This time, it was her mother who butted in. “Your duty—”
“Fuck my duty,” Cobalt barked, his sandy eyebrows knitting hard and fire flashing in his golden eyes.
Shock rippled through the crowd.
Only Rath didn’t look surprised.
Cobalt growled, “I’ve tried doing my duty… but fuck… hell… how am I meant to pick my duty over my fated female?”
That had another surprised murmur racing around the makeshift ring.
Her heart pounded as she stared down into Cobalt’s eyes.
They softened again, the hard edge to them melting away as he looked up at her, his focus shifting wholly to her as he took a slow step towards her.
“I’ve known it from the moment I fell in love with you twenty damned years ago,” he said in a low voice, one strained by emotions that she could sense in him.
They echoed in her, burned as fiercely as they did in him, and she felt sure he could see in her eyes how much she loved him too.
He sighed, took another step towards her and placed his hands on hers on the railing, covering them. “I’ve waited all that time for this moment… and I won’t wait another damned second.”
She wanted to tell him that she had been in love with him for more than twenty long years, wanted to box his ears for waiting so long even when she knew he had done it because she had been too young, not yet a mature adult.
She wanted to tell him she couldn’t wait another damned second either.
She didn’t get the chance though.
“I’ll fight you.” Ben pushed two males out of his way and stepped into the small clearing with Cobalt.
She scowled at him as Cobalt looked over his shoulder at the brunet, his pale eyebrows dipping low as he assessed his opponent.
Ben didn’t want to fight for her. He just wanted to fight Cobalt. He wanted payback.
“I wouldn’t advise that,” Yasmin said, her subtle French accent not smoothing the sharp edge to her words as she folded her arms across her cerise t-shirt. Her dark eyes admonished Ben. “You are hardly in the condition to fight.”
Yasmin was right about that. The goddess had done her best to patch Ben up, but the male still had a blackened jaw from where Cobalt had broken it, and there were still a few strips of metal taped across his nose to protect it as it healed.
Ben ignored her.
Yasmin huffed and shrugged when Flint tenderly patted her shoulder, silently telling her what Ember wanted to say too—that there was just no helping some people.
“I’m not fixing him when Cobalt breaks him again.” She looked at her mate.
Flint just smiled softly. “I’ll remind you of that when you’re piecing him back together because you can’t see someone hurt and not help them.”
She pulled a face. “This time I might not help them.”
Cobalt gave her an easy smile. “I’ll try not to break him too much.”
“Ben, don’t be an idiot—” Ember started, wanting to say that she wasn’t going to pick anyone over Cobalt even if they did somehow manage to beat him.
This fight was a farce. It meant nothing.
But Andre stepped into the ring, the sight of the black-haired male stripping off his flannel shirt stealing her voice as dread flowed through her.
Two on one wasn’t fair.
She flicked a glance at her mother, not surprised to see she wasn’t going to object to Andre wanting to fight for her.
“I’m not picking anyone. You can fight, but it means nothing,” Ember bit out, sure it would stop them before they started.
Cobalt cast her a look that said it definitely wasn’t going to stop him. The need in his golden eyes went through her, reached out and gripped her, squeezing her heart in her chest. She shook her head again, one last attempt to make him forget this crazy idea and just accept her decision.
His lips tugged into a faint smile, an apology meant for her.
Because he couldn’t back down now.
“I’ll make it quick, Sweetheart,” he husked, voice scraping low, and stroked his thumbs over her knuckles. “You don’t have to watch.”
“I do,” she whispered. “If you’re going to do this, then I’m going to watch… but you don’t need to prove anything to me, Cobalt.”
Ember moved her hands out from beneath his and framed his sculpted cheeks. She tilted his head up and looked into his eyes, catching the resolve in them, the determination to win this show of strength. She wanted to ask him again to stop and not do it, but held her tongue.
He needed to fight.
