Page 1 of Denying Her Mate (The Wolves of Black Mountain #3)

Chapter 1

Sawyer

T he Sanctuary seems like an apt name for the place Halle’s tau friends have brought us to—at least on the surface. There’s something about it that puts me on edge.

The main house is down a long track surrounded by trees, and behind it are rows of cabins, each clad in wood with little porches on the front. Some of the cabins have flowers in front of the decked areas, some are bare, seemingly standing empty.

Each one looks homely against the backdrop of the mountains and trees.

There is space to run and hunt in our wolf forms without risk of being seen by humans, and the lake behind the two rows of cabins looks clear and inviting, at least when it is not so cold.

It’s perfect, a little too perfect, and that makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up. It feels like an illusion, a front for something more sinister, but I don’t know what. Hester and the other women haven’t shown any threat to us. They’ve tried to help us, even after Cade was injured, but something is… weird .

Stay on your toes, my brother’s voice sounds in my head.

Clearly, Cade is feeling the same unease I am. Halle trusts these women, but I’m not sure I do. They may have saved our asses from the Order of the Crescent Moon back in Spencer, but we don’t know anything about them. Tessa, the moon-touched wolf, dropped into Halle’s mind as if she picked up the phone and dialed her. That makes my hackles rise. How did she know how to find her like that? How did she get into her head?

The fact we know so little, while these women seem to hold all the cards, is making me nervous.

Now we’re back in their little commune, and I’m beginning to wonder if Halle’s right to trust these tau wolves.

What the hell is this place?

It looks like a summer camp, but everything around me screams cult. I wouldn’t be surprised if we’re here to be sacrificed.

It’s shut off from the nearest town and in the ass-end of nowhere, which I’m sure isn’t a coincidence. Easier to hide when there is no one to see you. My gaze roams around the cabins, which are spread out along the grass that spans between the main house and the lake.

As we pass the first two rows of cabins, a sharp pain lances through my chest. It comes out of nowhere, taking me by surprise and catching the breath in my throat. I rub at the ache, trying to dispel the growing throb.

What is that?

Cade and the others don’t notice my faltering steps, but every movement of my body is wrong. The air feels thin, and my head is fuzzy as I trail after my brother, his mate, Hester—the head of this weird little cult—and our two pack brothers.

Am I having a heart attack?

Maybe a stroke?

I blink as I stumble over my feet; I’m unsteady, despite the path being level. Every synapse in my body is electrified as my wolf’s head raises, his gaze narrowing as he lifts his muzzle to sniff the air. I have no clue what’s caught his attention. I don’t care. I’m focused on trying to breathe.

Are you listening? Cade’s impatient voice snaps in my head.

I slide my gaze in the direction of my cousin, Wyatt, and the other member of our pack, Jackson. Both wolves are vargr, like me and Cade. Neither of them seem to be having any issues though. Their gazes are roaming around, taking everything in, their stances protective, but calm.

You want me to club them over the head so we can run?

It’s a joke, or an attempt at one. But I’m pretty sure that witch cursed me. I glare at Hester’s back as my thoughts swirl around this idea. Maybe poison. My chest feels tight, and my throat constricts more with every step I take.

Despite my discomfort, it feels as if there is an invisible string between me and the path ahead. Something is tickling my mind, telling me we need to head in that direction. There is also a ringing in my ears. I shake my head, trying to clear it. I can’t focus on what is being said between Hester and the others because the noise is getting too loud.

What is that?

My wolf is restless, pacing inside my mind, wanting me to let him free, but I’m not sure what is going on, so I keep control of my human side. He isn’t as calm as I need to be in this situation.

Something tingles my nose, a scent maybe, something familiar, something I want to explore. I sniff the air, trying to work out what the hell it is and my wolf paws at the ground, baying and whining at me.

What is wrong with him?

I try to soothe him, but I feel wrong, like I’m coming out of my skin. My legs wobble and I stumble a little.

A hand drops onto my arm and I jolt. Halle’s worried, green eyes are staring up at me. “What’s wrong?”

