wriggling in his arms.

  “Prove it.”

  “You’re not even breathing hard.”

  Busted. Chuckling, he set her down and said, “We only have an hour.”

  “I know. But I missed you today and I wanted to just sit and talk for a bit. You’re going to be gone all night and then we’ll have the ceremony and the party that lasts all day. We won’t get to be alone again until tomorrow night when the sunsets.”

  It was going to be a very long night and day. “Good thing there will be coffee.”

  They sat together on a comfortable leather sofa in the front room. After a long, gentle kiss, she said, “What do you think of everything you’ve seen so far?”

  Where to start? “Karly, I love it here. I can see why you hold this way of life in such high regard. The sense of belonging and family is just amazing. And your parents, hell your whole family, is just incredible.”

  “My brothers are so excited to have some new blood in the family. I wish we had more time to spend here so you could get to know them better, but being away from their packs at the full moon is hard for them. In the summer, they’ve always come here for a few weeks. We could join them, if you’d like.” Her fingers slid through the hair over his ears slowly, a warm smile on her face, her eyes shining with happiness.

  He pulled her into his arms. “I’d love that. I want our family to be a haven for our children, the way that you feel here I want to have that back in Allen. Will you help me, love?”

  “Of course, my sweet wolf,” she sighed, rubbing her cheek against his. “I’m going to miss you while you go hunting.”

  “I’ll catch you something big, okay?”

  Grinning, she tipped her face up for another kiss, and he willingly obliged until the time slipped away all too fast and they were on their way to the pack’s full moon meeting place.

  The Tressel Pack had less than 40 adult members. The Soualit Pack had 21 members. When Karly said small, she meant it. But somehow, standing next to his mate in front of the small pack as they curved in a circle around the blazing bonfire, he felt like he was in the presence of a pack that would go marching into hell for one of their own and never think twice. It wasn’t a camaraderie of friends the way that the Tressel Pack was, it was more of a large family led by a father figure in the alpha who would never let his people down. Similar in kind but different in way of life. He wasn’t really sure which was better, except that he wanted his and Karly’s children to know both worlds and then make their own way.

  The pack consisting of 8 females including Karly’s mother and 13 males watched the alpha intently as if everything he spoke was liquid gold. With a booming voice, he said, “The moon spirit beckons us this night, to pay homage to our kindred that have gone on before us, remembering the ways of our past and our lineage. The taking of life is as sacred as the creation of it, and we do so tonight as we do each full moon, in full thanks for the animals that will give their lives in sacrifice to our pack.

  “It is a great honor to extend our hunt tonight to include Linus Mayfield and his grandfather Eugene Jackson in our hunt. Linus is the chosen mate of Kamren’s daughter, Karolyn. This hunt is for their pack welcome tonight. We hunt with them in mind.

  “Forget not the claw that does harm tonight, that it should do good tomorrow for the sake of our souls. Cast your mantel from your body and show your true form!”

  With a howl like something out of a horror film, the Alpha shouted to the moon, stripped and shifted in a blink to reveal an enormous black wolf, much larger than any Linus had seen before. Karly smiled at him and he pulled his jeans off and shifted. She came close to him, gathering his things from the ground and he nuzzled her cheek and licked her jaw before darting off after the rest of the pack, his grandfather hot on his tail, ignoring the arthritic aches in his joints for the night.

  Hunting with the pack was incredible. The terrain was rocky and rough, the trees so thick that there was bare space to get between them, but his instincts were so finely tuned that it felt like he’d been part of the pack his whole life. Karly’s brothers were dark gray like Kamren and they all hunted together, racing towards a herd of deer that had been drinking from a partially frozen stream. With his heart pounding in his ears and a few millennia of wolf instinct coursing through his veins, he barreled through the herd towards one of the bucks, the moonlight highlighting the curve of horns just seconds before it took off. Linus was faster than it’s attempt to get away, snagging it on the haunches with his claws and tumbling it to the ground. As he’d done for as long as he hunted, he snapped his jaws around the writhing beast's neck and choked the breath from its lungs. As the creature gave up and its life slipped away, Linus disengaged from his kill and would have had a big grin on his face if he’d been human. It felt good to kill quic
kly, to know his instincts were right where they should be. For a mated wolf, it meant that the whole pack would have no doubt that he could take care of his mate.

  Wolves appeared around him, including Pops, and helped him begin the long trek back dragging his prize. The woods were filled with dragging sounds and grunts of exertion as others including Kamren, Alpha Krayne, and one of Karly’s brothers, dragged a buck, and her two other brothers had a black bear between them.

  By the time they made it back to the lunar meeting place with their kills, enough time had passed that they were all able to shift back to their human forms. Dawn was three hours away. The caretakers appeared and began to butcher the kills along with most of the males.

  Linus didn’t know how to butcher anything, and fortunately it wasn’t his job. “Come, son,” Kamren said, gesturing for him to follow, “you’ve got some things to do to prepare to take your angel.”

  They walked back to their home, Kamren, his three sons, and Pops, and Kamren sent him off to shower and dress in the clothes that had been laid out for him in one of the guest bedrooms. The room was small and tidy, with a full sized bed covered in a blue quilt and matching curtains on the window.

  Linus showered, still exhilarated with the hunt. He’d not taken down a buck in a long time. Their pack hunted in groups of three or four. This was the first hunt he’d been on since he turned at 16 that he hadn’t been with Jason, Michael and Bo. It had been strange to hunt with Karly’s family but also familiar in a way he hadn’t expected.