Mated By Fate by Christa Wick

Chapter Twenty-One

Esme satin a chair in Coop's cavernous living room while Seth stood with his back against one door, Slater holding a similar position at the room's other door.

Well, this wasn’t ominous at all.

In front of Esme, her mother sat, hands folded in her lap, gaze locked on her interlaced fingers.

More unsettling than anything was the unannounced visit from the New York clan of Silantra, the head of the Witches' Council. While the witch wore no visible bandages, Esme detected the presence of healing charms. Silantra was also very pale in a way that suggested very recent blood loss.

"What is this about?" Denver growled from where he stood behind Esme's chair, his hands gripping the top of the seat back.

"Hunters attacked the Witches' Council," Silantra answered.

Esme shook her head at the impossibility.

The clan sheltering the Council was located in the Adirondack Mountains. The magic of succeeding generations of The Nakari had carved the Council's stronghold into one of those very mountains. Esme had sat in the Great Chamber before the All-Mother had finally been confined to her bed. She had walked the wide halls, stayed with her mother in one of the many living quarters carved into the stone.

Beyond the mountain and its steep terrain, the thick forest provided another layer of insulation and seclusion. Not to mention shifters and strong charms guarded every entrance.

"Two witches and seven shifters are dead," Silantra said, her voice as bloodless as her cheeks. "Dozens more of both are injured."

From where she sat next to Silantra, Camille wrung her hands and leaned forward to address Esme. Her lips parted, closed. Her gaze moved from her daughter to where Denver stood behind the young witch.

"Send a text next time," he said. His hands slid from the back of the chair to curl around Esme's shoulders. He did not hurt her with his grip, but she could feel the tension running through him.

Coop coughed, the sound phlegmy and somehow obscene.

"From what I can smell coming off you," he said, his gaze fixed on Denver. "You of all people want to see how this plays out."

Silantra lifted her hand for silence, a grimace of pain on her face.

"Your sisters need you, Miss Stone. And you're in a unique position to protect them."

Esme dropped her gaze to her lap, shook her head to knock loose some granule of understanding of what this was about. True, people talked about her being the most powerful witch alive. Some said the most powerful in generations. Others disagreed on both points.

Her latency was a new wrinkle, but still an unknown factor.

Her power had increased since the kidnapping, as had her knowledge, but she had downplayed both developments in introducing the new charms.

"First blood," Coop grunted.

Esme's head snapped up.

"You're oath-bound, girl," he said before she could refuse. "You'll do it or face the consequences."

"Fuck that. I've already spilled blood for the clans." She folded her arms across her chest, her gaze jumping between Coop, her mother, and Silantra. She sensed the tension coiling inside Denver, but forced herself to ignore it.

Focusing her attention on the two women, she tried to guess which one had suggested the barbaric act.

"Mom, this isn't…"

She stalled, words escaping her as she reflected on her entire life to date. From birth, Esme had been barraged with reminders that she was an accident, a child that never should have been conceived.

A mistake long before she started looking like one with her too round face and plump body.

A mistake from conception, to delivery to…death.

Which wouldn’t be too far off because breaking the oath of her ancestor meant death.

Esme’s brain faltered and the room started to spin in a slow, counterclockwise rotation. Behind her, Denver growled. She could feel the vibrations rolling off him, his desire to shift palpable and at the edge of uncontrollable.

She blinked half a dozen times, trying to rid herself of his energy and the heavy fog that had settled atop her brain. She needed to think straight if she was going to avoid complying with the demand without dying.

"Your oath, girl." Coop slammed his hands down on his knees. "You already have a mate, no hiding that anymore. If you still don't want him, name the wolf and be done with it. There's no need for all this fuss."

Oh, but there was. Otherwise, no one would have suggested she…

Esme took a deep breath, unable to finish the thought. Forcing herself not to turn and look at Denver, she closed her eyes.

If she refused, would Coop actually order her execution or just ban her? Not that it mattered much—either action was a death sentence with Quentin and his Hunters after her.

And what would the Witches' Council do?

Opening her eyes, she looked at Seth standing guard at the far end of the room. She saw kindness when he looked back, but no help. Her compliance, if Silantra was right, would offer greater protection to Lana and his unborn child, as well as everyone else in the clans. As a pack alpha, maybe even clan alpha one day when Jack stepped down, it was his job to enforce the oath as much as it was Coop's.

Camille leaned forward, her fingers untwisting long enough to reach toward Esme. "Baby…"

The word dripped like poison from Camille's mouth. Not once could Esme remember her mother having used it before this meeting.

"For more than nine generations, you're the most powerful witch the clan has known and this…this ceremony…" Camille's hands retreated. She rubbed them against her legs, her argument momentarily stalled. "You not only free yourself from the oath but any child you have and…"

"It would free you—that's what this is all about."