The ripple of unease that goes through me is indescribable. “I don’t know.” It takes a lot for me to admit that, but I don’t know what else to say to her. “I feel kind of weird. My skin is prickling, and my legs feel weak as fuck.” I glance around, ignoring her gaze boring into mine. I don’t know what I’m feeling or why, but I want it to stop, and at the same time, I want to find out more.

Cade’s attention comes to us, and he drops back, placing a hand on my shoulder.

“Hey, focus on me.”

It works for a moment. I snap my gaze to his, but then my attention wants to go elsewhere.

My skin feels too hot. I want to peel my clothes off to cool myself, but there are goose bumps on my arms, and cold washes over me.

Am I dying?

Is this a hex?

Witches hate our kind and, while Hester might be half-wolf too, I’m not sure how much I trust her.

A shiver races over my body, and I tremble like I’ve been dunked in ice.

“Chills. I feel like I’m coming out of my skin.”

Pain ripples through me. My body twists to the side. What the hell?

I gasp as I realize what is happening. My wolf is trying to break free. He’s trying to force a shift. I haven’t had this happen since my first moon ceremony, when alpha magic is used to draw our animals out of our bodies.

My back snaps and I cry out as agony ripples through me. Vargr are known for being bigger, more violent and aggressive than other shifters, but I have never had an issue controlling my wolf until this moment. I am no longer in command. He is pulling all the strings, and I am helpless to do anything.

A torturous wave of agony rolls through me as my bones snap and shift. My legs like Jell-O, I drop to my hands and knees, sucking in a breath that doesn’t seem to move past the lump in my throat. I’m aware of the gravel beneath me cutting and digging into my palms as I scrape my fingers through it, trying to ground myself as more pain throbs through me.

Halle is at my side, her fingers digging into my arm, but I can’t focus on her. My body twitches and my bones contract, just like they do before a shift. I fight against the convulsions, the tremors and trembles, but this speeding train has left the station; there’s no catching it now.

“What’s happening?” The words are raspy, wrong, and I don’t know who I’m talking to. It doesn’t matter. No one answers anyway.

A hand on my shoulder makes me flinch. My skin burns like fire and my blood feels like it is boiling inside my veins.

“Shit,” Hester says.

“What?” Halle demands an answer, but before Hester responds, my back bows, arching so much I feel like my spine is going to tear in half.

Fuck.

Agonizing pain tears through my body, a scream lodging in my throat before I can release it. I’ve shifted thousands of times, but I’ve never felt anything like this. This is a new level of hell. Whatever is happening to me is worse than anything I’ve ever been through. Even my first moon ceremony was not this torturous.

I tear at my shirt, needing to cool my skin. I’m burning from the inside out. It’s not possible to get any hotter and survive.

I drag it over my head as I suck air through my nose.

Then I smell it.

That scent…

What is it?

It’s swimming around my senses, making me want to crawl on my hands and knees toward it, but my bones are snapping, breaking and reforming as the shift goes through me at an agonizingly slow pace.

I don’t want to change. I don’t know why, but I fight my wolf, even though I know I can’t stop this. My head is pounding as I rock back and forth on all fours, trying not to shriek.

“No.” I force the word out between my tight lips.

I want to tell Cade to get Halle away from me in case I hurt her. I want them all to run and leave me here, but the only word that slips out of my mouth is another desperate, “No…”

“Sawyer!” I hear Halle’s voice, but it sounds distant, as if it’s coming to me from underwater. My ears are thick, blocked as if there is cotton wool stuffed inside them.

I know I’m lost when the ripple of magic that accompanies every shift goes through the air. Becoming my wolf normally doesn’t hurt, but I am in agony as the change moves through me.

Ruthlessly, my awareness is shoved into a box in the back of the wolf’s mind as he takes over our consciousness, and I become more animal than human.

The pain, which had consumed me mere moments ago, disappears as the shift ends and my human form is lost in a mass of fur and teeth. I am my wolf now, and he is in command.

