Page 36 of The Wolf and the Chimera (The Witch and the Cowboy #3)

Elle

Early the next morning, dawn bathed Circe’s library in shades of gold through the tall windows.

In the corner of the library, in the comfort of a plush leather chair, I studied the textbook I had been assigned yesterday with far more success.

Though my chimera still loathed to be away from Ryder, now that we were one, I could actually focus.

Footsteps pattered across the hardwood floors, and amid the musty scent of books and ink, notes of cinnamon and clove emerged. Wearing a cream-colored tunic and with her pink hair in a messy ponytail, Melanie approached.

She yawned. “What are you doing up so early?”

“Mel,” I said. After hours of reading alone, my voice cracked from disuse. I cleared my throat. “You won’t believe what’s in this book.”

“What I can’t believe,” she countered, “is how loudly Bo snores. I’m considering asking Circe for noise-canceling headphones.”

I rolled my eyes. “Did you know chimeras carry the memories of their ancestors and can access them if they know where to look?”

“Nifty,” Melanie said but frowned. “I wonder why werewolves can’t.”

“I don’t know,” I replied. “Maybe I’ll find out if I keep reading.”

Melanie grunted. I returned my attention to the book, but the she-wolf continued studying me. When I looked up, she averted her gaze quickly, but not before I caught her staring at my neck.

“What?” I asked. I softened my tone. “Did you come here to tell me something? Sorry if I brushed you off.”

“No, no,” she promised. Her expression turned sheepish. “It’s not that.”

She turned to leave, but I called after her.

“Melanie,” I said, “what is it? You can tell me.”

She faced me. “It’s really not my business. I was just sure that after you settled things with your chimera…look, it doesn’t matter.”

“I’ve never seen you fail to cross a boundary,” I said drily, “whatever it is, just say it.”

She cursed under her breath. “Why haven’t you guys done the claiming?”

I balked, and Melanie misunderstood my silence.

“I know it’s not my business,” she said again, “but given everything, I just don’t know why you two haven’t done it.”

She came closer and clutched my hands in hers. I had never seen her so serious.

“If it’s because Ryder’s going to be Sovereign, and you’re a chimera,” she whispered, “that wouldn’t matter to me or Kieran or Bo. As soon as everyone gets a chance to know you, it won’t matter to anyone.”

I hadn’t even considered what the long-term repercussions were for what I was and who Ryder was, but gazing into Mel’s blue eyes, I swallowed the lump in my throat. The longer her words settled in, however, the more confused I became.

“Why would I have a ceremony in the middle of the night?” I asked.

Melanie laughed.

“Elle, plenty of mated couples don’t wait for the ceremony. Lots of them don’t even last ten minutes.” She sobered. “But if you want one, we can throw one for you here! ”

When I didn’t match her enthusiasm, Melanie’s cheer fizzled out. My face heated, but I forced the words out.

“There,” I said, “there’s more to it than the ceremony?”

A mortifying realization struck me. “Are you talking about sex?”

Her jaw unhinged, but she snapped it shut. “That bastard.”

I pulled my hands from hers and covered my face with them.

“ That’s what Circe has been pushing us to do?” I whined.

I better understood now why Mel didn’t get why I hadn’t…seen things through with Ryder. The gods knew I was attracted to him.

“No, Elle,” Melanie said gently. “There’s more to it than that, but I really don’t think I should be the one explaining this to you—”

“If you don’t,” I interrupted, “who will?”

Certainly not my mate.

As Melanie told me exactly how wolves bound their souls to each other, I cursed Ryder for forcing me to have this conversation with her.

Though I was grateful to my friend, I didn’t understand how he had never told me this, not when things had stopped being for show a while ago, and not when I had conveyed every dark, ugly truth about myself.

When tears pricked my eyes, I ducked my head in shame.

“Elle,” Melanie whispered, “he probably didn’t tell you because he doesn’t want to pressure you.”

Or he doesn’t want you.

I couldn’t silence the insidious thought. Even my chimera couldn’t make sense of Ryder’s actions.

Why wouldn’t he tell me?

Part of me wanted to curl into a ball and cry, but that wouldn’t get me the answers I needed. There was only one person who had those, and he was the last person I wanted to face.

“Thank you,” I told Melanie, “for explaining. ”

I snapped the book in my lap shut and stood.

“Where are you going?” she asked.

