The Hunter's Heart (Wilde Creek Book Seven)
The Hunter’s Heart
Wilde Creek Book Seven
By R. E. Butler
Copyright 2017 R. E. Butler
The Hunter’s Heart (Wilde Creek Book Seven)
By R. E. Butler
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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.
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Editing by Alexis Arendt
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Thanks to Joyce & Shelley for beta reading
For BB and BL - I love you both.
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
Wilde Creek Volumes One, Two, and Three
Wilde Creek Books Seven and Eight
Contact the Author
Other Works by R. E. Butler
The Hunter’s Heart
(Wilde Creek Book Seven)
By R. E. Butler
She-wolf Mia Slattery has loved Lucian since she was a little girl, but her brother’s human best friend has always been forbidden fruit. Deciding that it’s better to move on than pine for someone she can never have, she opts to go on vacation with her parents, hoping Mr. Right will happen to be where she’s going.
Lucian has been crazy about Mia for as long as he can remember. As a hunter who specializes in finding law-breaking shifters, his life is as dangerous as it comes, and he would never put Mia in jeopardy.
When the family of a shifter Lucian put away comes for revenge, Mia is caught in the crossfire, and Lucian will have to turn against his fellow hunters in order to save her life. Saving Mia comes with a price, but Lucian’s willing to do anything to protect her – even if it means giving up his future.
Chapter 1
Mia Slattery stood in front of her closet and stared at the contents. Her mind spun as she considered all the possible combinations.
“I think maybe this top and these pants,” she said, pulling a dark-green blouse and black dress pants from the closet. She turned to face her bestie and the alpha female of her wolf pack, Brynn.
Brynn looked up from where she was digging a spoon into a tub of chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream.
“Too dressy.”
“But–” she said, looking at the outfit.
“It looks like you’re trying too hard.”
Mia wrinkled her nose. “Well, I don’t want that.”
Putting the blouse and pants back, she flipped through her clothes again.
“Did I tell you that my parents invited me to go on vacation with them?”
“Oh? Where are they going?” Brynn asked.
“Reno. Dad has a conference there, and they’re staying at a resort casino that has a circus theme.”
“Did they ask Mal to go?”
Mia’s only brother was mated to a human named Nila. Her son, Jack, was absolutely adorable, and she and Malachi were expecting their first child together in a few months.
“They asked, but Mal said he’s got too much going on with the wedding and work to leave.”
Malachi and Nila were getting married after the April full moon, and Mia was going to be the maid of honor at their small wedding. She’d helped Nila with the invitations, had already picked up her navy-blue dress, and was just waiting for her dyed-to-match heels to come back from the shoe store. Malachi and his best friend, Lucian, ran a successful security company – L&M Security. Malachi was also a high-ranked male in the pack, and very good friends with Brynn’s mate, Acksel.
“Did you say yes to the vacation?” Brynn put the now-empty ice cream container on the nightstand and leaned back on the bed.
“I said maybe. I could take off work, but I’m not sure that I want to go to a casino, no matter how fun the theme of the place is.”
“You could meet a sexy circus performer.”
Mia arched a brow. “What?”
“I don’t know. Maybe. It wouldn’t hurt to broaden your horizons.”
“That’s what this dinner is about.”
Malachi had a firm don’t-date-my-sister rule for his friends. Especially Lucian, who Mia had secretly loved since she was little, when he came to live with his grandparents in Wilde Creek.
He and Mal had become instant best friends, and Mia had drooled after him like a puppy. But since Mal had the no-touch policy, Lucian had never looked at her as anything but his friend’s kid sister.
Nila, because she was ten kinds of awesome, had arranged to invite Lucian to dinner at their home the next time he was in town. He lived away from Wilde Creek now, had ever since he’d turned eighteen and enlisted in the military. When he’d come back a few years later, he was ripped with muscles and covered with tattoos, and she’d been pining for him even harder ever since.
“Mal is going to flip his lid when he sees you at dinner,” Brynn pointed out.
“I know. But it’ll be too late by then. I think this is my last chance. It…feels like it.”
“Last chance with Lucian?”
“Yeah. I’ve been holding onto him for such a long time, hoping he’d want to be with me as much as I want to be with him. I’ll pull him aside and talk to him. If he isn’t interested, then I’ll be able to move on. I can’t really do that until I know for sure.”
It would hurt if he didn’t actually care for her, but she didn’t have a choice. She was staring down the barrel of twenty-nine. Which wasn’t all that old in the scheme of life, but possibly one-quarter of her life was gone already, and she wasn’t in a relationship. She wanted to find her mate, the one guy on the planet meant for her. Her wolf was insistent that the male for them was Lucian, but he didn’t seem interested. It was time to pull off the Band-Aid; even if it was going to potentially be the worst, most painful thing she ever did to herself.
