Chapter Eleven Nix
Nix
Nix felt the evil radiating from the pendant the moment Erin pulled it from her bag, his new Were senses confirming what he had already known—even as a human.
The one time he’d tried to take it off, relief had been immediate—until it wasn’t. Until Hayes made sure he regretted it.
And now, Nix finally understands why.
Seeing for himself what was on the reverse—Jay Rhodes—and realizing that Hayes had deliberately hidden him from fate, from destiny, from the Goddess, and most of all, from his true love…shattered something inside Nix.
The box of hatred and rage he’d spent years locking up, burying it deep in the Mariana Trench of his psyche—cracked wide open.
Buried deep because he’d learned early on—once Hayes had been very, very sure that Nix had nowhere to run and nowhere to hide—that any drama would leave him broken and bloody in a variety of horrifyingly creative ways.
Learning the extent of the premeditated evil superseded his knowledge of the many injuries Hayes had inflicted. It was worse, even, than lying about knowing Jamie or that he worked at Ripley Records.
To his wolf, it was an unforgivable offense that Hayes had made sure that no matter how he’d secretly prayed that Jamie might be looking for him—that destiny might intervene and reunite them in this lifetime—Hayes had destroyed even that glimmer of hope with sadistic glee.
Nix didn’t doubt for a moment that the pendant had done what it intended.
No wonder Hayes had loved seeing that pendant around his neck; each time had been a reminder of how he was getting one over on his enemy, the successful and happy Jamie Rhodes.
Hurting Nix had been a pleasantly entertaining byproduct.
Nix feels pure rage, knowing it was nothing but cursed luck—nothing but a cruel twist of fate—that, in his eagerness to hurt him, Hayes had inadvertently torn the pendant from his neck.
His freedom, his future, even his life—all of it owed to nothing but chance. And that burns.
His wolf seethes with hatred, and Nix lets him take control—shielding himself from the worst of his grief, surrendering to the fury instead. Letting it run wild.
He should feel bad that they had frightened the lawyer, that even Gideon had looked wary at the hatred burning through their veins like venom; the wolf’s only thought is to use it to strike their torturer down. It’s that desire for retribution that sends them through the door, onto the pool deck, and over the short wall on its other side.
The trees on the Rhodes property are majestic and mature, and with so much land around him, the wolf gives in to the urge to run.
If they weren’t so enraged, they might have wondered how it was even possible—this much open space in the heart of Nashville, where land is at a premium.
Picking up speed, they move through the trees on bare feet until they’re brought up short several minutes later. There’s a very tall stone wall, and it runs off in both directions as far as they can see, and although the wolf thinks they can scale it, they don’t have time. Their pack alpha is on their heels, and they do not want to channel their fury in the wrong direction.
They want Hayes’s bloodshed, not anyone else’s.
So they do the next best thing—they climb the tallest tree in the vicinity. Ironically, it smells just like their mate. Nix has never climbed trees, but his wolf pays no heed. It’s not long until they are as high as they can be, sitting as still as possible, and when their alpha comes to the wall, they’re silent.
“Nix. Fuck, where are you? I can’t chase you through the streets of fucking Nashville in broad daylight.” Jamie is upset, causing the wolf to whine; Nix thinks they might want to comfort him but remembers their need to find Hayes.
They just have to be patient. Their mate will tire soon enough, and then they can track their tormentor and take their vengeance. They adjust their crouch so they can sit easily on the branch and watch the top of their mate’s head twenty feet below.
It’s the rustle of the branches and the fall of the needles that give them away.
“Nixie? Where…holy Jesus, fuck. Don’t move.” The wolf doesn’t like the sound of their mate’s distress, but when Jamie goes for the base of the tree as if he might climb up, the wolf growls a menacing warning.
They don’t want their mate in the tree. He might fall and be hurt.
“Okay. I won’t come up. Can I sit here with you?”
The wolf shakes their head and growls again. The sooner their mate leaves, the sooner they can scale the wall and find Dawson Hayes. His rotten scent still clings in Nix’s brain.
It’s strange—Nix knows Hayes was human. He shouldn’t have been able to scent him at all. But with his wolf, they remember.
The evil. The ruin. The decay.
Because Dawson Hayes hadn’t just stunk of flesh, his very soul had smelled rotten.
“Alright. Just give me a minute to think. Fuck.” He reaches into his back pocket, and he’s got his phone in hand. He doesn’t take his eyes off Nix, but the wind has picked up, branches creaking, and they can’t hear who he’s calling. Frustrated, the wolf growls again and, this time, bares their fangs in warning.
When he pockets the phone, he sits. “Sorry, baby, I’m going to sit for a minute. You run fast. I think I need to pick up some cardio.”
Nix finds his words underneath the wolf’s rage. “Go, Jamie.”
“No can do, Buttercup. You said you wouldn’t leave me, and I am sure you have plans to Spiderman that wall if I do, and Goddess knows where you’ll end up, but you are mine. It’s my responsibility and my privilege to care for you and protect you. I’ll just wait here until you want to come down.”
The wolf sees their chance to leave the compound slipping away—they are irate. They should have remembered that no one has more patience than Jamie Rhodes. They’re steadily growling now so that even the birds and other creatures are quiet at the sound. But their alpha mate doesn’t back down.
It’s not long before they hear reinforcements approaching at a run.
Gideon breaks into the small clearing with Luca right behind him. His Luca.
Luca.
The wind steals his mocha scent, and the wolf growls, shaking their head in frustration. Luca looks up, eyes wide—frightened. Of them? Or for them? Nix doesn’t know—but the thought that they might be scaring their Luca makes the wolf whine.
