Mated By Fate by Christa Wick

Chapter Twenty-Two

Esme spentthe week in self-imposed isolation, her magic unstable from the volatile emotions coursing through her.

Members of the Witches' Council would come by, but she’d send them all away, refusing to meet their gaze, knowing rage and resentment burned in her eyes. It sizzled across her skin, the air around her crackling with witch light.

Her fury possessed her entire house. Doors opened and slammed shut without anyone near them. Glasses shattered inside the cupboards.

When Camille visited the day before the ceremony with instructions for Esme's ritual cleansing, the blue skies vanished on the elder witch's arrival. Immense, black clouds materialized to drop hail the size of grapefruit on Camille's car.

And when she had the audacity to reach out as if to place a comforting motherly hand on her shoulder, the floor-to-ceiling wardrobe began to quake, its vibrations building until it threatened to crash down on them both.

So it was for good reason that when the night of the full moon finally arrived, Esme stayed in her room.

She greeted none of the four witches from the Council there to mark the compass points outside her home. Because this is where it would happen, where Denver would be mounting her as ordered.

As Camille dressed the bed in charmed linen, Esme ignored her presence entirely, staring blankly outside until the last of the preparations were done.

Finally, come nightfall, alone once again with only a robe around her otherwise naked body, she sat on the side of her bed and waited for Denver's arrival.

With every passing minute, powerless to prevent it, her head filled with memories of the two of them growing up together.

She saw them as children, both outsiders within the clan, running through the woods together. Only ten years old and human, she was no match for a shifter's speed but Denver never pulled too far away from her, keeping just near enough to duck behind a tree so he could scoop her up when she ran by, twirl a circle with her in his arms, his forehead touching hers, and then place her back on the ground and run ahead.

Then she saw herself even earlier at the age of three, sneaking into her mother’s healing room as she often did, against her mother's orders. Shy. Lisping. And for some reason drawn more than usual to the room in which Coop had entered, back from a rescue mission with an unknown orphaned cub who couldn't—or wouldn't—shift to human form.

Seemingly unable to stop herself, she’d immediately cuddled her little three-year-old frame against the wild cub's shivering body. Fiercely worried, and almost irrationally protective, she’d comforted him, whispered her favorite calming spell until finally, he calmed, and they both fell asleep.

Six hours later, she woke to see a little five year old boy waking up beside her, with red-blond hair and yellow-gold eyes that sparkled like topaz.

Gritting her teeth, Esme ripped herself out of the memory and wiped angrily at her eyes as she felt the arrival of Denver outside of her home, his determined stride on the path to her porch almost palpable as he made his approach.

No one had ever been able to affect her like he did. And tonight he was a dozen natural disasters in one, hitting her from all angles, destined to wreak unimaginable havoc.

How she wished she could return to the past the way her memories often did, to a time when she could look into that tawny masculine gaze of his, with everything as fresh and full of promise as it had been for them sharing their childhood as outcasts together.

Sadly, that feat would take more than mere magic.

All at once, Esme’s senses registered Denver’s energy entering her home, his first step through her front door, followed by a long pause as he halted to scent the air they way he always did when she was nearby.

Then, with the force of a tornado making touch down, she felt the moment his wolf found her from clear on the opposite side of the house, separated by three walls and at least sixty feet of floor space.

She tried to block it, the flow of energy between them. It wasn't right to feel someone so strongly when she wanted nothing more than to forget he existed—not unlike the way he’d banished her from his life years ago.

He didn’t knock when he reached her bedroom. He simply pushed the door open and made his way over to her, studying her face with every stride even as he kept his own shuttered.

As he neared her on the bed, Esme saw his breathing grow harsher, and his eyes dilate with every step closer, until all that was left was black-as-night pupils with a thin ring of gold glittering around the dark inset.

His hand reached forward and brushed along her cheek, cupping her face. "We'll go slow—"

Immediately, she shook her head, her dark blonde curls whipping around her face. No, not slow. She wanted this over and done. This wasn't mating or lovemaking—only ritual fucking. It required neither time nor desire, just a shield and its penetration.

Denver frowned in return, denying her any hope of a quick finish. But at least he granted her a quick start.

