Page 8 of Denying Her Mate (The Wolves of Black Mountain #3)

Chapter 8

Roux

I can feel him watching me, his eyes locked on my back. My wolf is soothed by our mate being close, even if I try to ignore his presence.

He’s not ours.

My wolf doesn’t agree. The mating bond is there, pulsing away, pushing me to claim him as much as he wants to claim me. Sawyer is meant to be ours, at our side, in the same way Abel is at Tessa’s and Cade is at Halle’s. I wish I could just get past my doubts and unease and embrace my fate, but every time I think about letting him claim me, the fear swirls within me.

Sawyer doesn’t deserve my poison. I will destroy him in the same way I killed the wolf I thought I was going to spend my life with.

I didn’t plan on taking a chosen mate—that was never part of the plan. But I was young, and I thought he was the one for me. So we stood before our pack and declared ourselves chosen mates . I felt the magic weave through us as our chosen bond was created. It was the same magic I felt during my first moon ceremony when my wolf was brought out of me by my alpha.

It was not the same magic I felt the night I killed him.

I shove those thoughts ruthlessly out of my head. The urge to conjure something, anything to keep my hands busy, has my fingers twitching, but I keep them crossed behind my back, focusing instead on my coven and the wolves with us.

The blue-haired tau we captured is powerful, but she is no match for our combined strength. Both Hester and Tessa are strong witches.

After what happened, I wasn’t sure I would ever use magic again. How could I? Hester taught me to embrace what I am, to control it too. Like Halle, I had been dangerous. I had no idea I was a witch until the moment I killed my former mate.

I won’t do that to Sawyer.

I won’t kill my fated mate.

My thoughts scatter as Sawyer’s wolf moves closer to my side. His presence is both torturous and comforting. His red eyes stare at me, his tongue lolling out the side of his mouth. The blood coating and matting into his white fur is thick, wet, and shiny.

Is any of that his?

He presses against my side, and this time I don’t push him away. The sense of comfort I get from him being close is strange, but not unwelcome sadly.

After a moment, he pads away, and I feel the surge of magic before he shifts back into his human form. The other males do the same, leaving their animals behind.

“She’s not the tau I saw in my vision,” Tessa says, peering down at the blue-haired woman we haveon her knees still. “She was blonde.”

“Who is she then?” I demand, ignoring the tremble in my voice that has nothing to do with the fight we just had. How many tau are out there, alone, their magic uncontrolled and capable of harming those they love?

I try not to think of that as I focus on the woman. She’s young, maybe in her early twenties, and there is dirt on her face. It’s a layer of grime that I don’t think she got during the fight with us.

It is her eyes that scare me though. There is a glassy, dead look in them, as if she’s not really here, but acting like a marionette, controlled by a master puppeteer.

“She’s been with the Order. This is what they do to our kind,” Hester says as she grabs the woman’s biceps and carefully pulls her to her feet. She comes up without a fight, as if she is a living doll, boneless. “They control us, steal our minds and our will to fight, until there’s nothing left but a shell of the person we were.”

My heart squeezes, wondering what this woman went through before she was brought to heel like a dog. It makes me want to free every single woman taken by these scumbags.

“We need to get out of here.” Sawyer’s voice draws my attention, but it’s his hands sliding over my hips as he passes me that makes my heart stutter. It’s just a simple touch, yet it ignites my body like a flaming torch. Heat spreads through every nerve ending, making me burn from the inside out. I’m hyper aware of his nakedness, something I’ve never noticed before when other males shift around me.

Then again, I’ve never wanted to feel another male press against me. I want Sawyer’s mouth. I want him to place his lips against my neck and sink his teeth into the soft flesh there. I want his mark on me.

I can feel myself weakening, my resolve fading. Without meaning to, I lean into his touch, taking comfort in him. My heart flutters wildly in my chest as his fingers tighten on my hips, a reassuring gesture that soothes my wolf.

Me too, if I’m being honest.

His gaze meets mine, his hand cupping my face, and it feels as if I’m looking into his soul and he mine. I want to stay lost in the deep abyss, even though I fear it.

“I need to get dressed,” he says, finally, breaking through the moment.

I nod my agreement as Sawyer ushers me in the direction of the truck, the others following. He doesn’t release his hold on me until I’m safely inside, then he and the other males go to the trunk and pull out fresh clothes.

The tau female is seated between Abel and Tessa. I glance over my shoulder at her, wondering what her story is.

What did the Order do to her?

“Is she… um… safe?” Wyatt asks when he climbs into the back of the car, his expression dubious as he peers back at her.

I glance away as Sawyer gets in behind him, trying to calm the frantic beating of my heart as I stare through the windshield. There are no people out here—not one—but the longer we’re here the more we risk getting caught at the bloody scene we’ve left behind us.

