Chapter Twenty-Eight Jay
Jay
Rewind
Jay leans against the end of the counter, waiting for Leo to finish with the florist. Leo might be the flower guy, but Jay still loves the mix of scents filling the shop.
They’d worked through Grayson’s surprisingly short list of date-night necessities at record speed—just the florist and caterer left.
They arrived half an hour ago, and now Leo is finally watching as the smiling florist carefully wraps his latest gift for Gideon, vase and all. It’s their thing. Leo picks flowers that reflect how he feels, and Gideon pretends not to think it’s the cutest fucking thing ever.
Today’s bundle includes peonies and roses. Leo never says what they mean, and as far as Jay knows, no one’s looked it up—except Gideon, of course.
“Nice choices today, babe.” Jay packs Grayson’s choice into the backseat before opening the door so his mate can climb in and hold his designed Gideon-tribute.
“You think? I wanted to cheer him on. He’s doing hard things, ya know?” His mate’s cheeks are pink, and he’s touching the petals of a deep red peony through the cellophane.
Yeah. Jay knows Gideon is doing hard things, and he is torn between being grateful he doesn’t have to do it and angry Gideon is doing it at all.
“He’ll love them, just like he always does. You’re so good, Leo.” The scent of the flowers overpowers Leo’s cinnamon inside the car, but Jay can tell his mate is pleased.
The next item on the list is a box from the local caterer, who loads the hot dishes and coolers into the trunk, and then they head home. It’s a beautiful sunny afternoon, so Jay pushes his dark thoughts away and tries to just be present with Leo.
“Hey, Jay? Should we call Dad later? About the Ripley thing? I checked the website and official media, and they’ve not put anything out. Do you think they’re waiting for us to make the first move?”
There goes his zen. Shit.
“Yeah. They’ve got a plan, but so do we, ya?” Jay grabs Leo’s hand over the console. “It’s going to be great. Let’s talk to Luc and Ro when we get home, and then call your dad.”
“I’m looking forward to being free.” His mate’s grin is so wide, and it’s been far too long since Jay has seen it. Freedom sounds good.
“Me, too.”
The gate slides open when they get home, and Rowan is on the front porch. He’s pacing and pulling at his hair. What the fuck is going on?
Leo has his phone out to see if they’ve missed messages. “Oh shit. We missed his texts.”
Jay doesn’t wait for the rest. He’s slamming the car into park, and he just leaves his driver’s side door wide open, heart in his throat and wolf at the ready.
“Nix is hurt, and Gideon is fucking puking. Hurry up!” Rowan disappears toward the gym.
Jay can smell the blood before he even gets to the gym, and when he clears the door, the vomit and petrichor hit him like a fist to the face.
But all he can see is Nix standing in the center of the room, tattered shirt in his hand, while Finn sews up a long, deep gash in his omega’s side.
Jay’s wolf is in near hysterics, shredding through any last attempt at restraint as he barrels forward. Fangs down, claws out, his growl is a warning that freezes every wolf in the room.
His instincts scream at him to assess his mate, but when he lifts his nose, searching for the telltale signs of pain—vanilla gone sour, burnt cookies singed at the edges—there’s nothing.
Nothing .
Nix is standing right there, Finn’s needle still half-pressed into his side, but his scent is locked down so tightly it’s as if he isn’t even there. The absence is so absolute that Jay’s wolf roars in confusion and fury. It doesn’t matter that his omega is in front of him—his scent is missing, and without it, Jay can’t tell how bad it is.
The burst of fear takes him right back to the time almost a decade ago—when he thought Nix had died—and the grief burns through him in a fiery rage. His second roar is enough to break Nix out of his daze, and he meets Jay’s eyes.
“Jamie. It’s okay. Really. Hardly hurts.” It’s not the comfort Nix intends for it to be. A huge gash hardly fucking hurts? No, it’s not the consolation Nix thinks it is, not at all.
