Southern Shifters: Purred Promises (Kindle Worlds Novella)
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Authors: R. E. Butler
Text copyright ©2016 by the Author.
This work was made possible by a special license through the Kindle Worlds publishing program and has not necessarily been reviewed by Eliza Gayle. All characters, scenes, events, plots and related elements appearing in the original Southern Shifters remain the exclusive copyrighted and/or trademarked property of Eliza Gayle, or their affiliates or licensors.
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Southern Shifters: Purred Promises
By R. E. Butler
Southern Shifters: Purred Promises
By: R. E. Butler
License Notes
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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.
* * *
Editing by Word Vagabond
* * *
Many thanks to Eliza Gayle for her amazing Southern Shifters world.
Much love to my sisterfriend Joyce B and Aunt B.L. for their continued support.
Table of Contents
Southern Shifters:
Purred Promises
By R. E. Butler
When the male arranged to be lynx Princess Genesis Roark’s mate dies during a hunt, her father gives her two choices – mate the male’s father,
or be banished from the clan. Opting not to spend the rest of her life with a male she’s not attracted to, she chooses banishment and strikes out on her own. She’s
told of a town where shifters, hybrids, and humans all live and work together in what’s known as the neutral zone – Deals Gap, North Carolina.
Tiger-wolf hybrid Jair Venture settled in Deals Gap
a year ago. As a hybrid, his blue
-and-
black striped wolf fur and mismatched eyes relegated him to the bottom tier in the tiger pride. In
Deals Gap, he finds a place to call home.
When Jair meets Genesis, he knows he’s in the presence of his true mate. The gorgeous female is ready and willing to be his mate
,
and loves his blue and green eyes. In the midst of their budding relationship, Jair will have to come to terms with the cause of his messed
-up genetics, and the fact that Genesis’s exile from her home comes with its own baggage in the form of the disgruntled male she left behind.
This book includes one hybrid shifter with a chip on his shoulder, one exiled lynx princess, inappropriate pool hall bets, and gratuitous use of the word ‘mine.’
Chapter 1
Genesis looked at the mating gown on the hanger her aunt
was holding up.
It had been created in the traditional style of her people, an ivory-and-lilac colored affair with a low-cut bodice that was intended to display her bits like ripe melons at the produce stand.
“Why do you always make that
face when you look at the dress?” Geraldine asked, her brow cocked.
“It’s so revealing,” she said with a shrug.
“Probably because the males were the ones who decided what the mating night requirements should be
. When you put men in charge of women’s clothing, it tends to get pretty…”
“Slutty?” Genesis offered when Geraldine didn’t finish her thought.
She sniffed. “I would never say that about anything you wore, Gen. You’re a princess. This gown is exactly like the one your mother wore, rest her soul, and you
’ll look lovely for your mate.”
The mention of her mother always made Genesis sad. Her mother
had died when she was four
. Her
memories of her were fuzzy around the edges, but warm nonetheless – lots of hugs, being sung to sleep every night, and the tastiest chocolate chip cookies ever.
“Oh, I’m sorry, honey. I didn’t mean to
bring you down
.”
Geraldine turned and hung the gown up in the spare bedroom of the home where Genesis had spent the last twenty-five years of her life.
“It’s okay. I
just
miss her. Especially for the important stuff like this. Tomorrow night I’m going to be mated to a complete stranger.”
Geraldine hummed. “It’s our way.”
Making a face, Genesis waved her hand. “I wasn’t saying that it was a bad thing. I just wonder about the true matings that other shifter groups have. Our people
never
find their mates naturally; the matings are always arranged
by the families. What would happen if Dad just let me be
to find someone of my own?”
“Well, I only really know about lynxes, but I know a cougar female who said that her people waited for the mating call.”
“What’s the mating call?”
Genesis followed Geraldine out of the bedroom and down the hall.
“It’s…I don’t know. Like lightning, I think
,” she said as her hand gripped the railing of the curved staircase that led to the first floor.
“Lightning?”
“I mean,” she glanced over her shoulder with a smile, “that it’s like getting struck by lightning.
Mona told me that she’d visited a friend who was a wolf shifter, and when she walked into the house,
she saw her friend’s older brother and knew without hesitation that he was her true mate. The one perfect male for her.”
Genesis mulled that over
as she followed Geraldine into the large kitchen. Sitting on a stool at the island, she watched her aunt pull ingredients from the refrigerator and assemble them into two sandwiches.
“Why would her nature allow her to have a true mate who wasn’t of her kind? That ensures that both of them,
as well as their offspring, would be exiled to the neutral zone.”
