The Alpha's Heart (Wilde Creek Two) Read online

  The Alpha’s Heart (Wilde Creek Book Two)

  By R. E. Butler

  Copyright 2014 R. E. Butler

  The Alpha’s Heart (Wilde Creek Book Two)

  By R. E. Butler

  License Notes

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook 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 Ramona Lockwood

  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.

  * * * * *

  I’d like to thank Kimberli Crook for being part of the Shifter Babes Street Team and for letting me use her name for one of the characters in the story. Thank you so much for being part of my world! XOXO

  * * * * *

  I’d like to thank Alexis Arendt for editing this story.

  Many thanks to Amanda Pederick for beta-reading, line editing, and being there for me!

  To Joyce B., thank you for all your help and your support.

  To Aunt B. L. and my husband, B.B., I love you both.

  Much love and hugs to the Shifter Babes Street Team for their encouragement, dedication, and support…you guys rock!

  * * * * *

  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

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Contact the Author

  Other Works by R. E. Butler

  Coming Soon

  Chapter 1

  “Achoo!”

  A little boy sneezed right in Brynn Mara’s face as she stood behind the desk at the Family Clinic of Wilde Creek. She blinked and jerked back; the mom holding the boy shifted him away by sliding him to her other hip and smiled apologetically.

  “I’m sorry. If it’s any consolation, Bobby has allergies, not a cold.” Bobby’s mother Jackie said.

  Brynn grabbed a few tissues from the box on her desk, wiping away the wetness from her cheeks and nose, and smiled at Jackie in understanding.

  “After working here for the last three years, I’ve been sneezed on by over half the kids in town. It’s no problem, trust me.” She gave Jackie a reassuring smile and handed Bobby a sucker from the jar on the desk. He flashed her a sweet smile as he peered at the sucker.

  Jackie looked grateful that Brynn hadn’t had a total conniption fit. It certainly wasn’t the worst thing to ever happen to her in the doctor’s office, and she didn’t want Jackie to feel bad. After checking Bobby in, she sat down and turned her attention back to the schedule on the computer screen. She picked up the caller that she’d placed on hold when the mom and her sneezing kid had shown up.

  “Thanks for holding,” Brynn said after pressing the line button. She made an appointment for the caller, and before she’d disconnected, two other lines rang. It was hectic, but she was used to it. The phones were always ringing at the clinic, and the two doctors — husband and wife team Kimberli and Frank Channing — were kept busy fielding patients from not only Wilde Creek but also the surrounding towns.

  Seeing Jackie and Bobby, and the flashy diamond ring on Jackie’s finger, made Brynn suddenly aware of her current situation. Twenty-nine and painfully single. She had a job she loved, but at the end of the day she went home to her empty house. What she wanted was to start the next chapter of her life…getting married and having a family.

  “Oh man,” she muttered, trying to banish the thoughts of one very sexy hunk of man from her mind.

  “What?” Dr. Kimberli, affectionately known to everyone as Dr. Kimmi, asked, coming to stand behind the desk with a patient chart.

  “Nothing. My brain was just wandering into unwelcome territory.”

  Dr. Kimmi chuckled and tucked a lock of dark blonde hair behind her ear before reaching for a pen from the cup on the desk. “That happens to the best of us, dear. Do you have plans this weekend?”

  “Not really. Mia and I usually go see a movie or grab dinner on Friday nights, but she’s going to a relative’s wedding out of town so that’s out. I think I’ll do something really exciting, like tackle my closet and put my summer clothes away and get my winter things out.”

  “Ooh, exciting,” Dr. Kimmi said with a smile. Then she looked thoughtful. “Are you up for a blind date?”

  Brynn blinked in surprise. She couldn’t have been more caught off-guard by the question if Kimmi had also thrown confetti and danced a jig when she asked it.

  “Uh,” she started, and Kimmi put her hand up with a chuckle.

  “His name is Xavier Whiting. He’s the son of some friends of ours; he just graduated from medical school and is working at Findley Hospital. He’s very cute and nice, I promise.”

  Cute and nice? Sounded like the description for a pet, not a potential boyfriend. She preferred descriptions of her dates to include words like ‘sexy’ and ‘gorgeous,’ but then again she hadn’t gone out with anyone worthwhile in a long time. Sure, there had been dates, but she’d spent the years since high school nursing a bad case of unrequited love for a certain alpha werewolf. Eleven years was a long time to hold onto someone that didn’t really want to be held onto. At least not by her. Since he was a wolf and she was human, and he hated humans.

  Deciding that she’d spent more than enough time comparing men to Acksel Moore, she smiled up at her boss. “I’d love to meet Xavier.”

  “Great! I’ll give him your number and have him call you. I’m sure you two will hit it off.”

  Brynn watched the doctor leave the reception area and smiled to herself. Going out on a date with an eligible doctor was just what she needed.

  If she could just stop thinking about that charming, infuriating, gorgeous, and sexy wolf.

  Damn it.

