The Tiger's Bride (The Necklace Chronicles Book 3) Read online

  The Tiger’s Bride (Necklace Chronicles Three)

  By R. E. Butler

  Copyright 2016 R. E. Butler

  The Tiger’s Bride (Necklace Chronicles Three)

  By R. E. Butler

  License Notes

  This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of the author.

  Cover by CT Cover Designs

  This ebook is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination and not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locations is coincidental.

  Disclaimer: The material in this book is for mature audiences only and contains graphic sexual content and is intended for those older than the age of 18 only.

  * * *

  Editing by Alexis Arendt

  * * *

  Much thanks to the lovely Bryce Evans for inviting me to the original boxed set.

  Hugs to Joyce & Shelley for beta-reading

  Much love to Aunt B. L & my husband B. B.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Contact the Author

  Other Works by R. E. Butler

  The Tiger’s Bride (The Necklace Chronicles Book Three)

  By R. E. Butler

  As the last golden-furred tiger shifter in existence, Charisma Gains knows that his best chance to find his soulmate is on the All Hallows’ Eve full moon. With an enchanted medallion in hand, Charisma casts the spell for his soulmate, hoping against hope that the necklace will find the one woman meant to be his. Unless he finds his other half, he’ll go feral, his beast slowly taking over.

  When Valerie Winter sees a beautiful necklace with the image of a tiger on it at a flea market, she’s overcome with the desire to own it. With the cryptic words of the merchant ringing in her ears, she takes the necklace home and puts it on before the moon rises on All Hallows’ Eve. She passes out and wakes up in the woods, face-to-face with a big cat.

  Valerie is asked to believe the impossible: that shifters exist, that the man before her can change into a tiger at will, and that she was destined to own the necklace because they’re soulmates. Charisma knows it won’t be easy to convince Valerie of the truth in the span of a day, but if she refuses his advances, the necklace will return her to her home and he’ll lose her forever. What he doesn’t expect is interference from the very wiccan who helped him, and for Valerie’s life to be on the line.

  Chapter 1

  Valerie Winters settled onto the poolside lounge at the hotel, her e-reader in her hands. The latest delicious paranormal offering from her favorite author had hit the virtual bookshelves early that morning, and she hadn’t been able to keep from downloading it immediately. This book centered on a group of lion shifters as they looked for their mates. The hero was all alpha-male and demanding, and the heroine was a plucky young woman who tempted man and beast. It was exactly the sort of book that she adored reading, and she was already envious of the heroine in the story, who was seduced by the fiercely handsome alpha.

  A shadow covered her, and she looked up to see her best friend and bride-to-be leaning over the lounge. “What are you reading, Val?” Bethany asked, settling into the vacant lounge next to her.

  “Myra James’ latest, Come Sweet Lion.”

  Bethany rolled her eyes. “You’re so silly.”

  “Maybe, but I like being silly when I can read about hot, sexy men who shift into big old cats.” She wiggled her brows, and her best friend laughed lightly. Waving at one of the servers who bustled around the hotel pool, Bethany ordered mimosas and they chatted about her wedding that night.

  When their drinks were done, they headed to the hotel’s spa to get ready for the early evening wedding, which was taking place in one of the hotel’s grand ballrooms.

  Valerie and Bethany had been friends since high school, when they both took Home Ec to escape gym. Bethany was tall compared Valerie’s short stature, lean where Valerie had curves. Blonde to her golden brown. Underneath their physical differences, though, were two women who loved shopping for shoes, watching Lifetime movies, and dancing on the weekends.

  But that was about to stop, wasn’t it? Married women didn’t club.

  “Aw, you look bummed, woman. What’s up?” Bethany closed her eyes with a yawn as the masseuse worked on her shoulders.

  “I’m gonna miss the hell out of our kickass weekends,” Valerie grumbled, squeaking when her masseuse hit a tender spot in her back.

  One robin’s-egg-blue eye opened. “I’m getting married, not dying. Gerald travels a lot; we’ll still get to hang out.”

  Valerie brightened at that thought. She wasn’t ready to lose her best friend at twenty-three.

  The day passed quickly as they were pampered, plucked, and polished in preparation for the small wedding. At six-thirty, Valerie put her hand on the arm of Gerald’s nephew Troy, a gangly seventeen-year-old who hadn’t been able to take his eyes off her cleavage since the rehearsal dinner the night before. He escorted her clumsily down the aisle, taking too-long strides and having to stop to wait for her to catch up. When they parted at the end of the aisle, she had the urge to dunk her hand in a large tub of hand sanitizer, because the kid was just that creepy.

  Turning her attention to the other end of the aisle, she watched as her bestie stepped into view with her father. She was a vision in ivory, her golden hair shimmering as she moved down the aisle. Valerie envied Bethany her close relationship to her parents. Valerie’s own parents had divorced when she was a teenager, and she’d stayed with her mother. Her father had remarried quickly and settled down with a woman a few hours’ drive away. The weekly phone calls from him became monthly ones, and then drifted further and further apart.

