The Wolf's Mate Book 7: Lindy & The Wulfen (3 page)

Chapter 4

The day after the full moon, Lindy went to work, plastering a smile on her face and chatting brightly with customers.  She might look as though she was having a good day, but inside she was a wreck.  She hadn’t slept well once she got home after the full moon hunt.  The insults she had suffered had lobbed around in her brain like tennis balls.  It wasn’t as if she didn’t know she had a reputation within the pack.  She had made the choice as a teenager to give in to her desires and have sex whenever she felt like it.  It hadn’t been hard, when she was younger, to find a male who was interested.  As the years went by, the available males abandoned her and found mates, making it clear that she wasn’t a worthy choice.  When that happened, she hadn’t changed her ways; she had simply tried harder to seduce the single males.

She’d hidden her lack of arousal under heavy perfume as she tried to find a male who would find her worthy of being a mate.  But no one wanted her.  The males in the pack began to find their truemates, and Lindy became a joke, a female that could be visited in the dark of night to slake a need but never taken out on a date, never taken to meet the male’s family or friends.  She had honestly believed that eventually a male would find her worthy of more than a late-night fuck, but after Luka’s insult and the way  Paul’s family had ordered her to stay away from Sunny, as if she might be tainted in some way, Lindy was beginning to believe it was impossible.

When she got home, she called Faith.  “I’m just feeling like staying in tonight.”

“What’s wrong?”  Faith demanded.

Lindy hadn’t told anyone what had happened on the full moon, but she didn’t keep secrets from her friends and had no intention of starting now.  Within minutes, she’d told Faith everything that had happened.

Faith growled.  “I’m so pissed!  Those assholes!  Sunny would be lucky to have a sweet, protective friend like you.  And Luka, I could cut off his balls and feed them to him!”

Lindy smiled as she wiped away the tears that had fallen while she shared her heartache.  She had tried not to let the night’s events hurt her feelings, but she’d been wounded deeply.

“Maybe my mom had the right idea about starting over.  Maybe I should just pack up and move to her place and start fresh.”

“Fuck.  That.  I’ll be over in fifteen minutes to pick you up.  We’re going out.”

“I really don’t want to, Faith.”

“Don’t care.  I’ll be there.”  The call ended, and Lindy looked at the phone for a moment then put it on the coffee table.  Walking back to her bedroom, she looked inside the closet.  Tight dresses, micro-mini skirts, and revealing tops filled the walk-in.  Her work clothes were relegated to a small section of the closet, but the remainder was filled with the sort of clothes that made men think with their dick and not their brain.  Even her bedroom was a study in seduction, with satin sheets and a fur comforter, red light bulbs in the lamps, and a decorative bowl on the nightstand full of condoms.  She’d prided herself on always being prepared, but all the bowl represented to her at the moment was the many males who’d visited her bed but never stayed.

Flipping through the clothes, she found a pale pink tank top with lace trim and grabbed a clean pair of jeans from the shelf where she kept her work clothes.  Changing quickly, she applied only a little bit of foundation to hide the dark circles her nearly sleepless night had garnered her and pulled her long, blonde hair into a ponytail.  She dropped to her knees and searched through her shoes until she found a pair of ballet flats, picked them up as she stood, and headed out of her bedroom.

Faith opened the front door without knocking, wearing a short, black dress and sky-high heels.  “When I said ‘go out’,” she smiled, “I meant to a bar not a picnic.”

Lindy sighed.  “I’m trying something different.”

Faith leaned against the wall and eyed her speculatively.  “Different?”

“I’m tired of the trampy clothes.  I hardly have anything decent to wear outside of my work shirts and jeans.  If I ever did find a guy willing to mate with me, what the hell would I wear to meet his parents?”

Faith looked at her for a long moment and said, “When we talked about finding our mates the other day…are you trying to change yourself into a different person?  Because it shouldn’t matter what your clothes look like.  A guy worth a damn is going to understand that.”

