Wolf's Eternal Bride, page 1
part #1 of Immortal Wolf Shifters Book 3 Series
Wolf’s Eternal Bride
Immortal Wolf Shifters Book 3
Nikita Slater
Copyright © 2024 Nikita Slater
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places and incidents are products of the writer’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.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the author except in the case of brief quotation embodied in critical articles and reviews.
Contents
Author’s Note
Immortal Wolf Shifters Series Information
An Unfinished Life
1. Working Girl
2. The Wolfman
3. A Safe Place
4. The Call of the Wild
5. Clueless
6. La La Land
7. Boogie Nights
8. The Bodyguard
9. Dazed and Confused
10. Cursed
11. Death Proof
12. Red Riding Hood
13. LA Confidential
14. Airplane
15. The Prince and Me
16. Bitten
17. House of Shadows
18. Persuasion
19. Moonstruck
20. One Fine Day
21. Something’s Gotta Give
22. Ladyhawke
23. Safe Haven
24. Animal House
25. A Walk to Remember
26. True Romance
27. Love Actually
28. Now You See Me
29. Spirited Away
30. The Pagemaster
31. Howl
32. Sunset Strip
33. A Star Is Born
34. War of the Worlds
35. City of Angels
36. Entourage
37. The Rescuers
38. The Flight of the Phoenix
39. Some Kind of Wonderful
Sneak Peek: Protected by Her Mate
Bonus: Damaged Mate
Bonus: The Witch and the Wolf
Nikita’s Newsletter!
Also by Nikita Slater
About the Author
Author’s Note
Dear Readers,
Thank you so much for purchasing a copy of Wolf’s Eternal Bride. Your support means the world to this indie author!
Wolf’s Eternal Bride is the third book in my Immortal Wolf Shifters series after Damaged Mate and The Witch and the Wolf. While it can be read as standalone, for the best reader experience, I recommend reading the series in order. If you like to break the rules and read out of order, I see you, and I included teasers at the end of the book to lure you into reading the first two.
If you’re a purist and are reading this series in order, good for you! The events of Wolf’s Eternal Bride occur after book 1 and most of book 2, but before the epilogue in book 2. Now that you are sufficiently confused, enjoy the book!
XOXO,
Nikita
Immortal Wolf Shifters Series Information
Book 1: Damaged Mate
Book 2: The Witch and the Wolf
Book 3: Wolf’s Eternal Bride
Book 4: Protected by Her Mate
Book 5: The King’s Mate
* * *
The Witch’s Curse…
“For the crime of trying to force me into an unwanted bond, I doom you to a life without your mate!”
A spell cast by a powerful witch and meant for one brother strikes all five alpha leaders of the Wolf-Haven Sanctuary, dooming them to a life without mates. Only the spell didn’t work quite right. Separating mates is a crime against the natural order, and nature will fight back when provoked.
* * *
Book 1: Damaged Mate
Lock felt the moment his mate died, which is why he’s both shocked and elated when she shows up on his doorstep. Only problem is she’s lived in her wolf form for two hundred years and has forgotten how to be human.
* * *
Book 2: The Witch and the Wolf
Rush has been searching for a way to break the witch’s curse so his brothers can find peace with their mates. Instead, he finds his own witch mate, one who is determined to make him pay for hunting her family for generations.
* * *
Book 3: Wolf’s Eternal Bride
Keenan is doomed to fall in love with his human mate and then watch her die over and over again each time she reincarnates. In order to give his mate the life she deserves, he must find a way around the witch’s curse.
* * *
Book 4: Protected by Her Mate
Lennox lives and works in the modern world of the humans. When he discovers his mate is his new human police partner, he must do everything he can to protect her from a bomber set on restarting the Human-Shifter War.
* * *
Book 5: The King’s Mate
Fallon spends centuries searching for his mate, a witch who is cast into another realm as punishment for her crime against the natural order. When he finds her, he will follow her into the shadows and reclaim his mate. This time, he won’t give her the opportunity to escape him.
An Unfinished Life
Keenan
Two hundred Years Ago
She’s in trouble. She’s in trouble. My mate is in trouble!
I run as fast as my paws will carry me, but it’s not enough. I can feel her life slipping from her.
My human mate is dying.
I should be with her, but I was called back to the Wolf-Haven by my brother, King Fallon. Now that General Lock has left the Kingdom, the military has fallen to me. Fallon wanted me to lead an army on the witches. A stupid plan that he forgot almost as soon as I set foot in the castle.
Then it happened.