  He was busy with his new family, his wife’s children from a previous marriage, and then their own children. Valerie became a footnote in his life, receiving a birthday card and a Christmas gift, but nothing more. She’d become far closer to her mother, who was a combination best friend and super-mom wrapped in one petite package. Her mother had never remarried.

  She turned her attention to Bethany and Gerald. Gerald was a thirty-two-year-old marketing executive who worked in the same office building in Philadelphia as Bethany and Valerie. Bethany worked for a large cell phone company’s executive staff, and Valerie was an assistant at a collections agency.

  When Bethany handed her rose and lily bouquet to Valerie, her teary face showed just how happy she was she’d found Gerald, and Valerie was happy for her. Her own love life was pretty sparse. She dated frequently, but always seemed to find flaws in the men she went out with. They were too lazy, or too focused on their careers, or not good in bed. Now, if she could find a man like the ones in her paranormal romance novels, she’d be in heaven. It sounded like a tall order, though; handsome, powerful, protective, and shifting into a furry beast on the full moon. She thought she could get used to a man going furry once a month, if he was everything else she wanted.

  She wiped a stray tear from her cheek as Bethany and
Gerald kissed, then handed the bouquet back to her best friend and clapped with the guests. As she took Troy’s arm and he escorted her down the aisle, she hoped that her best friend was truly happy and would have a wonderful life, and that someday soon she’d meet the man of her dreams too.

  Chapter 2

  Charisma Gains rubbed the back of his neck as his beast rolled inside him. He could feel fur prickling against his skin, and the sharp pain of his canines and claws trying to break free. Every time the sun rose, he was that much closer to losing himself completely to the beast. Cracking his knuckles, he rolled his shoulders and snarled at the pacing tiger in his mind. The creature was slowly going crazy because they’d been unable to find their soulmate, and it was taking Charisma straight into the abyss with it.

  He climbed out of his truck and shut the door firmly, pushing back the pacing creature in his mind as he stared at the cottage that served as the hub for the local wiccan coven. He’d lived in Littlewood, Pennsylvania his entire life, and although he knew of the small coven, he’d never had to meet with them before. Things were different now; time was running out.

  Striding to the door with the homey welcome sign hanging from the knob, he pulled it open and stepped inside. Immediately his senses were assaulted by the heavy scent of herbs that saturated the air, stinging his eyes and making his nose itch.

  “May I be of help to you today?” a high, soft voice spoke.

  A woman approached him with a friendly smile. Her blonde hair was tied in a long braid that brushed the wood floor as she walked toward him. He could feel how powerful she was as she reached out to him supernaturally, testing him even as he evaluated her in turn.

  “I’m in need of a spell,” he said after introducing himself.

  “I’m Gretel, eldest in the coven. What spell do you need?”

  “A seeking spell, so my soulmate will be brought to me.”

  She met his gaze for a long moment and said, “This coming full moon occurs on All Hallows’ Eve. That changes the strength of the spell.”

  He nodded. A shifter could perform a seeking spell for their soulmate during any full moon, but the All Hallows’ Eve full moon occurred only once every eighteen years. The spell would become much more powerful due to the rise in supernatural power on that night.

  “I’m twenty-five. I’m not sure I’ll make it to another full moon. I understand that the spell will be exceptionally more powerful, but I must find my soulmate.”

  “The spell will drain you physically. You’ll be forced into your shift to protect yourself.”

  “I’ll do whatever it takes. Aside from the simple fact that I don’t want to become feral, I’m the last golden-furred tiger in existence. I owe it to my family line to have a child.”

  It wasn’t just that he wanted a child – he wanted a family. His parents had died when he was a teenager. He felt like he’d been grieving their loss for the last ten years, all by himself. He’d never had anyone to share the burden with. He’d just…been alone.

  “The seeking spell isn’t a guarantee. While the necklace will go where your soulmate is, it’s up to fate whether she puts it on.”

  “I understand.”

  “Follow me,” Gretel said, turning gracefully and walking through an open door at the back of the room.

  Charisma followed. For the first time, he felt a stirring of hope. Countless times he’d traveled to human cities in the hope that he’d find his soulmate, but his efforts had been fruitless. This was his “Hail Mary” play. If the seeking spell didn’t work, then he was doomed.

  Gretel stepped into a room and smiled at him. “Charisma, this is the coven. Ladies, we have a guest, the last golden tiger in existence.”

  When Charisma stopped in the doorway, he found himself looking at a large circular table with eleven women seated around it. They varied in age and style of dress, from the very conservative high-necked dress that Gretel wore to the more modern, gothic style that some of the younger women sported.

  The women all greeted him as they closed the leather-bound books they were using. Gretel said, “Charisma has asked for a seeking spell for Sunday evening. Louise, you’re very adept at enchantments.”

  Louise opened her mouth and then closed it.

