As her mother started talking about the males currently residing at the creek, Ember pushed the door open and peered out, and relief washed through her when she saw the male who had been ogling her was gone now.
She carried her mug of coffee to her favourite recliner on the deck that wrapped around her family’s large cabin and eased into it, loosing a deep sigh as she let all the tension drain from her limbs and savoured the silence of morning.
She loved this time, when the creek was quiet, the babbling river and the movement of animals in the distance the only sound.
The quiet before the storm.
It wouldn’t be long before the rest of the creek woke and the first fights of the day happened.
Although, she wasn’t the only one who was up and out early today.
She glanced off to her right, up the two hundred metre clearing to the cabin that stood proud at the top of it, sheltered by deep green pines, and the two males on the deck.
Rath raked a hand over his thick dark brown hair and said something she couldn’t hear to his brother.
Cobalt.
The towering platinum-blond had his back to her, his fine backside pressed to the railing around the deck and his hands planted beside his lean hips, bracing himself upright. His shoulders were tense beneath his black t-shirt, his hair mussed in a way that made him look as if he had come straight from his bed to see his brother.
Or from a female.
Ember hadn’t failed to notice the way a lot of the females at the creek looked at him, blatant desire in their eyes as they tracked his movements. She had never attended a gathering before, but she knew that as a member of Rath’s family, he was responsible for overseeing everything and wasn’t allowed to participate in the fights or see to the females.
So it had shocked her when she had seen the way they eyed him, hungry gazes raking over him, and how they flirted with him whenever he happened to stop near them. A few of them used any excuse to touch him, laying a hand on his arm as they spoke about something innocent like the fight schedule, or brushing their bodies against his.
He never reacted, other than to move away and place some distance between them, but he was male and that meant he wasn’t immune to the instincts the spring gathering roused in him. The mating heat affected him too. His brothers, Storm and Flint, had eyed the females in return, had even flirted with a couple.
Did Cobalt ever flirt in return?
Did he ever secretly sleep with the females?
Gods, the thought he might twisted her stomach and heart in knots.
Partly because she didn’t want him to secretly bed the females, and partly because she wanted him.
Always had.
Always would.
If she approached him, if she flirted with him as the other females did, would he turn her away? Would he draw back from her and distance himself as he did with them? Or would he give her what she needed?
What she needed from only him.
She had agreed to come to the creek for the gathering because she had wanted to see him, had needed to see him. For over thirty years, she had watched him, had seen him grow and mature, had witnessed him come into his own, becoming more alluring to her as he had found his feet and his confidence.
For three decades, she had harboured what she had thought of as a ridiculous crush on him, watching him from afar, secretly yearning for him to even glance at her whenever they were at the creek at the same time.
Aching for him to notice her.
Whenever he had taken the time to speak with her, she had been assaulted by nerves, convinced she would say or do something stupid that would tarnish his opinion of her, whatever that was.
It had taken maturing for her to discover her own confidence, to settle into her skin and be comfortable in it, to realise that she was beautiful enough to contend with the other females at the creek, to vie for his attention and maybe even steal his heart if she set her mind to it.
Her mother had rattled that confidence when she had asked Rath to tend to her, and had been chipping away at it ever since, with every male who fought for her and every time she was paraded in front of them.
It didn’t help that Cobalt seemed determined to avoid her, barely looked at her now when he had let his eyes linger on her at times in the past, before she had matured.
Ember looked down at herself.
She had put a little more weight on her bones, her hips curvier than before, belly rounded and breasts fuller. Maybe he didn’t like the changes she had made to herself, but this was who she was, and she liked it. She loved her curves, didn’t want to be a stick thin female.
Her curves made her feel sexy, empowered.
Movement off to her right drew her attention back to Cobalt.
He pushed away from the railing, heaved a long sigh that lifted his broad shoulders, and said something to his brother.
Rath nodded, stood and clapped a hand down on his shoulder as Cobalt scrubbed a hand over his mouth and rubbed it across his straight jaw. His brother smiled at him, but Cobalt’s handsome face remained sober as he nodded in return, twisted and stepped off the deck.
He strode down the green, long black-jeans-clad legs making easy work of the distance between her and him, and she couldn’t take her eyes off him, watched him over the rim of her mug as he approached.
Damn, he was fine.
He radiated an alluring sort of danger and temptation, roused her instincts and brought them to the fore, until she was restless with a need to stand and move around the deck, to let him get a good look at her and what he was missing out on, all in an effort to lure him to her.
Ember kept her backside planted to her recliner instead.
