Evermore

Evermore

Rebecca Royce

How is love possible when all is lost?

Werewolf Homer Prinze wants nothing more than to complete his assignment and get out of the wasteland that is the city. The dragons have destroyed everything, but a cry catches his attention. Before he knows it, he has met his mate. She needs his help and he is going to give it to her.

Camille is no one's idea of great mate. Pregnant and alone, she is scarred and not looking for a companion in the hard world in which she lives.

But when Homer needs her, she will risk everything to bring him home.

eBooks are not transferable. They cannot be sold, shared or given away as it is an infringement of the copyright of this work.

EVERMORE

Wicked Series

Copyright © 2015 REBECCA ROYCE

ISBN: 978-1-943576-24-1

All Romance eBooks, LLC Palm Harbor, Florida 34684
www.allromanceebooks.com

This is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or business establishments, events, or locales is coincidental.

All Rights Are Reserved. No part of this may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever with out written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

First All Romance eBooks publication: October 2015

Chapter One

Homer Prinze prowled through the crowd, counting the seconds until he could leave the putrid stink of the city. One year since the end of the Dragon Wars— the battle that had raged between werewolves and dragons for over seventeen years and caused nothing short of total destruction in the end—and the reconvening survivors of the war were arguably worse off than they’d been during the attacks. At least when they’d all been fighting a common enemy the werewolf population had been all on the same side. Post-war, the werewolf community all seemed to be turning their former dragon hatred on each other. They needed Alphas again. Pack life. A return to the thing which had at one time made them great.

How the wolves could find their way again was beyond his limited viewpoint. Homer had been a great secret soldier during the war and he was, he hoped, an excellent dominant pack mate since. Solving the world’s problems had to fall to someone else.

He couldn’t get home fast enough. His Alpha, who had once been his commander during the war, Robbie Owens, honored him with the task of negotiating supplies. He was cognizant of the recognition it brought him within the pack. Only he hated coming to the city every time. Gods, the smell. He shook his head. As soon as he returned home, he was shifting and running the last two days off.

Robbie usually handled the trips to the city himself. Entrusting Homer to make the run showed enormous confidence in him as a pack member, and Homer was not going to screw anything up.

If only all these lost souls could find the small beacon of happiness he had with his newly formed pack. He shook his head. The Owenses had been good to him, given him a chance first as a soldier and now as a valued member of their group.

The small beacon of paradise in the midst of all this hell…

A cry caught his attention and he turned toward the sound. Why the one noise called out to him when so many didn’t he had no idea. But the small feminine agony in the midst of all the rest of it trapped his attention and wouldn’t let him move another step.

The black market vendors he did business with were going to deliver the seeds to his hidden truck in two hours time. He had to see to whoever needed help. Waiting in the truck for his supplies to show up was out of the question.

The hidden Alpha in him wouldn’t let him do anything else.

Gritting his teeth, fighting the need to shift, he plowed forward into the crowd. The sound of pain gave him a path to follow until his nose could pick up the scent associated with the noise. Roses, which was standard for a female werewolf, and the distinct aroma of cinnamon to go with it. He nearly tripped over his own feet as the fragrance moved through him.

His heart rate increased. He hadn’t even seen the female yet and already he knew…she was his mate. Homer’s heart rate kicked up a notch and he moved forward. The sudden understanding, the sheer truth of scenting another and knowing they held your future in their hands was a gift he had never expected to find for himself.

His family thought him dead, a requirement of joining the Special Forces. Better that way. Almost every elite soldier died at the hands of the dragons. The squads could face impossible odds knowing they had nothing left to lose. Except Robbie’s group hadn’t. And now there was going to be…

Homer broke into a run. His mate was in distress. Whatever it was, he would fix it for her.

Darting down an alley, he looked around before he came to an abrupt halt. The source of the noise—his mate—was backed into a corner in the alleyway. Dark haired with bright blue eyes, she held a large stick out in front of her as she tried to ward off two men who, from their scent, were stoned out of their minds from the dragon drugs.

Soon the supplies of the cursed serum would disappear. Any werewolves who had given into the temptation the addiction offered would either rehab or die from the lack. The drug-addled werewolf mind proved a constant issue. Men and women who would never have behaved dangerously before using the toxic substance were like different werewolves when they did.

His mate hadn’t noticed him yet. Her blue eyes were huge, her face flushed in terror, and the stick in front of her might let her stop one of her attackers, but not both. Why didn’t the lovely woman shift?

It was then he noticed what else she had in front of her…a very pregnant belly. His mind stuttered at the vision. His mate was pregnant? Homer took a deep breath. He would have to deal with her gestational state after he saved her life.

At least it made sense why she couldn’t shift. Females didn’t during the time they carried a baby, which was agony for them, particularly during full moons. Females showed their babies their first gift of love and didn’t shift for nine months. A shift ended the pregnancy so they endured the pain.

Usually, from what little he understood, the male somehow gave his mate strength to endure during the process.

“Hey.” He called out to both his mate and the two men who no longer would be breathing in a few moments. “I don’t think I like anything about what I’m seeing here.”

Goon number one jerked around to look at him. “You’re going to want to get out of here, pretty-boy. We’re both soldiers. We want this woman. We’re going to take her. Why do you care? She’s trash.”

Homer had been discounted his whole life by idiots like the one in front of him. He knew he didn’t look threatening. His blond hair, green eyes, and smaller stature did leave the less observant with the idea he wasn’t deadly.

