The Mating Season: Werewolves of Montana Book 6 (10 page)

Tristan cried out, his eyes wild… “Nikita,” he screamed. “Nikita!”

“No, please! Don’t leave me, you promised to never leave me!” she shrieked. “Don’t leave me!”

Don’t leave me! You promised…

She awoke, screaming, clawing at the bedcovers in panic. She had seen in brutal reality the agony suffered by her mate, had seen how he died in horrific pain…

“Nikita!”

Two strong arms surrounded her, pulling her against a hard, warm chest and the beating heart of an immortal wizard. A beating heart…she tried to center her scrambled thoughts, push away the terror. His heart still beat. He was alive.

Sobbing, she clung to him as he stroked her hair. “Oh Nikita,” he whispered brokenly. “My sweet. Do not dream of losing me. I am here. I am here.”

Murmuring soothing words, he held her tight as she curled her shaking body around him, fear coagulating in her veins, her stomach in knots. When at last she lifted her tear-streaked face to gaze upon him, he looked at her with sorrow.

Tristan gently wiped away one tear with the edge of his thumb. His touch felt soothing and cool to her flushed skin.

“You promised,” she whispered, fisting her hand in his shirt, grief forgotten amid the raging sense of betrayal. “We had a life together. I remember it well now. We had a lovely life and a passion and fire each time we made love. We had a child I was to bear you. You promised me on our wedding day that you would always be there for me, for our children, that I would come first, before all others. And you broke that promise.”

Chapter 6

She had remembered the passion and the fire in their relationship.

Nikita also remembered the betrayal and the lies. Heavy with regret, he watched her leave the bed and stand by the window.

“I had hoped we would have more time together before you recalled that time and what I said to you,” he told her, joining her.

Niki folded her arms and stared at the ocean. “You warned me. The most powerful and emotional memories surface first. Breaking a mating promise…that’s a very emotional memory, Tristan.”

“I did not break it. I put you first, Nikita, and our child.”

“You put war first, Tristan. Your ego first, as you flew off to fight.” She pressed a shaking hand to her temple. “I can still recall the cheers as you flew away on Drust to fight the Fae. Mighty Tristan! Our savior!”

Anger flashed in her blue eyes as she turned to face him. “Their savior, while I was left in the castle, wondering if you would return to me. Wondering if the Lupine I promised to honor and obey and share my life and my body with, would ever do the same. I was pushed into shadow, the shadow of doubt and fear, knowing you’d placed yourself in grave danger! I had no future!”

Guilt stabbed him but he pushed it aside. The cause had been noble, and the shifters had won after he had died. “You had no future without war, for what future is it for shifters to live under the thumb of the Fae? King Emer was determined to keep us enslaved. We could not hunt on our own damned land without his permission! We were forced to serve them, to till the soil of their farms. We had no freedom to raise our young, to form packs.”

He drew in a deep breath. “I did not enter the Drakon War lightly. It was not for my ego, as you think. It was to rally the clans and the races of shifters to overcome Emer’s forces.”

“I begged you to rally them with Drust leading the forces. He was dragon and would have made a good general. And you jumped upon Drust’s back and flew off, and from that moment, the war was all yours.”

She stood, arms folded, looking as severe and accusing as she had hundreds of years ago. Ah the irony of being scolded for something he had done in a past life. Tristan shoved a hand through his hair.

“I want to go home,” she said. “Now.”

Damn
. “You cannot.”

“Fine, I have no home. I’ll remain here.”

“You have to accompany me to Tir Na-nog. You have no choice.”

He paced the room. “The potion I gave you changes your cell structure, and it saved you. You must come with me to Tir Na-nog to renew your body and purge the potion in four days, or you will die.”

Whirling, he narrowed his eyes. “A very painful death, for no mortal can endure the blood of the Brehon and the magick of the dragon’s heart, and survive for long here in this world. Or the Shadow Lands.”

Niki stared at him with huge eyes. “Maybe you should have let me die of the parvolupus disease. I would have been better off.”

Fury filled him. In two strides he was at her side, his fingers upon the soft flesh of her upper arms. “And watch you die? Never! I swore I would do everything, anything, to save you from that godsdamn disease!”

“You failed to save me centuries ago because you weren’t there.” Her voice broke. “If you’d been there, I would have lived. I would never have drunk the potion, for you always brought me everything. All my food, my water, you checked everything because you feared someone poisoning me. But you weren’t there and I missed you so much, so very much….”

Grief, guilt and shame rushed inside him like the ocean tide. He released her arms, feeling as destroyed as the crushed sandcastle she’d conjured on the beach. “I was not. I am so sorry, Nikita.”

Blinking hard, she turned from him. And then she spoke in a quiet voice. “Drust was responsible for the potion. I saw it in my dream. He was very pleased to see I was dying, and our child with me.”

Tristan went very still. “What else do you remember?”

“I was given a magick potion that was supposed to make our baby grow stronger. I’d had a little bleeding and was worried. Instead, it contained poison.” She took a deep breath. “Drust had obtained the potion himself from a Fae…to kill me and our child.”

Deep inside he knew Drust was responsible, but Tristan lacked the magick to see clearly into her past after he had died. He had only seen a cloudy vision of Nikita’s death after he’d become the Silver Wizard.

All the Brehon could not clearly see their own futures or the past or the future of their loved ones. The goddess Danu told them it was to keep them focused on their duties.

You will pay, Drust. You will live forever in shadow, your name forgotten through the ages.

Silently, he vowed to proceed with his plan for revenge. He would crush the dragon in the afterworld and Drust would always walk alone.

Just as Tristan had walked alone all his time in the Shadow Lands.