If Ryder thought I was too fragile to learn why he didn’t want to claim me, I would prove to him I wasn’t. I was strong enough to face any truth, no matter how ugly it might be.

No matter if it breaks my heart.

“To find my mate,” I answered.

???

Pulse drumming in my ears, I pounded on Ryder's and my bedroom door.

When he opened it, I stormed inside without hesitation.

Steam poured from the bathroom, but I walked through it, and the words I had barely held at bay on my walk here clogged in my throat.

Like a madwoman, I paced the length of our bedroom.

“Elle?” Ryder called.

Something squeaked, and the water quieted. He fumbled for something, and I sensed him appear in the doorway behind me. His bergamot and pine scent coiled in the air. Facing away from him, toward the crackling hearth, I paused.

“Ellie?” he asked softly.

Like always, he spoke to me with such care.

It only made me angrier. The dam on my lips cracked.

“I know,” I said. My voice was lower and weaker than I wanted it to be. I swallowed. “I know what a claiming is.”

The moment stretched.

“I-I wanted to tell you,” Ryder said in a rush. “I was going to tell you, but you were so tired last night, then you were up so early—”

I scoffed. “You’ve had weeks .”

He sighed, but I wasn’t done.

“Just tell me,” I said, “did you keep it from me because you think I was too delicate to handle the truth, or do you just not want to bite me? ”

Silence stretched between us. I scoffed and faced him, and my thoughts were utterly derailed.

In front of the open bathroom door, he stood with nothing more than a white towel slung around his hips.

Water dripped from his long hair, onto his muscular body.

I tracked the droplets’ trek from the wide planes of his chest, down the hollows of his abs, until they disappeared into the V of his hips.

When I forced my gaze to meet his, his eyes glowed with the presence of his wolf. Heat coiled in the pit of my stomach, and I took a step toward him, as if pulled closer by the magnetism of his gaze alone.

My chimera hesitated, and I remembered that we deserved answers.

“Which is it?” I demanded, though my breathy voice betrayed me.

“Neither,” Ryder answered in a low, gravelly tone. “You know it’s neither.”

“No, I don’t.” I crossed my arms and refused to let my eyes drift from the smooth planes of his face.

Gods, did he have to be so handsome?

“All I know,” I continued, “is that you didn’t tell me we aren’t even official by shifters’ definitions.”

Ryder snarled and drew closer to me. “You’re mine—that’s as official as it gets.”

His possessiveness should’ve grated my nerves. It should’ve riled me, but all it did was stroke that intoxicating heat.

“It’s not,” I replied. “You haven’t claimed me. You never gave me the chance to claim you.”

He growled, and his eyes glowed impossibly brighter. He drew closer and closer, but I didn’t back down. I didn’t move an inch. He towered over me, until our chests brushed. I held his burning, amber gaze.

“Just the mention of it,” he whispered, “makes me want to sink my teeth into you. Makes me want to roar to anyone and everyone that you’re mine. ”

I shivered.

With gentleness he reserved for me, he cradled my face with his callused hand. Unable to resist, I leaned into his touch.

“At first,” he continued, “I didn’t tell you because I was worried I would do anything to brand you with my mark. I didn’t want my control to snap.” His voice grew even softer. “I didn’t want to hurt you.”

I took a shuddering breath. “And then? When you realized you could never hurt me, what held you back from telling me?”

My fearsome wolf—the great and powerful future Leader of all wolves—sank to his knees and pressed his face against my stomach. I settled my hands in his damp locks and waited for him to continue.

“I was scared,” he said. “I’m still scared.”

I pulled his hair gently, until he lifted his face. When I studied his tortured expression, I kneeled in front of him.

“Of what?” I asked. “That I wouldn’t want to do it? That I would say no?”

“Yeah,” he admitted and studied every angle of my face. “But worse, I’m afraid you’ll say yes because it’s what you should do.”

He read the confusion on my face.

“Because it’s the only way to protect you from the sorceress,” he explained. “I know you’ve been deprived of so many choices. I didn’t want you to choose this for the sake of survival. I want you to want it, Elle.”

“Ryder,” I said, “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

He frowned. “You don’t?”

I shook my head, and a stunned laughter slipped out of him. As my mind raced to understand the significance of this moment, blood rushed in my ears.

“If we claim each other,” Ryder explained, “the bond between our souls will be solidified. Claiming creates a psychic link between mates that allows them to talk to each other without speech. Circe believes that it will be enough to tether us to each other and protect you from the sorceress.”

