The Wolf's Mate Book 3: Callie & The Cats Read Free Page A

own.
They were helpless, while their fragile human mate was being tended
over by more humans, and not nearly fast enough in his opinion.
    “Hey! Get her in the squad already!” He said
loudly, and EMT Edward Batten looked up and narrowed his eyes. “I
don’t tell you how to do your job, Fallon, you don’t tell me
either.”
    Ethan put a restraining hand on his shoulder
but it did nothing to ease the fear that was lodged deep in his
belly. They’d both agreed that the odd feelings they’d had over the
last few days were clearly because of this woman. According to her
ID, which he’d confiscated along with her purse from the floor of
the front seat, she was 24-year-old Calliope Marie Hunter from
Allen, Kentucky, wherever the hell that was. What she was doing in
King he didn’t know, and he didn’t care. She was here, she was
theirs, and that was all there was to it. The crew was working by
floodlights and when they’d pulled her out of the car with a neck
brace on, they’d both sucked in a breath at her beautiful face. Her
hair was honey brown, what wasn’t covered in dried blood anyway,
and she had the lushest mouth he’d ever seen, even with her lips
cut and bruised.
    Positively aching to hold her and take care
of her, it had taken every ounce of willpower he possessed to let
the EMTs do their jobs. It was a great relief to see the ambulance
take off for the nearest hospital, which was 27 minutes away.
    “Boys?” Their father spoke from behind them
and they both turned in unison.
    The story spilled from their lips in hushed
voices and he nodded, finally. “That does explain your feelings;
it’s not abnormal for supernaturals to get a sixth sense about
mates. For our kind, the males will sometimes feel that mate
connection to another female, but she’s not a lion, so I’m not sure
why you’d feel that way about her. You know what will happen if you
keep her. You risk her life. Again.”
    Without missing a beat, Ethan said what Eryx
was going to say, “We’ll go, then. Wherever she wants.”
    “You’d walk from the pride?” Their father
asked in surprise.
    “You would have, if our mother wanted you
to.” Eryx said, feeling in the depths of his soul more connected to
that sweet girl in the back of the ambulance than he’d ever felt
connected to anyone outside of his family before.
    “True.” Their father sighed. “You have to be
careful not to freak her out. She may not have any idea what it
means to be a mate, and that both of you believe her to be yours
together, may prove an obstacle that will take some time to
overcome. Get to the hospital. I’ll be at the station after this is
all cleaned up.”
    Grateful to be released, Ethan popped the
trunk to see if she had any bags and grabbed the two suitcases.
There was a box in the back seat but they couldn't get to it
without ripping the front seat out, so they left it to be gathered
later at the impound lot. Bags in tow, they lurched up the hill as
fast as they could and drove to the hospital.
    The nurse at the desk told them she was with
the doctor, and he’d come out to talk to them when he was
finished.
    “Well, we talked before about what it would
mean if one of us had a mate and the other didn’t. Clearly this
isn’t a scenario we contemplated before.” Eryx said as they both
paced the length of the empty waiting room. For their kind, the
males sometimes felt a mate connection to a female, but because the
female lions didn't want mates, the connection was one-sided. This
was an entirely new scenario - a mate connection to a human. It
gave him hope.
    “It’s better this way, though. We can both
keep her safe until we can leave.” Ethan said as he shifted
anxiously. Eryx sighed and ran his hand through his hair, something
he did when he was particularly worried or upset. His stomach was
in knots and hadn’t stopped feeling like it was stuffed full of
lead. He didn’t dare wonder about her fragile human body and what
could have happened