Tristan fisted his hands, recalling the agony of his torture and execution. Helpless and powerless, his fate at the whim of those who tortured and executed him.

I will never be that helpless again, never without the kind of power that makes me feel like that. I will always be in control. Always. And I shall not lose Nikita again, ever. To the last drop of my blood, I will see you are safe, Nikita.

“And you will never be there for me again, will you?” She traced a rune on the window, the same protective rune he had drawn.

He doubted she was even aware of what she did.

“You are the Silver Wizard, guardian of shifters. You have responsibilities and duties that will always take you from my side. You wish to become my lover again, and father a child with me, but you will leave us alone once more.”

“I will always watch over you. I will never allow anything to harm you or our child,” he said softly.

She sniffed. “Skype via wizard style doesn’t cut you out for Father of the Year, Tristan. You only care about your powers as the wizard and your damn responsibility to save the world.”

Tristan had always prided himself on control, but the thin thread he held regarding Nikita was beginning to fray. “It is not all I care about, and if you are not careful, my sweet, you will find out. You are sorely testing my patience and you do not want to see me angry.”

He felt the rise of his powers, felt his irises begin to glow ice blue. He heard Nikita’s heart beat faster, but she held her ground.

“And what are you going to do to me, Tristan? Abduct me? You already did that. Punish me for making you angry?”

“There is one thing I have not yet done,” he said in a deep, low voice. “I’ve been patient, but my control goes so far. I am more than a wizard who judges shifters. I am a wolf who has desired his mate for more than nine godsdamned centuries, a wolf who needs you to claim you in the flesh.”

I want to bury myself so deep inside you that nothing will ever part us again
.

Niki lifted her chin. “Why? All you ever cared about in the past were your duties. They came first. Not me.”

Tristan strode over to her, and clasped her chin with one hand. “To hell with my duties,” he snapped, and he kissed her.

Nikita had never in this life kissed a man before.

So she could not imagine it would feel like this—electrifying, sending currents of heat through her body.

Moaning, she snaked an arm around his neck, clinging to him. He tasted like fire and hot cinnamon, and the darkest, richest chocolate. He tasted like all the sensual dreams of her most forbidden fantasies.

He would do more than make love to her. He would consume her.

Tristan tunneled his fingers through her hair and bent her backward. She could feel the urgency behind his mouth, the hardness of his body pressing against hers, the rigid length in his trousers against her soft belly.

This would not end with a mere kiss, but with fierce lovemaking.

No.

It was but a whispered thought, laced with fear.
I’m not ready for this.
Her memories of the past were one thing, but the present was quite another. She reminded herself that she didn’t know this man—this
wizard
.

Dizzy with longing, she pressed her fingers to her temple as Tristan released her. His gaze had turned to onyx.

He wanted her badly, and he would take her, and take her again. And again. She was powerless to prevent it.

Judging from the hot throbbing between her legs, her body did not want to prevent it.
I was made for this, for love. Not to be hidden away like a fungus in a basement.

Panting, he tore his mouth away from hers. “You shall be coming into your heat soon.” He traced a line over her mouth, swollen from his fiery kisses. “I must restrain myself, lest I fall into a mating fever.”

“But you are the Silver Wizard.”

Tristan kissed the corner of her mouth, and she shuddered with need. “I am still Lupine deep inside, a man who craves the touch of his mate and longs to bury himself inside her.”

She was innocent, but no fool. “You must have had many lovers over the centuries.”

His eyes glowed ice-blue with power. Though she felt vulnerable with his obvious rise of his power, she sensed he would not use it against her.

“Many lovers, but never for more than one night. They meant naught to me but a fleeting pleasure. My heart always belonged to you, my sweet. Always. As your body belongs to me.”

Nikita sputtered. She lifted the long mass of her hair. “I’m Lupine. I don’t see a mating mark there indicating you’re my mate, Tristan. Do you?”

“Not yet,” he said softly, his gaze gleaming with intent. He traced a line down her neck and the mere touch made her shiver with anticipation. “I shall enjoy placing mine there, my sweet.”

Then his expression turned hard. “But not here, and regretfully, not now. We must leave this place. It isn’t safe.”

She dreaded where he would take her next. In this world at least, she felt a small modicum of control.

“Where to?”

Tristan picked up her hand and brushed a soft kiss against her knuckles. “North Carolina, to see a dragon shifter who once served me in Tir Na-nog. I released him from his debt of servitude and he now lives happily here on Earth with his mate, Skylar. His name is Sebastian.”

He dug into his trouser pocket and withdrew a slim wallet, fishing out several large bills. Her eyes widened. “That’s the tip for the maid?”

Tristan frowned. “Is not five hundred dollars enough? Should I leave more?”

She rolled her eyes. “I should get a job here.”

Snapping the wallet shut, he shook his head. “You will never have to work, my sweet.”

“And how am I supposed to occupy my days? Knitting? Watching reality shows? Or more movies? I’m sick of watching movies.”

“Keeping me busy in bed will occupy all your time.” He flashed a wicked grin, and she threw a pillow at his head.

Then he grew serious and held out a hand. “Come.”

Did she have a choice? Her stomach tightened as she placed her palm into his.

Nikita felt the familiar tingle down her spine as Tristan clasped her hand and waved a hand, dematerializing them. Her mind went gray, and then they suddenly stood outside a large stone castle.

“Sebastian’s home,” he told her, kissing the back of her hand. “Sebastian is Drust’s great-grandson.”

“And he’s your friend? Drust’s relative?”
The descendant of the dragon who betrayed you and had you killed? Had me killed, along with our baby?
Niki shook her head. “I’d hate to see what your enemies look like.”

She wondered what this compound would hold. More false friends? Or worse, enemies who would love to see her suffer because of Tristan?