Mating Rights Read online

  MATING RIGHTS

  JAIDE FOX

  © copyright by Jaide Fox, September 2014

  Cover art by Eliza Black © copyright September 2014

  http://www.jaidefoxbooks.com

  This is a work of fiction. All characters, events, and places are of the author’s imagination and not to be confused with fact. Any resemblance to living persons or events is merely coincidence.

  Other titles by Jaide Fox

  Beastmen of Shadowmere 1: Marked by the Beast

  Beastmen of Shadowmere 2: Seduced by the Beast

  Beastmen of Shadowmere 3: Conquered by the Beast

  Beastmen of Shadowmere 4: Tempted by the Beast

  Dark Lords 1: Captured by the Dark Lord

  Dark Lords 2: Seized by the Vampire Lord

  Dark Lords 3: Ensnared by the Dream Lord

  Captured by Aliens 1: Alien’s Captive

  Captured by Aliens 2: Alien Insurgence

  Captured by Aliens 3: Alien Intent (Coming Soon)

  Interstellar Mayhem 1: StarCaught

  Interstellar Mayhem 2: StarRomped

  Pleasure Masters 1: Ravaged

  Pleasure Masters 2: Dominated

  Pleasure Masters 3: Mastered

  PleasureBot

  PleasureBots

  Summoner’s Captive

  Earth Girls Aren’t Easy

  His Forbidden Fruit

  Renegade (Coming Soon)

  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 One

  The wind shrieked through the trees like the dying call of a hunted bird—a gasping, eerie sound that raised the hair along the back of her neck in warning. The great wolf halted her progress, crouching low in the brush, tilting her head toward the sky as though she could find its source.

  A canopy of leaves shrouded her view of the moon, but naught more than air stirred the silent sentinels. Pine needles rustled under the heavy brush of air—scraping, rasping sounds that drew her nerves taut.

  Her hide itched with warning, a sting that increased the tempo of her heart and the breath in her lungs. Mali panted, shaking her skin as though throwing off biting gnats. She stilled, listening once more, hearing only the faint puff of her own breathing and no sound of a living thing. The feeling persisted, as though a light shone down revealing her position. ’Twas a foolish thought. She knew she blended with her surroundings for her fur was sleek and black as the sky above, and yet she knew…she knew he had found her.

  He played a game. The twisted bastard had been trailing her for days into the Blackhaunted wood and the Pine Barrens. Mali remained tense, awaiting attack, watching her breath freeze in the midnight air. Her eyes soaked up the light, watching the silhouettes of brush and tree alike. Long moments passed and nothing befell her. Had she imagined the danger? Had she not scented the stranger in the air?

  By finite degrees she relaxed. Perhaps it had been only the wind. She could not admit, even to herself, how much he had rattled her. Bastard.

  With deliberate slowness, she pushed through the dried, dead brush, wincing at each crackle of leaf, each snap of twig. Mali padded along the ground, keeping her head low. Her fur whipped as a sudden wind bore down on her, and a howl rent the air with a piercing wail. Mali twisted away—too late. He crashed into her, pinning her body to the ground under his superior weight.

  A growl of fury erupted from her throat, forcing the air from her lungs. She sucked in a breath and screamed, thrashing, churning the dirt in her struggles. He grunted above her, his fingers digging into the narrow blade of her shoulders, forcing her down.

  “Do you yield to me?” he shouted in a voice deep and chilling as a bottomless well…

  ***

  Mali awakened with a gasp. Her belly contracted, the muscles hardened. A sheen of sweat beaded her skin despite the warm air seeping through her loft from the kitchen below. She lay there, willing her racing heartbeat to return to normal, for her breathing to slow.