“She’s bound,” Hester says from the driver’s seat. “It should last long enough to get her back to the Sanctuary.”

“What about the woman in my vision?” Tessa demands. “We have to find her still.”

“Do you see anything else?” Hester’s voice is hopeful as she turns in her seat to ask the question.

The way Tessa scrunches her eyes closed would tell me how much power she’s exerting, even if the swelling of magic around her didn’t.

But visions can’t be forced, and Tessa knows this. None of us really understand how it works, and as I glance over my shoulder in the direction of Sawyer, I realize it’s not a good thing we’re clueless.

“There’s… nothing.” Frustration laces Tessa’s words and Abel makes a sound low in his throat, as if trying to offer comfort.

“So what do we do?” Wyatt asks.

Hester doesn’t say anything for a long moment. “We go home.” She starts the engine up and Tessa’s protests are lost under the rumble of it.

“We can’t!” she says. “I saw. She was in danger.”

Considering the amount of blood we just left in the motel room, I don’t think she’s the one in danger. This tau is clearly capable of taking care of herself.

“What else can we do? Unless you have a vision, we have no idea who this woman is.”

There are no more objections as Hester pulls the truck out of the parking lot and onto the road. The dead wolves we left behind will be assumed to be wild animals that came too far from their own habitats and fought each other.

No one speaks on the drive back to the Sanctuary, all lost in our own thoughts. I can feel the bind still surrounding the tau woman, and I can faintly sense Sawyer through the mating bond.

The comfort I get from feeling both is indescribable, and I itch with the need to wrap myself in Sawyer’s arms. My wolf’s patience is starting to wear thin. How can I still push him away when it is so clear he is ours?

It’s a question I’m not sure how to answer anymore.

The reason for avoiding him, for refusing to let him claim me, seems more and more irrelevant as time passes. I don’t know how I’m able to keep denying this thing between us, and I don’t know how much longer I’ll be able to do it for.

“You okay?”

Abel’s voice breaks me from my thoughts. Twisting in my seat, I turn toward the back of the truck. Tessa’s eyes are squeezed shut as if she is in pain.

“What’s wrong?” I ask.

“I don’t know. I feel… weird.”

“Weird how?” Hester speaks before I can.

“Like my skin… is on fire. My insides are melting. I’m so hot.” She opens the window, the cold air blasting us. There’s no snow on the ground here, but the air is glacial.

What is happening?

I shift my eyes toward Hester, wondering if she knows what’s happening.

The captive tau laughs. It’s such a cold sound it takes me a moment to register it came from her. Her head is lowered, her lank hair curtaining her face, but I don’t need to see her expression to know that she’s smirking.

“She’s awake!” It’s not fear that clutches me as I spout these words. I don’t even have a chance to feel it before something slams into my mind.

The pain is blinding. Spots spill across my vision and darkness crowds in from the edges. My body folds in half while my hands fist over my temples.

Wave after wave of agony pulses through me. It’s like a hundred thousand knives are stabbing my brain. I can’t focus on anything but the pain.

“Put her out again!” Someone yells these words, but I don’t know who. Everything sounds distorted as the intrusion through my mind continues. It feels violating to have a stranger sifting through my thoughts like this, but I am helpless to stop it. I can’t seem to draw on my magic. It’s like it’s there but just out of reach.

I start to feel light-headed, like I’m floating.

Am I going to pass out?

Without warning, the presence in my mind vanishes, pulling out so fast it’s jarring.

The gasp of air that I try to drag into my lungs is loud in the quiet of the truck.

The door is torn open, and hands grab for me. I try to scream. I might be doing it, but my ears are clogged, blocking out all sound. I smack and hit whatever I can, trying to keep myself free.

“Roux! It’s me!” His face is watery as it appears in front of me before it comes into focus.

Sawyer.

His eyes are heavy with fear, his brows drawn together, as he holds my face tight between his hands as if he doesn’t want to let go. “Talk to me,” he urges, the desperation in his tone bleeding through the muted sounds reaching my ears.

“What…?” I breathe the word out, unable to find my voice.

“Keep looking at me,” he orders.

His grip on me is soothing, allowing my body to calm. After a moment my vision clears completely and my hearing returns. I keep staring into his eyes and I feel something move between the bond between us.

Energy.

He’s giving me his strength.

I soak it up like a sponge, taking everything he’s offering, until I feel strong again. He never takes his hands off my face, even after I feel the energy between us fade back into the quiet thrumming of the bond.

“Are you okay?” he asks.

I nod slowly. “I think… I think so. You gave me your essence.” That isn’t the right word, but I don’t know how else to describe what just happened between us.