Whatever the two men in front of him thought, they wouldn’t be capable of thinking for much longer. “Every able bodied male alive was a soldier. Our time in the war does not give us permission to abuse or terrify a female. I’m going to give you two seconds to run.”

“What do you think you’re going to do?” Number two, taller and also fatter than his counterpart, sneered. “Talk us to death?”

“Times up.” He looked straight at his mate. “Stay there, don’t move.”

Even before he’d known how to fight, Homer had been able to shift. Fast. The process took him half the time it did his fellow werewolves. What he knew from his years of working for the most elite soldiers was a fast shift made for a lethal werewolf. Plenty of lethal werewolves had slow shifts but a fast version automatically meant strong fighter.

He saw the horror on the face of the male who would soon be dead. Seconds before he struck. Homer wasn’t interested in torturing them—although he’d learned how to do that in the war. He didn’t want to terrify his mate. Dispensing with them fast seemed the best option. Two sharp tears to their necks. The second one saw the first one go down didn’t even run or shift. The drugs made them slow and stupid.

Although they were certainly fast enough to have caused his mate to smell terrified.

Homer called the shift once more and returned to his human form. With two dead werewolves on the street, they couldn’t stay there very long without drawing attention. Not that the police were anywhere to be found. In his pack, he’d be perfectly justified with what he had done. Hell, Robbie might even be mad he didn’t leave them for him to kill himself. Who knew what the rules were in the city?

When he’d returned to his fully human form, he approached his mate. She trembled, still holding her stick out in front of her as though she could do anything with it.

“You’re not going to need that.” He pointed at her would be weapon. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

His mate’s shaking increased and the dark circles under her eyes concerned him. She was pale and her scent spoke of exhaustion and possible infection. He didn’t like her pain one bit and if he hadn’t had years of training to keep himself under control he might have swept her off her feet and hauled her off without so much as a by your leave.

“You smell…really amazing.” His mate had a low, husky voice. The sound made his shoulders relax. Oh yes, he was going to enjoy hearing her speak. Over and over again.

“You do too.” He extended his hand. “Can you give me the stick?”

Homer really didn’t want to get whacked in the face with it. The sting would be really annoying. She looked down at her hand, staring at it as though she’d never seen the stick before. “I didn’t realize I still held it.”

“Hand it to me. Please.” With shaking fingers the beautiful woman whose scent saved his soul handed him the pathetic stick she’d used to hold off her two assailants. He nodded when he took it from her. “Thanks.”

She blinked rapidly. “Why do you smell so…perfect?”

Homer stiffened his spine. He had found his mate—she was pregnant—he’d killed two werewolves and now he had to explain to her why he smelled good to her. His day couldn’t have gotten any stranger.

Before he could answer, she spoke again. “Are you my mate? My mother always said the person I was meant to be with would smell right. I never knew what she meant.”

“I’m your mate.” Saying the words aloud when he didn’t even know her name only added to the surrealness of the whole experience.

“I’d given up hoping.” She swayed slightly and he grabbed her arm to steady her. Heat radiated off her and worry about how ill she was flooded his veins. The woman who had given up on finding her mate and couldn’t be more than twenty five years old was sick.

“My name is Homer Prinze. What’s yours?”

She opened her mouth before her eyes rolled to the back of her head and she fainted, dead weight in his arms. He caught her without issue. Homer needed to find her help and fast. But he wasn’t going to get the kind of care he wanted for her in the dirty, dying city. His mate, whatever her name was, needed to come home with him.

****

Camille Kendrick woke up slowly. She was hot, itchy, and her bones ached. Inside her ever-swelling belly, the baby kicked rapidly. Before she even opened her lids to find out what kind of hell she’d landed in this time, she rubbed at the hard kick of her unborn baby.

Bad enough she’d taken up with the wrong man in desperation to eat, having his baby and running for her life had seemed the end of the line for her in terms of trouble. Only now she’d clearly fallen headfirst into something else she’d have to worry about.

Whatever happens, I’ll keep you safe
. It was the promise she made the child every morning and every evening. The tiny life inside of her hadn’t asked for any of the crap Camille had hoisted upon both of them.

A male scent wafted over. She knew that smell. Woodsy, cinnamon, heat. Camille’s eyes flew open.

“Easy.” The steady voice to go with the spicy scent coupled with the feel of his hand on her arm. She was rocking. What was going on?

“You’re in my truck. We’re driving. Slower than I’d like but I need to make the gas last. Can you drink some of this water for me?” The world seemed blurry, out of focus. Hearing his tones, the way he spoke slowly, brought back the moments before she’d fainted. Two men had wanted to hurt her. She’d thought for sure she was going to end up dead in an alley, she’d failed the baby, and Derek Dresden, who wanted her dead, would have won.

Her mate—she could hardly believe the thought—pressed a cup to her lips and she took a sip. Water. It had been so long since she’d had any fresh. “That’s right. Drink it down. Slowly. I want you hydrated so I can see what this fever is about.”

“Thank you.” She closed her eyes. What on earth was she going to do with a mate?

“Before you sleep again, what’s your name, precious?”

Precious. She loved how the word sounded. She’d never been that to anyone, or at least she couldn’t remember being. How lovely he had used the description on her. But she couldn’t let herself forget that mate or no mate she was always in danger. Letting her guard down wasn’t an option. The world was…heavy.