  For a week past, the nightmare invaded her sleep. Over and over again, she’d attempted to escape pursuit from the stranger in her dreams to no avail. She couldn’t remember his face or form, only that he disturbed her more than anything else in her life ever had. She’d had premonitions before—they always came true. Mali didn’t want to worry her parents with her fears, so remained silent, hoping this time she was wrong. Her mother had commented on the dark circles beneath her eyes, and both she and her father said it must be the coming of the Moonlight Festival causing Mali distress. That or she was going into heat, which was just as unsettling. As much as she wanted to believe herself immune to the cycles of the wolf clan, she couldn’t deny that she felt a subtle change growing within her.

  Never leaving the shelter of her parents’ home and small farm, Mali was forbidden to attend the annual festival where others of their kind found their mates. Once upon a time, before she’d come of age, her parents’ decision to remain secluded in the woods with little contact from the outside world had greatly distressed her. As the years passed, she grew to understand her limitations and how those limits would be perceived by the rest of the clan. Now that she understood her parents’ reasoning in forbidding her attendance, she’d come to a measure of peace with their decision. Even if it meant she would never have children or a love of her own.

  Perhaps the imposed seclusion was finally getting to her in spite of that, causing the anxiety that consumed her night after night. Perhaps it was the waxing of the moon and her body responding to nature’s call.

  She hated it, but the mystery would have to wait another day.

  “Mali, the chickens need feeding and the cow is lowing out back. Get your head on straight and do your chores,” Abba, her mother, called from the kitchen. The scent of bacon frying and biscuits rising in the oven mingled together to make a scent that lured Mali from the bed and dispelled the disturbing thoughts from her mind.

  Slipping from her bed with a groan and stretch, Mali walked to her hope chest which was filled with broken dreams rather than the niceties which would start her own household. She’d long ago stopped sewing baby clothes and embroidering tapestries, pillowcases, and sheets in favor of mending her faded work clothes instead.

  Removing her nightgown and flinging it across the bed, Mali slipped her worn, but favorite lilac gown over her head. Attempting to drag her comb through her thick hair, she finally gave up after a few minutes and pulled her unruly curly hair back off her face with a ribbon and stuck her feet in her wooden clogs. The daisies painted across the toes had long since worn away with trips through the woods and daily chores.

  Descending the ladder from her lonely loft, Mali dropped down into the kitchen below. The cottage had only two rooms: the common room where they cooked, ate, and gathered before and after meals, and her parents’ bedroom. She was fortunate the high-peaked, thatched roof had allowed the addition of her sleeping area, which her father had graciously built for her after re-thatching the roof a few years ago. She did appreciate having a space to call her own. Sometimes, she would even find a bird nest or mouse family in residence with her. Papa hated when she took in tiny creatures as pets, but she’d never been able to dump them back out into the wild without protest.

  Mali tripped on the rug covering the root cellar beneath the kitchen area then smoothed it back in place before grabbing her apron off the back of her chair and tying it around her waist. She sighed. “I never get a day off,” she complained, grab
bing a piece of bacon and munching absently while she eyeballed the biscuits her mother pulled out of the stove. Butter scented steam wafted in the air.

  “Your father and I don’t either. It’s the way of things when you live this far from town. Stop complaining and go out and feed the chickens before everything gets cold. Your father has probably already tended the cow by now. He said he wanted fresh milk for breakfast. Hurry, I’m making eggs next, and I know you don’t like them cold.”

  Mali kissed her mother’s chubby dark cheek, grabbed her straw hat then disappeared out the door. She scooped dried corn out of the barrel and placed it in her apron. “Here, chick, chick, chick,” she called, scattering corn across the dirt in the front yard. The chickens clucked and swarmed the feed, pecking at the ground as she moved through them to the lean-to on the back of the house where they kept their milking cow. Her father stood from his squat stool and stretched, putting two hands on the small of his back as he grimaced.

  “I would have done that, papa,” Mali said, taking the heavy bucket from her father.

  Barnardo smiled and chucked her chin with affection. “I know you like to sleep late. I was already up, and I can tell you haven’t been sleeping well. I know it’s the festival bothering you, even if you won’t admit it.”