Faster than I could sort them, my thoughts raced.

For so long, I had wanted to be free from Medea, and the answer lay in claiming my mate?

Something I wanted anyway?

“I should’ve told you,” he said in a rush. “You had a right to know. I just didn’t want you to make a decision in hopes of protecting anyone, and I didn’t know how to tell you about the claiming without explaining that part—”

I shoved down the hope that sparked to life inside me. I still needed answers.

“And before that,” I said, “the only reason you didn’t tell me is because you were scared of losing control?”

He sighed. “You barely acknowledged any feelings between us were real, Ellie. I didn’t want to…to throw that out there knowing you wouldn’t want it.”

I realized I had never taken a moment to consider if I did want the claiming.

I hadn’t needed to.

Though I had made excuse after excuse for holding him at arm’s length, I wanted Ryder more than I had ever wanted anything.

Hurt loomed in his amber eyes. I gently clasped his face with my hands and smoothed the furrow in his brow. When he finally looked at me, I had never seen him so tentative.

So vulnerable.

“I don’t deserve you,” he said. “I knew it then, and I know it now.”

Hearing him say the words and knowing he believed them to be true broke my heart, but I stayed strong. For him.

“What did you see in the dreamscape?” I asked softly.

He shuddered. “All the people who’ve failed me. All those I’ve failed.”

I brushed my thumb over his lips.

“We’re shifters, Wolfie,” I reminded him. A hint of a smile tilted his lips. “We have long, long lives to make things right. You haven’t failed anyone.”

Clasping the back of his neck and his wet tendrils of hair, I pulled him closer. In the small space between us, our breath mingled.

“You haven’t failed me,” I promised him. “And if you want to claim me, you’re not forcing me to stay. I choose you, so stop trying to leave a door open for me to leave your life. I’m not going anywhere.”

I’m not Kalli, I willed him to see. I’m not Freya. I’m here.

Ryder shuddered beneath my touch, and tears burned my eyes. I swallowed the lump in my throat.

For so long, I had pushed him away. I had fueled his belief that the women in his life wouldn’t stay. Though my heartbeat roared in my ears, I needed to fix that rift.

“You’re my mate.” Leaning forward, I rested my forehead against his and coiled my hands more tightly in his hair. I poured every emotion bleeding from my heart into my words. “You’re mine, Ryder, and I’m not going anywhere.”

As if assuring himself I was real, his hands found my waist, and his thumbs brushed over my ribs. When he opened his eyes, they blazed with such feeling and power, they were golden.

“I love you,” he said, “not in any duty or fate-bound way, but because you’re you. I love you, Ellie. I’m yours, and you’re mine, and I love you.”

For a moment, all I could do was bask in the words, but the next breath, my lips were on his. He met my fervor with matching passion. As our hands roamed, and our tongues tangled, my hunger for him became a living beast.

In the hushed light of our room, the world was a blur of ragged breaths and exploratory touches and slick skin against mine. My clothes were tossed, and Ryder’s towel was abandoned, and everything in me burned for him.

I wanted him in a way I had never let myself want anything.

I wanted each strong plane of his body and every shuddering breath.

I wanted to memorize every place he touched with such love and lust and need.

I wanted him so close, we became one, and I wanted to be marked by him in a permanent, insurmountable, life-altering way.

I’m yours, and you’re mine, and I love you.

As Ryder led me on a chase toward that edge of oblivion, the words were my chant and prayer and call.

“I love you too,” he whispered in between kisses. His lips and tongue explored every dip and hollow of my body. “Good gods, Ellie, I love you.”

When his teeth bit into the spot where my neck met my shoulder, I barely registered the pain through the ecstasy singing in every nerve-ending of my body.

Mine, mine, mine…

When he licked and kissed the spot, and my power knitted my flesh back together, my chimera writhed under my skin, eager to return the favor and claim him as surely as he had claimed me.

The door flew open, and my world careened to a halt.

As he crouched in front of me, Ryder’s power flooded the room, and a deadly growl tore from his throat.

“Before you kill me for interrupting,” Kieran rasped, “the Handmaidens are here.”

The words took a moment to break through the haze of bliss and need. When they finally landed, icy fear filled my veins.

The High Witch’s cronies had infiltrated Circe’s realm.

They had come for me.