White Wolf Mate (Silverlake Shifters Book 2)

  WHITE WOLF MATE

  (Silverlake Shifters Book 2)

  by

  Anastasia Wilde

  White Wolf Mate

  Copyright © 2016 by Anastasia Wilde

  Copyright © 2016 by Anastasia Wilde

  First Electronic Publication: October 2016

  All Rights Reserved.

  No part of this book may be used, reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, scanning, uploading, or distributing via the internet, print, or any other means, without written permission from the author.

  This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or have been used fictitiously, and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental. The author does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for third-party websites or their content.

  Published in the United States of America.

  Cover by Jeanne Gransee Barker

  Come to Silverlake Mountain and fall in love…

  Smokin’ hot shifter men with hearts of gold; the strong, passionate women who love them; secrets, lies and danger; naughty, steamy love scenes—and happily ever afters.

  Silverlake Shifters Series:

  Fugitive Mate (Book 1)

  White Wolf Mate (Book 2)

  Tiger Mate (Book 3) (Coming in November)

  Silverlake Shifters – The Enforcers Series

  The Enforcers: KANE (Coming in December)

  Chapter 1

  They were going to catch up with him soon.

  Rafe Connors drove his motorcycle up the dark mountain road, towering pine trees blocking out the night sky. The road wound through the forest in steep curves, repeatedly sending his back wheel within inches of the rocky ravine on his right-hand side. Rain was falling in a light drizzle, and the sharp smell of mud and decayed leaves spun up from under his tires as he rode the edge.

  He gunned the motor and the bike roared. He was driving too fast—he knew it. He was always driving too fast lately, going too far, in some kind of reckless compulsion.

  Like tonight. There was no reason to pick a fight with those guys in that bar. They were humans, not shifters, just a bunch of ignorant rednecks spouting bullshit. He’d taken offense because he wanted to, goading them until one of them took a swing at him.

  Then he’d kicked their asses.

  He didn’t have to. He could have walked away. But he couldn’t help himself. He’d always had this restlessness, the inability to settle, the need to stir things up. Ever since their wolf pack had been scattered when he was just a kid.

  But now it was getting worse.

  It should have been getting better. The pack was coming back together. Jace, their alpha, had found his fated mate and bonded to her, sealing the pack’s claim on Silverlake Mountain. They were getting organized. Everybody had a job, a purpose. The pack was growing bigger, settling into a family instead of a bunch of yahoo bikers taking odd jobs.

  Yahoo bikers. Him and Jace and their best friend Jesse. And later, Kane and Israel. Even though Kane was an asshole and Israel barely talked to anybody but Kane, Rafe missed the bad old days, when it was just the five of them against the world.

  He took a tight curve and the back wheel almost slid out from under him. He swerved to get the bike back under control. He’d better slow down…

  And then he heard them coming up behind him. The roar of a pickup truck, the sharp echo of someone shooting at the moon. Whoops and hollers and rebel yells.

  They were drunk as skunks, and they were pissed off. At him. And now they didn’t have just fists and boots. They had trucks and guns—and he was totally unprotected on his bike. Shit.

  He could ditch the bike and shift, but they still had the guns. And they’d destroy his bike, or steal it. No way he’d let that happen. Rafe loved his bike.

  And face it, he loved a challenge. He couldn’t outrun them all the way to Silverlake, but he might make it to old Grizzly’s cabin on Hawkeye Mountain. And if he didn’t, well, he might as well go out in a blaze of glory, riding hard. At least, that’s what he liked to tell himself. Who wanted to turn into an old fart, anyway?

  Die young, stay pretty.

  The road leveled out on a straightaway, and the truck headlights caught him in their glare. A bullet whined overhead, and the headlights grew brighter as the truck accelerated. Damn, somebody had a souped-up engine in their truck. They were driving like bigger idiots than he was, and closing fast.

  He swerved again. The road was getting slicker, the rain coming down harder. That was going to be more of a problem for him than for them, unfortunately. He cut the headlight on his bike. He could see fine in the dark with his wolf vision, and it would make it harder for them to shoot him in the back.

  They were taunting him now, yelling drunken insults. He risked a glance over his shoulder. The front truck had two in the cab, and at least two or three in the bed. And more in the second truck. They probably weren’t shooting to kill. They’d be trying to wing him. Run him off the road. Destroy his bike. Beat the crap out of him.

  As if.

  There was another curve coming up—a sharp one that would slow them down. If he could give himself a big enough head start, he could make the turnoff to Grizzly’s before they got him in sight. Send those assholes driving straight up the mountain before they realized he’d gotten away.

  Adrenalin shot through his veins. He felt alive in a way he never felt in his normal everyday life. It was why he rode the edge, why he made the trouble.

  He wasn’t much good at anything else. Rafe Connors, always second. But he was good at this.

  He swung around the curve in a controlled skid, one booted foot skimming the ground, letting the bike fishtail just enough to control the momentum. At the last second he gunned it toward the turnoff, spinning out and laying a patch on the slick asphalt.

