Mated to the Enemy

Chapter 16

— Jet —

My mate wanted to leave me, would rather join the fae or follow the beta back to the Blood Crest pack. I saw the way he watches her, and I can smell the spray he emits while he’s near. It makes me want to vomit, the putrid odor of him marking her. It’s meant to deter other mates, I could understand it, but that scent isn’t something easily produced. She had to be compatible with him, and he had to accept that he wanted her as his mate. If she accepts the mating bond with him in return her scent would change and any male would be warned away from her, but her smell was still her own. And only wolves with power were capable of marking a mate this way.

My mother warned me, even as a pup, not to ever use my power in such a way. Many alphas have abused their power and sprayed mates that they had no intention of bonding with. Was that his goal? Spray her so she follows him back to the pack with no intention of honoring anything more than his own lust, and then hand her over to be slaughtered by the Lycan King?

I squeezed his forearm making my claws cut into his skin just enough to prevent his healing from stopping the trickle of blood draining from his veins. My eyes never leaving those beautiful emeralds of hers so that she would not be swayed by his tricks. Her attention drifted back to the beta, and a small grin lifted her lips to show a peek of her deadly canines. It was not the smile of one under the influence of lust, I had seen that smile myself with my fingers tapping into her silky warmth. My c**k hardened thinking of her essence inside of me when I lapped up her nectar. I was fully healed now, and my grip on the imposing male loosened as I twitched wanting to find a different use for my digits, but I held firm. My vixen had the look of trouble in her eyes, and it brought me pleasure to think she would be the one to put him in his place, preferably with his nose in the dirt underneath her heel. As would be fitting of my future Luna, she deserved respect by her own hand and I would give her that and more.

“If you don’t agree with me going on my own, then I guess the only option is to take me back to the Blood Crest pack,” her words gutted me sending my hopes scattering, and making my hardened d**k feel like leaded weight that throbbed uncomfortably. f**k, if it wouldn’t be nice to not have her smell so damned delicious. If only the chill alone from her words could stop the reaction my body had, but she was my mate, and so now I must suffer the pain of her rejection and still have my body pine for hers. Miserable Goddess.

If I have to fight every last one of those wolves, and the Lycan King herself, I will, but she has to know she’s choosing our death. My mate is choosing our death. My wolf had no fear, had no doubts of being able to protect her, but I wasn’t naive. I had no pack, and without one my power was a fraction of what it could be with a proper pack connection. I’d be charging into a battle I couldn’t win, and giving up my mother’s retribution.

My heart ached, and I knew what I would choose. This was why I never wanted to find my mate, I knew I was exactly like my father. My mom was his world, if it wasn’t for me, he would have gladly confronted her killer and died at their hands in an attempt to honor her by murdering her killer or join her in death trying to do so.

Given the same choice, I will gladly give my life to join her whether that’s in this life or the next. I don’t even know her, but her very presence brings me so much joy, and pain.

“If that’s what you want, so be it,” I growled out. My throat was still raspy from need, and tinged with the ache of rejection. Tossing the beta’s arm from my grip, I made sure my alpha power was cloaking Danny so his spray wouldn’t latch on. Unless I choose to emit my own spray I couldn’t stop his scent from getting to her, but I could make sure it didn’t have a chance to root itself deeper than a minor suggestion. He would get the hint to back off. His tactics were archaic, and disgusting. I wrinkled my nose, but quickly schooled my features so he didn’t think his scent was affecting me.

Danny peered up at me, her green eyes hardened in her determination, and mingling with her scent, and that of the beta’s musk, was… fear. My own heart rate increased on alert the more the pheromones excreted from the sweat beading at the base of her wild auburn hair.

What was causing her this fear?

It was possible it was a delayed reaction to being chased by the pack, and then the fae, but why now? Realization struck me how brave she was for only now smelling of fear, when there was no enemy in immediate range. Was this a fae thing? To avoid being tracked by werewolves there may be a natural defense mechanism in their biology to prevent the pheromones from being released until the danger has passed. She would become a great leader of our pack.

Her small hand pressed into my chest, and I captured it in my own hands, moving her palm to feel the beat of my heart as I’d seen my father do for my mother when I was young. Showing her that it pumps only for her. I almost lost myself to the warmth of her skin, ignoring Randy and the unwanted future beta of Blood Crest. He would become more of a problem the closer his alpha came to assuming his role in the pack.

Then she pushed, and I reluctantly released her as she cleared her throat. There was no humor in those determined eyes. I wasn’t accustomed to being directed, the alpha blood in me burned, but it wasn’t in anger… it felt like being reprimanded. A disappointment filled me, and I searched those green lakes of hers for answers, for a sign that this wasn’t rejection when all I wanted to do was wrap her in my arms and protect her.

“Aside from the obvious, that going forward would mean a powerful fae most likely sucks us all into a Faery vortex where we are at a disadvantage, I can’t leave my mom or Christy. They would be punished for my decision to disappear, and Lauren seems to think that I won’t be murdered on sight. So, there’s that,” Danny explained while her shoe dug a worry hole in the grass.

She wasn’t convinced she was safe, but she’d rather risk herself back with the pack, than try our hand at the unknown danger ahead. The heaviness of the fae’s magic was still pressuring us, urging me to run, trying to tap into my baser nature. But, that could be all it was for this fae, mind tricks. Why else would the fae need to lure us closer to the portal, but not come after us where we are, sitting as ducks do, lounging on holiday?

“You are a member of our pack, Danny,” the not-even-a-beta-yet assured her of a safe return that he couldn’t guarantee. She wasn’t a fool, perhaps that’s why her fear was now surfacing. She was sacrificing herself? For what?

I growled at his lies.

“She has no wolf, you are asking her to return to a den that is currently on high alert for fae to accept her as part of the pack?” I highlighted his flawed logic, and turned to see Danny gnawing on her lip staring at her shoes. I’d hoped I’d see her agreement with me that this plan was foolhardy, and put her at unnecessary risk, but she groaned instead.

“She is my mate! They will accept her or I will reject them all.” he stepped towards me, his fists clenching and I felt my own ires rising to contest his claim.

“You expect to protect her?” I scoffed.

“Better than this!” he waved his hands around at what he assumed was what I had to offer her as a mate.

Danny ignored us both, and I hadn’t even noticed that she’d moved while being so focused on combating this insolent f**k of a mate snatcher. It wasn’t possible that the moon goddess would give her blessing to both of us with the same mate. He was obviously trying to build a mate bond on biological compatibility alone, and should have backed off as soon as he realized a true connection was between Danny and me.

“Ralph,” Danny’s voice sounded exhausted. “We can split up when we come to pack territory. Lauren and me can distract the patrol while you both escape.”

Her decision was final, she wouldn’t change her mind. I knew commitment when I heard it, and could see her stubborn stance as she c****d her hip and then strode forward without us. She would go back to the pack, without us… and I would be forced to let her if I ever stood a chance at rescuing her when they sent her to the Lycan King for execution.