With one hand still holding the side of her face, he trailed the other between the deep valley of her breasts, slipping beneath the robe's lapel to slide the fabric off one pale white shoulder.

Tracing her collarbone with a fingertip, his hungry gaze soaked in more of her bared flesh as he gently tilted her head back so he could watch her expression closely as he palmed her exposed breast.

Heat radiated from his palm, searing her skin like an open flame before he tugged her nipple, all the while, trailing his lips across the sensitive skin just below her ear.

“Slow,” he repeated gruffly as he pinched her breast’s swollen peak. “All night if that's how long it takes for you to come to your senses."

Esme turned her head in the opposite direction, staring at the lamp to keep her vision from blurring any further. She sucked in a hard breath, aching with the knowledge that her own body was proving so complicit with the clan's betrayal.

When Denver touched her, it hurt. But when he stopped touching her, it hurt even worse.

He sank to his knees on the floor then, one muscular arm resting along the outside of Esme's thigh as he unknotted and opened the robe's sash fully.

Imagining all the women he had bedded with their trim, athletic bodies, she reached for the lamp switch, her chest tightening with the knowledge that she would soon be completely naked in front of him.

He caught her hand to stop her. “No hiding from me tonight."

Denver guided Esme onto her back, his hands parting the lapels of her robe wider so he could look his fill, his breathing almost jagged when his heated eyes skated back up to snag hers. “Haven’t you figured out how much you affect me, Esme? How you’ve always affected me? You were my first wet dream. The only one I’ve ever dreamed out. I can’t remember a time I didn’t want you, baby."

"Don't call me that." Her chest rose and fell rapidly, her body fighting for more air as her lungs shriveled inside her.

How dare he say these things to her when they both knew he’d had women before her. Women who talked. More women than she cared to ever think about.

His grip on her hip flexed, his expression more possessive than she’d ever seen it as he tugged her closer. "Children, you said. Do you remember that, Ems? You told me all those years ago that you wanted lots and lots of children."

When she tried desperately to look away, Denver captured her face with both hands, forcing her to look at him as his body molded against hers. "You wanted the one thing I thought I could never give you. Stop punishing me for having did what I could to let you find it elsewhere."

Within the tight confines of his hands, she glared lasers at him over that nonsense. He'd done no such thing! Even if she’d been capable of wanting another male, he wouldn't let anyone near her.

Few males had been stupid enough to dare his fury by getting close to her. Hell, she’d already been an outcast as one of the only non-shifters on the clan's lands; after Denver had discarded her and made sure no other male would fill the void he’d left in her life, she’d been even more isolated. As the years passed, though Esme wasn’t as starkly alone as she’d been back then, given all her duty-bound dealings day after day, she was still lonely as ever.

And she had no one but Denver to blame.

"Love—"

"Don't!" She pushed at his chest. "Don't call me that! Not love, not baby. Just finish this so I can be done with it, and you, forever!"

His gaze hardened, the yellow-gold of his irises starting to glow with red embers. A needle of fear pushed into Esme's chest. He wouldn't hurt her. Not physically, or even intentionally. But there were other, deeper ways for him to inflict pain on her, whether he knew it or not.

Frowning over whatever he was reading in her expression, Denver stood then to strip his shirt off, his hard stare drilling into her the entire time.

Meanwhile, Esme was doing a fair amount of staring herself. Obviously, she’d seen Denver bare-chested before, mostly while healing one of his injuries the days Camille was off clan lands.

As a self-imposed rule, she’d see, but not look.

If she’d peeked more than need be a few times, it was simply to have a longer glimpse at his tattoos. There were many traditions and superstitions surrounding the tattoos male shifters inked on their body. Someone—Silantra most likely—had marked Denver’s chest with sacred text, inked in shield plates where his shoulders and arms met, and finished with the Crann Bethadh, the tree's thick trunk and many leaves symbolizing endurance, renewal, and growth among the clan.

Beyond that—which wasn’t much different than studying art in a museum, really—Esme had never let herself get lost in his miles of sculpted muscles. Just as she never let her gaze trace the chiseled edges of his tanned six-pack, or the sexy happy trail that disappeared below his belt line.

Definitely not.

“Finish it you say?” Dark eyes glittered at her, pinned her as effectively as the raciest of restraints.

“Then roll over," he commanded.