  Just as he punched it, she landed in the road in front of him. A white wolf, ghostly in the darkness, leaping down off the wooded slope.

  Rafe barely missed her, swerving to his right. He couldn’t control his speed, and his bike went shooting off over the edge of the road. Right down into the ravine.

  He flung himself away from the bike so he wouldn’t land underneath it, and he heard it crash just before his own body hit the rocks. He and the bike both rolled down the steep, rocky slope. Rafe felt excruciating pain as his leg bones snapped. The impact swung him around and he smashed his head on an outcropping. Even as he fell, he knew it was bad. Really bad. He rolled to the bottom of the ravine, which was full of scrub and bushes. He landed hard and something sharp impaled him through the shoulder, and he screamed. Then, mercifully, he came to a stop.

  Every inch of him was on fire with pain. Above, he heard the trucks screech to a halt, and the sounds of doors opening and boots on the pavement. They were shouting to each other: “Holy shit!” “He went right over the edge.” “There’s his bike…” “Where the fuck is he?” “Fuckin’ dead, man.”

  No, he just wished he was.

  A flashlight shone down, its beam sweeping through the darkness.

  “There he is!”

  There was a silence. “Dayum, he’s fucked up,” somebody said. “Think he’s really dead?”

  “Whether he is or not, we’re screwed if anybody knows we were here,” somebody else said. “We need to get out of here.”

  “Nah, man, we gotta see if he’s still alive.”

  There was the sound of someb
ody starting to climb down the ravine.

  “Don’t do that, man. There’s an easier way.” He heard the sound of a round being pumped into a rifle chamber. Rafe groaned and tried to move, but he couldn’t. Were they really going to shoot him while he was helpless at the bottom of a ravine? This was no friendly bar brawl. He’d definitely picked a fight with the wrong guys, and now he was going to go out—not in a blaze of glory, jumping his bike over the ravine or some other crazy stunt. But broken and bleeding, on the ground in the rain.

  It figured. He couldn’t even kill himself right.

  He waited, eyes closed, for the sound of the shot. Instead, he felt a rush of air as something big passed overhead.

  The arguing voices overhead turned panicked. “Holy shit!”

  “It’s the ghost wolf! The fucker’s dead, man!”

  “Nah, it means somebody’s about to die…”

  “Shoot it!”

  “You can’t, asshole! It’s a ghost!”

  Rafe, through his haze of pain, heard the wolf snarl. She leaped from rock to rock, flowing gracefully up the ravine toward the group of men.

  They panicked and scattered, heading for the trucks, leaving Rafe on the ground below. He didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Fuck. He’d really screwed himself this time. Jace would have to find somebody else to take over as the pack’s second-in-command. Somebody better.

  The last thing he heard before he passed out was the trucks skidding out, driving away as fast as they could.

  And his last thought was, Sorry, Jace.

  Chapter 2

  Terin waited at the side of the road until she was certain the men had driven away. She wanted to make sure they didn’t double back to hurt the man with the motorcycle.

  She felt terrible about the accident. If she’d realized he was going to change direction like that, trying to make the turnoff at the last minute, she wouldn’t have jumped into the road. She hadn’t even realized people were chasing him. If she had, she would have done more to help. She knew how it felt to be hunted.

  Finally, the sound of the engines faded and the night was quiet again. She turned and picked her way back down the ravine, still in her wolf form. It was raining harder now, the rocks wet beneath the pads of her paws.

  The man lay in the brush at the bottom of the ravine, unconscious now. She could see he was breathing, but just barely. He looked a little older than she was—maybe late twenties. The rain and blood plastered his dark hair to his head. He looked strong and tough, but his mouth had a curl to it that suggested humor. And trouble.

  She knew all about that.

  She nosed at his face, but he didn’t wake up. To her surprise, he smelled like wolf. He must be a shifter, like her. She knew there were other shifters around here—a bear or two, some wildcats, and even a lynx far up the mountain. This one was probably from the wolf pack who had moved in over on Silverlake Mountain, a few years back. She’d made sure she never met any of them. She kept to herself—a lone wolf. The thought of a pack—of people around her all the time—made her feel like she couldn’t breathe.

  But she couldn’t just leave him. He was really hurt bad. Leg broken in multiple places, and he’d hit his head. And a sharp branch was rammed straight through his upper chest, just under the shoulder. She couldn’t tell if it had hit anything vital, but it had definitely broken his collarbone.

  Even with shifter healing, she didn’t think he’d last the night on his own. There was too much damage. And they were far from his pack—far from anywhere. No place to get help.

  The only nearby shelter she knew of was a cave. She might be able to get him there; he was much bigger than she was, in human form, but she still had shifter strength. It would be rough going, in the rain, but it was probably his only chance.

  She looked dubiously at his motorcycle. That was done for—it would have to stay. She’d take his saddlebags, though, in case there was anything useful inside.

