Page 22 of Denying Her Mate (The Wolves of Black Mountain #3)

Chapter 22

Sawyer

S eeing blood dripping from Roux’s nose makes my chest so tight I can hardly breathe. The pain I felt through our bond still thrums inside me, desperate for release. When I’d asked her to keep Dove out of the way so we could talk to Jackson, this wasn’t what I meant. I don’t know what the girls did to her, but the image of her white eyes creeps me out.

“It was nothing,” Halle says in response to Cade’s question.

I don’t believe that for a second, and neither does my brother. Cade makes a scoffing sound in the back of his throat. Jackson didn’t want to talk to us. He wanted to go to Dove. We should have let him.

“What happened is, your little mate thought she knew better.” Hester’s words are clipped and sharp as she steps toward Halle. The tension in her body puts me on edge. “She acted against what I advised and now Dove is…” Her head shakes as if in disbelief. I pull Roux against me, refusing to release her, as Cade positions himself in front of his mate.

“Back off,” he snarls, and I ready myself for whatever fight might take place. I’d love nothing more than to put that bitch on the ground, my teeth snapping at her neck.

Hester doesn’t back down, moving so her face is inches from Cade’s, her furious eyes scanning his. “I’ve taken about as much as I’m willing to from you and your little pack. If you want to fight, then we’ll fight, Cade. I’m tired of you looking at me like I’m the enemy.”

Cade doesn’t back down, his body tense as Halle tries to get between them to pull them apart. “Are you the enemy?”

It’s a question we all have, but it’s the first time anyone has asked it outright. We all have suspicions, of course we do, but there’s never been any proof of Hester’s intentions to harm the girls. If there had been, she wouldn’t be standing there breathing.

I’d kill her myself.

“All I have ever tried to do is save them,” she hisses, but I notice she doesn’t deny it. “Your suspicion, your anger, would be better directed at the people trying to take your mate.”

The wolf flashes in my brother’s eyes, his normal irises replaced with red pools. My wolf growls in response, his back legs stiff as he snarls in Hester’s direction. He’s as ready as I am to defend my brother—our alpha.

“Oh, believe me, I have plenty of anger for them too.”

Apryle has drifted forward, and I snap my jaws in her direction—a warning. She lifts her hand, giving me the middle finger, but she doesn’t move closer.

“Guys, come on,” Halle tries to soothe, tugging at Cade’s arm, but he’s an unmovable mountain. “I shouldn’t have done what I did, but I was trying to help her.”

“By shredding through her mind?”

Halle’s expression drops, sadness bleeding through her features. “No, Hester. I wanted to give her back her life. I know how it feels to be a stranger in your own thoughts.”

“No. You thought you knew better. You have ruined that girl’s chance at ever getting better.” Hester finally steps back, and my wolf calms a little. “You are powerful, all of you, but that power has to be harnessed carefully. Each of you is arrogant beyond measure. You all believe you don’t need to train, to learn. And that is why you will never be more than you are.”

“We just want to help,” Tessa says quietly.

“None of you know enough to help!” Hester snaps. “You are untrained, untried children!”

“We’ve done okay so far.” Roux’s words surprise me, but I feel a swell of pride that she’s standing up for herself, for her coven.

“Yes, lucky for you all, you have stumbled your way through things so far and managed to stay breathing. I have taken it easy on you all. It’s my fault you are all so undisciplined. We’re fucked.”

“I can fix Dove,” Halle says. “I can—”

“You’ve done enough.”

My lip curls into a snarl. “These women aren’t your puppets, Hester. They’re not your army or whatever the fuck you’re building here. They don’t have to answer to you.”

I brace as Hester snaps her heated gaze toward me. “Then leave.”

“Hester…” Tessa says her name softly, trying to calm the situation, but it’s too late. Tempers are high.

“You know, I’ve thought about this long and hard, but I just can’t work out what your fucking agenda is,” I snarl in Hester’s face. “What are you getting out of keeping everyone here and training them to become your own personal army?”

I can tell I hit a nerve when her eyes flash with fury. “You ungrateful brats. I have sacrificed everything for you all. I’ve given up—” She cuts herself off, her nose scrunching up as she tries to reclaim her control.

“What have you given up?” I press. This is the most this woman has ever opened up.

She glares at me, and I can scent the magic swirling around her. “No one is forcing you to remain here, Sawyer. You and your pack brothers are free to leave at any time.”

But the women are not.

I hear the unspoken threat and it has the hackles raising on my neck. My wolf snarls and I instinctively want to reach for Roux. I don’t move, instead keeping my focus on the hybrid wolf in front of me.

“You try to keep my mate from me and see what happens,” I warn.

“Same,” Cade snaps.

“Calm down, all of you.”

Roux’s voice behind me is all that keeps me from unleashing my temper fully. Does Hester truly believe any one of us would leave without our mates?

“I’m calm, sweetheart,” I say to Roux. I don’t take my eyes off Hester as I step back, and when I speak again it’s to her. “You’ve just shown me exactly who you are, and I won’t forget it.”

I take Roux’s hand in mine and guide her out of the room. I don’t breathe fully until we are on the porch, the cold air seizing my lungs as I try to draw in oxygen.

I don’t know where we’re going, but the Sanctuary feels like a prison and the walls are closing in. I don’t want to stay here and risk the safety of my mate, but where the fuck are we supposed to go? The Order is out there, hunting us, and while I will do anything to protect Roux, I’m aware of my limits. If we all leave… maybe then we’ll be able to protect ourselves—

“Sawyer, stop!” Roux stumbles and I twist around to steady her.

