Page 6 of Denying Her Mate (The Wolves of Black Mountain #3)

Chapter 6

Roux

I cast a sidelong glance in Sawyer’s direction as he prepares the truck for our journey. He and Cade are arguing as they pile supplies into the trunk, the snow-covered ground crunching beneath their boots as they move. His older brother’s words are tight, and although I can hear everything being said, thanks to my wolf senses, I do my best not to listen.

This is family business, and I am not a part of their family, despite what Sawyer thinks.

While he’s preoccupied, I study him, taking the time to soak in his handsome face. Everything about him is perfect, from the strong line of his jaw to the dark stubble covering his chin. Dark brown hair, and his eyes, that Halle says were once filled with joy, now seem narrowed with anger and frustration. I hate that I have done this to him. Wanting me has changed who he is, and this is why I am cursed.

He will understand, in time, that I am not someone he wants to be involved with and that all I bring is pain and suffering.

I flick my hand, conjuring a flame on my palm, allowing some of my tension to seep out of my body and into my magic. He has made it clear he’s not leaving, so I should go and put distance between us, but where? There is nowhere safe out there for someone like me.

My shitty powers make me an easy target for the hunters, and I have no intention of being taken by the Order, like Halle’s mom and the other women.

“Are you going to help me load the truck or just bitch at me?” Sawyer growls at his brother, as he bends down to grab a holdall. His forearms flex, the muscles tightening under his skin as he grabs the handles. My pussy clenches deliciously, wetness slicking my folds, and I hope he can’t smell my arousal.

Everything about him appeals to me and my wolf. His broad shoulders, and the clear definition of his pectorals through his tight shirt, seems like it should be illegal. The jeans he’s wearing are loose but somehow seem to show off his ass perfectly. I can’t deny my attraction to him, and my wolf urges me to cement the mating bond in place.

No.

I try to clear my thoughts, pushing down any desire I have for this wolf. He is not mine, no matter what biology or magic dictates.

As if he knows he’s being watched, Sawyer’s gaze slides toward me, and I let him hold me in his sights for a moment before I tear my eyes away.

I feign boredom, but my mind is working overtime. I wonder what he sees when he looks at me. I am not pretty like Tessa or Halle. I don’t have Apryle’s fire or Hester’s strength. My dark hair is streaked with white, moon touched as they call it among our kind. I used to hate it and how it made me feel different, wrong . It is a fault of nature, a recessive gene that shows up in some wolves. Tessa has the same affliction, but she is the only other wolf I’ve seen with it.

She looks stunning with it though, unlike me.

Since Tessa and Halle joined us, I have felt increasingly inadequate. I hate myself for thinking this way. This isn’t me. Tessa is a friend, a good one, and to think about her like this is unkind. I don’t want to be that person, so when Sawyer looks at me like I am his world, the cold ice around my heart thaws a little.

I like how it makes me feel.

I have never been wanted, at least not until I came here, but now all those ugly, dark feelings I buried are rising to the surface.

Am I enough?

Will I hurt the people I care about?

Sawyer thinks I’m weak. He wants to take care of me because he doesn’t think I can do it myself.

If only he knew the things I have suffered to get here…

I raise my gaze to him again, watching him flex as he lifts more stuff into the back of the truck.

I don’t want to be seen as a damsel. I’m not. I know my witch side is unable to compete with the other women, but up until recently, I never felt like I was in competition. I don’t want it to become one either. I don’t like how it makes me feel.

“Would you stop for a minute,” Cade snaps at his brother.

“I’m not arguing this shit with you,” Sawyer says.

“I don’t want you to go.”

“Right,” he says in a level voice, “but this crazy mission was fine and fucking dandy when it was you going. How’s all that hypocrisy feeling?”

Cade pinches the bridge of his nose, as if he is asking the universe for patience.

“I don’t want you to get hurt.”

“I’m offended you think that’s even a possibility,” Sawyer scoffs the words. “Jerk.”

Grabbing his brother’s bicep, Cade gets into Sawyer’s face, his eyes dark and hard. “I’m the strongest of us and I still got shot. Halle isn’t going, and there’ll be no one there to heal you if something goes wrong.”

I swallow past the lump in my throat. This conversation might be annoying Sawyer, but the way his brother cares about him chokes me.

“Are you giving Wyatt this same talk?” Cade doesn’t answer, which tells me he’s not. Blowing out a breath, Sawyer pries his brother’s fingers off his arm. “I don’t give a shit about getting hurt as long as Roux is safe.”

My heart squeezes at his words. How can he still want to protect me when I have been so awful to him? I have, at every opportunity, pushed him away and said terrible things to make him hate me.

Guilt washes through me, and I wish I could take all my rotten words back, but doing that lets him in. It gives him hope, and there is nothing more dangerous than hope.

Sawyer’s eyes lift suddenly, and before I can avert my own, I’m pinned by him once more. This time, the look he gives me is so primal—so animalistic—my pulse flutters wildly in my throat, and my mouth is so dry I can hardly swallow. The area between my legs pulses with need, demanding to be filled by him.

I want to give in, to allow him to throw me down on the ground and rut me like the animals we are.

The half lift of his lips into a warm smile feels wrong. I don’t deserve it, so I turn away, giving him my back as I continue to make my flames. There is so much tension inside me that it hurts, but at least I can’t see his look of dejection and disappointment.