He needed to show her in his own way that he was the right male for her, that he was strong and able, and could protect her.
And he needed to prove it to himself too.
If fighting Andre and Ben and emerging the victor would make him believe in himself again, exorcising his demons, then she wouldn’t stop him.
She dipped her head and kissed him, savoured the softness of his lips against hers, and felt as if someone had just thrown her into the role of damsel to his knight, and this kiss was her token of favour, meant to boost his resolve and give him courage in the coming fight.
He brushed his lips across hers and then stepped back, breaking contact.
An easy smile graced his lips, confidence flashing in his eyes.
And then he was gone.
He hit Ben like a steamroller, ploughing his right fist into the brunet’s nose before he even saw him coming, sending him staggering back into the crowd where a couple of the males caught him before he could fall.
Blood gushed over Ben’s lips.
“You said you wouldn’t break him!” Yasmin snapped.
“I said I wouldn’t break him much.” Cobalt ducked beneath the blow Andre aimed at his back and swept his leg out, catching the black-haired male’s ankles and knocking them out from under him.
Andre went down hard, landing on his back on the grass with a grunt.
Cobalt launched at him, but Andre rolled and was on his feet before Cobalt could reach him to deal a blow of his own. She flinched as Andre landed a hard punch on Cobalt’s right cheek and he slammed into the earth where Andre had been. He was quick to roll away, agile as he sprang to his feet near her and shook off the blow.
He stood with his bare back to her, head switching side to side as he assessed both males.
Ember clutched the railing, breath lodged in her throat as they advanced as one.
Damn them. It wasn’t fair and they knew it.
“Cobalt!” she barked as Andre twitched.
Cobalt twisted in time to block the fist flying at him, his right arm coming up to deflect it. He growled as he brought his left fist up, landing a fierce blow on Andre’s side.
Andre grunted and shoved with his left hand, pushing it into Cobalt’s face and knocking him back. Ben leaped on Cobalt as he struggled to regain his balance, and Cobalt roared as the brunet raked claws down his left shoulder and pectoral.
Ember gripped the railing so hard her claws sank into it.
Her heart shot into her mouth as Cobalt dipped low and kicked off, rammed his good shoulder into Ben’s stomach and lifted him off the ground. He grappled with Ben, fighting to get hold of him as Ben clawed at his back and hissed. That hiss became a sharp grunt as Cobalt slammed him into the ground.
Cobalt pushed off him and ploughed his right fist into the brunet’s jaw.
Ben howled in agony.
Yasmin cursed and looked as if she wanted to enter the ring to tend to Ben while there was still some of him left that wasn’t broken, but Flint held her back, his left hand tightly clutching her wrist, keeping her at the outer edge of the ring.
Cobalt drove another punch into Ben’s jaw, making sure it was broken, and need washed through her, a hunger that stemmed from him. For a breath-stealing moment, she feared he was going to snap, but then that hunger bled from him as he shoved onto his feet and looked at her.
A look meant to reassure her that he wasn’t going to
lose control, not as he had before.
That fleeting distraction cost him.
Andre wrapped his left arm around Cobalt’s neck from behind, gripped his wrist in his right hand and heaved backwards, choking Cobalt. Cobalt’s golden eyes widened, a flicker of panic lighting them. Not panic that he was about to lose.
Panic that he was about to lose control.
Ember kept her focus on him, stoked her belief that he could hold on, that he could win this fight without his past stirring the darkness within him and stealing control from him. She believed that. She believed in him.
He growled and reached up, gripped Andre’s arm in both hands and bent forwards. His bare feet hit the dirt and he snarled as he kept bending forwards, gaining momentum now as every muscle flexed and tensed. Andre hissed as he went over Cobalt’s head and lost his grip on him, landing on the grass before her male.
Cobalt twisted and dropped, driving his knee into Andre’s throat. The male wrestled with him, his golden eyes wide as he tried to shove at Cobalt’s knee to get it off his windpipe.
