The Wolf's Mate: Billionaire Shifter Paranormal Romance (Hearts on Fire Book 4) Read online

  The Wolf's Mate

  A Billionaire Shifter Paranormal Romance

  By

  Natalie Kristen

  Hearts on Fire series

  The Werewolf's Baby

  The Dragon Tycoon's Bride

  The Dragon’s Match

  The Wolf’s Mate

  Copyright © 2017 Natalie Kristen

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

  No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without the author's written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. No part of this book may be scanned, uploaded or distributed via the Internet or any other means, electronic or print, without the author's written permission.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are used fictitiously or are the products of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual locales, events, establishments or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  The author does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for third-party websites or their content.

  About this Book

  She thought he was just a one night stand…

  Tia Scott is determined to live life to the fullest. She is a survivor, and she refuses to live in fear. She doesn’t do regrets, and she doesn’t expect one night with a sexy stranger to change anything…

  Alpha wolf, billionaire Caine Taylor has just become a single dad to a baby girl. One of the wealthiest, most eligible bachelors in the city, Caine is thrust from his world of cut-throat corporate deals and gold-digging women into a maze of milk bottles and diapers.

  When he meets a smart, beautiful woman at the bar of his hotel one night, everything changes.

  He sees her strength, her secrets and how fiercely she guards her heart.

  Tia doesn’t seem to want more than one night with him, but Caine isn’t going to let her go.

  When Tia is thrown headlong into Caine’s world, she realizes that it isn’t just her life on the line. It’s her heart...

  * * * * *

  CHAPTER ONE

  “It’s your turn to hide again, Aunt Tia!” Corinne squealed excitedly. Hide-and-seek was currently Corinne’s favorite game, but the little girl didn’t like to hide. The four-year-old wanted to show off her hunting skills to her aunt.

  Tia made a face at her niece. “But you always find me—in less than a minute!”

  The girl smirked and puffed out her chest. “I’m a good hunter! I’m a big bad wolf. Just like Daddy!”

  “And don’t forget, you’re a superhero too,” Tia reminded her, poking her in the chest.

  “Yup, I saved your life, didn’t I, Aunt Tia,” Corinne answered with an impish grin.

  Behind her, Kerry and Nathan both huffed and clucked their tongues at their mischievous, precocious daughter. “Corinne,” Kerry admonished. “You do nice things for people because you love them. And you shouldn’t go around bragging about it. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, Mummy,” Corinne replied sheepishly.

  Tia inched her way to her niece and whispered, “You do know that you are my superhero, forever. Right?”

  The little girl nodded and giggled when Tia winked at her.

  Tia turned to see her elder sister and brother-in-law shaking their heads at her. “What? It’s the truth,” Tia declared. “Corinne’s a superhero even before she was born. If she hadn’t given me her cord blood, I would have died. It was Corinne’s stem cells that killed all the cancer cells in my body.”

  Kerry immediately raised a finger. “Don’t say the C-word,” she hissed.

  Tia heard the tremor in her sister’s voice and immediately bit back a teasing retort.

  Tia was well now. She had beaten the cancer into remission with Corinne’s cord blood. They had won the fight. But Kerry never stopped fearing and worrying.

  The cancer had gone away, but would it stay away?

  Tia thought that Kerry was being paranoid and overprotective, but at the same time, she understood and appreciated everything that Kerry had gone through for her.

  When Tia was first diagnosed with cancer, Kerry had put her life on hold to care for her. Her big sister had been there for her every step of the way. Kerry tried everything, exhausted every avenue and all her savings to find a cure for Tia. She struggled to pay for the most expensive treatments, and she simply refused to give up on her baby sister.

  Kerry had staunchly and stoically fought by her side, but they were fighting a losing battle. The cancer couldn’t be stopped.

  Nothing worked. All the fancy drugs and treatments were no match for that dreadful disease. In the end, Tia had calmly told Kerry not to fight the inevitable. The cancer would claim her. They just had to accept it. Tia knew she was dying, but she was determined to see her beautiful little niece before she died. So she held on.

  She wanted to hold her niece just once, but her spunky little niece was just as determined to hold on to her Aunt Tia. Corinne fought her way into the world early, and arrived way before her due date just so the doctors could use her cord blood to save her aunt.

  It was only after the doctors injected the stem cells from Corinne’s cord blood into Tia that the tide began to turn. The new cells multiplied rapidly in Tia's body, building up a robust, formidable army of healthy cells. For a few critical months, a fierce battle had raged within Tia's body, as the new cells fought hard to destroy the cancer cells. Because Corinne was a wolf shifter like her dad, her immune system was strong and her cells greatly accelerated Tia's rate of recovery.

  It was a miracle, a feat of superhero proportions. Her little niece had saved her life.

  Tia was healthy now, but Kerry never stopped worrying about her. When Tia got sick, Kerry went and did extensive research on cancer patients. She talked to patients and their families, and it angered and horrified her to learn that the terrible disease could come back with a vengeance years, even decades, after the patient had recovered.