“I can move on,” she said, repeating the phrase that had been haunting her for a while. She’d heard that Lucian had come into town to help a fellow wolf, Adam, and his reindeer-shifter mate Dani with security at their home. But he’d bounced in and out of town within a few hours, and Mia never even had a chance to catch a glimpse of him.
“Okay,” Brynn said. “Let’s find you something kickass to wear.”
Brynn joined her at the closet and started pushing and pulling clothing back and forth on the rod. After several minutes, she chose a pair of dark jeans and a long-sleeve black top. It had a v-neck and a wide cutout at the back that would show a little skin.
Mia changed into the clothes that Brynn had picked out, and then stepped into a pair of high-heeled ankle boots. She walked to the bedroom door and closed i
t so she could look in the full-length mirror hanging on the back.
“Now that’s a ‘knock ‘em dead’ outfit,” Brynn said. “It’s simple but sexy.”
“I like it.”
“Good. You look wonderful.”
Brynn turned Mia by the shoulders toward her. “Look, I love you dearly but I need to say something super in-your-face. Is that okay?”
“You can tell me anything, you know that.”
“It’s okay to be hopeful about this dinner thing, but it’s been my experience that guys don’t like ultimatums. You need to be mentally prepared in case he says no. I hope he doesn’t. I fucking hope to hell that he doesn’t, babe, but if he does, you have to be willing to move on, just like you said. Can you?”
Mia inhaled and let her breath out slowly. “I…yes. I think so.”
“I’ll keep my fingers and toes crossed for you. You’re amazing, and you deserve an amazing guy.”
“I just need to know once and for all.”
“I get it. I felt like that about Acksel.”
“Yeah, but you weren’t waiting around for him. I feel like the romantic part of my life has been on hold for so long. How can you love someone that you’ve never even kissed?”
“Love’s funny like that.”
“And cruel.”
Brynn glanced at her watch and said, “I hate to eat all your ice cream and run, but Acksel said he’d pick me up right at seven. Are you all set?”
“Yeah. Thanks for coming over.”
She walked her best friend to the front door and opened it, waving at Acksel, who stood outside of his SUV. He nodded.
“Call me after the dinner, okay? Unless you’re busy making him scream your name,” Brynn said, wiggling her brows.
“If only,” Mia said.
She said goodbye to her bestie and shut the door, leaning against it with a sigh. The dinner wasn’t until tomorrow night, so she still had a whole work day ahead of her before she’d be able to come home and get ready. And then…destiny.
She knew it was a lot of pressure to put on a dinner, but it was time. In a few months it would be September and she’d be going through her heat cycle. Females went through an annual heat, unless they were pregnant or nursing. It was hard for a female to go through the heat alone, but unmated females sometimes did. Mia had relied on a wolf named Reese. He was from another pack; they’d met in college. He was reliable, he always wore condoms, and he never tried to mate her. Her last cycle was their last together, because he was planning to mate a female from his own pack.
She’d really like to be in a relationship before her next heat, or she’d be buying a lot of batteries for her vibrator and cursing her single status. She didn’t think she’d dread the heat cycle if she had a mate with her.
Pushing aside thoughts of her heat, she returned to her bedroom and stripped, hanging the clothes back up and heading into the bathroom to take a shower. Her cozy home was just the right size for her, but would be even better suited to her, a mate, and a couple of pups.
She just hoped that her wolf was right and Lucian was her mate, and the only reason he’d kept his distance all these years was because she’d never come right out and told him. Nerves gripped her, but she pushed them aside as she turned on the shower and picked up a fresh razor from the cabinet.
Tomorrow was the first day of the rest of her life.
Bring. It. On.
Chapter 2
Lucian Carnahan inhaled silently and focused his hearing. He stood in the shadows of an alley in the small town of Munroville, waiting for his target to finish whatever the hell he was doing in the massage parlor across the street. Although the exterior of the business appeared to be legitimate, it was a well-known front for the raven shifters, who were as dangerous as they were crazy.
And perhaps the most dangerous and crazy of them all was their leader, Antonio. Who, among other recent atrocities, had killed a human woman who’d rejected him on more than one occasion for a date. Lucian couldn’t imagine what unhinged a male like Antonio so much that he would kill an innocent for something so ridiculous. He was revered in his nest the way that some humans worshiped deities, but something about that human woman had made him go off the deep end.
The door to the massage parlor opened and two burly males stepped out, looked around, and gave the all-clear signal. Lucian tapped his throat mic twice, signaling to his teammates that Antonio was free of the building. He watched as the males ushered Antonio into a black sedan with darkly tinted windows. When the sedan pulled away from the curb, Lucian said, “Simon, they’re heading to you now.”
