Joss (Were Zoo Book Nine)

  Joss

  Were Zoo Nine

  By R. E. Butler

  Copyright 2020 R. E. Butler

  Joss (Were Zoo Nine)

  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 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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  Edited by Evil Eye Editing

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  Special thanks to photographer Paul Henry Serres for being amazing to work with and to model Eric Trahan, the perfect alpha wolf!

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  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

  Coming Next from RE Butler

  Contact the Author

  Other Books by R. E.

  Next in the Were Zoo Series

  Joss (Were Zoo Nine)

  By R. E. Butler

  All Jeanie Moon has to show for the last twenty-five years of her life is a divorce that left her broke with terrible credit, and a desire to never be in a relationship again. When her twenty-something neighbor gives her a coupon for a free VIP tour at a safari park, she decides there are worse ways to spend a Friday afternoon.

  Alpha wolf Joss isn’t interested in anything but the Amazing Adventures Safari Park he and his pack call home – that and keeping their shifter abilities a secret from humans. He’s happy when one of his males finds a soulmate, but none of his people have found their mate with the help of the VIP tours which were designed to bring in potential mates. When he’s called to the tour desk to settle an issue with someone using another person’s ticket, he’s in for the shock of his life when he discovers his soulmate is the one holding the ticket.

  Joss knows that taking a human as his mate means his alphaship is in jeopardy, but he won’t give Jeanie up without a fight, even if it means facing off against the one male he never thought he’d see again...his brother.

  Chapter One

  Alpha wolf Joss bent his head and took a drink of water from the small pond in the paddock. The pond was shaded by trees, so the water was fairly cool despite the sweltering August temperatures. He hated summer afternoons, his wolf far preferring the frigid temperatures that came with winter. He heard the familiar rumble of an approaching Jeep and gave a short bark to his people who were in their shifts and milling about the paddock.

  He headed toward the chain-link fence that enclosed the paddock so that he was closer to the dirt road. Most of the paddocks in the park held shifters – wolves, lions, bears, gorillas, and elephants – who weren’t known to humans. Their people worked at the park and lived in an underground city, each group having their own private living space as well as a shared marketplace where food, clothing, and other items were available. Joss had been at the park for nearly thirty years, part of the original group that wanted to create a safe place for their people to live.

  Most shifters lived only with their particular group. Wolves would stake out a territory in a small town and keep their shifting identities a secret from the local humans. The were zoo, as he’d come to think of the park, was unique in that there were so many different groups working and living in the same place. The pack was the largest group out of all of them, but they still enjoyed the safety that came from living with others who could watch their backs. Sometimes, Joss longed for the days of his youth when his pack lived in the mountains of Pennsylvania, away from humans, where they could shift at will and didn’t have to worry about their secret being revealed.

  Those had been the days.

  He let out a sigh as the Jeep stopped in front of the paddock, and Jasper, one of his pack members, helped a young female climb from the vehicle. He brought her over to the fence and recited a spiel on wolf facts for her, then took her photo. Jasper looked at the pack through the fence, his eyes questioning.

  Was this human any wolf’s soulmate?

  Joss scented the air, as did his people with him. She smelled like artificial flowers, probably a perfume or body wash of some sort, which was pleasant but didn’t stir his beast. Not that he thought he’d ever have a soulmate. He certainly didn’t deserve one.

  Discreetly shaking his head at Jasper after he took in the disinterested gazes of his pack members, he padded away to the shade and flopped down. Once the Jeep had moved on to the next paddock, he relaxed and closed his eyes, his ears alert for the next Jeep.

  Hours later, he sent two of his males to patrol the park in their shift along with two wolves in their human forms, to ensure that no humans were within the park’s gates. Once they’d reported back to him that they were clear, he and his people shifted back to human.

  Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays, the shifters who lived in secret at the Amazing Adventures Safari Park in New Jersey spent time in their shifts for VIP tours. The purpose of the tours was to encourage unmated humans to come to the park, in the hopes that the shifters might recognize their soulmate among the visitors. A soulmate was the one person on the planet meant for a shifter. In Joss’s youth, a shifter would never consider a human as a soulmate, not only because their people generally steered clear of them for fear of discovery, but because taking a human soulmate meant removing that person from their life and family to protect the secret. It was an arduous process.