“I don’t trust Hester,” Cade snaps at his brother, and I feel the moment Sawyer’s gaze is no longer locked on me.

I have heard them both say this now. What is it about her they don’t trust? Maybe it is because I have been here since the early days of the Sanctuary, but I have never had a moment of doubt about Hester and her motives. She can be harsh, and even a little tenacious in her pursuit of other tau, but I understand it. When Apryle came here, Tessa too, I was scared that we might not save them in time. I can only imagine the fear Hester must have felt. She saw those women calling out in her mind, begging for help. Failing them was not an option, but from what she has told me, there’ve been others she wasn’t able to save. I can only imagine how that feels.

The back door opens and Hester steps out with Tessa and Abel.

I have never doubted our leader before, but in this moment, with both Cade’s and Sawyer’s mistrust fresh in my mind, I stare at her.

What are her motives for bringing us here and teaching us to use our magic?

To protect ourselves.

The thought skirts through me, but something niggles the back of my mind. We have always been able to protect ourselves. That is how the tau line continues, but Hester is making us focused and stronger.

Why?

Tessa spots me and comes directly to me, and again I feel bad for my jealousy before. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.”

“You know, you don’t have to prove anything to anyone.”

She thinks I’m coming to make a point, to show everyone I’m not weak. “I’m not trying to. I want to protect the tau wolf you saw.”

Okay, maybe there is a little element of needing to prove a point as well.

Her mouth tips down at the corners. “I had another vision. The hunters are close. I don’t know if we will make it in time.”

“Did you at least see where she is?”

“Close enough. I’m hoping once we get there, I’ll be able to mind-speak to her so she can tell me where she is.”

Tessa, as well as having visions, can also telepathically communicate with other tau. It’s a gift that has been useful lately.

“Let’s hope so.”

Her gaze goes past me to the vargr wolves. Cade and Sawyer have been joined by Wyatt, who has joined in the argument as well.

“Are they okay?”

“Cade’s pissed his invite was revoked,” I say.

“I can understand that. He wants to protect his pack mates. This whole situation has to be hard for him. He was an alpha before he came here.”

I never even considered that, but it makes sense that he would rail so hard against Hester. He’s used to being in command. Now she’s running the show, and he’s in the background, his wolves being used by her.

“They gave up a lot coming here,” I say.

“Yeah,” Tessa agrees, “they did, but Cade knows this place is where Halle needs to be.”

“Do you…” I want to ask her what she thinks about Hester, but there are too many ears around. “Where do you think your visions come from?” I change tack.

Tessa tilts her head to the side. “I don’t know. Where does any of our magic come from?”

“Revna gave us magic.” I spout the words by rote. I have heard them enough times over the years.

Revna was a witch at a time when ‘viking’ was a job. She infused wolf pelts with magic and gave them to her lover, Torsten, which enabled him to transform into an animal when he was wearing it.

The details get a bit muddy when it comes to understanding how Torsten went from using a magic pelt to shift, to shifting at will, but I don’t believe there is any truth in it. It’s just a story that wolves tell their young to explain the curse placed upon us, to be neither human nor wolf.

Tau are doubly cursed. They are neither shifter, human, nor witch, and our kind has always been hunted for being different.

The stories say Torsten and Revna mated, and that their child became the first tau, but like the magic pelt, I don’t put a lot of stock in the truth of it.

“But who gave her magic?” Tessa presses. I open my mouth and then close it again. I don’t have an answer. Revna lived more than two millennia ago. No one lives who knows what happened back then. “I don’t know where these visions come from, but they’ve never been wrong. A vision helped Hester find me when I was going to die at the hands of hunters. It helped me find Halle when she was being hunted too.” Tessa shifts her shoulders. “Does it matter where they come from?”

What would anyone have to benefit from by sending tau wolves here?

That is the million-dollar question, isn’t it?

I hate that Sawyer has put these doubts in my mind, but the more I think about it, the more questions I have. My eyes gravitate toward Hester, and for the first time since I came to the Sanctuary, since she saved me from hunters, I start to doubt her motives.

“Hey, are you okay?” Tessa’s question draws my attention back to her.

“Yeah, I’m fine.” Lie. I’m nowhere near fine.

“You want me to sit next to Sawyer?” she kindly offers. I appreciate the gesture, but she should not be separated from her mate because of my issues with mine.

“He can sit with his cousin,” I tell her.

Tessa’s expression becomes thoughtful as she stares at me. “I know we haven’t known each other very long, but I like to think we’re friends.”

“Of course we are,” I agree quickly. I don’t want her to think anything different.

“If you want to talk about why you won’t mate with Sawyer, my cabin door is always open to you.”

Damn. She got right to the problem and kicked me in the gut. “It’s complicated,” I admit.

“Is it? Or are you just making it complicated?”

The pain growing in my chest makes me rub at my sternum to ease it. “I’m cursed, Tessa. He doesn’t deserve a mate like me.”

She studies me and I wonder what she’s thinking. “Cursed how?”

Tell her.

“I had a chosen mate before I came here and…” I swallow hard, glancing around to make sure Sawyer is preoccupied and isn’t going to hear my words. “And I…”

Tessa takes my hands in hers, squeezing me tightly. The desperation to explain to someone why I am being such a bitch to Sawyer makes my stomach ache.

“And you what?”

“I…” I don’t want to say the words, but I need to tell someone else. I need to get this off my chest. I force steel into my spine and lick my suddenly dry lips. “I killed him.”