The Author's True Mate (The Necklace Chronicles Book Six) Read online

  The Author’s True Mate

  Necklace Chronicles Book Six

  By R. E. Butler

  Copyright 2020 R. E. Butler

  The Author’s Truemate (Necklace Chronicles Book Six)

  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.

  Cover by CT Cover Creations

  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.

  * * *

  Edited by Sarah Dawn Johnson

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  For my beloved Montana, the real Mytan. Aroo, buddy.

  * * *

  Thanks to Joyce, Shelley, and Ann for beta reading.

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  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

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Coming Soon from R. E. Butler

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  Other Works by R. E. Butler

  Coming in November…AnnaRose (Tails Book Four)

  The Author’s Truemate

  Necklace Chronicles Book Six

  By R. E. Butler

  Paranormal romance author Trinity Jeremiah loves to write about bad boy alpha wolf shifters and the women who love them. When she attends her first book signing, a fan begs Trinity to write a story redeeming her series’ most popular villain, Wrath. When Trinity refuses, the reader gives her a parting gift of a necklace that—when she puts it on—sends her into a realm that mirrors the stories she’s written.

  Wrath Valentine, alpha of the Blood Wolves, has been dreaming about a curvy brunette for years. Despite being the best hunter and most powerful male around, he’s never been able to find his true mate, the female he’s certain haunts his dreams. The endless nights without his true mate have filled him with blood lust, and he spends his days trying to destroy the other alphas and take over the realm.

  When Trinity wakes up in Wrath’s bed sporting the bonding tattoo that matches his, she isn’t interested in getting to know the alluring man who haunted her dreams—she wants to get back to reality. Discovering that the reader who cursed her into her book’s reality is a character she wrote about in a story, Trinity learns that she’s definitely not dreaming and the stories she wrote about actually happened—in another realm. Trinity will be faced with the toughest decision of her life—leave Wrath behind and return to her own world or stay in his forever.

  Chapter One

  Prologue

  Veltris howled in rage when he finally reached the cavern and found his true mate, bleeding, bruised, and chained to the wall. She was unconscious, the fresh smell of blood filling his senses and driving his wolf to the edge of madness.

  Wrath would suffer! Him and his damned hybrid pack.

  Veltris shifted to his human form and pulled the pins on the cuffs to free Gemma. She moaned weakly but didn’t regain consciousness.

  His beta, Ren, joined him, snarling at Gemma’s condition. Ren’s line of wolves were blessed with healing powers. He put his hand on Gemma’s forehead and said softly, “I can fix all that was done to her.”

  “Not here,” Veltris said with a low voice. “Not in this place of death and misery.”

  Ren gave him a sharp nod. Drake, one of the pack guards, let out a low growl as he stared toward the doorway of the underground cavern. “I can hear the others relaying the message that Wrath and the Blood Wolves are on their way back.”

  “We must leave,” Ren said. “I can carry her.”

  Veltris’s hands tightened on his beloved mate. “She’s mine to carry. I failed her once. I won’t again.”

  “As you wish, but let’s go now,” Ren said.

  The trio moved out of the small cave within the underground tunnel system that the Blood Wolves called home. Veltris and his pack of purebred wolves had created a distraction for the Blood Wolves to draw them from the cavern so they could get in and free Gemma. His mate had been taken three days earlier by the alpha of the hybrids in retaliation for two Blood Wolf males who’d been killed during a full moon hunt. Veltris had known Wrath would come after him, but he hadn’t thought he’d take Gemma. As a fully mated and pregnant alpha female, she was off-limits to any and all who would intend to cause her harm. No purebred would harm a female, let alone an alpha female. Disagreements and territorial battles were between males only.

  Not that the Blood Wolves had any honor. As hybrids of vampires and wolves, they had traits of both supernatural creatures. But while they’d inherited vampire speed and strength, they hadn’t gotten wolf honor. It wasn’t exactly a physical trait, but it was an important one all the same.

  Veltris and his people left the caverns and headed for their home territory. Because of Gemma’s injuries they had to pass through the dangerous Eldrin Forest, where the Mytan—a creature straight out of nightmares—roared, looking for prey. It would be a tough route, but they had to get away from the Blood Wolves and safely into their own territory so she could be healed.

  Her physical wounds would be gone, but he had no doubt that she’d been mentally harmed as well, and those wounds would take longer to heal.

  Scouts left them and spread out, shifting into their beasts and keeping an ear out for the Mytan. Even the Blood Wolves steered clear of the enormous fur-covered beast that howled like a dog and had icy blue eyes.

  Once they made it to their home territory, they went straight to the lodge where Veltris and Gemma shared a room. Ren followed them, muttering to himself about Blood Wolves needing to be wiped out of existence once and for all.