  But because so few shifters found their soulmate in other shifters, humans became the more viable option. The alphas of the park got together and created coupons that were sent out to eligible males and females ages eighteen to thirty-five in the tri-state area, offering them free parking and entrance into the park, as well as a ticket for a private tour. The VIP tours had been going on for over a year, and in all that time, only two soulmates had come from them. Two human females who were friends came together, one finding her soulmate in a gorilla, and one in a lion. A panther shifter female had bought a ticket online after being told by another wolf pack that there were shifters at the park. She’d turned out to be the soulmate of an elephant.

  “Park’s empty, Joss,” Alfie called through the fence, drawing Joss from his reverie.

  He let out a sharp bark to Alfie who waved and headed back down the path to finish closing up for the night. Then Joss turned to his people and let out a series of sharp barks, letting them know it was safe to shift.

  He padded toward the maintenance shed, where one of his people had tugged the large door open so their people could shift inside. Joss let go of his shift and changed forms, letting out a deep sigh as he grabbed his jeans and tugged them on.

  “Everything okay?” Ezra asked as he dressed.

/>   “Yes,” Joss answered quickly, and then said, “I’m calling a meeting in our private area in ten minutes. Alert the pack members.”

  “On it,” Ezra said, jogging out of the shed and calling to the wolves still milling around.

  Joss opened the door located in the floor of the shed and walked down a flight of stairs. At the bottom of the stairs, he entered a code to unlock the door, walked down a hallway, and entered another code. He followed a long hall, passing by the other shifter groups’ private areas, and entered another code into the wolves’ private area. The big space had painted walls and ceiling to resemble a forest, and what looked like rock-covered dens were actually the façade on the exterior of the small homes. Joss had a home to himself, but many of the unmated males shared a home with two or more friends. There were mated couples within the pack, but most of his people were single.

  Including himself.

  Not single, technically. He was what humans called a widower. He’d lost his mate to injury during a hunt. Even fifteen years later, he still harbored guilt over what happened to her. She’d been his chosen mate, not his soulmate. A sweet female he’d met at a gathering of packs. They’d decided to have a child together, and the plan had been for her to raise the pup if it was a girl, and him to raise it if it was a boy, but after their son had been born, they’d gotten used to being around each other and decided to mate officially. They’d had a daughter a few years after their son. He’d loved his mate and she’d loved him, but he’d always wondered if them staying together had prevented either of them from finding their true soulmate.

  The idealistic young male of his youth was long gone. Hardened by battle and being alpha, and the terrible choices he’d had to make to protect his people.

  His mate would certainly hate him if she knew everything he’d done.

  Shaking his thoughts away from the darkest place in his mind, he focused on his people coming into their private area. His second-in-command – Brent – stood at his side with his arms folded.

  “All accounted for, Alpha,” Brent said.

  Joss lifted his hand for quiet. “I’ve gathered everyone tonight to discuss the VIP tours. I know that no wolf has found his or her soulmate through the tours, even though we’ve been doing them for over a year. I can see that some of you are disheartened. Trust me when I say that all the alphas are. The good news is that the alpha council has sent out another round of VIP tour tickets, and already we’ve seen an uptick in the number of reservations.”

  “Do the alphas really believe the tours are going to work? There’s hardly any evidence to support it,” Ezra, one of the tour drivers, said.

  Joss nodded. “They do. I do. Getting unmated males and females into the park is the only way to expose our people to potential mates.”

  “What about a pack exchange?” Silvanus asked. “Evan just left to hang with another pack. Why can’t a few of us do the same – trade off with another pack?”

  “That pack has decided not to send anyone to us, so only Evan is going. It was a special circumstance. While it’s been done in the past, the alphas feel that switching out members for new ones isn’t the way to find soulmates, and I agree. Particularly after what happened with the pack from Rhapsody’s town.”

  There was a murmur of agreement from the pack. Rhapsody was a panther shifter. She’d been told by her aunt before her passing that the wolf pack in their town knew of an entire zoo full of shifters where she could go to find help, as she was the last of her people. The pack had participated in an exchange with Joss’s pack at one time with the understanding that they would never tell anyone else about the shifters who lived under the park. Because of their big mouths, a group of panthers had come after Rhapsody and caused a lot of problems.

  “I know it’s hard to maintain a positive attitude, but we won’t be participating in pack exchanges for the foreseeable future. In the meantime, just have faith that we’re doing everything we can to help bring people into the park. I fully believe that soulmates will be found eventually, we just have to give it time.”

  There was a low grumble within the pack, a few of the younger males clearly not agreeing with Joss’s stance. But he wasn’t in the mood to entertain any backtalk.

  With a low snarl, he clapped his hands together and all chatter ceased. “Unless one of you would like to challenge me for alpha?”