Finn snorts and tries to hold Nix still so he can finish, but the omega is having none of it. Jay meets Nix halfway, and his wolf runs his nose over his mate’s hair and into his neck, huffing and growling. Still no sweet vanilla. And with his wolf holding court right now, Jay can’t get the words out to ask where it’s gone.
Jay goes to his knees next, pulling down Nix’s shorts and snuffling at the scent glands in his groin, and still nothing. It doesn’t seem to matter that the bond in his chest is bright and strong, so he growls again, and this time, it earns him a smack across the head with a growled stop that idiot alpha. Suddenly, he is on his ass with a lapful of omega-butt, and Jay puts his nose behind his ear.
“Finn, come.”
Finn approaches slowly at Nix’s request and starts stitching up his side again. Nix doesn’t even twitch every time the needle goes in, and eventually, Finn mutters to himself about stitching up mates and how he is goddamned tired of it. He’s pale, too, and it helps Jay to at least be able to scent tart black currant over the blood and vomit.
Why can’t he smell Nix? It’s making his wolf insane. Nausea roils in his gut, and there’s cold sweat covering his back. Maybe this is another reason they don’t want new wolves in scent blockers. They don’t tell you it’s not just about the transitioned wolf being able to scent themselves but also about fucking ridiculous enigma wolves losing their shit, PTSD-style.
Jay finally finds his words, and they’re not what he’d expected to come out of his mouth. “Finn?” It must be hard for him to treat his mate’s injury or smell the blood again.
“I’m fine, alpha. Fucking tired of this, though. Seventeen fucking stitches.” He swipes antiseptic across the wound again, and the scent burns Jay’s wolf’s nose, and he growls.
“Enough, Jamie. It doesn’t even hurt, and it’s my own damn fault. Just quit it.”
“Can’t smell you. Fucking makes my wolf crazy.”
“Oh? Huh. Wait.” Nix scrunches up his nose, and there’s a sudden flood of vanilla. Jay’s wolf whines, and Finn’s shoulders drop, too.
“Hey. I didn’t know Weres could do that. That is so cool. Why do you all wear patches if you can just turn it off and on like a faucet?”
Finn laughs and plops onto his butt. “Because we can’t. It is not a thing at all, and when a Were doesn’t have a scent? They are wearing a blocker, or they are fucking dead.”
“Dead?” He looks back toward the bathroom at the far end of the gym, where, just this week, Jay had to wash off the stink of his parent’s betrayal. Nix is on his feet in the next instant, hand out. “Oh. Jamie, give me your shirt, please.”
What? His shirt? But Jay has never denied Nix anything before and slides his black t-shirt over his head and back down over Nix’s, covering his wound. It’s then that Jay notices the sound of the shower turning off, and he can hear Luca talking. “He’s fine, Gideon. He hit his head on the way down and passed out, but he’s okay. You didn’t mean to hurt him—”
Jay can’t hear what Gideon is saying, but he doesn’t have to. Gideon is the one who put that gash on Nix’s side. The one that needed seventeen stitches and made their very own Dr. Merritt pale. He’d been unconscious, and it was enough to make Gideon think he’d fucking killed him. Jay knows what it’s like to fight Gideon as wolves do, claws slashing, lightning-fast, and vicious.
Gideon comes out of the bathroom, still wet from showering off the stink of his fear. He’s pale in his towel, and when he sees Nix, his knees go weak, and Luca has to catch him before he falls.
“Oh, Gideon.” Nix tries to go to him, but Jay has an iron grip on his omega’s wrist. He doesn’t think about it—it’s just instinct. His wolf has put all the pieces together, and it’s all mixed up in his head.
Gideon tried to kill Nix, and Jay’s wolf is livid. Gone is any thought Jay had about being reluctantly supportive of honoring Nix’s autonomy. It’s replaced by sheer fury.
No matter that the injury was unintentional or that it was just training. Jay’s fangs are down, claws out, and he shoves Nix behind him—hard enough that Finn has to step in to keep their omega from stumbling.
His scent is a raging wildfire, thick with fury and warning. The deep, feral growl that rumbles from his chest locks the room into a second, breathless stillness—no one daring to move, to breathe, lest they draw his attention.