“I know, but I’m miserable.  I never thought that my life would turn out this way.  When I planned my life at Sunny’s age, I thought I’d be mated with a few pups by now.  I have a lot of regrets.”

“I do, too, but I’m not going to change who I am.”

“I’m still the same person on the inside, but I kinda feel like this outside matches my insides better.  Does that make sense?”

Faith snorted.  “Are you saying my insides are slutty?”

“I’m talking about me.  You said I looked like I was going to a picnic.”

Faith rolled her eyes.  “I was just teasing.  You look pretty, and what’s better is that you look happier, and that’s important.  You’re not planning to go on some long search for your truemate, are you?”

“He’s not in the Tressel Pack, that’s for damn sure.  I’ll find him eventually.  In the meantime, I want to figure myself out and get back to being happy all the time, not just with my clothes.”  She paused for a moment and said, “Remember when Jenna was attacked at the bar?”

Faith nodded.  Lindy continued, “Logan came barreling out of the bar with rage in his eyes.  He would have torn those wolves apart if they hadn’t bugged out like cowards.  Then he held her, and it was tender and loving.  I want that.”

Faith raised a brow.  “Logan?”

Lindy rolled her eyes.  “Of course not, he’s mated.  What I want is what they have together. That all-consuming passion that comes from finding your truemate.  Knowing that you’d kill for your mate and that they’d kill for you, too.  I want that.  I want a male to love me enough to fight for me, to find me if I’m lost or hurt, to be there for me no matter what.”  She leveled her eyes at her friend.  “I’m not going to find that by drinking myself silly every weekend and going home with whichever lowlife happens to be hanging around Jake’s at last call.”

Jake’s was the only bar in Allen and owned by the Tressel Pack.  The pack hung out there, but so did humans.  It had been Lindy and her friends’ weekend stomping ground since they’d turned twenty-one.

“I hadn’t thought of it like that.  So let’s go somewhere that the pack doesn’t go.”

“Like where?”  Lindy asked, grabbing her ID and cash and stuffing them into her back pocket.

“We can try that country bar up in Derven.  I think it’s called Boots.”

Lindy agreed and offered to drive.  After Faith buckled in, she said, “Do you think your truemate might be a human?”

Lindy pulled out of her driveway and headed toward Derven.  “Why not?  Michael’s mate is human.  And Logan’s mate is a fairy.  My mate might be a wolf or he might not be, but I’m pretty sure that he’s not sitting in a booth at Jake’s.”

Lindy was happy that Faith had accepted her changes.  Although it was small for now — she was really just wearing less revealing clothes — she felt different on the inside.  It had hurt like a bitch when she’d been humiliated by Luka and then Paul, but she was beginning to think it was the best thing that had ever happened to her.  She was only twenty-six.  She still had time to change the course of her life and find her happiness.  If she happened to find her mate in the process, well, that would be really sweet.  But unlike how she’d felt for a long time, she didn’t believe that her happiness lay with a male.  She knew better now.  Her happiness lay within her, and she was in control of it.  No more hoping that a hot guy would notice her and say things that would make her feel good.  That was hollow.

She glanced at herself in the rearview mirror after pulling into the parking lot of Boots and smiled.  She looked younger than she did with her normal amount of makeup.  Her eyes were very blue like a summer sky, and when she smiled, she had a small dimple in one cheek.  Had she smiled for real recently?  She didn’t think so.  But she was smiling now.  It was a good start to the night.

* * * * *

Lindy pulled into the driveway and Faith kissed her cheek and hopped out, heading to her car that was parked in the street.  Lindy watched her pull away from the curb and then got out of her car.  It had been a long night.  Lindy had offered to let Faith crash, but she wanted to go home and sleep in her own bed instead of on Lindy’s lumpy couch.

 As she closed her car door, she caught movement out of the corner of her eye and saw someone standing on her front porch.  The porch light was on, but she couldn’t see who it was because they were standing in the shadows.  For a moment, she debated getting back into her car and driving away as she called the police.  Crossing her fingers that she wouldn’t regret her actions, she marched up the sidewalk.