“Copy,” Simon said.
Melting back into the alley silently, Lucian turned and ran to the end, leaping for the bottom rung of a fire-escape ladder and hauling himself up. He scaled the side of the building swiftly, climbed over the edge of the roof, and raced across the concrete surface.
He could feel his nature bubbling under the surface, the beast he kept tightly controlled through magical tattoos and binding spells clawing to break through. Although there were aspects of his nature that he liked – extra strength and speed, enhanced hearing and smell – the beast itself was too dangerous to be set free. His father had killed his mother while under its thrall. That was why Lucian had never let it out. And he never gave anyone a chance to get close to him, either. Even though the beast was kept under wraps, and had been since he’d first felt the stirrings of his nature when he was a teenager, he didn’t dare link himself romantically to anyone.
Not even sweet little she-wolves.
Banishing the image of his best friend’s sister from his thoughts, he focused on the hunt. Antonio was to be captured and brought to the hunters’ detention center. There he would be held until he was tried for his crimes. Most assuredly he’d be executed, but not until he’d confessed and implicated the members of his nest in unsolved crimes that the hunters were looking into.
He leaped from the roof of one building onto the next, rolling to his feet and racing to the far edge. He heard the sedan turn the corner at the building he was on. Looking over the edge at the three-story drop, he spied another, lower roof to the left and rushed to it. By the time the sedan had hit the next corner, Lucian was in a good place to get the drop on them. Literally.
“Cover me,” he said, and launched himself over the side of the roof, falling one story to the top of the sedan. He landed hard, the roof denting with his weight; the car swerved and angry, confused shouting could be heard inside.
Gripping the roof with one hand, he placed the barrel of his gun over the driver’s side and fired once. The car careened wildly, accompanied by more shouting, and he fired once more over the passenger side.
He heard the grunt of the second male being hit, and knew that Antonio was now unprotected. Job finished, he glanced up and saw the car was heading for a fire hydrant. Lucian jumped from the roof, rolled to the concrete, and came up, gun in hand, as the car impacted with the hydrant and water gushed from the ground.
“So much for being inconspicuous,” Simon said as he joined Lucian. Together they stalked to the car.
“As long as we’re gone by the time his people get here, we’ll be good,” Lucian answered.
The back door opened, and Lucian had just a moment to see the muzzle of a gun as Antonio swung it outward. He kicked the door shut, slamming Antonio’s hand and making him drop the gun, then jerked the door open and grabbed the male by the throat.
“Let me go!” Antonio shouted. “Do you know who I am?”
Lucian shoved him around and against the side of the car as Simon cuffed him.
“Of course we know who you are, Antonio. You’re under arrest by the authority of the Hunter Division of the United States Armed Forces,” Simon said.
An SUV pulled up, and Simon and Lucian pushed the furious and struggling raven shifter into the back, securing him to the side of the vehicle. As Simon slapped duct tape over his mouth, Lucian closed the back door and said, “We’re cle
ar.”
“Just a sec,” Neil said as he made a U-turn in the street. He rolled down his window and tossed a grenade into the sedan, then stepped on the gas, racing away from the scene and the sound of sirens drawing near.
Isaac, their resident tech guy, sat in the passenger seat, his fingers flying on the laptop. “When we’re clear of downtown, I’ll turn the city cameras back on. The chatter from the cops is it’s a car accident.”
“They’ll see the bullets when they do the autopsy,” Lucian said, climbing from the back into the second row.
“Yeah, but they’ll most likely suspect rival shifters or drug gangs. These assholes have their hands in everything,” Simon replied as he joined Lucian. In the back, a furious Antonio kicked at the back door and rattled his handcuffs.
Lucian looked at the male, whose eyes had turned bright bronze in his fury. They were glowing, the eerie color making Lucian’s beast want free. He couldn’t explain why his beast wanted to break out so badly lately, but he had a suspicion that it was because he’d agreed to go to Mal’s for dinner. Anytime he got close to Wilde Creek, the savage part of him would rise up, scraping at the bonds.
He was tempted to beg off dinner, but he’d already been gone overseas for several months on a hunting trip with his team, locating a group of rogue wolves who were terrorizing a peaceful town in Central America. Now he was back in the states, hunting dangerous shifters and trying not to think about Mia.
Which he was clearly failing at.
He settled back in the seat and closed his eyes. It would take four hours to get to their headquarters and secure Antonio. Then he could go home and rest. And not think about Mia.
* * *
Lucian cracked his neck, holding Antonio’s arm and watching the elevator’s numbers drop as they moved underground. The hunters’ headquarters wasn’t just their base of operations, but also where they held prisoners, tried them, and often executed them. If a prisoner was given a life sentence, they were taken to another facility for dangerous shifters on the West Coast.