  Veltris laid his beautiful mate on their bed and took a step back. He forced his beast down, who wanted to run back to their enemy’s territory and destroy them, but he knew their pack couldn’t do it alone.

  “You need to leave?” Ren asked as he rolled his neck and reached for his healing powers within him.

  “To plan, yes. But that can wait until she’s healed.”

  “She’ll still be unconscious after the healing,” Ren pointed out. “Go plan. I’ll keep you apprised of her situation.”

  Veltris leaned over and kissed his mate, inhaling her sweet scent. “I will avenge the harm caused to you and our unborn pup. The Blood Wolves will suffer for this.”

  He stared at his mate for a heartbeat longer and then forced himself to leave the room. Ren would keep her safe and heal her. All Veltris could do in there was be in the way.

  A thought occurred to him, and he paused in the hall to let his mind roll.

  His pack had gone after the Blood Wolves before and failed numerous times. They were more viciou
s, more brutal than purebred shifters because of their vampire genes, and each time they battled, Veltris lost members. That two of the Blood Wolves had fallen had been luck more than planning, and he was certain they wouldn’t be that lucky again. But... if he couldn’t kill Wrath—the most dangerous and feared male on the continent—by himself, the possibility for his downfall could come at the hands of multiple groups.

  If Veltris got the other purebred packs to band together, they would be strong enough to defeat him, wipe him and his mangy hybrids off the face of the fucking planet. It wouldn’t be easy—purebreds had a history of fighting for territory and power among themselves, and there were a lot of strong-willed alphas who wouldn’t want to admit they weren’t powerful enough on their own. But he knew for a fact that every alpha within five hundred miles of the Blood Wolves had been harmed in some way by the hybrids. Wrath was not above using innocents to gain whatever he wanted—territory, power, wealth.

  Taking Gemma and putting her and their pup in danger was one step too far in Veltris’s mind.

  Wrath was irredeemable. He needed to be put down.

  And Veltris was just the male to do it.

  * * *

  Trinity Jeremiah rolled her neck and took a drink from her favorite mug.

  “Oh, blech,” she said. The coffee had gone ice cold. She glanced at the digital clock next to her computer and realized she’d been writing for an hour without a break. The words had needed to come out, like some kind of creative vomit. Which was a gross thing to think about.

  She pushed back in her chair and stood, smiling at the screen. Her current work in progress was book eleven in her series about an alternate earth. In her world, there was no modern technology, which made it a bit like medieval times but without the knights and castles. She populated her fantasy world with vampires, shifters, and humans. The vampires and shifters hated each other, but they hated the hybrids of their people—Blood Wolves—far more. The Blood Wolves were the villains of the series, and the most villainous of all was their alpha, Wrath.

  Popping a coffee pod into the machine, she yawned and waited for it to brew. Her mind flitted to the dream she’d had the night before, which had prompted the scene she’d just written. She’d been dreaming about Wrath and his band of wolf-vampire hybrids since she was a teenager. The dreams had come to her infrequently the year she turned fifteen, and most often were only about Wrath. When she turned sixteen, the dreams were fairly regular, nearly every month, and became more detailed as the months rolled by. She looked forward to the dreams as much as she was troubled by them.

  She felt connected to Wrath, as if they were meant to know each other. But he was a figment of her imagination, and it wasn’t as if she could make him a reality. In college she took a creative writing class and wrote a story about one of the recurring dreams, in which Wrath killed the leader of the Blood Wolves and became Alpha. The old alpha had gone crazy because he hadn’t found his true mate—the one female in the world meant for him. Blood Wolves, as hybrids of two supernatural creatures, went insane without their true mate to balance their ferocious nature. A true mate curbed their blood lust and need for violence, kept the beast in check. The males only had through their twenties to find their mate and claim her. Once they hit thirty, they became unstable, too rage-filled, more beast than man, attacking their own family and pack.

  While her teacher had thought the story was too violent, and Wrath was irredeemable, Trinity had felt in her heart that her dream man was fully redeemable. With the right woman.

  A few years later, she was a published author with twenty novels based on the world of her dreams featuring Wrath and his Blood Wolves versus the purebred wolf shifters. She still dreamed about Wrath regularly, and those dreams were documented in her books.

  She fixed her coffee with caramel creamer and headed outside to the concrete patio. Sitting at the little bistro table, she stared out at the cornfield highlighted with the morning sun. Her mind wandered to the scene she’d written. Veltris saving Gemma was a good thing, but his plan to rally the other purebred alphas to destroy Wrath was something she hadn’t expected.

  Not that she’d ever let that happen. They might come at the Blood Wolves, but she was still the author and creator of the world and she’d never let him be killed. In her dreams, he was the sexiest man alive—dark hair, piercing green eyes, and a body built for war.