Not because she didn’t want Cobalt to look at her, or because she would have been ashamed at herself for trying to lure his gaze to her by parading herself in front of him when her mother insisted on her showing off her curves to every male who fought for her, but because her confidence was low today, the last few weeks battering it.
Every fight she had to watch, and every suitor who stood before her stole a piece of it.
Every horrible moment where she had to wait, praying her mother would refuse that suitor, shook it.
Every day when Cobalt ignored her tore it down a little more.
But every day when she set eyes on him, he gave back that fragment he ripped from her. Just looking at him started a fire within her, one that burned so hot it had her forgetting that she was tired of males, tired of fights.
And whenever he did look at her?
When his stunning pale grey-gold eyes landed on her, that fire exploded into an inferno that had a shot of adrenaline blazing through her, filled her to the brim with confidence again.
Ember tracked him across the green, silently willing him to look at her. She needed his eyes on her today, needed that boost so she could finally tell her mother she was done with letting her control her life, that it was time for some changes and she was going to make her own decisions from now on.
But he didn’t even glance her way as he neared her.
His grey eyes remained locked on the grass, a troubled edge to them that echoed the emotions she could sense in him as he grew closer.
Emotions that had her wanting to rise onto her feet for a different reason, not to lure his eyes to her but to ask him what was wrong.
The sight of him troubled roused her deepest instincts, ones that had come into sharp focus over the past few weeks and had hit her with a revelation that had rocked her, but gods, it had explained so much at the same time.
She had always believed the attraction she felt towards Cobalt was based solely on his charisma, looks, and personality, all the sorts of things that falling in love with someone normally involved.
But this was the first time she had seen him since she had matured, and the attraction she had felt towards him when she had set eyes on him again had burned so fiercely it had left her shaking.
Over the weeks, that attraction had only grown stronger, seemed to multiply one hundredfold every damned day, and now it was becoming a struggle to restrain herself when he was near, to deny her instincts to approach him and push him, to initiate something by attempting to dominate him.
To provoke a reaction.
It hadn’t taken her long to realise the reason why.
He was her fated male.
Was he aware that she was his fated one?
He was older than her, matured three decades ago now, and as far as she knew, males were meant to be more aware of their true mate, found it easier to tell who it was than the females of her species. Males were driven by instincts that females also possessed when it came to a mate, but hers weren’t as fierce or as controlling.
She felt an ache for him, soul-deep and consuming, one that demanded she provoke him, push and cajole him, rub against him and make him notice her. Her instincts wanted her to tease him into dominating her and staking a claim on her.
His instincts should have been pressing him to do just that, to seize her and bite her nape, and bind them as mates. They should have been riding him as hard as hers were, demanding he take care of her, and drive any unmated males away from her.
If he was feeling any of that, he was hiding it well, because he was more distant than ever, had barely said three words to her over the past few weeks and showed no sign of desire when he did look at her.
He watched the fights over her without a trace of emotion on his face, in complete and utter control as he oversaw them, and didn’t even seem bothered when her mother mulled over whether to give the winner permission to ease her needs.
Didn’t he want her?
The thought that he might not left her cold and aching inside, scraped out and hollow.
Was it possible she was wrong about him and he wasn’t her fated one?
If she wasn’t mistaken, was it possible for a male to not want his true mate?
Rath had gone crazy over Ivy when she had come to the creek, and Ember had witnessed both Storm and Flint driven to extremes to protect and win their fated ones.
Was it really possible that Cobalt didn’t desire her as his mate?
He finally lifted his head and a shiver bolted through her when his eyes slid her way and his gaze settled on her, some of the shadows lifting from his face as he looked at her.
Ember opened her mouth to greet him.
Her mother stepped out onto the deck and Cobalt’s grey gaze shifted to her.
“Two more fights today.” Her mother sighed. “Neither of them containing any males really worthy of you. If only Rath had accepted our offer.”
Ember’s eyes widened as Cobalt’s narrowed, her heart hitching in her throat and pounding there as she fought to find her voice to say she didn’t want Rath and it hadn’t been her idea to approach his brother.
She swore Cobalt’s face darkened before he looked away and lowered it, and his pace picked up, long legs carrying him swiftly past her. She watched him go, feeling the faintest echo of his emotions and trying to decipher them, because she needed to know what he was feeling.
She needed to know whether he felt anything at all for her.
She just needed a sign.
One sign.
A look. A smile. Anything to make his feelings clear.
Because then she was sure she would find the courage to follow her heart.
And it would lead her straight to him.