And yet, despite the fear, Luca is determined.
He shivers, then steps directly beneath the tree, arms lifting like he’s ready to catch Nix if he jumps.
“Luca. Go.”
“Hi, baby. Not going without you. Alphas say you had some scary news.” Jamie smacks a hand over his face, and Nix can see him say Luca! “No, Jaybird, shush. You asked me out here, let me do it my way. Please.”
Jamie brings both hands up in surrender but still doesn’t let Nix out of his sight.
The wolf takes up growling and flashing their fangs at the reminder. Hayes.
“Baby! Could you come down and be with me? I’m cold, and I’m scared you’re going to fall.”
The wolf snorts. They couldn’t fall. They could jump and still be good, but Luca wouldn’t know that.
“Hayes,” the wolf growls. And every single person in the clearing, including Nix, flinches.
“I know, Nixie. He’s a terrible man, but you can’t ki–er–get to him like this. He’s in jail. You have to wait.” Another Luca! “I am doing my damned best here—you want him out of that fucking tree? Please be quiet.”
“Nixie, I am hungry and cold, and you made me a promise before that lawyer came. Do you remember?”
The wolf tries to remind Nix of the rage, flashing images behind their eyes of Dawson Hayes’s blood and pain, but Nix shakes him off. Nix wants his Luca and wants the feelings to go away, back in the box, where they don’t hurt like fire in his belly. He looks at Luca’s face and pushes the wolf back deeper into his mind.
“Hungry?” His mate needs food, and he did make a promise.
One that is about love.
“Yes, I want pizza and cuddles and for you to keep your promise. But I can’t come up—I’m afraid of heights, and I might fall. Can you come down?”
Luca’s upturned face is beautiful, his cheeks flushed red from the crisp autumn breeze.
Nix needs to get down—he needs to warm Luca up.
With the wolf silenced temporarily, Nix realizes for the first time just how far up the tree he’s gone. The wolf has decided to bide its time and offers no help now that it’s not going to get flesh in its teeth. It has dragged the rage into its box but doesn’t let Nix put the lid or the locks back on. The rage slows to a simmer, and it lets him think clearly for the first time since he left the safety of the house.
“Fuck. I hate heights, too. What was I thinking?”
There’s a collective sigh of relief.
“Nix?”
“Jamie, how am I getting down?”
In the end, Jamie climbs up and helps Nix navigate the way down until they get to the final ten feet, where there are only claw marks, not branches. Gideon reaches his arms up, and Nix jumps into them like the Princess Bride ending sequence, and Gideon is Fezzik.
Nix thinks he wants to watch that movie again.
When Gideon catches him easily, he’s squeezed so tightly, with Gideon running his nose up behind Nix’s ear, and he thinks the other man might have a tear in his eye. “You alright?”
Gideon gives him the smallest nod. “I’m better now. Let’s go home, and we can have pizza.”
“And a movie? I want Princess Bride , please.” Gideon shifts him around until he’s on his back to save his bare feet on the return trip, and they head for home with Luca on Jamie’s back. They make it extra difficult because they insist on holding hands.
No one asks if he’s alright, and that’s fine by him because he’s not sure he could lie and say yes.
He slips down when they get to the pool deck and heads inside and straight up the stairs to Jamie’s room. He wants to wash the tree sap and dirt from his body and take a few minutes to try to lock that box of emotions down. No one follows, and he is inordinately grateful for the time alone so that he can get his errant thoughts in order.
The wolf hasn’t given up on their plans to be the instrument of Dawson Hayes’ death, but the wolf will need to bide his time. Their mates are too concerned, and he doesn’t know enough about this community to guarantee success.
Nix will need to speak with the lawyer again privately.
They don’t want to leave their mates after finding them, but neither will Nix force Finn to lie to the government on their behalf—their alpha is too honorable for that. If facing Hayes in the courtroom or on a field of battle means he’s wiped off the face of this earth for eternity, then the wolf will do what needs to be done. They will not risk any of their mates.
Nix, at least, feels surprisingly calmer with a plan, and when he steps out, there’s a baby pink t-shirt that smells like Luca lying on the bed. It’s humongous on him, and there’s a pink pony on the front. It covers his butt, and as expected, there are no pants. He uses the basil-and-green-tea-scented lotion on Jamie’s bedside and lets his hair air dry as best he can. He even looks through the drawers until he finds a pair of warm woolly socks with eggplants on them.
When he comes down, the pizza is steaming on the coffee table/ottoman, and there are napkins and plates stacked in a pile. He’s not had pizza since he left Clearwater, and it smells really good. Finn, Leo, and Grayson are still absent, and it’s been almost two days since he’d seen Rowan. He’s struck by how much that physically pains him.
But Luca is sitting in the center of the couch under the chick-patterned blanket like Luca knows he must be missing Rowan and beckons him over. He avoids the big plate of pizza on his lap to squeeze in beside him as tightly as he can. There’s a hum of whispered voices where Gideon and Jamie are speaking in the kitchen, just out of sight.
He wants to ask about the others, but finding the words is hard. Maybe he hasn’t shed the wolf as much as he thought.
Luca must understand, though, because he reassures him with a quiet, “Hey, baby. Don’t think about anything but Buttercup and Wesley. I waited for you. Here. Eat.” The movie starts, and they finish the pizza, reciting the lines they know–which is most of them—even after all this time. Nix feels fuzzy and warm, letting Luca’s mocha scent send him further into that floaty place he craves—
down
down
down
They’re asleep, with full tummies and hand-in-hand, before Wesley has been mostly-dead-all-day.