  She shifted to human form and grabbed the saddlebags. There was a strap that would let her hang them across her shoulders. She shivered a little. The rain was cold, and she didn’t have any clothes. They were stashed in the cave with the rest of her supplies. Now that she had hands, she could check his injuries further. The leg was a mess—right now all she could do was splint it. She tore some pieces off his shirt and found some long, straight branches for splints. Luckily he had a knife in his bag, enabling her to cut the splints to size. There wasn’t anything she could do about the head injury right now. She used the knife to cut the ends off the branch through his shoulder so it wouldn’t bang into things while she carried him. Pulling it out now would just make him bleed more.

  After she’d done all she could do, she squatted beside him. He looked so vulnerable lying there. She stroked his hair back from his forehead, and his eyes fluttered.

  She breathed a sigh of relief. He wasn’t gone yet. She hoped he was as strong as he looked. He was going to need strength. And so was she.

  She heaved him up over her shoulders in a fireman’s carry, her bare feet sliding a little as she staggered to get her balance. He weighed a ton.

  Then she started up the slope on the far side of the ravine.

  It was hard going. She had to use one arm to help her claw her way up the ravine, grabbing onto rocks and brush—anything that offered a handhold. That left only one arm to hang onto him, and try to keep him balanced over her shoulders. The rocks were getting slicker all the time, and twice she almost overbalanced and fell backwards. Her leg muscles burned like fire from the exertion, and her breath came in great gasps.

  But finally, they were at the top. She took a brief rest, panting. Her hair was plastered to her face, and she shoved it away. She hoped this guy was worth it, and not just another yahoo like the guys who were chasing him.

  She heaved him up on her shoulders again, and he gave a low moan. She couldn’t imagine how much it must hurt him to be moved, but there was nothing she could do about that except hope he passed out again. Luckily, the cave wasn’t far. Less than half a mile. A five-minute stroll in good weather, without carrying the dead weight of a man.

  It took Terin much longer than that, but she finally got there. It was a good thing she was used to going barefoot through the woods, or her feet would have been a mess. As it was, she was bruised and battered.

  But he was definitely in worse shape than she was.

  She staggered through the mouth of the cave and laid him on the floor as gently as she could. At least it was dry inside, but it was pretty cold. Shifters didn’t usually go into shock, but with the extent of his injuries, he might. She had to get him warm.

  Luckily, she kept a stack of dry wood in here. The cave was one of her supply caches—she roamed all over the mountain as a wolf, far from her cabin, and it was always handy to have a place where she could shift safely and find clothes and food if she needed them. And a warm fire.

  She built one as quickly as she could, and then spread out a blanket and laid him gently onto it. She put some water on the fire to heat, and began cutting his clothes off. There wasn’t much left of his shirt after she’d torn it up for bandages in the ravine, so that took no time. She needed his hunting knife for the jeans. It seemed as though the broken leg was the only serious injury on his legs, but the jeans still had to go. She’d never get him warm with all that wet cotton sapping his body heat.

  He wasn’t wearing any underwear. Even though he was unconscious, the unexpected sight of his muscular thighs and large cock sent a blush up her face and neck. Focus, she told herself. He’s hurt. How can you think about his cock at a time like this?

  She quickly covered his lower body with a blanket. First priority was the head wound. The shoulder wound was still bleeding, and could be more dangerous after she took the stick out, depending on what blood vessels had been hit. But if there was bleeding on his brain, he might not survive.

  She cleaned the head wound as best she could. She couldn’t feel any depression in the bones
underneath it, like a skull fracture, and his pupils looked okay when she checked them. She’d just have to hope that his shifter healing abilities would handle whatever internal damage there was.

  Then she moved to his leg. This was really bad. It looked like both bones in his lower leg were broken, and the knee was twisted. She bit her lip. She had to get that straightened out so that his shifter healing could do its work.

  She had set broken bones once or twice before. At least none of these were sticking out through the skin. She felt his leg to see where the breaks were, and then braced herself to pull them straight.

  Ten minutes later, she was sweaty and shaking, but the leg bones were realigned, and the kneecap was back in position. She’d done the best she could do. He’d woken up and screamed when she pulled the leg straight, but he’d passed out again right away. It was probably just as well.

  She bound the splints back on, combed her drying hair back out of her face, and moved on to the chest wound.

  Using the fairly clean back of his former shirt as a washrag, she dipped it in the warm water she’d heated, and began cleaning around the wound. His chest was broad and muscular, his abs chiseled like the ones on the cover models of the books she bought in the drugstore in town. She smoothed the damp cloth over them, entranced.

  Her husband, Ben, had been short and wiry, and his abs had never looked like this. She’d never thought any guys actually looked like this—she’d figured the books exaggerated and the pictures on the covers were enhanced.

  Apparently not.

  She checked his breathing and his pulse again. They’d improved, which was good. She just hoped she didn’t undo all that when she pulled this stick out of him. If he’d damaged an artery and the stick was the only thing plugging the hole, he could bleed out in minutes—too fast for his shifter abilities to compensate.