Page 7 of Denying Her Mate (The Wolves of Black Mountain #3)

Chapter 7

Sawyer

I stare at the back of Roux’s head as the truck rumbles along the highway. Cars and semis whizz past us, the landscape changing and becoming an urban sprawl as we move through small towns and cities.

Hester drives with a confidence that tells me she knows where we’re heading, despite the vague visions Tessa experienced. I want to ask her how she knows so much, but my attention is locked on my mate.

Roux hasn’t looked back at me. She’s been quiet, not speaking more than a few words since we started out. She has turned to speak to Tessa and Abel, who are sitting in the middle row of seats while Wyatt and I are squashed in the back.

This truck isn’t designed to have two hulking vargr sitting on these narrow benches, and my thigh is pressed tightly against my cousin’s, but I don’t care about my comfort. I care about protecting my mate, who seems too far from me right now. I need her by my side, where I can keep her safe.

My body feels twitchy as the vehicle rumbles along, jolting me against the side of the truck or into my cousin with every movement. Roux is only here because of the vile things I put in her head, and I’m pissed at myself for that. I don’t think she’s weak, not at all. Her wolf is strong, and I like that. I want a strong wolf for my mate.

“Pull off here,” Tessa suddenly breaks through the silence. Something from her visions must have triggered her.

Hester doesn’t question anything, flicking the blinkers and turning off the main road. I lean forward in my seat to get a better look of where we’re going, but there is nothing of note to see.

The town we drive into is podunk, nothing of note standing out. There’s a water tower in the distance, trees shielding the homes from the noise of the highway a ways behind us. I don’t see how a tau wolf could be hiding out somewhere like this, but I trust Tessa and her visions.

“Turn down here.” Leaning forward in her seat, Tessa points at the turn off ahead.

A feeling of unease skitters down my spine. The town isn’t remote, not entirely anyway. It seems built up, even though it is surrounded by mountains and highway only.

“You okay?” Wyatt’s voice is quiet, though I’m sure the others heard him speak. Every one of us in this vehicle has heightened senses.

“I don’t know.” My chest feels as if there are rubber bands around my ribs, tightening with every passing moment. My wolf has stopped pacing and is watching something, his eyes never moving. What has unsettled him? “My spidey-senses are tingling,” I admit.

Wyatt’s body goes ramrod straight at my words. He knows the kind of wolf I am, the kind of hunter I am too. My cousin has always been in mine and Cade’s life, so we have a deep bond, even outside of our pack links.

Tessa gives another direction and the truck stops outside a small motel.

There’s nothing about this place I like. It looks like something out of a horror movie. The paint on the doors lining the walkway is chipped and peeling in places, revealing a new color beneath it, the windows look old and dirty, the blinds behind the glass too. There are a few cars in the lot, most of which are old and not well maintained. I glance at Wyatt, opening the pack bond as I do.

Stay alert.

He nods a little, his gaze moving back to the front of the truck to watch as Hester pulls into a space. Once the engine is cut, she turns to Tessa. “The tau is here?”

“I don’t know... I think so.” She rubs at her temple and Abel’s hand latches around her nape, massaging her, as she tries to figure out what her vision could mean. “I’ve tried to reach out to her, but I’m hitting a block that I can’t get around. This is the last place I saw her though.”

Hester climbs out of the car and the rest of us follow. Wyatt and I have to wait for Tessa and Abel to get out before we can, and the entire time, my eyes remain locked on Roux. I don’t allow myself to breathe fully until she is within my reach.

The urge to grab her, to take her mouth with my own, is overwhelming, but I keep my fingers fisted at my sides. I don’t want to push her too hard, not when we’re already failing to make progress fast enough for my liking.

“Which room?” Hester asks.

Tessa walks toward the rooms, Abel ready to protect his mate if necessary. I keep close to mine too, even though Roux tries to avoid me. I don’t like how distant, how quiet, she seems.

What’s wrong with her?

I’m so focused on Roux, I don’t notice everyone has stopped. Wyatt steadies me as I run into him, his eyes questioning if I’m okay.

I’m acting like a young pup with no sense in my head. Cade would smack me if he saw me. I’m surprised Wyatt hasn’t. I need to focus on keeping Roux safe, but also the other women in our group. What we’re doing is dangerous. The Order could be waiting for the girls.

Tessa has stopped outside one of the doors. Her hand is pressed against the flaking, blue paintwork, her eyes closed as if she’s trying to read the scene behind the wood. There is the tang of metal in the air and something else, something kind of earthy.

Magic.

I stare at Tessa’s side profile, noting the woman is wearing a faded claiming mark.

