Galen's Lovely Mate (Saber Chronicles Book Four) by R.E. Butler Page A

council and exile us
all. Your sister is marrying him in two weeks to protect us.
    When Serena had dozed off, she’d dreamed
about her sister being hurt by the redheaded fairy, Cenrik. She had
no reason to believe the guy was particularly evil, but she figured
that any guy who would marry a girl who didn’t want to marry him
wasn’t a good guy in general.
    Not that there was anything she could do
about the situation. If she returned to the commune, she’d be
jailed. Exiled meant to stay the hell away from their land forever.
She had penned a note back to her mom saying she wished she could
help and missed them all terribly, and the mouse had scurried off
as soon as she’d tucked the note behind the string around its
neck.
    After showering, and still feeling unsettled,
she decided to go for a flight and try to clear her head. She liked
to fly for days sometimes, finding places to sleep in the canopy of
trees or in caves tucked into mountains.
    She dressed in a pair of jeans and a
specially designed top that would allow her wings to slip through
the material so she could have her wings out without being topless.
She packed a small messenger bag that she secured tightly to her
body, unfurled her pink and gold translucent wings, and headed out
of her room.
    She had a suite on the twelfth floor. Among
the other tenants she shared the floor with were a sweet she-wolf
named Gretchen and a warlock, a heavily tattooed mountain of a male
named Dredge. She knew Gretchen, the assistant of the hotel’s
manager – a human named Aubrey – fairly well because they both
worked in the lobby.
    Still unsettled from her dream, she strode
down the hallway to the elevator, pressed the button, and began to
pace. When the door opened, she came face-to-face with
Gretchen.
    “Hi, Serena, are you okay?” Gretchen asked as
she stepped from the elevator.
    “Yes. No.” Serena shook her head. “I fell
asleep watching TV and had a bad dream.”
    “Oh, I’m sorry. Do you want to talk?”
    “No, I need to fly and sort out my thoughts.
Master Caleb asked me to stop flying off my balcony because it
freaks out the humans when they think someone is falling from the
twelfth floor.”
    “Humans are so silly,” Gretchen said. “You
can knock on my door if you want to talk after your flight.”
    “Thanks,” Serena said, smiling. “You’re a
sweetheart.”
    After taking the elevator down to the lobby,
she waved at the concierge and headed outside. The hotel was in
downtown Belle Terra on the Belle River, which her room overlooked.
On nights when she didn’t feel the urge to fly, she enjoyed sitting
out on the balcony and looking at the stars, but tonight she needed
to spread her wings.
    Striding to the back of the hotel, she moved
her wings and lifted from the ground. Flying over the river, she
moved high into the sky and left Belle Terra behind. Her assistant
could handle the flower shop for a few days while Serena mulled
over her sister’s problem. She wished she could help, or that her
dad would stand up for Alanah and not let her be forced into a
mating just because he liked being on the council and living in the
commune. Unfortunately for Alanah, Serena could do a lot of things
with her power over plant life, but she couldn’t change the future
that lay ahead for her only sister.
     

 
    Chapter 2
     
    “Damn pink and gold,” Galen groused as he
rolled to his stomach and buried his face in the pillow. It had
been a week since he’d begun dreaming about his truemate. As a
saber-tooth tiger shifter, he was the recipient of mating dreams,
meant to lead him to his truemate, the one woman on earth who was
meant for him. The dreams, however, weren’t a map to lead him to
her. They would strengthen the closer he drew to her, but because
they were so fuzzy, he was certain that he wasn’t anywhere near
her. His mate, whoever she was, didn’t live in Belle Terra.
    He was the last single saber. His family –
consisting of his brothers, Alaric