Ben chose that moment to attack.
Cobalt snarled and arched forwards as Ben raked claws down his back, cleaving red gashes in his golden skin. Blood spilled from them in thick rivulets, quick to reach the waist of his black sweats, and her stomach turned, a need to run to him and help him flooding her.
He shook his head and glanced at her, a look meant to warn her to stay where she was.
Gods, it was hard to do that even when she knew it was what he needed.
Even when she knew that if she entered the ring to help him, it would push him over the edge.
The thought of her in danger would propel him into the darkness.
He grabbed Andre’s hair as he eased his knee off the black-haired male’s throat and slammed the back of his skull into the ground, knocking him out cold.
Ben backed off as Cobalt rose onto his feet, twisting to face him in one fluid motion, his face as dark as midnight. Ben’s gaze flicked to Andre, his eyes widened slightly, and panic lit them as they leaped back to Cobalt.
It was too late for him to back down.
He didn’t even manage to move a muscle, didn’t get a single syllable out before Cobalt had him in a headlock and was choking him. Something silver flashed across her eyes as Cobalt tightened his grip on Ben, driving him towards unconsciousness.
“Cobalt.” Her heart stopped dead as she spotted the knife in Ben’s hand.
Cobalt looked down and roared as Ben plunged the blade into his right thigh, burying it to the hilt. A dark patch immediately bloomed across his black sweats. He growled and slammed his left fist into Ben’s face, the single blow sending his opponent into oblivion, and released him as he staggered backwards.
She was going to kill Ben for breaking the rules by bringing a weapon into a fight at the creek, and then she was going to kill him again for being so petty as to attempt to kill Cobalt in the name of revenge.
Cobalt dropped onto his ass, growling and snarling as he reached for the blade protruding from his thigh, his eyes wild and flooded with staggering pain that tore through her too. The need to beat the crap out of Ben instantly washed from her, concern for her male rushing in to replace it.
“Don’t you dare!” Yasmin hollered and broke free of Flint’s grip, voicing the words that had been on the very tip of Ember’s tongue.
Yasmin raced over to Cobalt, reaching him before he could pull the knife free, her hand coming down on his to keep it in place.
Cobalt growled at her instead, snapped fangs and bared them as he wrestled against her.
Ember leaped over the railing, landing in a squat on the other side, and hurried to him. She sank to her knees beside him and placed one hand on his and the other on his arm.
He stopped trying to fight Yasmin and looked at her instead.
“Listen to Yasmin, okay?” She held back her fear, not wanting him to feel it in her.
His golden eyes darkened, not with pain but with hunger.
Blood splattered his face and streaked his chest.
He had never looked so feral and dangerous.
Gods, it thrilled her.
It shouldn’t, but it did.
It had everything falling away as he stared at her, that hunger mounting in his eyes and in their fragile bond, and she knew it was the same for him. His every male instinct was rising to the fore, stripping awareness of his injuries from him as she sat beside him, her hands on his bare skin, and knowledge that he had emerged the victor ran through him.
She didn’t stop him as he reached up, cupped her nape and dragged her down for a bruising kiss that she could feel he needed as much as she did.
He pulled back, his hand firm on her nape and a question in his eyes as he stared at her, not seeming to notice Yasmin fussing over the blade sticking out of his leg, talking to him about how lucky he was that it hadn’t nicked an artery and how he was going to be fine with a little rest and a few stitches.
He wanted to know if he had won her by winning the fight, looked as if his life depended on it as his eyes remained locked on hers.
Ember answered that silent question for him.
“I accept you as my male.”
And soon, she would accept him as her mate.
CHAPTER 14
Yasmin had patched up his thigh and had given him strict instructions to rest. Cobalt had hollowly agreed to her order, knowing full well it wasn’t going to happen. The look she sported as she sent him away from her makeshift infirmary in one of the vacant cabins told him she was also sure he was going to ignore it.