I glance at Roux. She should be wearing my mark too. I want to sink my teeth into the delicate flesh of her throat and show everyone she belongs to me.

Mine.

My mate.

I’ve never felt possessive like this in my life. My body feels edgy with a need I can’t satiate. My cock aches, my thoughts are cloudy and dizzied. How is she managing to deny what we are and act as if she is unaffected?

I feel as if I am coming out of my skin.

“I can sense magic behind the door,” Tessa says, pulling her hand back as if the wood has burned her.

Abel leans in to breach the door with his bulk, but I grab his bicep. “Easy there, big guy. Before you break the thing down, maybe see if it’s already unlocked.”

A place like this, I doubt they care about security.

Staring at me for a moment as if I have lost my mind, Abel reaches for the handle and twists it.

The door swings open, but my triumph is short lived, as a stench hits my senses. I cover my nose, as do the others, peering through the open doorway. There is dark-brown blood sprayed up the walls, and two bodies that smell ripe enough to have been here for at least a few days.

“Oh!” Tessa gasps, her hands flying to cover her mouth.

Roux stumbles back and, instinctively, I reach out to steady her. As soon as my hand touches her arm, heat flares through me. The breath lodges beneath my teeth, but I force my wolf to be calm, as I peer at her. “Careful,” I say to her.

The color has drained from her face, making the smattering of freckles across her cheeks seem darker. Need pulses through me, and it’s getting harder to ignore the bond between us. In time, it will become impossible for her to deny the bond without causing us both intense agony. I don’t know what she hopes to achieve with this stubbornness.

I watch her tongue dart out and lick her lips. The movement mesmerizes me, at least until she pulls back from my grip. “I’m okay,” she says, purposefully stepping away from me.

Letting her go is hard, but I do it anyway, giving my attention back to the current situation. The room has been tossed; an altercation clearly having taken place here. I don’t follow Wyatt or Hester into the room. Roux is out here so that’s where I am too, but I do look at the bodies.

From where I’m standing, I can see both bodies are starting to decompose, but still look human shaped. The smell in the air makes it hard to tell if they are wolf or human. It makes it hard to scent anything other than the putrid stench of death.

Hester steps closer to the bodies, her head tilting as she studies them. “Can you sense anything, Tessa?”

She shakes her head, grimacing at the scene in front of us.

“Do you think she did this?” Roux asks, her voice thin and wobbly.

If the tau we’re looking for did this, then she must have some power.

“Maybe,” Tessa says. “I can’t say for sure.”

“How’s no one found them?” Wyatt steps back from the body nearest the door, his mouth turned down with disgust.

“I guess they don’t do a lot of housekeeping here,” I say.

How do two bodies stay undetected long enough to start smelling?

“Could one of them be our tau?” Roux speaks hesitantly. She’s still pale. I shift on my feet, wanting to close the space between us, but I don’t move.

“I don’t know.” Tessa swallows hard, as if she’s tasting bile in her mouth. “I’m not seeing anything or feeling anything.”

“I sense her magic,” Hester says, rising from her crouch in front of one of the bodies. “It’s faint, but she was here.”

“How are we going to find her now?” Roux’s question is a good one, and one I don’t know how to answer. Without any leads this tau is just… gone .

“We just will,” Hester responds, coming out of the room.

“We should get back to the truck,” Wyatt says, stepping out of the room, his eyes scanning the parking lot. There’s no one around, but that doesn’t mean we need to make ourselves suspects. “We don’t want the human cops thinking we did this.”

Hester closes the door behind her. “They won’t.” She places a hand on the door handle and mutters under her breath, as the air smells of the magic she’s performing.

“What did you do?” Tessa asks.

“Sealed the room. No one will see it or remember it exists.”

A shiver runs down my spine. “So the bodies just remain in there, rotting away?”

She snaps her eyes toward me. “Feel free to clean up if this idea is not palatable for you.”

“I’ll pass,” I say, my mouth tugging into a tight line. I dislike her more and more every time I deal with her. “If your wolf-witch hybrid killed those… whatever they are … then what makes you think she’s going to be receptive to us following her and trying to drag her back to join your little cult?”

Roux’s hand suddenly is in mine and all my aggression and anger flees. There is nothing in my awareness but her. I squeeze her, refusing to let go of her, while my body thrums.

She closes her eyes, as if she is taking in all the feelings between us. It has the desired effect though. I forget my shit with Hester. My focus is on my beautiful mate.

“We’re not a cult,” Hester snaps. “And she’ll come with us, just like all the others did.”