“Who’s there?” she demanded.

The figure chuckled and stepped into the light.  But even without the light, she would have recognized Bruce by the sound of his laugh and the horrid cheap cologne that wafted off him the closer she got.  She held back the disgusted sigh and looked up at him from where she stood on the sidewalk.

“What are you doing here, Bruce?”

He leaned against her front door and hooked his thumbs in his belt loops.  He was mildly attractive, with blond hair and blue eyes and a muscular build.  But his personality just sucked so much.  He acted as if he were the best male specimen on two legs, and she knew quite well that his ego was largely inflated when it came to his prowess in bed.

“I thought you’d show up at Jake’s tonight.”

She didn’t really like him leaning on her door.  Or even being on her property.  After their night together, she was determined that it would be their last one.  She didn’t want anything to do with him anymore.

“I went somewhere else.” 
Leave. Leave now.

He raised his brows but didn’t seem to actually care where she’d been.  “You up for a quick tumble?  I’ve gotta get up early for work.”

Her mouth fell open.  Had he really just thought she would show him in and drop her clothes because he’d decided to grace her with his presence?  Judging by his expectant look, she had a feeling that he did indeed expect that.

“No thanks.”

“Ah.”  He nodded.  “On the rag?”

She closed her eyes as a headache began to form in the middle of her forehead.  Rubbing the spot with her thumb, she said, “No.  I’m just not interested in having sex with you tonight, or any other night.”  A little flare of anger rose up inside her.  Just because she had behaved badly in the past didn’t mean he, or any other male, had the right to treat her like the sex version of a 7-Eleven.  She folded her arms and let her beast loose a little so that a growl rumbled from her throat.  “You need to leave.”

He snorted and shook his head, shoving off the door and striding past her.  She watched him walk down the sidewalk.  He paused and looked over his shoulder.  “You’ve spread your legs for almost every unmated male in the pack, Lindy.  I’m the only one that’s still interested.  You should think about that the next time I ask for sex.”

She snarled and bared her teeth in displeasure.  He laughed loudly and walked down the driveway.  His car was parked across the street, and she waited until he was gone before she relaxed her aggressive stance and went into the house.

The following day at work, she re-shelved books and fumed over the situation from the night before.  She and Faith had sat at a table at Boots and ordered drinks.  The bar had been full of humans, and for once, she was glad to be in a place where no one knew her name or her past.  It hadn’t taken long for men to notice the two unattached women, and before long she was dancing the night away with different men and enjoying herself, the same as Faith.

As the night wore down, one guy, who had been paying close attention to her, asked her to come home with him.  She thought he was handsome, but she wasn’t looking for another one-nighter.  She didn’t want to be a notch on someone’s bedpost or a booty call.

“How about I give you my number and we go out sometime?” she offered.

He gave her an incredulous look.  “I’m not looking for anything but a good time.  You in or not?”

In an instant, her good mood evaporated, and her self-esteem disappeared right along with it.  Did she have
easy
stamped on her forehead or something?  “Not,” she said and turned to walk away.

His hand clamped on her upper arm, and he jerked her against his body with a scowl.  “What are you, a tease?  I bought you a drink.”

She stomped her heel down on his foot, and he released her arm with a shout.  “Bitch!”

“Go fuck yourself, asshole,” she growled and elbowed him in the gut as she walked by.  He cursed again, but she was too annoyed to care what he said about her, and she didn’t really care anyway.

Faith left with her and put her arm around her at the car.  “You’ll find your prince charming, Linds, and it won’t be some asshole who thinks a three-dollar soda is worth a blow job.”

Lindy chuckled, but it was forced.  She should have known better than to go to a bar looking to make a change to her life.  She wouldn’t find happiness sitting at a table in a dimly lit bar.  At this point, she wasn’t sure she’d ever find any happiness, but she was damn well going to try.