His sensitive hearing caught her muttered curse as he limped away from her, his arm slung around Ember’s shoulders.
“I’m not patching him up again if he reopens that wound,” Yasmin whispered under her breath.
His younger brother, Flint, stepped out onto the deck at that moment. “Cobalt isn’t good at listening to orders… and he hasn’t been ever since he was a cub. If he wants to do something, he’s doing it. The Mount Robson incident is evidence enough of that.”
Why did everyone keep bringing up the one time he had disobeyed Rath’s strict instructions not to attempt to climb that mountain?
It was one time.
He had listened to Rath’s orders every single time after that, but no one gave him any credit for it.
Cobalt didn’t need heightened senses to catch Yasmin’s deep, weary sigh in response to that.
It almost made him want to rest up just so he could prove her and Flint wrong.
Almost.
The feel of Ember tucked close to him, her arm around his waist, hand pressing into his left hip to support him, had another want rising inside him instead, a need to rush now.
He had waited so long for this moment.
Too long.
The knowledge that she would have consented to be his all those years ago if he had only found the courage to ask, that their journey to this point in their lives together might have been far less rocky and treacherous, still shook him to his soul.
He couldn’t wait a second longer to make her his mate, felt like a fool for holding back all this time, an idiot not to see that he wasn’t the only one harbouring feelings that ran deep.
As deep as they could go.
Ember looked up at him, the feel of her eyes on his face heating him, warming him right down to his bones. That warmth grew as he slid her a look and he lingered, his eyes on hers as they walked back through the woods to his cabin.
“Gods, you’re beautiful,” he breathed, lost in that beauty, in the way her stunning blue-silver eyes were rimmed with brightest gold and her clear cheeks were tinted pink. Lost in the way her rosy lips begged him for a kiss as they curved, a hint of shyness in that smile.
“I think the pain meds Yasmin gave you have gone to your head.”
He didn’t like the way she batted the compliment aside, or the way her eyes left his, and he sensed the shift in her emotions.
He stopped, forcing her to halt with him, and when she looked up at him again, he caught her jaw in his free hand and held her so she couldn’t look away again.
“I mean it, Ember.” He swept his thumb across her cheek, a light touch that sent a shiver through him.
As he looked down into her eyes, everything he had been holding back came rushing to the fore, breaking the shackles he had placed on it. Shackles he no longer needed.
Because Ember was his.
He could see it in her eyes as she looked up at him.
They were soft and tender, as warm as the emotions now rising inside her to vanquish the other ones, the ones that made her feel she wasn’t worthy of him. He wanted to laugh at that, but he could see those feelings cut her deeply, had her doubting herself.
“You’re beautiful,” he husked and held her firm when she tried to look away, keeping her eyes on his. “I mean it. I’ve watched you grow into an incredible, stunning… beautiful… female. One I’m still not sure whether I deserve… one I thought would never be mine… one I want with all of my heart.”
Another blush stained her cheeks.
The hard edge to her expression that had been building, warning she was going to bat away his compliments, softened and she lifted her hand and placed it over his on her cheek.
He melted a little—a lot—as she leaned into his palm, her eyes falling closed.
His beautiful mate.
“Take the compliment,” he urged softly, a smile tugging at his lips as he stroked her cheek with his thumb and gazed down at her, “because if you don’t, I’m going to tell you how beautiful you are every hour of every day… rather than every few days.”
She smiled at last, a soft chuckle escaping her as she shook her head and lifted her eyes to his again. “Fine… but you’re the beautiful one.”
Cobalt barked out a laugh. “Nah.”
The way she looked at him, eyes shining with emotions he could feel in her, love that touched him deeply, said she truly believed what she had said. She thought he was beautiful.
“Females are beautiful,” he muttered and started walking with her. “But I’ll take rakishly handsome.”
Craved by her Cougar (Cougar Creek Mates Shifter Romance Series Book 4) Page 15
