Mate's Call

  Mate’s Call

  Code of the Alpha

  Lola Gabriel

  Mate’s Call

  Text Copyright © 2018 by Lola Gabriel

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictionally. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or to actual events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  First printing, 2018

  Publisher

  Secret Woods Books

  secretwoodsbooks@gmail.com

  www.SecretWoodsBooks.com

  Contents

  Mate’s Call

  Bonus Content: Sexy Romances

  Mate’s Call

  By Lola Gabriel

  Prologue

  The Splitting of the Pack

  June 18, 1951

  Silver Bay, Minnesota

  The crescent moon illuminated the dark velvet sky, accompanied by an array of stars, flickering at its brilliance. Its light cast a delicate shadow on the wooden two-story house nestled on a hill on the outskirts of Silver Bay. The Wylde family had decided to settle at the old farm due to the tranquility offered by the secluded area, the gentle running of the stream the only sound to interrupt the quietness and solace.

  The Wyldes were a very private family, interacting solely with other wolves from their pack, and more often than not, they liked to spend their nights indoors.

  That night, however, the tranquility was shattered by a ruckus inside the basement. Luther Wylde, the head of the household and father to the five Wylde boys, had had enough.

  “Silence!” A deep growl escaped from his throat and echoed along the walls of the basement. Within an instant, his five sons were quiet. They stood straight and still, knowing that their father was to be obeyed at all times. “I have made my decision.”

  The eldest of his sons, Cole, stepped forward. “Father, if I may?” he asked, and he only spoke again once his father nodded. “We have spent many nights arguing and stating our cases to you—” Disapproval laced through his voice as he briefly glanced at his brothers. “We still feel slightly—”

  “Ignored, Father,” Scout finished for Cole.

  Luther narrowed his eyes. “Is that so?”

  “What Scout is trying to say, Father,” Kodiak said, taking a step forward, “is that we are a family, a unit. We need to stand together. We need to fight this! We cannot spend the rest of our lives running!”

  “My decision is final,” Luther told his sons. He turned to his wife, Skye, who stood next to him, and she gave him a slight nod of her head. They had made this decision together, and all that was left to do now was convince their sons that the matter was settled.

  “But they will find us,” Kodiak continued, his voice urgent. “I’ve seen the way they look at us, Father, and they know what we are!”

  River, the youngest of the Wylde boys, said in a quiet voice, “We should leave.”

  “We are not going anywhere,” Luther growled, clenching his fists.

  “You would sentence us to death?” Scout cried.

  “Enough!” Luther snapped. “I will not have my sons defy my orders.”

  Wren, who had remained quiet throughout the entire argument, murmured, “They will come and kill us.”

  “No one is going to come and kill us,” Skye said, raising her hands as if she were a moderator between her husband and her sons. “Not tonight, not ever.”

  “And that’s the end of this discussion,” Luther finished.

  Kodiak gritted his teeth together. “Father—!”

  It only took a scathing look from Luther for his sons to lower their glances to the ground. Without another word, they cleared out of the basement, heading up the stairwell to their respective rooms.

  Skye approached Luther and gently placed a comforting hand on his shoulder. Neither of them wanted to have such a dispute with their sons, and their fear of being discovered was not misplaced. But their duty to protect their family and their pack came above anything else, and if that meant that they couldn’t tell their children everything they knew, so be it.

  River was awoken by the sound of Scout’s heartbeat. His brother was awake and… alarmed. Why? Was something wrong? River couldn’t hear anything out of the ordinary—everyone else in the house seemed to be asleep—so he climbed out of bed and headed to Scout’s room. Perhaps his brother had simply had a bad dream, or maybe he was thinking about their earlier conversation with Father, and River was worrying over nothing.

  He’d rather be safe than sorry, though.

  River’s room was in the middle of the hallway, right in front of the staircase leading down. To his right were Scout’s and Wren’s rooms, while Cole’s and Kodiak’s were on his left. He walked past Wren’s door, and he smiled softly when he heard his brother’s light snoring.

  Once he was standing in front of the open doorway of Scout’s room, he knocked on the door to announce his presence.

  “Scout?” River asked. Scout was at the window, seemingly glancing through it at something that had his posture rigid. “Is everything okay?”

  His brother didn’t answer him.

  “Scout?” he called again, finally catching Scout’s attention. River rubbed the drowsiness off his eyes. “What’s going on?”

  Scout’s eyes were wide, and River was about to repeat the question when his brother spoke. “Do you hear anything?”

  Before River could even ask what Scout was talking about, a distant sound he couldn’t identify echoed in his ears. The closer it sounded, the more River could start figuring out what it was. After a few seconds, the source of the noise was almost as clear as if River saw it in front of his eyes.

  “Footsteps,” he whispered anxiously. “It… it sounds like half the town is coming.” Perhaps it was a hyperbole, but the words hadn’t felt like such an exaggeration to him.