Pushing a plate across the granite countertop, Geraldine said, “If you leave your future up to your beast, you don’t know what might happen. Because our people are fiercely pro-species, we never,
never
mate with other kinds of shifters or supernatural creatures.
Having fathers choose mates for their children, before the heat takes them, is the only way to ensure that the right choice is made.”
The right choice for their species, but not necessarily for her.
“What do you know about my future mate?” Genesis asked before taking a bite of the turkey and swiss sandwich. The male her father had chosen for her was from a lynx chain a few hours east of them. Like her own chain, her future mate’s was small, made up of
a few family groups with a king as the leader.
“Marco is a prince, of course,” Geraldine said, nodding knowingly.
“I don’t really care about that,” she said.
“Well, you’re the only one who doesn’t.”
“I don’t think you care that you’re the sister-in-law of the king, do you?” Genesis arched a brow.
“My only concern is your welfare, little princess.”
“Oh barf, don’t call me that,” she said, setting her sandwich down and rolling her eyes. She’d spent the better part of her life being referred to as ‘the little princess,’ but now, at twenty-five, she was hardly little and she didn’t feel much like a princess.
“When you mate with Marco, you’ll be princess by marriage in his clan, and then when he becomes king, you’ll be queen.”
“I know.” She sighed. “Do you think
Mom loved Dad?”
“Of course. Duty was always first for my sister, but eventually she came to love your
father
. When you were born, it was the happiest day of her life.” She moved around the island and hugged Genesis. “Your father chose well. Marco is handsome and comes from a w
ell-respected family.”
After pondering that for a few moments while she finished her sandwich, she asked, “Do you think you can fall in love with someone who isn’t heart-chosen?”
When Genesis didn’t get an answer from her aunt, she looked up from her plate and realized that Geraldine was frowning.
“What?” She was surprised by the
severe expression on her aunt’s face.
“You need to get this romantic nonsense out of your head right now, young lady. Our people do not get to choose their own mates. If we waited around for our heat cycle or our heart to choose, our people could end up with mates from other species. Then there would be heartbreak and banishments. Do you
want
to live in the neutral zone
? With hybrids mucking around
with the gene pool?”
Genesis couldn’t recall her aunt saying much of a cross word before, so she was surprised to hear such venomous words coming from her.
Reaching across the cool marble, Genesis clasped her aunt’s hand
. “I’m sorry if I’ve upset you
. I
t wasn’t my intention. I’m just thinking about my future, and maybe I read to
o many romance novels.”
Geraldine snorted and unlinked their fingers, patting the top of Genesis’s hand. “You’re nervous and that’s understandable, but you need to lock down these wayward
thoughts. You don’t want your new mate to think you’re unhappy before things even get started.”
Genesis nodded, unsure what to say. It was true that she didn’t want to make anyone mad, especially the male who held her future happiness in his hands
. B
ut she couldn’t shake the feeling that getting a chance to pick a mate based on mutual attraction and affection was a far,
far
better choice than having a family member pick someone based on criteria that she hadn’t even been able to agree to.
If she’d been asked, she would have told her dad that she wanted a mate who was sexy and funny, who would occasionally do romantic things for her like bringing her flowers or making dinner, and who could turn her on with a glance. But no one had asked. Her dad’s criteria for the male who would mate his only daughter were the strength of his genetic line, his family name, and his ability to be a kickass king. In a few years, when Marco’s father stepped down from his kingship, Genesis would become the queen.
I’d rather be loved than be queen
.
The thought rose so quickly in her mind that she didn’t have a chance to stop it.
She felt the sting of tears at the unfairness of the situation
. She
needed to get away from Geraldine before her aunt
realized that she was still thinking romantic thoughts. And why the hell shouldn’t she? It was her mating night
– what the human couples in her romance novels called a wedding night.
Slipping from the stool, she mumbled that she was heading up to take a bath and relax for a while before it was time to get ready, and
fled to the second floor. Tears slipped down her cheeks as she shut her bedroom door. The sight of the nearly empty room and the packing boxes stacked high against one wall made her feel overwhelmingly sad. In a few hours her life would be changed forever. She’d take the time now to wallow in her sorrow, because she had a feeling her arranged mate wouldn’t care to know she secretly longed for a mate who was chosen by her heart.
Chapter 2
Jair looked up at the blazing August sun and wiped his brow with a bandana. Stuffing the rag into his back pocket, he set
his sunglasses back on his nose and returned hi
s attention to the pile of decorative pavers. Hefting the dark
-red and gray squares into a nearby wheelbarrow, he filled it up and then pushed it around the back of the house where two other employees of O’Reilly Landscaping were laying them out in a pattern.