Mated to the Playboy Wolf: A BBW Valentine's Day Wolf-Shifter Romance

  MATED TO THE PLAYBOY WOLF

  A VALENTINE’S DAY NOVELLA

  Copyright © 2017 by Cara Wylde

  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.

  Cover design by Emma Griffin

  E-mail: emmagriffin@yahoo.com

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  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  MORE VALENTINE’S DAY NOVELLAS

  THE ALMA VENUS UNIVERSE

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  CHAPTER ONE

  There was something a little depressing about London in February. Matt couldn’t decide whether it was the dreary grey weather, the fact that he hadn’t had a chance to damn well sit down yet, or the red and pink decorations hanging in every store window, reminding him that Valentine’s Day was only three days away.

  “I can’t believe we didn’t even get to deal with the Council today,” Karl, Matt’s Alpha, grumbled under his breath. “It’s so manic this time of year. Work is crazy.” He opened the main door of the luxurious apartment building where part of his pack, the Dark Wolves, lived, and nodded in the general direction of the security guard.

  Matt wanted to come up with some humorous quip as a reply, but he couldn’t. He was tired, drained, and, to his own surprise, a little depressed. He wasn’t used to being single, especially since his unique good looks had women from six species falling at his feet, but now, with the dreaded most romantic day of the year looming, it hit him that much harder. For some reason, it was cutting him deep, and he had no idea what to do about it.

  What he didn’t understand was why he had found himself single. He was certain that if he put some real effort into it, if he could find some time in between the ongoing construction projects he and his Alpha had to constantly negotiate and supervise, he could have a girl hanging from his arm in no time. But what was the point? He just didn’t feel quite the same about shagging random chicks anymore, and he had no idea what had changed.

  “Anyway, at least we can go home now,” Karl finished, seemingly oblivious to Matt’s clear distraction. “Do you want to come up to mine for a drink? I think we’ve earned it today, don’t you?”

  “Yeah, sounds good,” Matt smiled weakly. “Thanks.”

  As they thundered up the stairs, Matt tried to cheer himself up. Sure, they weren’t at Schloss Blackmane anymore, which wasn’t ideal, and… okay, this time of the year was a little shitty, but that didn’t mean he had to be one of those annoying, moody people. He needed to shake this black mood off, and a drink with his best mate was the perfect way to do it.

  However, as they walked through the door to Karl’s apartment and Matt spotted Karl’s beautiful wife sitting on the couch, cradling her child in one arm, with her other hand spread across her ever-expanding belly, it smacked him in the face again. This was what had changed: seeing his Alpha with his mate, the love of his life, and his family. Matt couldn’t stop himself from wanting a bit of that for himself. He’d never cared about finding a human of his own to spread his seed before, but now… well, now he was starting to see the benefit of that.

  Matt looked awkwardly away as Karl greeted and kissed his wife and daughter. When Karl finally remembered he was there too, he brought him a beer, then turned his attention back to Jess, the little girl who was jumping up and down, insisting that she wanted to read her father the newest book her mother had bought her.

  Matt sat down in the armchair opposite them, with the cold beer in his hand. For the first time ever, he wished he could actually get drunk from booze… just to give himself the chance to forget all of the inner turmoil swirling around in his brain.

  “How are you, Matt?” Claudia asked, fixing him with those soul-piercing eyes of hers.

  Matt adored Claudia. She was a great girl, and absolutely perfect for Karl, but he had always felt like she could see too much of him, that she had the ability to see deep into the parts of him that he never revealed to the rest of the world. Of course, that wasn’t possible. Human, hybrid, or shifter… no one had that sort of ability. But still…

  “Work alright?”

  “Pff, work is work,” he joked, forcing a smile on his face. “I’m alright now that I’m done for the day. Your husband has been riding me all day long! It’s like slave labor.”

  She laughed appreciatively at that, glad to see there was still some of the Matt she knew and adored in there, but it was blatantly obvious that there was something else going on, something under the surface.

  “I’m sure he isn’t that bad,” she sat down on the armrest and leaned on his shoulder, love pouring out of every orifice. “But I’ll give him a stern talking to and make sure you have a better day tomorrow. Surely, you’ll have Valentine’s Day off, anyway?”

  He couldn’t stop himself from balking at that remark, as she hit the nail on the head.

  “Do you have any awesome plans? Any dragon girls?” There was a teasing tone to her voice, but care in her eyes.

  “Nope,” Matt shot back quickly, popping the “p”. “No plans, just a nice, quiet one in…”

  “What? You?” she gasped, actually shocked. “Are you serious?”

  Matt shuffled awkwardly in his seat, hating where this conversation was going. He had come up to Karl’s apartment for a quiet drink and some welcome distraction from his stream of inner thoughts. Instead, he was being interrogated about the one topic he wanted to avoid. How the hell did Claudia manage to achieve that?

  “I have to go,” he stood up abruptly, not even caring that he looked a little like a mad person. “I… need to get back home. Another busy day tomorrow.”