I felt the creeping dread as my mate fell ill or was injured, like a knife sliding slowly into my guts, hot, agonizing, and very final for a human. As soon as I could, I’d shifted into my wolf and set out for the border, giving him his head as he takes us to her side.
Maybe she’ll pull through, says Lennox, the only one of my four brothers who still speaks to me through our familial bond.
I ignore him.
She’s human, delicate, easily injured. And worst of all, she’s stopped speaking to me through our bond. When I reach out, I sense cold, pain, and exhaustion. The edges of darkness are creeping in. She’s so very weak.
The urge to howl my pain to the perfect cloudless sky is overwhelming, but it doesn’t care and I can’t take the precious seconds. Delilah is going to die and I refuse to allow it to happen until I’m by her side.
After… after… I will scream and howl.
I’ll murder whoever is responsible for Delilah’s demise. Then I will rip out my heart and lay down next to her as the life leaves my body. Without my mate, there is nothing here for me.
I push myself to the limit, crossing field after field, traversing forests and hurtling into the mountains where she lives with her family in a small human settlement.
Twenty-seven years ago, I felt the birth of my mate. I tried to ignore it as life in Wolf-Haven had changed drastically with the disappearance of King Fallon’s mate. Our borders closed to outsiders, our citizens grew restless, and Fallon sent raiders to faraway lands searching for his missing mate. Wolf-Haven became too dangerous for humans.
But as much as I tried to ignore the feeling, as my mate grew, the mating call became stronger until I could no longer ignore it.
Giving into instinct, I ran to her, eager to see the face of my soon-to-be mate. She didn’t disappoint. She was a queen among peasants, her red hair shining in the sunlight, her full figure visible despite the rough garments she wore. Taller than most women, she has generous lips that are quick to smile, a straight nose, and moss green eyes that stab through a man, seeing to the heart of him. She has a face so beautiful, bards will sing of her long after she’s gone.
Only she’s not supposed to die. She’s supposed to wait for me to return with an amulet that will gift her with immortality. A chance to stay by my side through eternity.
I wear it now, around my neck. I pray I have enough time to get it to her.
Keenan….
Her voice calls to me through the fog of my panic. The first word she’s spoken to me in days.
I’m coming, Delilah, I shout back, forcing my paws to pick up speed. I can barely breathe. My heart feels like it’s about to burst, but I don’t care. What will it matter if I don’t arrive in time?
I don’t… want you to… see me this way.
Her words are broken, faint. I’m losing her.
What does she mean she doesn’t want me to see her? I force my way into her head, then beyond, allowing myself to see through her eyes. It’s mostly darkness, but she blinks occasionally. I see her mother and sister hovering over the bed, their faces reflecting worry and grief.
It’s the grief that nearly stops me in my tracks. Their faces tell me what I refuse to believe. My mate isn’t going to pull through.
What the fuck happened?
When I left her five weeks ago, she was happy and healthy. Now, now… I don’t know if I can survive this. It’s crushing me from the inside out.
Two years ago, when I’d first arrived in her village and announced myself her mate, she tried to kill me with a dagger hidden in her skirt. I fell in love immediately.
After wre
It was after Delilah’s second murder attempt that her mother approached me and invited me into their home for a cup of ale. “Whatever you’re trying to do with my daughter, it won’t work.”
“Why’s that?” I asked, sniffing at the ale, hoping it wasn’t poisoned as I took a tentative sip. Not that poison will kill me, but it’ll slow me down.
“Hates shifters.” Linda crossed her arms over her chest and stared at me as though to say, ‘and so do I’.
“War,” I guessed.
She nodded. “Uh huh. Lost her father to a border skirmish before she even met him. Twenty-five years ago.”
“Now she hates all shifters.” I shook my head, disappointed that my mate saw all shifters through such a narrow lens.
“Of course not,” Linda had said impatiently. “Just members of the royal family.”
My surprise must’ve shown on my face because she stomped to a shelf and hauled an old tomb to the table, slamming it down and opening it. Flipping pages, she stopped on a hand drawn image of my family. I’d been twenty-two when our likeness was taken. Only a few years away from the Human-Shifter War. I touched the faces of my parents, my mother’s gentle smile, my father looking at her as though she were the only woman on the planet.
“I lost them to the war, you know.” I look at her. “Same as you lost your husband during the border skirmishes.”
“Yet the shifters won both times.”
“The humans attacked first.” My voice hardened as I made clear my stance on the war. “Both times.” The shifters would not have gone to war with the humans, but we were left with no choice when Wolf-Haven was attacked.
