Page 9 of Denying Her Mate (The Wolves of Black Mountain #3)

Chapter 9

Sawyer

M y mouth feels slack and dry as I study her. I’m aware the others are behind us, waiting in the truck or at the side of the road. I’m sure they must have heard what she said, but I don’t care about them. I am only focused on Roux.

I had no idea she had a chosen mate in the past. That knowledge is like a chainsaw across my gut. I feel as if my insides are spilling out. She committed to another male.

Is that the main reason she doesn’t want to be mine? Is she still in love with this other mate?

It’s wrong to think it, but I’m glad he’s dead. I don’t think that I could handle knowing another man had her heart and was still alive.

I hate that thought, but my wolf’s hackles are up, and his mouth is pulled into a snarl. He hates this as much as I do.

It takes all my strength not to question Roux about this former mate when I open my mouth. I know this issue is mine, but the possessiveness I feel to claim her now before someone else does is overwhelming.

“What happened?” I ask, my voice calmer than I feel.

I watch as Roux tears her fingers through her hair, pacing the side of the road. I want to touch her, show her things will be okay, but I don’t dare move. She’s on the edge of a cliff right now, staring down at the rocks beneath. I don’t want to push her over it.

“It doesn’t matter.” Her words are terse, but also a little breathless.

My body throbs, needing to offer her comfort. “It matters.”

The pacing stops. Is she calming? Her head raises and her eyes lock onto mine. “I’m sorry you got stuck with someone like me.”

Shit.

I shake my head, risking a step toward her. The snow crunches beneath my boots as I move, but she doesn’t back away. Her eyes are wild though, darting around as if she’s one step from bolting. There’s real fear in them, as if she regrets blurting out her truth.

“I’m not,” I say. “No matter what has happened to you in your past, you’re still mine.”

This time it’s her head shaking back and forth. “You don’t understand, Sawyer.”

“I don’t,” I agree, “but I want to. You had a mate before me?”

The screwing up of her face as I say this tells me this is not an easy topic to talk about. It probably won’t be easy for me to hear either, but I have to.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t know I’d find you.” The soft whisper of her words makes my pulse quicken. There’s no admonishment there, no disdain. She seems genuinely upset. “I shouldn’t have taken a chosen mate.”

“It’s okay,” I assure her. “I didn’t expect my mate to wait and hope. We might never have found each other.”

It’s true. The process of mating in our world is one built on cruelty. There are fated mates that never find one another. Wolves are too scattered around the world and there are so few of us that it is possible to go an entire lifetime without finding that pure bond fated mates have.

It’s why we started taking chosen mates. These relationships mimic fated bonds, though in the beginning they are not as strong. I have no idea how the magic that creates those ties works, but I’ve only ever seen alphas do it.

Alpha magic is strong and is the only power that can create those bonds. Knowing Roux stood before an alpha and took a mate scrambles my insides. I don’t blame her for taking a chosen mate; she had no idea she would ever stumble across me, but knowing we might never have been together is a weird feeling.

“His name was Edward. He was in my pack, a friend I grew up with. A good wolf and a good mate.” She smiles, but there is no joy in it. “I didn’t mean to hurt him.”

I calm my thoughts. Edward isn’t a threat to what Roux and I have. He’s gone, and it feels wrong to be jealous of a dead wolf, but it still stabs at me.

“I know you didn’t,” I assure her. “You don’t have it in you to hurt someone.”

I step closer. It’s a risk, but for the first time since I realized she was my mate I feel the walls around her starting to come down.

“But I did. I told you; I killed him.”

The remorse in her eyes, the guilt and the pain, feels like a thousand knives slashing over my skin. When she sobs, I don’t hesitate. I pull her against me, crushing her to my chest. My hand holds the back of her head, keeping her in place.

She doesn’t fight me, which tells me everything I need to know about this situation.

She needs this.

She needs me.