  “Oh, papa,” she said, lugging the bucket of milk behind him as they headed back inside the house for breakfast. “I gave up on the idea of that a long time ago when I learned of my limitations. It’s one thing to dream about it when you don’t know any better.”

  Her father scrubbed a hand over his face and released a heavy sigh. “You might be at peace, but I wanted grandchildren running around and tearing up the place for me and your mama.”

  “Aye,” she said, lowering her gaze.

  He held the door open for her, looking at her with his sad, brown eyes.

  Mali rubbed her cheek on his big shoulder before going inside. Normally, the fact that she wasn’t a full shifter was never brought up in conversation. They all avoided harping on the obvious, because it wasn’t something any of them could change anyway, and it hurt something inside of her to be reminded of the fact that she was a freak in their world. No man would ever want a mate that couldn’t run with him as a wolf.

  “You two took long enough,” Abba said as they walked inside. She set plates of bacon and fried eggs at each of their places. A basket of biscuits waited to be plucked in the middle of the worn oak table and fresh butter and jam occupied bowls on either side of the basket.

  Mali’s stomach rumbled as she sat down to eat her breakfast. Barnardo dipped a cup of milk in a ceramic mug and set it down in front of her before getting himself some. For himself, he fixed a cup of milk and a mug of coffee. Later on they’d separate the milk for fresh butter. Abba enjoyed baking pastries for trade in town.

  Pulling the chair out for Abba, she smiled at her husband and swatted his arm playfully when he waggled his eyebrows. Mali watched them interact, feeling warmed that she had caring parents that loved each other. Life was good.

  Booted heels tread on their porch, and then a knock sounded on the door before Barnardo could seat himself. He stopped in the motion of dragging his chair from beneath the table, giving Abba and Mali a wide-eyed glance.

  Barnardo looked at Abba. “Did you order supplies from town for today?” he whispered.

  Abba fidgeted with her hands. “No,” she said quietly, straining her ears.

  “Get down in the cellar,” he said to Mali.

  Knocking came again. Louder this time.

  Mali stood quickly and flipped back the rug covering their root cellar. Lifting the heavy door for her, Barnardo waited until she was at the bottom of the ladder before he carefully shut the door over her head without making a sound. Abba rose to her feet with an effort, waddling to the cellar door and flipping the rug back over it as Barnardo walked to the door.

  “Who goes there?” he called through the door, cocking his ear to hear a response.

  “Open in the name of Clan Leader Nicodemus,” a deep voice said on the other side.

  Barnardo’s dark face turned ashen. Sweat popped along his brow. Abba, standing behind her husband, clutched her chest with one hand and grabbed his arm with the other.

  He looked over his shoulder at her shaking her head and mouthing ‘no’.

  “I have to,” he said, slowly reaching for the door handle.

  ***

  “The pickings are slim for the festival this year,” Torolf said to Jaxon, nodding his blond head in the direction of the open air wagon carrying eligible clan women behind them.

  “Maybe they’re scared they’ll like orgies and they’re all hiding,” Ranger said with a chuckle, slapping Torolf’s bicep with the back of his hand.

  Jaxon sighed in exasperation, looking from Ranger’s scruffy, bearded face to Torolf’s clean shaven one. Both of them had the kind of looks and attitude which would easily win them a woman if they were willing to settle down—which they weren’t. No more so than he. “The northerners are making the trek. These southern folk don’t like to leave their warm climate for the cold. It’s a fool’s errand Nicodemus has sent us on. But we’ve no choice but to follow orders,” Jaxon of the Black Wolf Clan said, scanning the road ahead of them.

  The morning breeze flicked his long brown hair across his face, making strands stick to his eyelashes and mouth. He frowned and wiped his face clean in annoyance. He knew without looking that silver threaded the once dark strands. A little more salt on his old head every day.

  “Are you certain there is another one this way?” Ranger asked, propping his hands on the worn pommel of his saddle. “I’ve just about worn my ass off riding.”