  In Kerry’s mind, the cancer was a deadly enemy that was ever present. The enemy might rear its ugly head at any time and strike you down without warning. Kerry refused to even utter the word “cancer”. She absolutely hated the word, and she was determined to burn it from her vocabulary.

  Tia hated that her sister had to live in the shadow of her cancer. It wasn’t fair and it wasn’t right. Kerry had already done and sacrificed so much for her.

  Tia went up to Kerry and held her shoulders firmly. “Hey,” Tia said gently. “I’m okay now. All the doctors confirmed it. You were there, you saw all the test results. The ca...that C-shit is gone! For good.”

  I hope.

  Nobody, not even the best doctors, could rule out the chance of a relapse.

  Kerry nodded and managed a shaky smile. “Yeah. I know. I just want you to be safe.”

  Kerry let out a long sigh and Tia knew exactly what she was going to say next. Her sister had been nagging at her and Nathan for weeks now.

  “And I know it’s your choice...” Kerry held up both hands. “But...I wish you’d choose a safer job, Tia.”

  “Her job is safe,” Nathan spoke up for her.

  “Yup. I’m as safe as can be. I’m not a cop anymore,” Tia chirped. “You have nothing to worry about, Kerry. I’m working for Nathan now. I won’t be patrolling the dark, seedy underbelly of the city anymore.”

  Kerry still didn’t look happy. She wanted Nathan to give Tia a desk job. But Tia ju
st couldn’t sit in the office the whole day. She tried, honestly, she did try her best to be a good little secretary. But after three days of filing and hammering at a computer, Tia knew that this wouldn’t work out. She had told Nathan frankly that it was best for everyone if she went to work at another security agency. She was an ex-cop. A security firm would hire her in a heartbeat.

  But her brother-in-law was just as protective as her big sister. He refused to let her go out into the big bad world. He promised her that he would give her a proper assignment as soon as possible. Nathan owned Chase Security, Inc., the largest security firm in the city. There was no lack of challenging work and assignments.

  Nathan had been true to his word. Tia would report for her first assignment tomorrow.

  Despite Nathan’s assurances, Kerry remained unconvinced that the assignment was “safe”.

  Nathan put his arms around his mate and promised, “I gave Tia the safest assignment, Kerry. It’s perfectly safe.”

  Kerry narrowed her eyes and asked pointedly, “Will Tia have to carry a gun?”

  Tia and Nathan glanced at each other, urging the other to answer Kerry’s question.

  Kerry glared at the both of them. “The answer is obviously yes. How safe can it be when she has to carry a gun?”

  Tia was saved from replying by Corinne. Her niece ran up to her and tugged impatiently at her hand. “Come on, Aunt Tia! You promised me one more game of Hide-and-Seek! Hurry, it’d be my bedtime soon!”

  “Of course,” Tia replied, seeing the earnest, pleading look on her niece’s face. Bedtime was non-negotiable, so time was of the essence. They had started playing hide-and-seek after dinner, and they had been playing for almost an hour now. The clock showed that it was just two minutes to eight, but she knew that Corinne would sniff out her hiding spot in a matter of seconds. The little girl was that good.

  So they could have that last game of hide-and seek, and still make that eight o’clock deadline.

  “Close your eyes then. Start counting!” Tia said, flashing Corinne a grin. “I’m going to hide now.”

  Corinne squealed delightedly and clapped her hands over her eyes. “One, two, three...”

  “No peeking!” Tia hollered, and skipped away.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Tia left Nathan and Kerry’s penthouse and made her way down to her apartment just two floors down. The apartment belonged to Nathan, so her brother-in-law was her landlord as well as her boss.

  Nathan hadn’t wanted to accept any rent from her, but the poor guy had to relent after Tia threatened to move out. Kerry would never allow her baby sister to stay so far away from her. Two floors away was okay. Two blocks, or two streets away—unthinkable.

  Tia sometimes wished that Kerry would stop worrying so much, but she understood Kerry’s fear. Kerry had seen Tia fading away before her very eyes, growing sicker and weaker as the days went by. It had been a terrible, terrifying time for the sisters as they clung to each other and tried their best to remain positive and optimistic even as they stared death in the face.

  With a quiet sigh, Tia unlocked her front door and stepped into her apartment. She liked living on her own, having her freedom and independence.

  After she was cured of her cancer, Tia was determined to live the life she had always wanted to live. She had always wanted to be a cop, so she wasted no time signing up for the police academy.

  Tia remembered the first time she put on her police uniform. She had looked in the full-length mirror and a bright-eyed, eager, young policewoman had smiled back at her. She was going to make the most of this chance that she’d been given. Her niece had saved her life, so she could go out and fight crime and save more lives.

  Kerry had expressed her reservations about the job, saying it was too strenuous and dangerous. But despite her own doubts and fears, Kerry still supported her. She wanted Tia to be happy.

  It was only when Tia got shot that Kerry completely lost it.

  Tia peeled off her clothes and stepped into the shower. She closed her eyes as the hot water pelted her back.

  As she soaped herself, her fingers touched the scar on her shoulder.

  Tia turned to stare at the distinct scar on her left shoulder.