  “Go get Cole and Kodiak,” Scout told him, moving to the door. “Get them and tell them we need to get out of—!”

  His sentence was cut short by something crashing through the window, shattering the glass all across the floor of Scout’s room. River couldn’t see exactly what it was; all he saw was an object on fire—possible a torch—setting the wooden floorboards underneath him and Scout ablaze.

  “Go!” Scout yelled at him, and River rushed out of the room and toward his brothers’. He could feel the flames trailing behind him, almost licking at his ankles, and he sped up his pace.

  “Kodiak!” River screamed, briefly stopping at Kodiak’s door to make sure that he woke at the sound of his voice before rushing to Cole’s room, which was at the end of the hallway. Cole was already groggily getting out of bed, rubbing the back of his neck. “Cole! Cole, we have to go!”

  Cole, with his eyes half-closed, stumbled to the doorway. “What are you talking—?” He glimpsed at the fire raging behind River, his sentence cutting off as he grabbed River’s shoulder and pushed him along the hallway and towards the staircase. Kodiak was already halfway down the stairs, and he glanced at the other side of the hallway, which was almost entirely engulfed in flames now.

  “Wren!” River cried. “Scout!”

  “Wren’s trapped in his room!” Scout yelled from somewhere amidst the inferno, but the flames were too big for River to see him. “I need to get him out!”

  “You both need to get out here now!” Kodiak screamed, yelping when the banister of the staircase began to catch on fire, crumbling before him.

  Cole gripped River’s arms and looked straight into his eyes. “Ri
ver, you and Kodiak need to go.”

  “What? No!” River argued, vehemently shaking his head. “What about you and Scout and Wren?”

  “I have to make sure they find a way out of those flames,” Cole said, his voice stern and determined. “And I have to look for Mother and Father.”

  “But—”

  Cole reassuringly squeezed his arms. “We’ll be right there, okay? I promise.”

  Although River wanted to stay to help his brothers, he knew he would only become a nuisance to their survival. If they had any hopes of getting out of the house before it burned down around them, he had to get out with Kodiak. He nodded at Cole, who smiled at him and then turned towards the fire, seemingly bracing himself to run into it.

  “The window!” Cole screamed to the flames, holding his arms in front of him. Then he jumped back into the inferno, and River had to restrain himself from going after him.

  He glanced at the staircase, its banisters already crumbling to ashes, the floorboards underneath River about to follow suit. Kodiak was at the bottom of the stairs, holding his arms out.

  “Come on, little brother!” he exclaimed. “I won’t let you fall!”

  Before he could think about it, River ran to the beginning of the blazing staircase, closed his eyes, and leaped off the ground as it gave way underneath him.

  Kodiak, true to his word, caught him in his arms, and the two of them rushed out of the house and away from the escalating fire.

  They found Wren, Scout, and Cole laying in a grassy ditch down the hill from their house, coughing their lungs out and gasping for air, their faces streaked with ash and smoke. River assumed they had jumped out of a window, though he didn’t particularly care for how his brothers had gotten out. All that mattered was that they had.

  “You’re okay!” he cried, lunging at them and doing his best to wrap his arms around all three of them.

  “Barely,” Wren joked, and River laughed, tears welling up in his eyes.

  “Wait,” said Kodiak, standing behind him. “Where… where are Mother and Father?”

  River felt Cole tense in his embrace, and he pulled apart to look at the eldest of his brothers. “Cole?” he asked tentatively. “Where are Mother and Father? You… you said you were going to look for them, where”

  Wren and Scout stared at the grass beneath them, and Cole slowly shook his head.

  “River, listen—” he started to say.

  “No,” River mumbled, the tears in his eyes spilling down his face. “No.”

  “River—”

  “No!” River yelled. He turned to their burning house on the hill and started to run towards it, but he was caught in the arms of one of his brothers. “Let me go! We have to get them!”

  “You can’t go back there!” Scout shouted. Was he the one holding River in place?

  “We have to!” River snapped, desperately struggling against Scout’s grip. “We have to get Mother and Father!”

  “There’s nothing left, River!” Scout screamed. “Look, River! It’s all gone!”

  River stared at the old farm that was… that had been his home, his family’s home, for longer than any other place had been. He focused on his mother’s heartbeat, his father’s breathing, any sound that would tell him that they were okay, that his parents had made it out before them, that… that they weren’t—

  He couldn’t hear anything beyond the raging fire engulfing his home, burning it down to the ground.

  “I don’t see them, River,” Scout mumbled hoarsely, his grip lessening so much that River crumbled to his knees, unable to hold himself up without his brother. “I… I don’t see anything.”

  River picked up all the noises around him, even if all he wanted was to ignore them: the sound of Kodiak gritting his teeth in anger; the sound of Wren running his fingers through his hair and holding his head, muttering under his breath; the sound of Cole’s breathing, calm and collected even as he shook with fury; the sound of footsteps approaching…

  The sound of footsteps approaching.