  And pleasure.

  And he was all hers.

  Chapter Two

  Trinity scooted her chair in a little closer to the long table and settled the lanyard around her neck better, so it laid comfortably. The doors to the ballroom were about to open, and she was full to the brim with nerves and excitement. It was her first time as a signing author to the popular book lovers’ convention—Romancing Philly—in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She lived two hours from the bustling downtown, but she’d never gone to a convention as a signer. It wasn’t until an author pal suggested if she went they could share a hotel room, that she decided it would be a fun thing to do.

  So here she was, sitting next to her friend and fellow fantasy romance author—Gloria Maynert—with stacks of books in front of her, a big banner at her back, and a whole bunch of swag spread out on the table.

  “You look like a deer about to bolt,” Gloria said with a chuckle. “You keep watching the door.”

  “I can’t shake the worry that no one will want my books or know who I am,” Trinity said.

  “Oh please, we all get that stage fright kind of thing. You’re a popular writer, and your last book in the Alpha Mates series was a smash.”

  Trinity rolled her eyes with a smile. “You don’t have to keep boosting my ego. I appreciate it, but I’ll be fine once things get going. Just first-time nerves.”

  “I was so nervous at my first signing that I accidentally threw a permanent marker at a fan when I went to sign her book. It slipped right out of my hand and drew a black line across her pink shirt. I felt terrible.”

  Trinity laughed. “Did you sign the mark? Tell her it would be worth something someday?”

  “Now that would’ve been smart.”

  The doors opened at nine a.m. on the dot, and a flood of people moved into the large room, some people walking methodically from table to table through the rows and some making beelines to particular authors. Trinity had done her own share of fan-girling after meeting her favorite sci-fi writer, Belinda Vollun, so she understood the smiling faces and gasps of surprise from the people. Before she knew it, people were lining up at her table, and she was lost in a flurry of hugs, squeals of happiness, and reader questions. The day raced by, and despite the cramp in her hand from signing her name so many times, she was exhilarated.

  During a short lull, she leaned back in her chair to stretch and smiled at Gloria.

  “Hello.”

  Trinity let the front legs of the chair slap down on the floor as she righted herself and smiled at the woman standing in front of her.

  “Hi,” Trinity said, extending her hand. The woman shook it firmly, and a tingle raced up Trinity’s arm that made her shiver. It felt oddly like a light electric jolt. She rubbed her hands together and chuckled at the odd feeling. “You look familiar,” she said. “I’m sorry if I spoke to you today already, everyone’s faces are kind of melting together.”

  “I haven’t been here before,” the woman said.

  There was something familiar about the woman, but Trinity couldn’t figure out what it was. It was as if she knew her, but not in the passing-glance sort of way that she’d been meeting people all day. It was a deeper feeling, as if she’d known her for years.

  Trinity shook the thought from her head, figuring she was just tired from the long day. “Oh, okay. Would you like me to sign something for you? I’ve got some bookmarks and postcards, and my books are ten dollars each.”

  The woman tilted her head, her gray-blonde hair slipping over her shoulders. Her eyes were blue-green like the ocean, and she had a scar on her neck that lo
oked almost like claw marks. It was an old scar, but it still looked like it had hurt.

  “I’d like to ask you to consider giving Wrath Valentine his true mate,” the woman—who still hadn’t introduced herself—said.

  Trinity wasn’t about to let some random fan tell her what to do with her books. Particularly her dream man. “He’s the villain. They don’t get happily ever afters,” she said with a tight smile.

  “You do realize he’s destroying the world, yes?” the woman asked.

  “I’m fully aware of what the characters I create have done and will do in the future. And nowhere in my plans is Wrath ever going to get his true mate.”

  “So you’ll put him down, then? Because once he reaches thirty, his beast will take over and he’ll be a threat to everyone.”

  Trinity inhaled sharply. “I know everything about Wrath. Don’t worry about him.”

  “He’s acting the way he is because of what you’re denying him, you know.”

  Trinity scowled. “Listen, ma’am, if you’d like me to sign something, I will happily do that. I’ll even take a picture with you and smile as if you’re not pissing me off. But what I won’t do is discuss what you think I should do with my books and characters. If that’s what you came to see me about, then happily go on your way, because I’m done.”

  The woman stared at Trinity in silence, her eyes shimmering from the blue-green mixture to one laced with gold. It was so damn familiar. She wished she could figure out where she’d seen her before. Maybe at the author-reader breakfast that morning. Or the night before, when she and Gloria had met readers at the hotel’s bar while enjoying strawberry margaritas and never-ending appetizers. But wherever she knew this unnamed woman from, she didn’t like her one bit.