Tayme (Were Zoo Book 8)

  Tayme

  Were Zoo Book Eight

  By R. E. Butler

  Copyright 2019, R. E. Butler

  Tayme (Were Zoo Book Eight)

  By R. E. Butler

  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.

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  Cover by CT Cover Creations

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  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.

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  Editing by Sara Dawn Johnson

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  Thanks to Shelley for beta-reading

  Thanks to Ann for always making me smile when she corrects me.

  Love & hugs to my Bestie, Joyce

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Coming Next

  Contact the Author

  Other Books by R. E. Butler

  Coming Next in the Vampire Beloved Series

  Tayme (Were Zoo Book Eight)

  By R. E. Butler

  Bear shifter Tayme has called the Amazing Adventures Safari Park home his whole life. He and his family, along with the members of his sleuth, live underneath the park in secret. The fact that shifters own and run the park is a well-guarded secret from humans, who don’t know about their existence, but it makes for some pretty lonely shifters. Tayme’s hoping to find his soulmate someday, but he doesn’t know where to look. All he can do is rely on fate and keep his fingers crossed that she’ll show up sooner rather than later.

  Red fox shifter Rory is an oddity, an orphan living with the owl shifters who killed her family. When her best friend Jessica is injured during a flight and winds up in the arms of her soulmate, Rory is the only one in the entire nest who supports her. On a trip to visit her bestie, she’s carted off into the woods by a huge male, and she knows she’s found the one male on the planet meant for her.

  While Tayme’s family and sleuth welcome her with open arms, the owl nest is anything but welcoming. A meet up with her adoptive parents ends in bloodshed, and Rory feels like she’s once again an orphan. Until strangers come knocking on the park’s front gate one dark night and offer her a chance to be with her own kind again. When faced with the decision, will she remain in the zoo or leave?

  Chapter One

  Rory Merchant was the most furious red fox in the universe. Although she hadn’t been around red foxes since she was a child, she was certain that was an accurate statement.

  A series of events surrounding her best friend Jess, an owl shifter, an arranged mating, and asshole human hunters had ended with Jess landing in the middle of a zoo that was secretly run by shifters. Rescued by Auden, a wolf and Jess’s soulmate, like some kind of romance novel hero, had put Jess at odds with the owls, who didn’t believe in soulmates.

  The only thing Rory thought the owls truly believed in was the authority of the males over the females.

  The day had started like any other for Rory. The adopted daughter of the king and queen of the nest, she’d woken up in her treehouse bedroom, dressed for the day, then had grabbed a cup of coffee from the kitchen. King Ahar had already gone, which wasn’t surprising. He was an up before dawn sort of male. Rory liked to occasionally watch the sunrise, but she didn’t make a habit of it. Her adoptive mother, Rinna queen of the nest, had been scrubbing the stove, the scent of cleanser heavy in the air.

  “Morning,” Rory said.

  “Did you sleep well?” Rinna asked, not stopping the back and forth motion of the sponge.

  “Yeah. Where’s Dad?”

  “Out looking for Jess with the others. They came in late and caught a few hours’ sleep, then headed back out. Have you heard from her?”

  Rory didn’t like lying in the general sense, but she wasn’t about to out her bestie. “Nope. I hope she’s okay.”

  “I’m sure they’ll find her,” Rinna said.

  She finished her coffee and ate a bowl of scrambled eggs, then headed out for what she liked to call the nest’s “gardening club.” In treetop greenhouses, she and several other females tended to the fruits and vegetables the nest used. Rory personally loved sugar snap peas, so she always filled a pocketful to nibble on as she worked, listening to music on wireless earbuds so she didn’t have to make small talk with the females. They were forever asking when the king was going to hook Rory up with a mate, but she wasn’t having any of that.

  She wasn’t an owl, so she didn’t want anyone to choose her mate for her but herself.

  As the day progressed, Rory was sent on an errand, but she wasn’t allowed to take her cell phone. The king had said he needed to update the phone’s security, and he’d return it to her when she got back from the errand. He hadn’t really given her a choice, but she’d had misgivings about not having her phone with her. Particularly with what was going on with Jess. She’d been careful to delete the messages from her, writing Auden’s cell number down on a tiny piece of paper and sticking it in her back pocket.

  Because Rory’d had an odd feeling, she abandoned what she figured was simply a plot to get her away from the territory and headed back, parking her car away from the main cluster of treehouses and sneaking around. Skulking in the shadows as the sun set, she’d seen a large group of males, including Jess’s father, the king, and Miles. Rory’s bad feelings about the situation increased dramatically.

  Rory’s home was vacant, but a quick scent of the air allowed her to follow her adoptive mother’s scent to Jess’s home, where she overheard the two females discussing the mating ceremony that was to occur between Jess and Miles. It took only minutes for her to realize that everything about that day had been a set-up. Jess and Auden were on their way to the territory to be ambushed by the nest, in order to secure her for that asshole Miles.