Not meeting Esme's gaze, Camille shook her head.

"We could serve the clans as equals, baby. We're just slaves to them now."

"Pick the wolf or I'll do it myself!" Coop bellowed and pushed aside the coffee table in front of him as if ready to unzip his pants and immediately carry out his threat.

Denver circled until he stood in front of Esme, the timbre of his growl indicating he was seconds from transforming. Coop growled back, coarse hairs sprouting along the old wolf's hands and neck.

As clan alpha, his display of power should have been enough to force any wolf to submit, but Denver seemed immune to the command. Esme heard the pop of muscles and cartilage coming from Denver's body, Coop's fading dominance only capable of slowing, not stopping, his shift.

Seth moved from the door, his hand raised as a signal for Coop's beta to stand down. "Denver—"

"I told you not to bring him," Coop snapped.

Esme wished Seth had listened. The request was humiliating enough without Denver there as witness.

"It's not my oath," she whispered, shaking her head, knowing that her protest was lost on the clan alpha. Blood bound blood, no matter how many generations had passed. There was no stronger law of magic than that. Her ancestor’s oath was all Coop needed.

"You'll be free if you do," Camille coaxed. "A few minutes in exchange for the rest of your life."

Esme thought she saw tears shining in her mother's eyes. She shook her head. Tears weren't possible, not from Camille. And her words were false, whether the older witch realized it or not.

Esme would be degraded if she obeyed, dead if she didn't.

"Ems." Denver turned and dropped to the ground in front of her, his form still human despite the visible shimmer and glow of his wolf just beneath his skin.

His hand covered her knee for half a second before she shrank from his touch. She knew he was staring at her face, could feel the searing intensity of his gaze, but she couldn't bring herself to look at him.

"Make him leave."

Coop laughed. "How about I send your mate to fetch Cade for the ritual. He's a handsome, strapping wolf. The two of you get along, I hear."

"How many pieces do you want me to fetch him in," Denver growled.

Esme shrank from the threat. Denver wrapped his hand around her ankle, the grip possessive but surprisingly gentle.

"Baby, we—"

She jerked her foot up, curling her leg between her ass and the cushion as her body protectively folded in on itself. There could be no "we" between her and Denver. Once, a long time ago, the possibility had been there.

But he'd walked away from her. Slowly at first then like a fucking freight train.

That kiss she had waited for in the field fell on another woman's mouth and then another's. His hands had wrapped around other women's hips, held them tightly to him as he penetrated their bodies.

She'd had a decade of loneliness—a cold hard bed with just her in it, her virginity the very quality that had led her to this moment, to Coop's demand that she spread her legs and let a wolf take first blood.

Now Denver was all but begging to be that wolf. Not because he actually loved her or wanted her—he'd had ten plus years to claim her. No, he'd been sniffing around her the last few weeks because a sequence of chemicals commanded his selection of her as his mate.

He didn't like big girls. He'd said that in front of her too many times to forget his words.

"Ems…"

She felt her chest crack open.

He'd called her that only a handful of times over the last decade. Each time had been like a knife in her heart, reminding her of what could have been, sparking the stupid hope that something had changed when nothing ever changed, not his casual indifference and certainly not his frequent, if only temporary, bedmates.

"I only wanted you to have what I couldn't give you—a child of your own. Now we know that's possible."

The words caught as they left him, hooking and tearing chunks of flesh as they passed through his throat and out his mouth. She still didn't believe him, wouldn't be so stupid as to let that hope back in.

And everyone here. The whole clan would know by midnight. The rest of the shifters and witches around the country by noon the next day.

Humiliation stacked on heartache stacked on humiliation.

"Maybe not Cade," Coop mused, his gaze traveling over his shoulder to look at Seth. "No rule saying the male wolf has to be unmated. I'd take you myself if it wouldn't seem greedy."

Bile rose in Esme's throat. If Seth or Cade refused, they would be sentenced to death. If one of them agreed, then either the wolf who took her or Denver would likely die.

If Denver lived, he'd be an outcast, banished everywhere—orphaned all over again.

As she came to her decision, Esme's shoulders shook with tears she refused to shed. Burying her face against the side of the chair, her answer erupted in broken sobs.

"F-fine," she said.

Feeling Denver's hand on her shoulder, she slapped blindly at it. "Go. I don't want to see you before or after.”

He hesitated and she screamed into the chair, feeling herself beginning to unravel. "Leave now or I'll take it all back!"

Eyes glued shut, her hands covering her ears, she sensed Denver slinking away. Another long week would pass before she saw him again, when her magic and Denver's wolf totem were as full of possibilities as the moon in the black sky above.