  He left the words hanging for a little while, staring down the males who’d spoken. Joss wasn’t alpha because he’d inherited the position or because he won a popular election. He’d fought his way up the ranks and won the title in battle. He was the alpha because he was the best, period. Eventually he’d step down, or someone would come in who could best him in a fight. But that day hadn’t come yet.

  When no one would meet his eyes, Joss said, “Then we’ll continue to do things as the alphas have decided. Dismissed.”

  He watched everyone go their separate ways, not speaking until he was standing alone with Brent. As his beta, the second-highest ranked male in the pack, Brent would be the male to beat for alpha when Joss was ready to abdicate. The previous alpha had been in power well into his sixties. But time marched on for all, and when Joss saw the male was starting to grow weaker, he took the opportunity and challenged for alpha.

  He’d beaten the old alpha easily, but since the male had been ready to step down, he’d just needed a nudge.

  But then Joss’s older brother wanted to be alpha, too.

  That battle had not gone well.

  Joss had nearly killed his brother because he wouldn’t admit defeat. With one foot in the grave, Joss had sent his brother away, exiled forever from the pack and their family.

  Of which only Joss remained.

  “Alpha?” Brent asked.

  “Sorry,” Joss said. He was really musing too much today. “What did you say?”

  “I said that I haven’t heard anyone complaining about the VIP tours outright, but the younger males were pissed that Evan was able to leave when they weren’t. I understand it’s different circumstances, but you know how the young ones can be.”

  “It’s just not safe for an exchange of any size right now. They’ll have to accept that. But if you hear of anyone in particular complaining, let me know.”

  “Will do. Anything else?”

  “No. Have a good night.”

  “You too.”

  Joss headed to his home. At one time it had been a haven. Now the solitude he’d once enjoyed mocked him.

  All alone. No family. No one who loved him. No one he could love.

  The guilt within him flared as he thought about love. He certainly wasn’t a male who deserved the love of anyone, let alone his soulmate. He’d had love and lost it. He’d had children and they were gone. Everything he’d had at one point in his life that had given him joy was gone. He didn’t believe there was a female on the planet who’d forgive him for what he’d done in the name of protecting the pack. Destined to be alone, he was sure, for the rest of his life, he went to the kitchen and pulled out a glass, pouring himself a shot of whiskey. He could dull his mind enough so he could rest.

  That was the most he could hope for.

  Chapter Two

  Jeanie Moon set a plate of eggs, home fries, and sausage links on the metal counter and clapped the bell with the handle of the spatula. “Regina, order up.”

  “Thanks,” the middle-aged woman said as she looked at the ticket and plate. “When you have a sec, can you make me an English muffin? I’m starving.”

  “Sure thing,” Jeanie said, smiling.

  Turning her attention to the row of orders, she busied herself at the cooktop making breakfast for the locals. Friday mornings were busy, the farmers coming in after they’d done their morning chores, eager for hearty breakfasts and strong coffee. She could practically make the regulars’ orders by memory after working at the diner for the last two years.

  It wasn’t what she’d thought she’d be doing at age forty-four, but life had a way of making
a fool of anyone with a plan. She’d gone to college for finance and had worked her way up in the corporate world. Then the business had closed its doors right at the time she’d discovered her husband was cheating on her and had been doing it for a long time. He’d butt-dialed her while she was at an interview, and the video call had shown her a lot more than she’d ever wanted to see of her husband and another woman rolling around in bed together.

  She’d filed for divorce, and discovered that he’d mortgaged the house twice, and after she left him, he got revenge on her by taking out credit cards in her name and maxing them out. Once her credit tanked, she’d been unable to find a job in the finance world. She was seen as a bad risk because she couldn’t handle her own finances.

  Desperate for work, she’d taken a job as a waitress at Ron’s Diner, the pitiful hourly wage and small checks not even allowing her to cover the mortgage of the house. Ron had taken pity on her and put her behind the stove instead. She’d never cooked for more than a couple people before, but the menu was simple, and she’d grown into the role. Now, she enjoyed it. And she’d even helped Ron with his accounting and saved him some money on his taxes. It was the least she could do since he gave her a chance when she’d had no experience.

  She popped an English muffin into one of the many-slotted toasters on the counter and put a little plate in front of it, then turned her attention to the omelet she needed to make for the next order. The morning zipped by quickly, and once she’d finished up the lunch rush, she clocked out and said goodbye to Ron and Regina.

  “You have plans tonight?” Regina asked, leaning against the front counter and snapping her gum.

  “Oh yeah, hot date with my television and new sci-fi series that’s streaming on one of the services.”