Page 11 of Taming His Mate

I see the moment she decides. She presses her lips together just before she lifts her head and finally meets my eyes. The way her amber irises glow in the dim light has my stomach twisting and my cock rising. I want her to look at me like this while I fuck her. I imagine plunging deep inside her, over and over until those eyes roll back and she screams my name when I make her come hard enough to see galaxies.

Isabelle takes a shaky breath and then glances around the room one more time.

“Thank you,” she says softly before she vanishes.

For a long time, I sit and stare at the empty bed.

How could you let her go?My beast howls in my head, but I ignore him. I’m resolved in my decision. I’d rather be alone than be tethered to a mate who hates me.

We could change her mind. Make her see?—

I push my beast deep down and throw up walls to block him. It doesn’t keep out the loudest of his howls, but it quiets the worst of his noise.

I’ve gone this long without her, what’s the rest of eternity? Or close enough to it, considering the longevity of our lifespans.

With a pained groan, I push myself up from the chair and make my way up the stairs and out of my cabin. I hit the lights and lock up, then I leave it behind with no intention of ever returning.

6

ISABELLE

“Oh, Isabelle,” my mother says when I appear in the spacious sitting room inside our family’s mansion. It’s more like a castle with its stone walls and thick tapestries. “Nice of you to finally show up.”

My heart cracks a little, although I remind myself that I have no reason to be surprised by her words. Time means little to vampires, especially older ones. It has been months since I vanished at the hands of our enemies, but to my mother my absence has only been a brief interval.

It shouldn’t bother me, but it does. It always has, I’ve just learned to school my feelings so that it doesn’t show.

“Sorry, mother. I’ve been… indisposed.”

The regal matriarch of our coven doesn’t look a day over twenty. Her hair was once the same vibrant ruby shade as mine, until the millennia faded it to a softer strawberry blond. It’s the only change that shows her age. Her complexion is still the same flawless alabaster that it’s always been. Her mind just as sharp and scheming as ever.

With a sniff, she picks up her teacup and saucer that was steaming beside her when I arrived. The calming chamomile isinfused with blood and tinted crimson as she lifts it to her lips to sip.

“Your father and I don’t appreciate your disappearing act,” she sneers at me over the eggshell thin china. “We don’t ask much from you. Just that you do your part for the coven.”

I swallow down my scoff and carefully school my expression, when I want to tilt my head back andscreamat her. To ask what exactlyshehas done for the coven? What hasshesacrificed?

“There is a function tomorrow night at the Den. Jarik and his human bitch will be the guests of honor,” my mother continues, completely oblivious to my inner turmoil. With a practiced elegance, she sets her tea on the small table beside her. “The coven has decided that he’s had his fun with the human, but he needs a more fitting mate.”

My stomach drops.Oh, Fates, no.

“There will be a distraction, and they will be separated, that is when you will inject yourself at his side. Keep him busy while we…” she sniffs as if the very thought is too tacky to speak of, “while we take care of her.”

For a moment I’m too shocked to do much more than stare at her. This is underhanded, even for my power-hungry coven.

“Mother,” my fingers come up to rub at my temples and I squeeze my eyes shut, letting my emotionless facade crack. “Jarik is a mated beast. If you try to take Mercy from him, he’s going to fly into a rage unlike anything you’ve ever seen.”

Surely, she knows this. Right?

My mother lifts her chin and looks down her straight nose at me, even though she’s sitting and I’m standing over her. It’s a look I know well. A look that usually has me cowering. A look I have mimicked to my own advantage.

“Don’t talk back, you useless little bitch! You’ll do as you’re told,” she hisses.

In a blink of an eye, she vanishes from her chair and appears directly in front of me. We’re nearly identical in height, but her age puts her strength far beyond mine. She may not look it, but if she wants to, she could end me in a heartbeat.

Not that she will.

She needs me.

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