Jay is both horrified and incensed. Horrified because Gideon is his mate—his love. Incensed—because someone made Nix bleed.
Someone hurt him—and Jay had sworn that no one would ever hurt Nix again.
Gideon is motionless, holding his ground but making no move to defend himself. His chin dips, head tilting in submission—something so uncharacteristic that it should register. Should matter. But it doesn’t.
Not to Jay’s wolf.
His grip is slipping. He feels it with every warning growl curling in his throat, the instinct surging like a storm under his skin, ready to charge—
A sharp smack lands on the back of his head.
Jay barely has time to register the shock before Nix is in his face, growling—his eyes glowing that eerie, electric blue, just like last night.
“No.”
The single word carries an authority Jay isn’t prepared for, but what really throws him is the push behind it—strong enough that his wolf listens.
“Jamie, it was an accident, and you will stop this shit right now. You hear me? Right the fuck now.”
No one moves.
And then—just like that—Jay feels it. The moment his wolf backs down without a fight—he just obeys.
Holy shit.
Gideon falls into a relieved crouch, hands in his wet hair, and Nix pats Jay’s cheek. There’s a collective sigh before Nix joins Luca to help Gideon to his feet and enjoys a three-way hug. His words to them are imperceptible over his labored breathing and the blood pounding in his head.
Gideon seems to steady after taking long, deep breaths from Nix’s throat, the alpha’s hand under his t-shirt, and over the wound in front.
“I’m okay.”
Jay wishes he could say the same. He is so far from steady, and the words are the last straw. Where Jay’s wolf has had his say with growls and shows of dominance, Jay has not.
“You’re okay? What the actual fuck, Nix? You took seventeen stitches! The only way could be less okay was if you were fucking dead. I thought you were dead. Gideon obviously thought you were, too, or he wouldn’t have lost his fucking lunch. How are you in any way, okay ?”
“Jamie–”
Fear that feels like grief floods his chest, and he shakes his head. “No. You know what? This is ridiculous. I’m not letting you do this. No more. I want you to have anything and everything you want. I do. But if it means you’re going to die trying, just so you can go out there and do it for fucking real? No. We’re done.”
Jay doesn’t think he has ever been as angry as he is right now. Not the wolf, but the man .
“And Gideon. What were you thinking?” Gideon looks ashamed, and Jay knows he’s right. Knows that Gideon agrees with him. “You are a fucking fifth-degree black belt, and you are teaching a pussycat to fight a fucking tiger. It’s on you that he’s hurt. It’ll be on you if he goes out there and–”
Jay had not expected the small fist to his belly.
Later, Jay will consider himself lucky that Luca didn’t reach in and yank his heart out.
He is so angry Jay can see him vibrating with it, his fury rolling off him in waves. When he hits him again, he starts yelling.
“Fuck you. You don’t get to decide this for Nix, Gideon, or any of us. We aren’t your fucking property. We’re your mates. Fuck. You.”
The last is punctuated by a shaking finger in Jay’s face, Luca so livid Jay barely recognizes him—his sweet, amiable Luca, who avoids conflict, who needs harmony.
But it doesn’t change Jay’s mind—it can’t. Jay won’t survive this life if he loses Nix again.
There is the tiniest thought from Jay’s wolf that Jay could make them do what he wants—to save them—to protect them from anything the world might throw at them. Luca’s eyes pop open wide because maybe he feels it too—how close Jay is to using his Alpha-Voice.
The command is right there, waiting. One word, and they would listen. One word, and they’d stay safe. He could do it. He should do it.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” He stabs that pointy finger into Jay’s chest, and Jay wants to growl and make Luca bare his neck. “You wouldn’t dare.”
Jay would . He would so dare, and it scares him.
It’s enough that Jay takes one last look at his family and pushes past Leo and Rowan standing in the hall.
Jay is outside with the Ducati between his legs, tearing through the narrow opening in the main gate before he can change his mind and do something Jay is worried he won’t regret at all.