  Chapter 2

  Acksel knew that he was standing on the verge of changing everything as he looked out over his backyard and the wolves that were gathered there waiting for him, as alpha, to make a decision about his sister Eveny. She had fallen in love with a human named Luke Elrich and was now mated to him and carrying his child. It was pack law that humans and wolves didn’t mate; to do so meant banishment from the pack and town. But he knew that he couldn’t banish his sister, not without tearing his own heart out.

  She loved that human. Had chosen a human over her family and pack. Acksel hadn’t ever made a choice from the heart the way that Eveny had, and he wasn’t really sure he had it in him to walk away from everything for love. Not that he knew anything about love and relationships. Aside from a bad case of unrequited love for a human who didn’t even know he was alive, he didn’t know a damn thing about what was driving Eveny to walk the line of giving it all up. He’d hated humans for so long, it was hard to look
at the human male on his knees before him with his arm protectively around Eveny without wanting to punch his face in. But Luke had never been anything but nice to Acksel, and if anyone deserved to be happy it was Eveny. Especially after Acksel had nearly gotten her killed in an attempt to control her.

  “An alpha cannot be a rod made of steel, unbending and unyielding to change. He must be willing to bend when he sees that the laws of old are choking the life from his pack,” he said, letting his voice carry over the pack. “As is my right as alpha, I declare that from this day forward, the members of the Wilde Creek pack may mate with whoever they choose, be they wolf, other supernatural creature, or human.”

  Two males stood up to him, but he put them down and asserted his position as alpha. His word was law. If he wanted to throw all the old laws out the window and start fresh, then he could damn well do it.

  “Our pack was built on blood,” Acksel said, “but there is room for peace here. We live among humans; we can accept them as the mates of our members. You have until the next full moon to decide if you want to remain in the pack. Those that wish to leave will be allowed to without fear of reprisal, but once the full moon has passed, the only way out of the pack is through banishment or death.”

  After dismissing the pack, he invited his dad, Eveny, and Luke into his home. It had been hard for him to think of his sister as a grown woman now, mated and pregnant, but the truth was staring him in the eyes. And so was the harsh truth that he’d lost her trust and would have to work hard to gain it back.

  Watching his family leave after they talked about the future, he decided the last thing he really wanted to do was be alone, but after what happened with the pack, there wasn’t anyone he could call. He’d believed that he had friends in the pack, until some of those ‘friends’ had tried to kill his sister so they could take it over. He didn’t trust his own judgment anymore. So he drove to Poke’s, the only bar in Wilde Creek. Sitting in his usual booth, he told the owner, Teddy, to leave the bottle of whiskey. He tried to drown himself in amber-tinted liquid, but it only worked to dull his senses, not erase what he’d done completely.

  He’d thought that Eveny would thank him. Every September starting in their twenty-fifth year, female wolves went through a heat-cycle. Unmated females could either suffer through the week-long cycle alone or they could find a male to tend to them. If a male came inside the female during her heat-cycle, they were mated, which was the wolf equivalent of marriage. Eveny had told Acksel she didn’t want to go through her cycle with anyone, and he’d known that it was because of Luke. She’d left Wilde Creek and gone to their family cabin in the woods to ride out the cycle alone. Acksel hadn’t liked that one bit, so he’d asked his theto, Vince, to go through her cycle with her and use condoms so that they wouldn’t become mated. What he hadn’t known was that shortly after the conversation, Vince called three pack members to drive up to the cabin with him.

  Although the details were sketchy, apparently Vince and his pals had planned to gang-rape Eveny when she was at her most vulnerable. It hadn’t mattered to them if she survived or not, because they knew Acksel would become unhinged knowing that something he had arranged had ended in her being hurt or killed. Then they would challenge him for the position of alpha, using his grief against him. He was sure that the plan would have worked. He wouldn’t have known what to do with the guilt. Luke had come to her rescue, standing up to the four pack members and killing Vince. If it weren’t for Luke, Acksel might have had to bury his sister instead of congratulating her on the baby.

  It didn’t mean that he was particularly fond of humans, though. Except for one — a brunette goddess with the prettiest green eyes and the kindest smile. A human who had been nice to him in school when he was bullied and tormented because he was scrawny and weak. Because of the pack law against humans and wolves mating, it hadn’t mattered that he’d had a major crush on Brynn. That she’d been the star of his fantasies for more than eleven years. But he’d just changed the law, hadn’t he? He’d made it so that wolves could mate with whoever the hell they wanted to. And that meant him, too. Didn’t it?

  His wolf rumbled in agreement, but Acksel immediately shoved the hope that bloomed in his mind away into a dark corner. Any female that he chose as his mate would have a target on her back. She’d have to deal with the single females in the pack who wished he would choose them as his mate, and she’d be vulnerable to any males who might want to use her against him. He couldn’t say it wouldn’t happen. Vince and his cronies had planned to do just that with his sister. Sure, Luke had proven that he could protect Eveny against even the most determined wolves, but what chance would a human female have against a wolf? A human was far too vulnerable to consider as a mate, even though his cock had perked up at the thought of Brynn’s soft curves and sweet smile. She worked at the family clinic in town and he saw her from time to time when he was out and about. Not that he was paying all that close attention to her.