I can do nothing as his eyes roam around, taking everything in. He’s unsettled, irritated at me for fighting the shift. I want to soothe him, but he’s too wired.

Dropping into a low bow, my wolf stretches the knots out of his limbs, like fixing a sweater that has been put on awkwardly.

“Sawyer?”

Cade.

The hesitancy in his voice tells me what happened was just as weird for him as it was for me, but I twist my head and my wolf snaps its teeth at my brother, as if he is the enemy.

Play nice, I warn. He’s pack.

I don’t expect him to listen, but he does back off, surprisingly.

Cade is staring at me, his brows drawn together. They are all looking at me as if I am a threat, and maybe I am. I don’t miss the fact my brother has positioned himself in front of Halle, his stance protective. I hate that he thinks I would hurt her, but he’s right to be cautious. I don’t know what my wolf is doing.

Maybe I have moon sickness, but that only happens during the full moon, and causes a rage that overwhelms the sufferer. I don’t feel angry. I feel… determined.

The sound of a door opening draws my attention. A scent fills my awareness, stronger and more potent than anything I have ever smelled. My chest tightens and my heart flutters wildly beneath my fur.

My wolf swings his head toward the scent as a woman with black hair streaked with white, just like Tessa, steps out of the cabin to the left of us.

She’s tall, with full lips, and a soft dusting of freckles across her pale cheeks. The sweater she’s wearing is loose, hiding her curves, and I want desperately to turn back to my human form so I can explore her body, but my wolf is not ready to relinquish control, no matter how much I fight him. I can’t take my eyes off her. I don’t want to either. I drink in every inch of her body, like I’m parched and she’s water.

As I take her in, something ripples through the air between us.

Magic.

It surrounds us, crackling through the air, so potent it chokes the back of my throat. I’ve never been so aware of the magic my wolf possesses until this moment. I can feel it in every cell in my body, thrumming and beating in time to my racing pulse.

Mine.

The word drifts through my mind, and as soon as it does, I feel something slam into my chest like a wrecking ball. It nearly winds me, and it takes all my strength to drag a lung full of air in.

She is mine, and the desire to claim her overwhelms me.

Our mate.

My wolf whines, pawing at the ground to get her attention. It works, but it’s not acceptance I see in her eyes. It’s fear.

Is she scared of me?

The woman stumbles back, her spine hitting the wall of the cabin, her hand going to her heart, as she shakes her head.

“No… No … This isn’t happening.”

I watch in horror as she drops to her knees, her legs seemingly giving out. I pad toward her, but then her body jolts and jerks, and I realize what is happening. She’s shifting too. Her wolf is coming to meet mine, meaning she is my mate. We’re recognizing each other as equals.

“What’s happening?” Halle’s shrill, scared voice doesn’t penetrate through the fog of need filling my head. I should want to reassure the woman I’ve come to think of as my sister, but I don’t.

I keep my gaze locked on the moon-touched wolf in the throes of her shift. Her wolf fights to the surface, her clothes tearing off her body as she changes. Skin becomes fur, her face elongates, and she becomes the animal that beats inside all of us.

Her wolf is smaller than mine, sable colored, with dark eyes. My wolf likes what he sees, and when she raises her head to look at me, contentedness washes through me.

Mine. My mate.

I’m drawn to her scent, a moth to the flame. My wolf climbs the steps to the porch, his movements sure.

Without waiting for an invitation, he goes to her side and snuffles her neck. She smells divine, a mix of scents coating my senses. I don’t miss that my wolf is making all the moves. She doesn’t reciprocate, or even acknowledge, my greeting as her mate.

Unease swells through me as she tears away from my touch.

What the hell?

Does she not recognize me as her mate?

The woman starts to change back, as if she can’t hold the shift for long. I want to return to my human form so we can talk, but my wolf wants to claim her.

We need to be with her.

I can feel the bond between us, faint, as if it is dying before it has even taken more than a breath. The mating link should be throbbing to life, but it is a weak thrum inside me. I have heard of mates denying each other, and of the dangers that poses to both wolves, but knowing about it and feeling it are completely different.