  “Are you sure, mate?” Karl asked, but he was clearly distracted by the sleeping girl that he’d scooped up in his arms.

  “Yeah, yeah, I’ll see you tomorrow, alright?”

  But Claudia wasn’t about to let it go. She followed him to the apartment door with ideas buzzing around in her brain. Now that she could see how lonely Matt was, she wanted to help him. Seeing him so sad was killer, so why shouldn’t she help?

  “Matt,” she said gently. “Matt, are you okay?” She touched his arm, causing him to turn around and face her with a sad smile on his face.

  “You know me, I’m always okay,” he shrugged. “A good night’s sleep will sort me right out…”

  “I think it’s more than that,” she replied, a little more firmly. “I think Valentine’s Day has brought a lot of feelings to the surface. I think… I think you finally might be ready to settle down.”

  “Now, now,” he interrupted, returning to his jokey manner. “Do I look like I’m ready to settle down? Are you mad?” But the way his body reacted to those words, proved that she was far more right than he cared to admit.

  “I think you might be. I think that it might be time for you to find your real mate through the Alma Venus Mail-Order Bride Agency. I think it’s time to stop fooling around with bears, foxes, dragons, eagles, and other wolves. It’s time for a human.”

  The Alma Venus Mail-Order Bride Agency was where young women went if they wanted to become brides for shape-shifters, and it was also the place where Claudia grew up and studied before becoming Karl’s wife, ten years ago, back when it wasn’t an agency, but a spe
cial boarding school for girls. Knowing all this, Matt had to be careful about how he chose his next words. He knew he’d eventually have to meet a human female, because nature had decided female shifters could not bear children, but he didn’t like the idea of using an outside source to find a mate. He felt like he could do that all by himself.

  “It’s just… It isn’t my style,” he told her cautiously. “But, thanks. Like I said, I’ll be back to normal after a rest. I’m just working my ass off, that’s all. You know how it is.”

  Then Matt stalked off back to his own apartment, without looking back even once. An agency finding him a wife wasn’t what he wanted. He didn’t need help. He was doing fine.

  ***

  Matt let out a sigh of relief as he slammed the door behind him, finally getting the privacy he so desperately needed. This was what he should have done right away. He had made a mistake by going to see Claudia. She and all her “finding a wife” talk had really done his head in. Why did she have to start with all that stuff? Wanting someone to hang out with on Valentine’s Day was a little different than getting married.

  So, why couldn’t he stop thinking about it? His eyes kept drifting over to the computer, curiosity creeping through his veins. He hadn’t logged on to the Alma Venus website in his life, even when all the other wolves in his clan were doing it, so he had no idea what he would be delving into…

  No, this wasn’t him, he couldn’t do it. Matt shook his head and grabbed the carton of leftovers he had sitting in the fridge, just to have something to fill the hole that was opening in his chest, becoming bigger and bigger by the second. But it wasn’t enough. Claudia had his head all foggy, and it needed to be cleared, so as he scoffed the food down, he ran himself a shower.

  As the steaming hot water poured over his head, Matt allowed his eyes to close, as he rubbed them gently with the tips of his fingers. He just needed to clear his mind for a minute, to think more sensibly, or he would end up online finding himself a wife, an idea he would never have considered before tonight.

  Then again, would it be such a horrible thing to just look? Would he be admitting defeat if he just went onto the website? He had to admit to himself that he was intrigued by the idea of being with a human woman for real, not just for a one-night stand. He had dated a couple of humans, but when he had realized they were usually looking for serious, committed relationships, he had started to avoid them. Female shifters were more independent. The fact that they couldn’t have kids made them more open to flings, while human women were looking for love, marriage, children. Matt hadn’t been ready then, but what about now? Plus, Karl was happy. With his mate, his one true love, his Alpha was the happiest he’d ever been, which was where all of Matt’s dissatisfaction had stemmed from in the first place.

  Would it be so awful to just see if he could get some of that for himself?

  He stepped out of the water and wrapped a towel tightly around himself, heading back to his computer without even bothering to get dressed. As a wolf, his body temperature ran hot anyway, so the cold was never an issue for him. His heart raced in his chest as he waited for the computer to load, then he found himself trembling with an odd anxiety as the webpage burst to life in front of him.

  “Have I actually gone mad?” he muttered to himself, shaking his head as he typed in his details to create an account. He couldn’t believe he’d gotten in such a state that he was actually looking through a catalog of women. Sure, they had all volunteered to be mated with members of the five shifter species, and, yes, as far as he knew, it always worked out for the best, but it still felt a little weird.

  As soon as he signed up, the website truly came to life. He found himself searching through the Alma Venus houses, trying to make a decision about the sort of woman who would suit him best. If he was really going to look through this and examine it closely, then he would have to take it seriously. He needed to act like this was the woman he would be with for the rest of his life, and, luckily, Alma Venus had made that easier for him by organizing the girls into houses according to their personality types: House Lupi, House Ursi, House Dracones, House Vulpes, and House Aquilae. Now, Matt being a werewolf, it made sense to look at House Lupi first. The mail-order brides who had been sorted into this house by the many personality tests they took when joining the agency tended to be the best matches for wolf-shifters.