  “Is everything well, Louise?” Gretel asked, her brow arched.

  “Of course.” She cleared her throat as she stood and said, “I’d be happy to help.”

  She smiled at Charisma as she moved toward him, stopping and extending her hand. He took it, and his cat chuffed in his head. There was something off about the woman, but he couldn’t place what it was.

  “You know where the supplies are,” Gretel said. “If you have any questions, do not be afraid to ask for help.”

  “This way, Charisma,” Louise said.

  “Thank you,” he said to Gretel, nodding his head to the other wiccans. He followed Louise down the hall to another room, which looked like a cross between an old library and a laboratory.

  Louise hummed as she walked along the bookcases that graced two of the walls from floor to ceiling, the shelves stuffed with books. Pulling a thick book from a lower shelf, she laid it on a long wooden table and opened it, turning the pages slowly as she scanned them.

  “Do you understand the seeking spell?” she asked.

  “My parents told me about it when I was a cub. After the spell is cast, my soulmate will be brought to me when the moon has risen on All Hallows’ Eve.”

  “You know about the time frame also?” She moved to the other side of the room and began to pull vials, boxes, and fabric sacks from cabinets with glass doors.

  “I have twenty-four hours to consummate our mating, or she’ll be returned to her home.”

  What was far worse, in his mind, was that if he did fail to convince her of their bond as soulmates, she would forget him entirely. Once the moon rose on Monday night, if they hadn’t been intimate, then she would disappear from his life forever and he’d lose himself to his beast.

  “Right.”

  He watched Louise as she worked, using a mortar and pestle to grind different ingredients together. After placing the powdered contents of the mortar into a leather pouch, she used a quill pen and a glass jar of ink to write the words of the spell on a strip of cotton fabric.

  “Do you have a necklace?”

  “Yes. It was my mother’s.”

  She smiled, but this time, he noticed that the smile didn’t quite reach her eyes. There was a look of almost contempt in her gaze. Certain he was seeing things, he pushed away his concern and listened as she explained how to perform the spell. She gave him the fabric and the leather pouch and said, “I wish you well, Charisma, last of the golden tigers.”

  “I won’t be the last one for long,” he said.

  She hummed noncommittally and walked with him out of the room. He thanked her and hurried from the cottage, anxious to cast the spell for his soulmate. She couldn’t arrive fast enough.

  * * *

  At dawn on All Hallows’ Eve, Charisma stepped from his cabin carrying the fabric, pouch, and his mother’s medallion. The medallion was heavy in his hand, a comforting weight that held the promise of a new future. He stopped in the yard next to a fire pit, which he’d laid with oak he’d cut himself and seasoned over the last year. Kneeling next to the pit, he lit the fire. As the wood caught, the flames licking and curling around the pieces, he cleared his mind of all but finding his soulmate. Setting the medallion in the center of his palm, he opened the vial and sprinkled the powder over it. The medallion held the visage of a tiger, which appeared so real he’d always imagined it prowling right off the circle of gold.

  The medallion heated in his hand as the last of the powder trickled out and covered it. Tossing the vial into the fire, he lifted the fabric and spoke the spell that would magically imbue the necklace, allowing it to be placed in the path of his soulmate. When he’d spoken the last word of the spell, he dropped the fabric in the fire and watched as it was swiftly consumed.
The medallion heated, turning molten in his palm. He didn’t drop it to ease the pain, just watched as it shimmered and then disappeared.

  Left behind in its wake was the imprint of the tiger on his skin. As a shifter he had accelerated healing, so it took only moments for the burn to heal and disappear. Sitting back on his heels, he stared at the fire, wondering if the spell would work, and if he’d be united with his soulmate before his beast went feral.

  As a young man, he’d hoped to find his soulmate naturally, the way his parents had met and fallen in love. The seeking spell was meant to be used only when a soulmate hadn’t been found and the shifter was in danger of becoming feral. His parents had told him about the spell, but they’d never thought he’d need it.

  As his thoughts turned to his tiger, he felt an overwhelming urge to shift. Remembering that the wiccan had told him that would happen, he let go, his clothes shredding as he transformed. Shaking his head to orient himself after the quick shift, he looked toward the rising sun and decided he had plenty of time to hunt.

  He’d be back before the moon rose, when he hoped he’d be greeting his soulmate. The last thing he wanted to do was frighten her. Although it was possible that his soulmate would be a natural-born shifter, it was more likely that she would be a human and he would change her into a shifter after they were mated. His cat purred, anxious to have another cat to hunt with. Teaching her to shift and hunt would be a joy, and he looked forward to it. Bounding off into the woods, he waited for the day to wane.

  Chapter 3

  After returning from the wedding, Valerie decided to spend Sunday with her mom. Her mother’s favorite pastime was going to flea markets and digging around through other people’s junk. Although Valerie had found some interesting things over the years, she really only did it because it made her mom happy. This was their “girl time,” when they could reconnect.