I can’t ignore the sharp ache in my gut as I urge my wolf to let me change back. The moon-touched woman is curled in a ball, her back to me, the curve of her spine enticing, but her body language guts me. She is hiding away, trying to protect herself from me.

I can’t reach her in wolf form.

Change back, I order.

My wolf doesn’t want to. He fights me, trying to urge our mate to respond to the bond. She doesn’t. She won’t even look at me.

We have to talk to her—make her understand she’s ours . It is that realization that finally makes him relinquish his hold on me.

The shift starts slowly, but unlike the forced change that took place moments ago, there is no pain and no anguish. I feel the magic roll through me until I’m on the porch naked, crouched low on my haunches.

My mate is within touching distance of me, and it is torture to not be able to reach out and feel her against me.

I don’t dare to push her though. She is taking shallow breaths, and although I can’t see her face, I can hear the repeated, “This isn’t happening,” that she’s mumbling under her breath.

I don’t understand.

We are mates.

Fated mates.

Does she not understand how lucky we are to have found each other? Most mates never cross paths. We have done the improbable, and my heart is racing so fast I feel light-headed.

I unfurl from my crouch and, sensing my movement, she comes to her feet too, turning to face me. I see the sheer panic in her eyes as I approach, so I step back. Usually, I’d make a joke to lighten the situation, but all my humor has fled. I am driven by primal need.

My mate’s eyes dart around, as if looking for an escape, but I don’t give her one, as I back her up against the wall of the cabin. Her breath hitches as I place a hand over her head, boxing her in.

“Stop,” she gasps the word, terror lining her face.

Claim her.

I seize her wrists in one hand, pinning them above her head, as my nose fills with her delicious scent.

It makes me dizzy.

How can she smell so divine? I have been around wolves my entire life, but her scent is unlike anything I have ever come across. It is heady in a way I can’t explain. It makes my stomach flip and my pulse flutter frantically in my throat.

I let my gaze roam over her face, taking in those full, kissable lips. It would be so easy to dip my head and claim them. It would be even easier to sink my teeth into her neck, giving her the mark that tells others she is mine.

I took over from my wolf to talk to her, to keep her safe, but I am less in control than he was. I’m fueled by a desire that is so strong I can’t restrain it.

“Mine.” I growl the word, liking how it flows over my tongue.

That elation is short-lived when she shakes her head.

“No, I can’t do this.”

A tremble works through her, and I don’t understand her words. Fated mates don’t reject each other. I mean… it happens, but not to us. I don’t know how she is denying the thrum of need between us.

I grab her chin, forcing her to look at me. Frightened eyes lift to meet mine and it’s like an axe to the chest. I don’t want her scared of me. My job as her mate is to protect her, to love her, and to give her security. Yet she’s looking at me as if I am a monster, sent to take her against her will.

Maybe she doesn’t understand what she’s feeling and what is happening. It is not every day a wolf meets their mate, and so few wolves have come across their true mates. I didn’t know at first what was happening, even though my body did. Maybe that is the case for my mate too.

“Mine,” I repeat, hoping it will register with her and that she will understand what I mean by that.

Her jaw tightens, and I see the flash of anger in her eyes before her hand plants on my chest. Her shove isn’t hard, but it takes me by surprise. I go back on a foot, confused and alarmed.

Why isn’t she accepting me?

“This is impossible.” Her eyes slide to Hester, panic mixing with the terror. “You told me this couldn’t happen.”

What the fuck does that mean?

Why can’t this happen?

I don’t like the witch, even if she has wolf DNA, but my focus is not on her, but on my mate.

I try to reclaim the space she has created between us, but the ripple of fear that crosses her face stops me from getting too close. Ice fills my gut and panic starts to flow through me as I realize she isn’t accepting the mating bond.

“You can fight this all you want,” I say in a low, deep voice, “but we both know what we’re feeling. You’re mine, and I’m yours.”

My mate glances at the others, and then back to me, her tongue darting out to wet her lips. Does she think we’re going to hurt her? I will tear out the heart of anyone who tries to touch her. This thought makes my mouth curl into a snarl that she misreads as anger at her.