The bond feels… more intense. I can sense him more clearly and I wonder if it is the same for him.

Let him claim us.

The insistence of my wolf almost causes me to surrender to the bond, but I shake it off and again deprive myself of what I need. Pulling gently from Sawyer’s touch, I turn to look around.

We’ve stopped at the side of the road, the engine idling. Hester has blood under her nose that she must have swiped at because it’s smeared over her skin. I twist behind me to see Abel and Tessa.

She’s out of the truck, wrapped in Abel’s arms, blood also dripping from her nose. Wyatt is sitting next to the blue-haired woman. Her head is still ducked, but there are chains around her neck and wrist now. I don’t know where they came from, but I can sense the magic around them.

I can just barely see her mouth and the snarl it is pulled into. She seems more beast than woman, and I wonder what she’s thinking.

“She did this?” I ask as Sawyer brings my attention back to him with just one touch on my arm.

“She broke through the binding,” Hester admits, sounding irritated.

I glance at her, wondering how this little tau woman could do that. Hester is the strongest of us—or she’s meant to be.

Halle is stronger.

The thought floats unbidden through my mind and as soon as it does, I know I’m right. Halle is more powerful than all of us. This woman too. She walked through my mind like she was taking a stroll through the park. Hester’s bleeding. Tessa looks ravaged by whatever she did.

This girl took on three of us without breaking a sweat and she’s still grinning about it.

“Where did the chains come from?” Hester’s gaze shifts to Sawyer and the look that passes between them makes my stomach fill with icy shards. “What?”

“You conjured them,” Hester admits.

What the hell?

I conjured them? My power enabled me to create something from nothing? If it was me, I don’t recall it happening.

Cold slithers through me. Once again, I have used my magic without intending to.

I close my eyes, screwing them tightly shut, as I try to calm my hammering pulse. This is how things go wrong. My magic works on its own and I become a servant to it, rather than its master. I peer down at my hands, which look normal. I’m not sure what I expect to see, but at least some kind of sign that I did something I shouldn’t have.

“Roux?” Sawyer says my name and it’s enough. I push him away, shoving him back with my hand.

This is how it starts.

My magic controls me, not the other way around, and people get hurt. Edward got hurt.

I can’t do this to Sawyer.

I’m broken and weak. My magic will always have a mind of its own.

“Leave me alone,” I force the words out, hating how harsh they sound.

I can feel his pain through the mating bond and I hate it. “I’m not leaving you alone!”

“This is exactly what I’m trying to avoid,” I snap. “This mess!”

I shove past him as I slide out of the passenger seat and onto the asphalt. There are a few vehicles moving up the highway, but the road weaves through the countryside, meaning it’s not as busy as it could be.

As I start to walk away from the car, I hear him behind me, scuffing up the snow that has drifted at the side of the road. “Where are you going?” he demands.

I ignore him until his hands wrap around my bicep, forcing me to look at him. “I’m tired of fucking chasing you,” he hisses. “What the hell did I do now?”

His anger isn’t unsurprising. I don’t blame him for it, but I don’t know how to handle it either.

What do I say to that?

I can’t tell him the truth, no matter how much it sits on the tip of my tongue— I’m a murderer.

“You didn’t do anything.”

This makes his ire grow more. “Then what the hell is going on, Roux?”

“I…” The word cracks, becoming nothing more than a sound. I can see Edward’s face in my mind, recall the shock as my magic unleashed on him and ended his life.

“I’m tired of playing these games.” He crowds me and the air feels suddenly thin. I try to step back from Sawyer, but he grips my bicep harder. “We’re talking about this now. Why are you so scared of mating with me?”

I swallow the bile working up my throat and shake my head. “Let go of me.”

Abel and Wyatt move closer, but they don’t approach us. I’m not going to find help from them, and even if I could, I wouldn’t want Sawyer to be hurt.

“Not until you tell me why.” The anger blazing in his eyes doesn’t scare me, but the demand does. I close mine, trying to hide from his gaze, but he shakes me like I’m rag doll. “Talk to me!”

He roars the words and I flinch.

“Because I don’t want to kill you!” I scream the words back and watch his expression morph into one of confusion.

“Kill me?”

I shove him back and feel pain the moment he disconnects from me. My heart is still hammering and the back of my neck feels clammy.

How did he draw that secret out of me?

I’ve kept that hidden for so long that sometimes I can’t even believe it happened.

“I don’t want to kill you,” I repeat, my lips wobbling and my tears threatening to flow. “What I just did, conjuring those chains, happened without me realizing, Sawyer! Don’t you see how dangerous I am?”

“Babe, you’re not dangerous. You just need lessons to control—”

“I killed my chosen mate.” I blurt out the words and wait for the inevitable fall out.