  Bullshit.

  Staring into the bottom of his empty glass, he knew he was totally sloshed and that was probably where his ‘wishing for things he couldn’t ever have’ attitude was coming from. He’d be better off going home and sleeping off the booze and then getting ready for the full moon. Too drunk to drive, he started to walk home, but caught the scent of something that made everything in his body go tight and hot. He found the source of the scent.

  A woman.

  His woman.

  Mine.

  Chapter 3

  Brynn shut down her computer on Thursday evening and pressed the button to send the incoming calls to the answering service. The office was now empty except for Dr. Kimmi and the nursing staff, who were finishing up their reports. She walked down the hall towards her locker in the staff breakroom where she kept her purse.

  “Heading home?” Nila Caruthers, one of the nursing assistants, asked. Then she laughed. “That’s a dumb question, sorry. It’s been a long day.”

  “It’s okay.” Brynn smiled at her. “Yes, I’m heading home.” To an empty house, an empty fridge, and an empty bed, she thought morosely. Shaking her head to banish the dark thoughts, she forced a smile to her lips. “Are you taking off?”

  “Soon, I hope. The daycare charges me seven dollars for every ten minutes I’m late if I don’t show up by six.”

  Brynn glanced at the clock on the wall. “You have an hour, I’m sure you’ll make it.” Nila was the single mom of an adorable eighteen-month-old little boy named Jack.

  “I hope so,” Nila smiled back, a dimple showing in one naturally tanned cheek.

  Brynn shouldered her bag, said goodbye to Nila and the others who were still in the clinic, and headed out to her car. It was only five. The night stretched ahead of her like a gaping maw.

  Good grief, she thought, dropping her purse onto the passenger seat. Where did all these whiny, lonely thoughts come from? Sure, she wasn’t attached to anyone, but that didn’t mean she didn’t have a good life. She and her dad were close and had brunch every Sunday. She had a job she enjoyed and friends she cared about. So what if the bed was a little cold and empty? Maybe she’d really hit it off with Xavier. Maybe he was tall, dark, and handsome, and the sort of guy that would sweep her off her feet with some romantic gesture involving roses and something sparkly. She smiled to herself as she drove out of the parking lot and headed home. She was nothing if not an optimistic girl and a romantic at heart.

  She rented a small home in a cul-de-sac in Wilde Creek. The three-bedroom ranch had a cozy fireplace in the living room and a back porch that she loved to sit on in the mornings to have a cup of coffee. The home belonged to her best friend Mia’s parents, who had moved out of Wilde Creek several years ago when Acksel defeated the then-alpha wolf and took over. They hadn’t wanted to sell the house, and had offered it to Brynn to rent, since Mia already had a place of her own in town. After high school, Brynn and Mia had lived together for a while, but when the opportunity came to get a place of her own, she happily acc
epted it.

  Kicking off her shoes, she left them in the front closet, hung her purse up on a hook on the door, and walked into the kitchen. She opened the fridge and frowned. Even though she hadn’t had a chance to go grocery shopping, she’d hoped that there would be something edible on the shelves. No such luck. Unless she wanted a nice bowl of baking soda washed down with a ginger ale. With a sigh, she opened the freezer door, rifled through the stack of frozen meals she kept to take for lunch, and made plans to go to the grocery on the way home from work tomorrow.

  Her phone buzzed just as she sat down on the couch with a glass of ginger ale and a plate of chicken Marsala and steamed vegetables.

  “Hello?”

  “Brynn? This is Xavier. Kimmi gave me your number. Are you busy?”

  Her stomach growled at the dinner that was already cooling, but she didn’t want to be rude, so she said she wasn’t busy at all. Xavier lived in Findlay, about twenty minutes from Wilde Creek, in an apartment near the hospital where he worked as an emergency room doctor. They traded pleasantries about their families and jobs. He had a dry wit that she enjoyed, and by the time the call ended, she had a smile on her face and a date for Friday night.

  Her dinner had sat long enough that it was completely inedible, so she satisfied her grumbling stomach with a peanut butter sandwich, cleaned up the kitchen, and headed back to her bedroom. Unbuttoning her blouse, she dropped it in the wicker hamper in the closet, divested herself of the rest of her work clothes, and tugged a sleep shirt over her head. Shuffling to the couch, she wrapped up in a blanket and turned on the television, planning to catch up on some of the daytime shows she recorded while she was at work.

  * * * * *

  A sharp knocking on the door startled Brynn awake, and she rolled off the couch in surprise. Her knees slammed into the carpet and she gasped in shock. She hadn’t meant to fall asleep on the couch. As she rubbed at her eyes, the knocking on the door continued. Fixing her blurry gaze on the clock on the television, she saw it was well past midnight.