“I will never take a mate,” she says on a breath, “and certainly not you.”

I see double for a moment before I’m able to blink and clear my vision. The rejection of our mating bond isn’t just words spoken in the heat of the moment, it’s a physical thing too. The pain working through my body is indescribable. My legs want to fold beneath my suddenly-too-heavy weight, but I lock them in place as she darts into the cabin, locking the door behind her. It isn’t enough to keep me out. I could break the wood easily, but I don’t move. She will be mine as nature intends, I just have to give her time to accept the fact.

It doesn’t stop the dark, ugly feeling slithering through me though. What if she never accepts our bond? What if we both fade away, lost because we refused to accept the pull of our mating?

I sag against the door, my fist resting against the wood, as my wolf urges me to force entry and take our mate any way we can. I won’t become an animal to sate our need.

I don’t want her like that. I want her because she wants me too.

Why doesn’t she want me?

What was she talking about when she asked Hester how this happened?

What the fuck did that tau bitch do to her?

Anger blazes through me. I turn from the door, my gaze locking on Hester. The look she directs at me confirms what I suspect. This woman has done something to my mate, something that was designed to keep her from me. I don’t focus on the fact it clearly didn’t work. All I can think about is that I could have lost her. I could have never known the love and joy that is surging through me, despite the rejection from my mate.

I come down the steps of the porch, ready to wrap my hands around Hester’s neck, but I’m blocked by Cade’s big body, and it’s my throat in a vise-like grip, not hers.

“Calm down.”

Cade is bigger than me, stronger too. I could fight him, but he isn’t the reason for my anger, and I’m not going to hurt my brother to get to the source of my rage.

My eyes shift to Hester.

“What did she mean you told her this would never happen?” I pull my mouth into a snarl. The thought she could have used her magic on my mate has me seeing red. I’ve seen, firsthand, the damage caused by interfering with nature and biology. Halle was bound, her magic snuffed out to hide her witch side. Is that what Hester did to my mate? I don’t understand how any of this magic stuff works, but there is no mistaking what my mate said. “What did you do to her?”

Hester meets my anger without flinching. She glares at me, as if daring me to challenge her. My brother tightens his hold on me, as if sensing I am hanging by a thread.

“I did what she asked me to do,” Hester says, her tone lofty and irritating.

“Which is what?”

We should never have trusted this woman. My brother is right to have been wary of her.

“That’s her business; if you want to know, you’ll have to ask her.”

“You bitch,” I snarl the words, unable to stop them from spilling out. This is not me. I am not this ball of anger, but right now, I want to tear her apart to get answers.

“Sawyer!” Halle gasps, shocked.

I ignore my brother’s mate. Focusing still on the witch-wolf hybrid in front of me, I say to the others, “She’s done something to her, something to keep her from me.”

Hester sighs. “I think it’s quite clear whatever I did didn’t work. She recognized you as her mate. If you want my thoughts, I suggest you give her time and space to come to terms with stumbling over her fated mate like this.”

“There is nothing to come to terms with,” I growl. “She’s mine. Don’t get in the way of that.”

Hester turns her head to the side, as if I am a young pup with no sense. “You don’t even know her name.”

I don’t, but it doesn’t matter. My wolf and I know she is ours.

“I don’t need her name. I know her and what she is to me.” I snap my gaze toward the cabin. Her scent is not as strong through the walls, but it’s still enough to make me feel crazed. I need to clear my head, to figure out my next move. I turn to my brother. “I’m going for a run.”

I don’t give him the opportunity to argue with me before I drop to all fours and shift into my wolf. This turn is easier, less painful, as it should be. My wolf wants us to go back and take her, but I force him to race away.

I can sense Wyatt and Jackson following me, but I push on, running faster. I don’t want company. My mate is here, in front of me, and she doesn’t want anything to do with me.

That doesn’t hurt—it destroys me. That bitch, Hester, did something to her and I’m going to find out what the hell it is.