  “We have to go,” River mumbled, his eyes widening even though he continued to stare at the building engulfed in flames on the hill. “I hear them coming this way.”

  Despite knowing they couldn’t remain where they were, River couldn’t stand up. He felt someone hoisting him up by the collar of his shirt, and his legs started cooperating enough for him to follow his brothers into the marsh, where they found a hiding spot between the overgrown weeds.

  River felt like they stayed there for an eternity. All of them were quiet, doing their best to keep their breathing as quiet as they could—except for Wren, who had to cover his mouth as tears spilled from his eyes, hushed, muffled sobs escaping his lips every few seconds. Finally, Scout heaved a sigh and whispered, “They’re gone.”

  The five of them sat at the edge of the bank and stared morosely at the fiery remnants of their home. Neither of them said a word for what felt like too long.

  “What are we supposed to do now?” River asked once he couldn’t deal with the silence anymore. He assumed, by the looks of his brothers’ faces, that the general consensus of what the answer would be was, I don’t know.

  But then Cole took a deep breath and said, “We have to split up.”

  “What?” the rest of them cried in unison.

  “That’s the last thing Father would want us to do!” River exclaimed, heartbroken at the mere suggestion of tearing their family apart even further.

  “As the eldest,” Cole said, glancing at him with eyes that shone with anger, “I think I’m the only one who should make a decision like this, and I say we split up.”

  “You can’t make that call by yourself!” Scout replied, getting up to his feet. “This affects all of us, Cole. We should all have a say in what we do now!”

  “Do you have any other idea, Scout?” Cole growled, standing up to look down at his brother. “Because unless you do, splitting up is our only choice!”

  “Can you please calm down?” River demanded, standing between his arguing brothers. Couldn’t they see they didn’t have time to fight amongst themselves? Couldn’t they see now was the time to stay together and stand by each other’s side?

  “Stay out of this, River,” Cole snarled, his gaze still focused on Scout. “This doesn’t concern you.”

  “Oh, what,” River replied, “you think that just because I’m the youngest that I don’t matter!”

  “I told you to stay out of this!” Cole repeated, glaring at River.

  “You’re not the alpha!” River yelled, all of his pain and heartbreak and the loss and grief he hadn’t allowed himself to feel just yet bursting out right alongside his words.

  “River—” Wren tried to say, but River was undeterred.

  “You think you get to make the decisions now? You think you’re better than us? Stronger, more powerful, more entitled, just because you’re the eldest? Guess what, Cole— your birthright means nothing now! We just lost our parents, and all you can think about is how to break this family apart even more! You want to be the alpha so badly? Be my guest!”

  Without giving his brother a chance to respond, River turned around and walked toward the woods, fuming with every step he took.

  “River!” Kodiak called him. “River, come on, what—what are you doing? Where are you going?”

  “Following his orders! I’m splitting up!” River shouted over his shoulder. “I’m getting as far away from Cole as possible!”

  “River!” he heard Wren scream. Scout also cried out his name, telling him to come back, they could work this out… but River was done. He kept walking, his legs carrying him deeper into the woods, listening to his brothers argue amongst themselves.

  He kept walking, even as their voices started fading away one by one, each of them leaving Cole alone in the marsh.

  He kept walking until he couldn’t hear any of them anymore.

  1

  A fresh layer of snow covered the wooden porch of the Perkins home i
n the quiet town of Jackson, Wyoming. The town was nestled at the foot of the mountains, which surrounded most of Jackson, immersing it in an ethereal feel, especially in the winter when everything was covered in snow.

  Twenty-three-year-old Quinn Perkins glanced out the window at the front porch and sighed miserably. It was only November, but the snow had already started to cover Jackson, much to Quinn’s disappointment. Although living in the sleepy mountain town certainly had its advantages, the snow was not one of them. At least not for Quinn.

  She had spent her younger years in sunny Florida with her mother, trying to avoid her father, who was not a very clean-cut, law-abiding person. After he was sent to prison—again—a few months after Quinn’s sixteenth birthday, her mother packed up and left their home in Miami Beach and moved them across the country, away from her father and, to Quinn’s dismay, the heat.

  Admittedly, Jackson was not as bad as Quinn made it out to be. The people in town were friendly, helpful, and very welcoming when they first arrived. Normally, small towns were very protective of their territory, frowning upon the idea of strangers invading their home, but Quinn and her mother were welcomed with open arms. Their house was nothing extravagant, as her mother was a school teacher at Colter Elementary School, but Quinn had come to love it, as did her mother.

  “What’s wrong, honey?” Quinn heard her mother ask from the kitchen.

  She turned around with a sigh and said, “It snowed last night.”

  “Did it?” her mother asked absentmindedly as she made a pot of coffee.

  “Yeah, it’s cold and awful.”

  Her mother chuckled at her disapproving and irritated tone and glanced at her. “It’s just snow, Quinn.”