She’d nodded. “Yes, it’s true.” Sighing deeply, she closed the book and replaced it on the shelf, then she’d joined me at the table, lifting her own tankard of ale and taking a drink. “What is your intention towards my elder daughter?”
I’d explained shifter mating rituals to her and she listened with rapt attention. When I finished, she asked, “And what if my daughter rejects your claim?”
“Then I will leave her alone and never speak to her again.”
Her shrewd eyes narrowed. “But you won’t leave, will you?”
“Can’t,” I admitted. “The mating call won’t allow me to leave for good, but I would keep my distance, let her live her life.”
Linda stood and refilled our tankards before returning to the table. “And when she dies of old age? Do you get another shot at a different mate if your mate refuses you?”
My lips twisted. “No, Delilah, is it for me. When she dies, so do I.”
Linda looked thoughtful, then shrugged. “Give her your best shot then, but she’s a tough cookie, that one. Not the forgiving type. She’s had to fend for herself from a young age and blames the royal family for the border skirmishes.”
True to Linda’s prediction, wooing Delilah hadn’t been an easy road, but after a few years of persistence, of me taking more and more chores off her hands, of my family’s wealth improving the lives of the villagers, Delilah eventually fell for me.
We planned to wed after I found the amulet and returned to her. We were going to settle in her village, with her family, and watch over each new generation that springs from her bloodline.
But none of these plans will come to fruition if I don’t get to her in time.
As I approach the village, John, the innkeeper, waves at me, but I don’t have time to stop. Not until I reach her front door do I slow and shift from wolf to human. I shove the door open and race upstairs to her bedroom.
Kathy, her sister, meets me in the hall, her gaze pitying, her face drawn, tear tracks fresh on her cheeks. “Keenan, she’s—”
I hurtle past her, throwing the door open.
Delilah’s head is rolled to the side on her pillow, her eyes on me as I enter. She was expecting me, knew the moment I entered. I drop to my knees next to the bed and take her hand.
“Keenan…” My name is faint as it leaves her lips and it’s the last thing she says as the light drains from her eyes.
I’m stunned, unable to move as her mother sobs and rushes from the room.
She’s dead.
I place my head gently to her breast.
Nothing. No precious heartbeat.
The cold of the amulet presses against my chest and I tear it off and place it around her neck. As I set her back down, she continues to stare up at me unblinking, the mossy green of her eyes darkening in death.
“Come on, Delilah,” I growl. “Come back to me.”
I lift her from the bed and hold her to me, cradling her, waiting.
My sensitive nose can smell the sickness in the room.
Two minutes pass. Five minutes. Ten minutes. I wait for the amulet to work, but nothing happens.
“She’s gone.” I look up to find Linda standing next to me, her face white, tears raining down unchecked. “My baby is dead.” She falls to her knees, her tears dripping onto her daughter.
Once her agonized cries dim to gentle sobs, I ask in a hoarse voice, “What happened to her?” She looks perfect to me. Just as I’d last seen her, only thinner, drawn.
“It was an illness. It came quickly a week ago. None of the doctor’s remedies worked. She’s the fourth in our village to succumb to it.”
That evening we bury my precious Delilah. Linda invites me to stay until I decide what to do next.
“I can’t. You know what I need to do.”
“Please don’t,” she begs. “I can’t take another death in the family.”
I’m touched by her words and almost promise her a few more days, but the pain is unbearable. I have no choice but to follow my love to the grave as soon as possible.
I sit next to the mound of dirt, talking to her through the night, telling her everything I should’ve said when she was alive. I talk about the future we will never have. “I was going to take you to the coast. You’ve never been and everyone should see the ocean at least once in their life. Maybe we could build a cottage on the seashore, invite your family to visit.”
The dreams of what could have been keeps me talking well into the night until there’s nothing left to say.
I crawl on top of the soft dirt, sinking into it, wishing I could reach her. I prepare to lift the dagger that will end my life, the one she’d tried to use on me two years ago. I’ll stab myself through the heart, the one organ that doesn’t immediately regenerate if injured. Without intervention, a shifter will die when their heart is damaged.
Before I can slam it into my chest, something tickles at my mind.
I sit up and look around.
Someone is calling to me, but it’s faint. Incoherent.
I listen, but it makes no sense. It’s the same sensation I had when Delilah was born. It’s the mating call.
But that’s impossible.
Unless… unless… but it’s only a myth. A story for hopeful young wolves.
Could it be possible?
Has my mate reincarnated?
Looking down at Delilah’s grave, I realize the pull she had on me, even after death, is gone. I still grieve for her, but the compulsion to crawl into her grave and die alongside her has also disappeared.