  Hurrying away before she was discovered, she let out a yelp and covered her head in surprise as she heard an explosion rock the woods. Shaking her head to clear her ears, she heard howling wolves and roaring lions, and Jess’s panicked scream.

  She ran like a madwoman through the woods, shouting for help and banging a stick against tree trunks as she moved in an effort to draw the owl males away from the scream she’d heard. When she knew she was being followed and had effectively drawn them away from her bestie, she dropped the stick and switched directions, silently running to catch up to her friend.

  The scene was shocking. An owl male was dragging Jess through the woods by her ankles while she vainly attempted to grab onto something for purchase. As Rory was about to leap on the male and knock him down, a wolf jumped over Jess and landed hard on the male.

  Wolves and lions surrounded her fallen friend.

  “Need some help?” Rory asked, walking into view.

  “Hey! What’s going on?”

  Rory offered her hand to Jess
and helped her stand.

  “Dear old Dad arranged for the ambush. I didn’t know ahead of time because he sent me on an errand. When I got back to the nest, I knew something was going on, and then I heard the explosion. Shit, owls are assholes. Present company excluded, of course.”

  The wolf swung his big head around to look at Jess and growled in a way that sounded like he was asking a question. He was standing with his huge paws on the owl male, who was alive but unconscious.

  “I’m okay,” Jess said, answering the growl.

  Rory snorted in disbelief. “You just got dragged through the woods you know. Your arms are all scratched up.”

  She didn’t seem to care, most likely too keyed up from shock. “You should get out of here or you’ll get in trouble.”

  Rory was touched she was worried about her. “No one will know I’m here. Besides, I had to make sure you were okay. Is this your mate?” She looked at the wolf leaning against Jess’s legs.

  “This is Auden.”

  Rory smiled at him. “Nice to meet you. Be good to my bestie.” She looked at Jess and told her she’d be able to avoid the majority of owls looking for them if she swung around the tree where they used to play hide and seek. “They’re headed away from here now.”

  “How do you know?” Jess asked.

  “Because I sent them that way by running like a lunatic through the woods and making a ruckus.”

  “Thanks.”

  Jess and Rory hugged.

  “Anytime. You can’t call my cell because Dad took it from me after we texted earlier. He said it needed a security upgrade, but clearly he was taking away my ability to alert you to what they were planning. I should’ve known something was up, but I didn’t until I saw a lot of males heading toward the entrance to our territory.”

  “My mom wasn’t there. Do you think she knew about the ambush?”

  Rory nodded sadly. “I’m sorry, babe, but yes. When I saw the males heading out, I went to find my mom to see what was going on, and your mom was there. They were talking about your mating ceremony. I left before they realized I was listening and did my best to lead our males away from you.”

  “That sucks,” Jess said.

  “Yeah, but at least you’re with your soulmate. The nest didn’t succeed in separating you. You don’t need all this negative bullshit in your life anyway. The nest can go to hell with their ass-backward ways.”

  “You still live here, you know. You’re the daughter of the king.”

  “I’m my own woman, and if Dad thinks I’m going to mate an owl because he says so, then he’s got another thing coming. Fortunately, owls don’t look at me like a mate, so I think I’m in the clear.” Rory canted her head and listened for a moment. “They’re changing direction. You need to go. Email me. I have an old laptop hidden in my room, so we can stay connected.”

  “Love you.”

  “Love you, too.”

  Jess looked down at Auden. “Follow me.”

  Rory watched Jess and Auden, and the shifters with them, disappear into the woods. She waited until they were away, then melted into the shadows, heading to her home and sneaking into the bedroom through an open window. She was angry that the nest had turned on Jess instead of celebrating that she had found her truemate. She sure as hell didn’t think attacking her and trying to separate her from her mate was the way to go about things, but it wasn’t the first time the nest had gone all haywire over a mating. Their history was fraught with females forced into matings they didn’t want in the name of an alliance or some other male-centric reason.

  Stepping into the shower, Rory vowed to help Jess as much as she could. Maybe in the process, she’d find her own soulmate and could get the hell away from the owls.

  Chapter Two

  Tayme Bowman sat at the bar and nursed a beer, his thoughts meandering between ice cream flavors he could try out for the stall he managed at the Amazing Adventures Safari Park and the fact that his bear was very, very interested in finding his soulmate. His bear sleuth worked at the park, living underground in a huge private area connected through hallways to the other shifter groups who called the park home.

