Chapter 14 #2
“Of all people,” echoed the redhead, teeth bared in a smile.
“Guess it was difficult, going from Juilliard to, like, the pole?” asked the pixie, too casually. “It must have been so different. All that discipline, then… that.”
I stared at my hands. “Yeah,” I muttered.
The tan woman—who hadn’t spoken yet, just stared at me with hooded eyes—finally said, “I just think the standard for our MC and pack officers’ mates is usually higher.
That’s what’s most surprising about Arsenal bringing you here.
Do you expect him to claim you?” She asked like she couldn’t imagine he would dirty the pack with me.
The conversation devolved from there. Every question was more pointed, more invasive.
Did you ever date customers? Did you like it?
How much money did you make? Did you ever get recognized on the street?
Was it weird to be watched all the time?
Was it hard to keep yourself clean? Did you have to do drugs to get through it?
I answered each one as flatly as possible, hoping they’d get bored, but every answer only seemed to make them hungrier.
By minute ten, my head felt like it was filling with helium. I tried to leave, but the redhead’s hand landed on my forearm, holding me in place.
“We just want to be sure you’re a good fit for the pack,” she said, her nails digging in a fraction too hard. “It’s nothing personal. We’re just very protective of our own.”
That was when I realized I’d never be one of them. No matter how many muffins I ate at Aspen’s, no matter how many picnics or potlucks I showed up for, I’d always be the girl who was too damaged to love.
My wolf rolled over, baring its belly.
“I should go,” I whispered. “It’s late.”
The pixie pouted. “So soon? We hardly got to know you.”
She reached for my hand, and for a second I thought she was going to kiss it, like some weird Southern debutante, but instead she just patted it twice and said, “Maybe next time you can tell us about your favorite routine.”
The laughter that followed was the worst yet—sharp, cold, the kind that leaves bruises.
I took a backward step toward the stairs, and then—
The air changed. A sound like a thunderclap, but lower, deeper, vibrating in my teeth.
A growl.
Every head snapped toward the entryway. Jess was there, hair pulled tight in a knot, eyes black and bottomless, the lines of his face gone sharp as a guillotine.
He took in the room—me, hunched and humiliated; the women, clustered together like a murder of crows—and said, in a voice that could cut through steel:
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”
Nobody answered. The toddler started to cry.
Jess didn’t move, didn’t even blink. “Everyone of you better know that I will be confronting your mates. If you don’t have a mate, I’ll be chatting with your fathers.
They will know how shameful everyone of you has behaved toward my mate.
If this behavior ever happens again, you will take it up with the Luna. And then I’ll handle it myself.”
A tremor ran through the group. The pixie opened her mouth, but Jess’s stare pinned her shut.
“I’ve been nice. I’ve let the pack handle its own.
But this ends now.” His voice never rose above a whisper, but it carried to every corner of the room.
“Harper’s with me. You don’t know her story; her sacrifice; you’ve not walked in her shoes.
Spread the word. If anyone disrespects her again, there will be hell to pay.
If you have a problem with that, you come to me.
Not her. Not ever. