The Scarred Heart (Wilde Creek#5)
Read The Scarred Heart (Wilde Creek#5) Online
Authors: R. E. Butler
The Scarred Heart
Wilde Creek Five
By R. E. Butler
Copyright 2016 R. E. Butler
The Scarred Heart (Wilde Creek Book Five)
By R. E. Butler
License Notes
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 Ramona Lockwood
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.
* * * * *
I’d like to thank Alexis Arendt for editing this book.
Much love and thanks to Joyce for her support and help. Oakville is for you!
Thanks to Shelley for beta-reading.
With love to B.B. and B.L.
* * * * *
Table of Contents
The Scarred Heart (Wilde Creek Book Five)
By R.E. Butler
Kammie Townsend has always kept to herself. She doesn’t want anyone to see the scars of her childhood, left behind by her abusive uncle. Everything changes for her on the night of the full moon, when she follows a reindeer and gets tackled by a bear shifter. He says they’re mates, but even though he’s the sexiest male she’s ever met, Kammie knows that once he sees the evidence of her painful history he won’t want anything to do with her.
Row Grayson has lived a hard life, fighting in tournaments for the amusement of the kings of neighboring bear sleuths. The only bright spots are his mother and his adopted sister, who is a reindeer shifter. On the way to take Dani to her people, she suddenly takes off and leaves Row behind. As he attempts to catch up to her, he senses his own mate in the snow-covered woods of a town called Wilde Creek. His mate is anything but receptive to his touch. Her skin is as scarred as years of brutal fighting have left his heart, but he knows he can convince her he finds her beautiful inside and out. When he takes Kammie back to his people to make her his mate, things go sideways fast – an enemy from Row’s past tries to take Kammie from him. To save her, Row has to fight harder than he ever has.
When a determined bear tangles with an equally determined she-wolf, things will heat up fast. Expect growling, naked conversations, and a bear who will kill to keep his mate by his side forever.
* * * * *
Row Grayson side-stepped to avoid the furious bear’s meaty fist, then countered with an uppercut that caught the other male in the jaw, throwing him off-balance and making him stumble backward. The male was bigger than Row by a hundred pounds or so, but he wasn’t as well-trained. Sometimes being bigger was enough to win a fight, but not in this case.
As the male went down, Row leapt on him, raising his fists over his head and bringing them down in the center of his opponent’s chest. The male’s sternum cracked audibly, and the crowd around him bellowed in joy. Breathing hard, Row sat on top of him and waited to see if he’d try to get up. After a long moment, Row was certain the other bear wouldn’t rise, at least not without medical help.
Row’s king strode into the center of the ring with a smug grin. Row stood, ignoring the sting of his battle wounds, and let King Fayar clasp his hands together and raise them in triumph. The crowd cheered loudly as Fayar shouted, “Row stands victorious!”
Row’s vision blurred for a moment; he probably had a concussion. The other bear, whose name he couldn’t even recall, had walloped him on the head a few times, hard. While Fayar listed the number of fights Row had won in the last year, Row scanned the crowd for the only two people he cared about – his mom and his sister, Dani.
He found them standing with some of the other sleuth females. Although they were both smiling, he could see they were worried about him. They were the only family he had. His dad died before he was born. His mom had adopted Dani when Row was eight, and the sweet little girl had been his closest friend and champion.
The crowd cheered again, and Fayar slapped Row on the shoulder. “Go have a beer, you did well tonight.”
“Thanks,” Row said.
Once a month, Row and other fighters within his bear sleuth battled against neighboring sleuths. There was no prize apart from accolades for the winners and their kings, but Row had been winning these monthly battles for the last few years. Sometimes he lost, but it was a rare occurrence. He didn’t think he’d been defeated within the last eighteen months, although he had to admit his memories of some battles were a little fuzzy around the edges.
As Row watched his mother and sister move through the crowd, a dark growl erupted behind him. He turned at the familiar sound. Hector, a male he’d beaten in a previous battle, stood glowering at the edge of the makeshift ring.
Fayar stepped between Row and Hector. “You have no standing here, cat.”
Hector was a lion shifter. And an asshole.
“I came to have my pride restored,” Hector said, pounding on his chest like a disgruntled ape.
Row rolled his eyes and let out a short growl of his own. “I should’ve killed you when I had the chance.”
That fight was one that Row would never forget. The two had faced off against each other, but Hector’s king, who’d adopted the crazy lion when he was a cub, had failed to mention that he’d encouraged Hector to shift during their fight and try to kill him. In a dick move, Hector had tried to claw off a certain valuable appendage of Row’s, and Row had pulled out his claws at the root so they’d never grow back. It did give Row a small bit of joy to see Hector’s scarred fingertips before he clenched his hands into fists.
“Your pride is not my concern. Your sleuth was banned from our fights, and you are not welcome here. Either leave on your own, or leave in a body bag,” Fayar said, punctuating his words with a loud growl.
“I want my fair shot,” Hector snarled. Three other males slunk behind him, bears from his sleuth and clearly his friends. “I’m owed retribution for my suffering.”
Row knew he’d never beat Hector if he faced him now. He was injured from the last fight, barely standing under his own power.
Fayar tilted his head slightly. There was a heartbeat of utter silence, and then the king moved so quickly he was a blur. One moment Hector was standing between his three friends; the next he was flying through the air, over the heads of the other sleuths, before slamming to the ground.
“Get. Out,” Fayar bellowed. The three males, mouths open, stood frozen in place until Fayar took a menacing step toward them. Then they dispersed into the crowd, grabbing the unconscious Hector and hauling him away.
“Follow them and make sure they leave town,” Fayar said, gesturing to two of his guards. They nodded and darted off in pursuit.
“Well, that was interesting,” Fayar said, turning to Row.
“I’m sorry,” Row said.
“For what? He’s an ass. His king probably raked him over the coals for losing so badly to you during that fight. Maybe being a lion without claws is like being a neutered house cat.”
Row snorted. “Thank you.”
“No one fucks with my people, Row. Don’t you know that by now?”
Row did know. Fayar was a good king, and he took care of the sleuth. Every member was important to him, from the smallest cub to the oldest males and females. Fayar called for the party to start and then told Row, “I’ll set up a patrol for a while, just to make sure that Hector and his cronies don’t come back, and I’ll speak to his king about my dislike for this behavior.”
Row thanked him again and watched him disappear into the crowd. Dani and his mother walked swiftly to him as everyone else dispersed for the celebration that would follow. There had been four sleuths at the battle tonight; Row had fought three times and won each fight. He preferred the nights where he only had to fight once. It wasn’t that he didn’t like winning or honing his skills, but the constant battles were draining. Injuring a male until he couldn’t get up from the ground had long since lost its thrill. In his early years, when he’d first come into his shift, he’d enjoyed the battles – at least once he’d learned how to fight and win. Losing sucked, as the male he’d defeated tonight would attest. Once he’d woken up.
“You did so well,” his mother said in a low voice. She and Dani walked on either side of him, leading him away from the crowd. His vision still hadn’t cleared. It was a good thing he was a shifter and had accelerated healing; otherwise he might worry that the blurry vision was going to stick around.
“Do you want to shift? We can take you into the woods,” Dani said, linking her arm with his. Anyone seeing the trio would assume his family was congratulating him on battles well fought, but Row knew they were also bracketing him in case he passed out. That had happened on more than one occasion after he’d won a battle by the skin of his teeth.
“No.” Hector’s sudden appearance made Row reluctant to leave his mom and sister alone in the house. Although he didn’t necessarily believe that Hector would come back after being humiliated and injured a second time, he wanted to keep an eye on his family.
“You’re so stubborn,” Dani said, chuckling.
“Well, it’s worked for me so far,” Row pointed out.
They left the battleground and took a familiar route through the woods surrounding it, toward Row’s mother’s house. The sleuth’s territory was centered around the battleground, proof that the king believed the fights were the most important activity his males could engage in. Beyond the thick trees, the sleuth’s homes formed a larger ring, packed tightly together, side by side and encircled by another forested area patrolled by guards assigned by the king.
His sister and mother led him inside the house, and he collapsed on the couch with a groan. “Stop bleeding on Mom’s couch, Row,” Dani chided as she pulled him to a sitting position.
“You could’ve taken me to my place,” he said.
“Not on your life. You have to let us take care of you.”
While his mother tended the wounds, reminding him he’d heal faster if he shifted, Dani told him about the book she’d just finished reading, based on a science-fiction TV show. Row smiled as she talked excitedly about the differences between the show and the book. She was trying to distract him from the aches throbbing in his muscles, and he loved her for it.
His mother snapped the lid closed on the medical kit and patted his knee. “I’m going to fry up a thick steak for you and bring you an ice pack.”
“Better make it two,” Row said.
“Steaks or ice packs?” His mother smiled down at him.
“Both.”
* * * * *
He spent the night passed out on the couch as his body healed. Bears, unlike other shifters such as wolves and big cats, healed slowly, so he’d be feeling the ache of the wounds from his battles for a few days.
The following morning, Row ate breakfast with his mom and sister. Dani still lived with their mom, but Row had moved out of the house several years earlier into a home of his own. He’d never wanted to bring a random female home to his mom’s house, and fucking in the woods, while alluring in some ways, had lost its luster over the years and he’d wanted to have a place he could call his own.
After their meal was over and the kitchen was clean, Row’s mom said, “I’ve got some news.”
“I hope it’s good news,” Dani said.
She smiled. “It is for you, sweetheart. I think it’s time for Row to take you to your people.”
Row blinked in surprise. “I thought you’d never been able to find any reindeer.”
Their mom shook her head and went to retrieve her iPad from the small desk in the corner. “I wasn’t able to until recently. The detectives I hired when we first found Dani could never locate any reindeer, or any evidence that there were others aside from Dani. I never gave up hope that someday she might be reunited with her own people, if she wanted to be. Last week, one of the detectives contacted me to say that he’d finally found a herd of reindeer. They’re a secretive group, which is why he’d never been able to pin them down before. The journey will take a few days.”
Dani and Row looked at the iPad in their mother’s hands. The screen showed a map, with a pushpin in the middle of what appeared to be a forest.
“After you meet your people, you can come back here. Or maybe you’ll love being with them so much you won’t want to.”
“I’ll always be a bear in my heart, even if I’m not one when I shift.”
His mom showed them the information she’d been given, and Row poked around on the map program for a while, checking routes. Dani sat quietly next to him. She was younger than him by three years. When his mother adopted her she was just a child, and Row had been proud to take on the mantle of older brother. Over the years they’d become best friends. Although he was happy that his mom had finally found a herd of reindeer shifters, he was conflicted about her leaving their family, possibly for good.
“Why do you want me to leave now?” Dani asked.
Their mom sat next to her and hugged her tightly. “Are any of the males in the sleuth your mate?”
“No.”
“Then there’s nothing wrong with you taking a trip and meeting some reindeer. Maybe your mate is somewhere in that herd, or perhaps you’ll meet him along the way. All I know for certain is that you’re a beautiful young woman and you deserve to find your mate and start a family.”
Row cleared his throat. “What about me?”
She laughed and put her arm around him. “You deserve that, too. I just think it’s time for Dani to connect to her roots, and I know you’ll watch over her along the way.”
Dani chewed her lip for a moment. “What if they don’t like me?”
“What’s not to like?” Row asked.
She smiled. “You’re biased.”
He shrugged. “You’re a great sister and friend. Just know that when you do meet your mate, he better treat you right or he’ll have to answer to me.”
“True mates treasure each other,” their mom said. “When you each meet the one meant only for you, you’ll know.”
Later that afternoon, Row met with Fayar to explain his upcoming absence.
“I always hoped you’d find your mate through one of the visiting sleuths,” Fayar said, leaning against a post on his porch. He was a fair king, and although Row could do without the monthly battles, he did know that he was a better fighter because of them. Eventually, when he did find his mate, he’d be able to protect her the way a male of worth should.
“I’m thirty. I think if she was going to be at one of the battles, she’d have shown up by now.”
Fayar chuckled. “I suppose. You’re growing tired of them.” It was a statement, not a question.
“A little.”
“When you return from taking Dani to meet her people, we can discuss you joining the trainers for the young males.”
Row’s brow rose. The trainers were a small group who were charged with ensuring that the young males in the sleuth were taught how to defend themselves and their families. It was an important job.
“I’d be honored.”
Fayar said, “They’ll be lucky young males. And perhaps you’ll meet your mate along your journey and soon be teaching your own sons how to hunt and fight.”
Row’s bear perked up. The idea of finding his mate hadn’t really occurred to him, but his bear sure as hell was ready to start the next chapter of their life.
“Thanks.”
“Be safe.” Fayar turned and strode into his house, and Row walked back through the territory to his mother’s, where Dani was just finishing her packing. He set the last of the supplies in the SUV, kissed his mother goodbye, and got behind the wheel. It took a few more tearful minutes, but Dani eventually stopped hugging and crying on their mom, put her last bag in the back, and got in the SUV.