“I don’t want to disagree,” Abel says, walking back toward the truck, his arm wrapped around Tessa’s shoulders, “but she’s not going to trust us. If those bodies are hunters, she’s going to be scared of wolves.”

“So stay behind,” Hester says. “We can handle bringing in this woman without you.”

I bare my teeth. “Where Roux goes, I go.”

I expect my little mate to pull out of my grip, but she doesn’t. Instead, Roux tightens her hold on me. It’s a warning to stop being an asshole, but I don’t care about upsetting Hester. I care about Roux’s safety.

“Then stop—” Hester breaks off, turning to glance over her shoulder.

As she does, my senses prick. Unease ripples down my spine at the same time, as I scent the wolf stepping out from the behind the corner of the building. He’s in human form, but his smell is strong. Not an alpha, but a delta maybe—a foot soldier. He’s big, but nowhere close to me and Wyatt.

He’s flanked by two other wolves, also in their human form, and a woman I don’t recognize. Light-blue hair hangs limply around her face, and her glassy eyes don’t seem focused or even aware of where she is. I can imagine this girl wearing studded belts and Doc Martens, so the clinical white dress and sliders they have her in seems wrong. So does her lack of response to anything happening around her.

I keep my hand locked in Roux’s, tension rolling through me. I don’t pull her behind me, even though my wolf wants me to do that.

There is a moment of pause before the attack starts, a brief second where the oncoming storm seems to draw in a breath before preparing to release its wrath. My wolf whines, eager to join the fight.

I want that too, so, instinctively, I drop into a fighting stance and let my wolf take the reins. The shift takes place in an instant, moving from human to animal as I have done a hundred times before. The familiar awareness that shares my mind takes control, and I relinquish it to him, trusting him to protect our mate from danger. I’m man enough to know, in my human form, I am no match for the wolves coming at us.

I dig my fingers into the asphalt beneath my hands, as the shift ripples through my body, each cell and synapse reforming into my wolf. My primal need to hunt and destroy the threats to me and my mate makes a feral-sounding growl erupt from my wolf.

I try to keep Roux in my sights, as I attack the closest enemy. The wolf is half the size of me and Wyatt. He’s not even as big as Abel, who is large for a wolf without vargr DNA, but size isn’t everything in a fight. I know better than to assume this is an easy win.

So I keep my focus as we clash in a fierce battle of teeth and claws. Pain erupts through my jaw as his mouth locks around my muzzle. I shove him back, snapping my teeth at him. The coppery tang of blood fills my mouth, exploding over my tongue.

The fight is brutal, neither my wolf nor his willing to back down. He’s fighting for his survival. I’m fighting for us all. I won’t let these hunters take the women, not while I have breath in my body still. I attack over and over, using the strength of my body to overpower this smaller wolf. My fur is coated in blood, the scent of it infusing my nose to the point I can smell nothing else. It is only the faint link of the mating bond that keeps me from freaking out. Roux is still alive, even if I cannot scent her.

Aware of her comforting presence within my mind, no matter how tenuous, I push the wolf I’m fighting down onto his back. His claws lash out, trying to tear me with his sharp talons, but I don’t let him close. I can smell the kill and I’m ready to make it. Keeping him pinned to the ground, I attack. The high-pitched whines, as I sink my teeth into his exposed and fragile belly, make my wolf yip in excitement. Scoring along his gut, I tear open the tender flesh, ripping chunks of fur and muscle. Blood sprays as his guts spill out of him, coating my tongue and filling my mouth with the taste of it.

My wolf wants to watch the life drain from his eyes, but I urge him to go to Roux, to our mate. There will be time to celebrate our wins later, when she is safe.

Swinging my head around, relief floods me when I see she is unharmed. Roux and the other women have the blue-haired tau on her knees, her head bowed. Their hands are clasped together as they surround her in a circle, a sign of their unity as a coven.

Like my brother, Cade, I’m not sure how much trust I have in Hester and whatever the hell army she’s building using the girls, but I’m not naive either. Without her, they would be taken and used by those fucks.

The pack survives. Always. Lone wolves do not. There is strength in numbers, and they are safer together.

So, while I may not like or trust Hester, I also understand she serves a purpose. Her agenda matters less to me than the fact she is teaching Roux to use her magic, and that she and the others become stronger working together.

As if she senses me looking at her, my mate raises her gaze toward me. My pulse flutters wildly in my throat, my wolf urging me to go to her and put our claiming mark on her.

Soon, I promise.

The time is not right, not now, though I am breaking down her walls, one brick at a time. It is only a matter of time before the whole structure comes crashing down. I don’t know why she is so insistent on pushing me away, but I intend to find out.