  It turned out that Kerry’s fears hadn’t been unfounded after all. The job was dangerous, and it had almost cost her her life. Tia had nearly been killed in the line of duty.

  That scar was from a bullet wound. If she had been just a fraction of a second slower, the bullet would have found her heart.

  Tia pressed her hand over her scar. She grimaced as her muscles tensed and throbbed under her fingers.

  She remembered the shocking, searing pain that tore through her as the thug fired a bullet into her shoulder.

  Tia squeezed her eyes shut and saw the thug’s gaunt, pallid face in her mind. He was wearing a hoodie but his face was uncovered. He had looked right at her when he shot her. He was never caught. He just disappeared. But Tia would never forget his face.

  Tia opened her eyes and the fog in the shower cleared momentarily.

  But she could see another fog rolling in. She recognized that gray, shadowy fog.

  She had seen it so often in her nightmares.

  She could never escape from this fog. It always found her.

  She relived that night over and over again. She got shot, but she wished she could have saved her partner.

  Tia saw her partner die that night.

  She couldn’t save him, and she couldn’t save those innocent, helpless victims.

  Their cries, their eyes haunted her. But she never told anyone about her nightmares. Not even Kerry. Especially not Kerry.

  Tia took a deep breath and stepped into the swirling fog. The fog enveloped her, taking her back to that terrible, chilling night.

  The night she got shot.

  CHAPTER THREE

  She was in the middle of a foggy street, and she could hear sounds coming from an alleyway to her right. Her partner, Roy, was panting as he ran up to her.

  “Let’s go, Tia. Let’s get back to the car,” Roy urged.

  Tia put her finger to her lips and drew her weapon. “Did you hear that?”

  “Homeless people go missing all the time,” Roy said, looking around uncomfortably. “It sucks bad enough that we have to patrol this neighborhood. Come on, our shift will end in twenty minutes.”

  She ignored Roy’s whining and whinging. She might be a rookie cop, but she took her oath and her job seriously. She would serve and protect the people of the city to the best of her ability. She would not sit idly in the patrol car for twenty minutes. Twenty minutes was plenty of time. They were still on duty.

  Tia glanced at her overweight partner and contemplated asking him to go wait in the car. But any backup was better than no backup at all.

  She just hoped that when push came to shove, Roy wouldn’t panic and shoot her in the foot. So far the only thing she had seen him do with speed and enthusiasm was polishing off a whole box of donuts.

  She and Roy had been assigned to patrol one of the poorest neighborhoods in the city. Almost every alley was filled with homeless people sleeping in cardboard boxes.

  The residents of this run-down, neglected neighborhood didn’t trust the police but they never gave Roy and Tia any trouble. Tia had seen quite a few of the residents come out and feed the homeless on some cold nights. They were poor and they didn’t have much, but they didn’t forget those who had even less.

  The crime rate in that neighborhood was surprisingly low. And Tia realized that the residents actually looked out for the people living in their neighborhood. The homeless community was also part of the neighborhood. They were homeless and destitute, but they were people and the residents saw them as such.

  But in recent weeks, a few of the residents had come up to Roy and Tia and reported in hushed tones that there was something strange going on. Homeless folks were going missing. Those people had simply disappeared without a trace. “No one knows what happen
ed to them. One night they’re there, the next day they’re gone.”

  Tia had filed a report with her superiors, but no one took any interest in the case. “Homeless people go missing all the time,” was what her boss said before closing the file. “We don’t have the resources to investigate a non-case, Tia.”

  It wasn’t a non-case to Tia. If the higher-ups wouldn’t investigate, she would. She had sworn to serve and protect the community, and she would do her job. The homeless were part of the community too.

  “We don’t have to patrol the alleys, you know. Just the main streets,” Roy groused. But he came along anyway. He didn’t leave her and go back to the patrol car. Roy wasn’t a bad guy, but after being passed over for one too many promotions, he couldn’t remember why he became a police officer in the first place.

  The muffled scream was what made Tia draw her weapon. She knew that Roy had heard it too. The fear in his eyes gave him away, even though he did his best to avoid her question.

  “In there.” Tia gestured with her gun.

  Nervously, they pushed into the alley together. There were overflowing dumpsters, shopping carts and overturned cardboard boxes lining the dark alley.

  From the spilled food and discarded shoes and clothes on the ground, it looked like the inhabitants of those cardboard boxes had vacated the alley in a great hurry.

  Tia saw a shadow move at the end of the alley and aimed her gun at a target she couldn’t quite see. “H-help...”

  The whimpered plea was abruptly cut off. Tia rushed deeper into the alley, but was stopped by a vicious blow to her face. She dropped to the ground and managed to roll away just before a broken baseball bat smashed down at the spot she had been just a heartbeat ago.

  Tia scrambled up and fired a shot. The figure moved and the bullet lodged in the wall behind him.

  She blinked hard and saw a thin man wearing a black hoodie emerging from the shadows. He had a pale, thin face and there was a zigzag scar between his eyebrows. He threw the baseball bat to the side and snarled. “Get lost. You saw nothing. Understand?”