  “The baker said he delivers wheat and oats this way a few times a year. He’s the one that said he thought he’d seen a girl watching him behind a thatched cottage. I didn’t say a damned thing about it,” Jaxon said, cracking his neck as if for emphasis.

  “We’ll sniff her out if there’s one here,” Ranger said, glancing behind them and giving the girls a wink. “Don’t know why these people think they can go against pack law and not give up their daughters.”

  Behind them, the gaggle of women they were escorting to the festival squawked and babbled like a flock of geese. The sound of their high pitched voices and laughter made Jaxon grit his teeth. Babysitting duty. He rubbed his throbbing temples, eager to be done with this business so he could return to his home alone.

  As much as the others might look forward to the festival and the chance to find a mate, or just get laid, Jaxon wanted no part of it. He preferred his peaceful solitude. He was too damned old and set in his ways to want a woman to come into his life and create chaos in his carefully ordered world. Jen had ruined him for all others. Plus, he knew with his looks he’d never get one he wanted. Most of them took one look at the scars on his face and high-tailed it back to prettier fare like Torolf and Ranger.

  The Bear Clan had done more than just scar his face and ruin his knee. They’d given him a lasting reminder of vulnerability that repulsed the others of his clan, even if they were grateful for his sacrifice in protecting them. Being a hero wasn’t all it was cracked up to be.

  Jaxon rose in the stirrups, letting some of the kinks out of his sore backside. He rolled his head, cracking his neck again as if that would alleviate the headache that’d been bothering him since the night before. He didn’t want to admit it was probably from sleeping on the ground and being on the road…that he was past his prime.

  Adolfo pulled the reins with his meaty hands, making the enormous horses stop before the trail. The pair snorted and pawed at the ground before settling down. “Road’s too narrow. I’ll wait here with the wagon while you all check ahead.”

  Jaxon nodded, nudging his bay horse forward with his booted heels. Leaving the noise behind suited him just fine. Behind him, Torolf and Ranger followed suit.

  Ancient trees reached their heavy arms towards one another, arching limbs over the road like a c
anopy. Grey moss laced through the leaves, dripping from the branches like curtains. Dust motes drifted through the early morning sunlight that dappled the pitted trail.

  Foliage hugging the road slapped against his legs as he guided his horse along the little used trail—if the overgrowth was any indication. If the baker was to be believed, the couple that lived out here rarely went to town, but he said he’d caught glimpses of a young girl a few times and thought they were keeping her out of sight on purpose. Jaxon knew how small towns were. If anything didn’t seem normal, it was up for conversation and speculation. It could be she was just too young to participate in the festivities and had overprotective parents. Tradition dictated all unmated women gather for mating rights, but he wasn’t so sure he’d want a daughter of his attending the sometimes brutal festival.

  The smell of earth permeated the air, and the longer they traversed the trail, the clearer the scent of cooking meat became. Jaxon caught a whiff of bacon grease carrying through the air.

  “We’re close,” he said to Torolf and Ranger.

  “I know. The smell is driving me crazy,” Ranger said.

  “My stomach’s about to eat me alive,” Torolf muttered, clutching his belly.

  “We’ll get done here and go out on a hunt. I’m ready for some fresh meat,” Jaxon said. As he said it, the quaint cottage came into his view. A small paned window stood open, allowing bacon grease and wood smoke to perfume the air. The trail came to an end at a small, closed gate. Over the rustic wood fence, Jaxon could see a few dozen chickens pecking at feed strewn across the dirt.

  He dropped down off his horse, handing the reins to Torolf before going to the gate. It opened with a creak and he stepped under the small trellis trimmed in ivy before walking stiffly down a flagstone path. His bum knee burned and pinched from riding in the saddle for too many days, and he favored it with a slight limp. The way the sunlight filtered through the great pines surrounding the cottage produced a homey picture that made him miss his own place.