“Fuck,” I mutter. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. I know you’re upset and you’re trying to protect me, but I’m not scared of Hester. She can’t hold us here, not if we don’t want to stay.”

“But you do? Want to stay, I mean.”

Roux’s gaze shifts around the landscape, taking in the cabins and the lake. “Better the devil you know, right?”

Fuck. No .

“She’s using you guys.”

“Yeah,” Roux agrees, “but we’re using her too. It’s not safe out there and I don’t want to become… Dove .” She grabs my face in her warm hands, and my eyes lock to hers as if they are magnets. The intense feelings that wash through me are almost too much to handle and the urge to capture her mouth nearly has me dipping my head. “Hester has an agenda, Sawyer. We all know it, but she’s also protecting us.”

The soothing vibes she sends through our mating bond leaches the anger out of me. I want to wipe the blood from under her nose, so I guide her in the direction of our cabin. “What happened?”

“Halle… All of us really… we tried to break through the block in her mind. I don’t know what we did, but…” She breathes out a shuddering breath. “You saw her eyes, right?”

It’s me who shudders this time. Creepy shit. “I did.”

“Jackson’s never going to let us near her again. Did you find anything out?”

I shake my head as we reach the cabin. “He says he feels like he knows her, but he doesn’t know how. It’s possible he met her before he came to us, but if he did, he has no recollection. It’s weird, right?”

“We need to fix what we did to Dove.”

“Do you know how to do that?”

She opens then closes her mouth. “With Halle’s mind block she just… broke through it and was fine. I figured that would be the same with Dove, but it wasn’t. Why?”

I have no answer and I don’t want to give her false platitudes. “I don’t know, baby.”

I kiss her forehead, pulling her against my chest and crushing her to me. Fuck, having her in my arms alleviates some of the feelings of terror and dread swirling in my gut.

“Sawyer,” Cade says.

I twist, keeping hold of Roux, as my brother and his mate come toward us. Halle looks pale and she’s swallowing as if she’s trying to keep from puking.

“You okay, Hals?” It’s a redundant question. Clearly she’s not okay.

“I should have listened to Hester. I thought… I thought I could help her.”

Roux pulls free of my grasp. I don’t want to let her go, but I relent. She takes Halle’s hands in hers. “We all pushed the magic through to her,” Roux says. “It wasn’t just you, Halle. I did it too.”

“There was… there was something.”

I glance at Cade, who shifts his shoulders. “Something?”

Halle looks at me, her brows coming together. “We were getting through. I could see the light behind the wall in her mind. And then… I don’t know. That force that hit us… I don’t think that was the binding.”

A chill goes through me at that statement. It’s intensified as Roux nods. “I don’t either.”

“It seemed like it came from Dove herself. As if she was the one pushing us out of her mind.”

“Why?” Cade asks the question that sits on the tip of my tongue.

Halle and Roux exchange glances and I don’t know what passes between them, but I feel the unease through the mating bond.

“I don’t know,” Halle says, “but she didn’t want us in there, poking around. You need to get Jackson away from her.”

“Easier said than done, Hals,” I mutter. “The asshole is obsessed with her.”

We all look in the direction of their cabin.

“What if she doesn’t come back?” The crack in Halle’s voice makes Cade pull her against him.

“Hey, we’ll fix it. I promise.”

I don’t know how he can give that assurance. What the hell does Cade know about magic and how it works? I understand why he would say it though. Halle is hurting; he wants to stop that. I would feel the same way.

Movement from the side of us catches my senses at the same time as Cade’s. I smell the blood before I see it matted in the fur of Wyatt’s wolf.

He limps a few steps before his back legs give out and he goes down into the snow heavily. Cade moves first, and I’m right behind him. I note the tracks in the snow that lead toward the trees behind the cabins. Red stains the white blanket, the scent of it thick as we drop onto our knees in front of our cousin.

The fur on his left flank is matted with blood, but I don’t see any other injuries. “I’ll grab some towels,” Roux says before rushing up the steps of our cabin.

“Shift,” Cade orders him as Halle drops to her knees on the other side of Wyatt’s wolf.

The wolf whimpers, pawing at the ground as if tormented. What happened to him?

Cade had talked to him about hunting out there alone, but our cousin has become increasingly morose and isolated since we came to the Sanctuary. We should have done more. We should have been there for him. He should never have been out there without someone to watch his ass.

I press my hands against the wound on his side, cringing at the way warm blood bubbles against my palm and pumps from beneath my hand.

“Wyatt, you have to shift back!” I snap the words, needing him to hear how serious I am. Halle closes her eyes and holds a hand over his neck. “What are you doing?” It comes out terser than I intend, but fear clutches me. I fucked up. Wyatt is family and I was so wrapped up in everything else, I let him slip away.

“Forcing a shift,” she murmurs as the smell of magic swirls through the air.

The shift doesn’t happen quickly, not like it would if Wyatt was controlling it, but it rolls through him until the fur is smooth skin and his body is human.

His side is covered in blood, and his teeth chatter together as he tries to focus on something, anything. The movement of his mouth catches my attention. It is as if he is mouthing words, but I can’t hear what he’s saying.

“What are you trying to tell us?” I demand, leaning closer to hear.

Wyatt grabs my jacket with a strength I didn’t think he was capable of in this moment. I let him drag me closer, my face inches from his as his glassy eyes scan my face.

“You need to run.”

“Why?”

“They’re… they’re coming.”