That feels good after so much fighting back and forth. Clutching my shirt, Roux holds onto me like I’m lifesaving driftwood in a turbulent ocean. I place my chin on her head and suck in a nose full of her scent. It’s heaven and my wolf bays in triumph. I want to sink my teeth into her neck and give her the claiming mark. I want to lay her in the snow and slam my cock into her tight channel. I want to put my pups in her belly, even though that is not possible until her first heat.

“I don’t want to hurt you too,” she says between her soft sobs.

“You won’t.”

“You don’t know that, Sawyer. I didn’t want to hurt him either, but it happened. I can’t control my magic, and this…” She pulls back from me, and I let her. “This just proves it. I put that tau wolf in chains and I don’t even know how I did it. There was no thought, no magic trick. It just… happened. I’m dangerous. I could harm you. I could end your life.”

I let her get her tirade out, watching as she unravels in front of me. I hate it. I want her to come back into my arms and I want to soothe her.

“What happened with your mate isn’t going to happen to us,” I say.

It’s the wrong thing to say. Irritation bleeds into her features. “You don’t know that.”

“I don’t,” I agree, “but we’re true mates, Roux. Not chosen, not forced using pack or alpha magic. We were fated before we were born. I don’t think you’d ever hurt me, because I know I would never hurt you.”

“I can’t make my magic do what I want it to.”

“No, but you’re learning,” I say. “With time you’ll become controlled. Look at Halle. She was a loose cannon when we first got to her. Her powers took over and she did things that were dangerous, but Cade never considered not standing by her side.”

“Halle still is dangerous,” she says quietly.

“Yeah,” I agree, “but she’s family and I wouldn’t turn my back on her for something she can’t control. I won’t turn my back on you either.”

“I’m scared, Sawyer.”

“I know, but you don’t need to be.”

I glance over my shoulder to see Tessa and Abel have moved a short distance away to give us some illusion of privacy. Wyatt is standing on the opposite side of the car, on the side of traffic, in case our little captive makes a dash for it. Hester is sitting in the front seat, watching through the windshield. The look she’s giving us makes my skin prickle. There’s no emotion, no feeling, just emptiness. I turn back to my mate, ignoring the itch between my shoulder blades from the knife I can imagine the little witch putting in my back.

“She means well,” Roux says, her arms wrapping around her middle as if she’s trying to hold herself together.

I don’t want to argue about Hester and her motives, not when my mate and I are making a breakthrough here. “Don’t push me away because you think history is going to repeat itself. It won’t.”

Roux blows out a breath. “We need to get back in the truck. The Order could be following us.”

I hate the change in direction, but she’s not wrong either. The hunters we killed back at the motel could have been part of a larger task force. The Order are well resourced, we learned that after they attacked the Sanctuary. Better resourced than we thought.

My need to protect her rears its head and I gesture for her to come back toward me. Her steps aren’t as certain as they were, but she does close the space between us. I shouldn’t, but I can’t resist scraping my fingertips over her back as she passes me.

The electric current that buzzes through me is indescribable.

Claim her.

I push the voice inside me down. I want that too, but patience is going to get us where we want to be, not force.

As we approach the truck, Wyatt glances at me over the top of the roof, his eyes questioning. I can’t give him the words, but I incline my head slightly, telling him that I’m good.

I wait for Roux to get back into the truck, then Wyatt and I climb in. Tessa and Abel flank either side of our captive, who doesn’t speak a word or raise her head.

Sitting behind her, I notice what looks like a mark on the back of her neck, just below her nape and between the chain. It takes me a moment to realize it’s a number.

9.

“What’s with the number on your neck?”

I don’t expect her to respond. She’s seemed pretty out of it since we caught her, but she twists her head a little to look at me. There’s nothing in her eyes other than pure coldness.

A shiver races up my spine as I meet her gaze, unwilling to back down. “It’s the number of wolves like you that I’ve killed.”

“Well,” I say, “aren’t you the cheery little psychopath.”

She bares her teeth at me, and past her, I see Roux twisting in the passenger seat to look at me. Through the mating bond I feel her concern for me, and I have to admit, I like it. Roux cares about me, even if she’s too scared to admit it. I just have to make her see that I’m not going anywhere and that I’m not afraid of her magic.