  The bears handled the food for the entire park, as well as preparing meals for the shifters. Underground was a marketplace where shifters could pick up a meal and eat there, take it home, or even order it for delivery. They stocked the employee cafeteria, which was topside, and also handled the different food stalls in the park. He was a sucker for ice cream, so when he spent his teen years at the different stations learning how to cook, he decided ice cream was where it was at. He liked experimenting with flavors, and every week he offered the park patrons something unique. Last year, the park held a contest where patrons could drop off suggestions for a new ice cream flavor, and he chose the winner – french toast ice cream with candied bacon sprinkles.

  He’d come to the bar with a few other bears to blow off some steam after a long week. He wasn’t one for going drinking, but he didn’t mind hanging out with his friends outside of the park from time to time. Although the shifters could leave the park, it was encouraged that no one went alone, just to be safe. They’d had issues in the past with outsiders attempting to cause trouble, like a black panther pride that tried to infiltrate the park to get to a female who mated one of the elephant shifters. Erring on the side of caution was always smart in his book.

  “Hey,” a feminine voice said as the stool next to him was taken.

  He glanced at the female, scenting discreetly, and discovered her to be human. “Hey yourself.”

  “I’m Ellie.”

  “Tay.”

  “That’s a nice name. Is it short for something?” She smiled at him, flashing a set of straight, white teeth that looked nearly neon in their brightness in the bar’s lighting.

  “Nah.” Around humans, he introduced himself as Tay, simply because his real name was so unusual. If he said it to a human, it often required answering many follow-up questions, that sometimes included wondering what his parents were thinking. He wasn’t the only one in the park with an odd name. In his sleuth there was Tarquin, Seneca, and Fell, and in the other shifter groups there were more names that sounded crazy to humans.

  His bear was snoozing in his head as he smiled at Ellie, which told him that she wasn’t his soulmate. His bear was restless and wanting to find his soulmate, and a lot of it had to do with the fact that winter was coming. Even though shifter bears didn’t hibernate, there was something about the coming coldness that made him want to settle down and have someone to cuddle up to, spend time with. There weren’t any female bears in their sleuth. The twenty-member group was almost entirely unmated save for his friend Justus, who was mated to a human female named Trina.

  The problem with humans, he thought to himself as Ellie talked animatedly about herself, was that since she wasn’t his soulmate, nothing would ever come from starting anything with her. Which made talking to her pointless in a lot of ways. Why invest himself in someone his bear wasn’t interested in? He’d know his soulmate on sight – he and his bear would be instantly entranced, and he’d do anything to be with her.

  He pulled a few bills from his back pocket and dropped them on the counter, easing from the stool. Stopping Ellie mid-sentence, he said, “Nice to meet you, but I’m going to take off.”

  “Oh.” Disappointment pulled her lips into a frown. “Can I get your phone number so we can get together sometime?”

  “Sorry, I’m taken. Have a nice night.”

  He strode away to where his friends had been playing darts.

  Tarquin looked over his shoulder. “She’s cute.”

  Tayme shrugged. “Not for me.”

  “Maybe this weekend one of us will find someone special,” Fell said.

  The park’s main attraction was a safari ride in which Jeeps were driven by wolves and took humans on a tour of the various animal paddocks. The shifters who called the park home were bears, wolves, elephants, gorillas, and lions. The safari ran Frid
ays, Saturdays, and Sundays. During the tours, they spent time in their shifts, hoping that they’d scent their soulmate among the park visitors.

  The alphas – the leaders of each shifter group – decided a couple of years ago that they could use the safari tour to bring unmated males and females into the park. During a tour, if a shifter scented his soulmate in one of the Jeeps, the wolves would bring him or her to the office in the center of the park for an introduction. To date, only three shifters had found their soulmate on a safari tour – a gorilla, a lion, and an elephant. While others had found their soulmates since the tours began, only three of them had come through the tours. Every unmated male and female in the park hoped to meet their soulmate, but it was discouraging to spend weekends in their shift without many finding their forever person.

  “I’m ready to head out,” Tayme said.

  “Me, too,” Fell said.

  Since their dart game was done, they left, heading in two unmarked SUVs to the park. Tayme climbed from the vehicle and stretched, inhaling the late summer night air.

  Seneca clapped him on the shoulder. “My bear’s going a little crazy, too. Thinking about starting a family. Just need to find my female.”

  “Don’t we all?” Tarquin asked.

  “It’ll happen when the time is right,” Tayme said. “I just wish the time was now.”

  The males all agreed. They headed into the park through the security gate and down into their secured living quarters. Once inside his small home in the bears’ private area, he stripped and settled in bed, rolling to his back and staring at the ceiling. Someday he’d have a female in his arms.

  He hoped that someday was soon.

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  “Did you hear about Auden?” Tarquin asked.

  Tayme looked up from where he was making a list of items he needed to add to the grocery run. Auden was a wolf shifter. The pack was responsible for driving the humans on the safari tours and helping with park security. “What about him?”