  “Sense of humor… yes, absolutely necessary,” he chuckled to himself, feeling a tad more relaxed. “Feminine, sweet… Oh God, this is mental!”

  But as he flipped through the catalog’s virtual pages, he felt excited. This might have been the craziest thing he’d ever done, at least in his mind, but he couldn’t deny that something about it felt oddly right, like this was exactly what he was supposed to be doing.

  Anna-May

  Sally

  Chloe

  It was like a store, and he started feeling like a child, with the pick of his choice in a candy shop. The experience was even better because human women varied more than any other species. Usually, it was obvious at one glance who belonged to which species. Dragon girls were tall, athletic, and blonde. Wolf girls were strong and muscular. Fox girls were usually catty and quirky. But human girls… Well, each one of them looked unique. They came in all shapes and sizes, and Matt loved that. Female shape-shifters tended to be tall and fit because they shifted a lot, liked to run and hunt in the woods, and, generally, did everything male shifters did. They were never soft and curvy, and Matt had always liked curvy.

  “Waaaait a second!” Matt’s eyes widened, and his whole body tensed.

  The picture he was staring at had literally made his heart skip a beat. This woman was an ethereal beauty. She was unlike anyone he’d ever seen before, and he couldn’t drag his eyes away from her pretty face no matter how hard he tried. He should have checked her entire profile, too, not only her photo, but he found his fingers lightly trailing down the computer screen, imagining what it would feel like to touch her small nose, rosy cheeks, and full lips.

  “Tessa,” he murmured, as his eyes kept taking in her features.

  She was absolutely gorgeous, causing him to gulp down the massive ball of emotion that had lodged itself firmly in his throat. Her blonde hair tumbled in waves just past her shoulders, her adorable heart-shaped face contained the palest blue eyes he’d ever seen, then there were her plump lips that he was sure could do the naughtiest things to him.

  His eyes ran down her body in the second picture, while he thought about getting his hands on those awesome curves, those huge, heaving breasts, the incredible butt that he could only dream of… She was unreal, amazing, and he couldn’t seem to stop himself from clicking on the option to send her a message. He was mesmerized by her, and that caused all the doubts to flow out of his mind. Who cared if this was mad? What did it matter that he had never thought he would do something like this? If he’d known he would be able to meet someone as incredible as Tessa, he might have done it a whole lot sooner.

  As he typed, he felt the weight lifting off his shoulders, and some of his usual self returning. The black cloud disintegrated above him, and his fingers hit the keyboard.

  “Hello Tessa,

  It’s nice to meet you. My name is Matt. I’m not entirely sure what to say because this is the first time I’m doing this…”

  “No, delete that,” he muttered to himself. It sounded too desperate, too needy. That wasn’t the impression he wanted give her. He imagined this girl probably received thousands of messages, and he wanted to stand out. The Agency’s website wasn’t exactly a dating website, but the mail-order brides surely had their inboxes full.

  Maybe he should just play it cool… It was more in his nature, anyway, and it was a good idea to act like himself as much as possible. If she ever read his message, he needed her to like him for who he was, not for some distorted image he might unintentionally project.

  “Hi,” Matt eventually sent, feeling like a coward. It didn’t matter, though. All he needed w
as to start a conversation. If he could just get a reply, if he could get some sort of communication going, then he could show her a bit more of who he was, which, obviously, she would fall in love with.

  But nothing happened for what felt like ages. Matt had no idea how this sort of thing normally worked, so he didn’t know how long he’d have to wait, but it was driving him insane. He almost stood up to shut down the computer, when he heard a ping ringing out, one that made his heart jump in a pleasant way.

  It was her. A message from Tessa.

  “Hi.”

  ***

  Tessa’s pulse kicked up about ten notches as she waited for her mystery message guy to send her a reply. She was sitting at her laptop, with nerves swimming around in her stomach. It was only by chance that she was still awake at this late hour. Usually, she would have been sleeping long ago, and now she was glad she’d been studying late.

  It was the first time a shifter picked her. Her profile and pictures had only been added to the Alma Venus website a short while ago, and she hadn’t expected for someone to find her that quickly. Of all the Houses, House Lupi was the most crowded one. She couldn’t even sit still in her seat while she waited for another message.

  Tessa had never thought this could be so exciting. She might have been a little older than most of the girls here, only choosing to join the agency in her early twenties, but she was over the moon that she had. It felt like the best decision she’d ever made. At first, she had been reluctant, of course, unsure of what the next couple of months would bring. However, if she did want to become a shifter-bride, she had to join a mail-order bride agency and spend at least three months studying the culture, traditions, and rules of the shifter faction she would hopefully marry into. She chose Alma Venus because it was the best agency in Europe.

  hot_freckled_dude: It’s nice to meet you. My name is Matt.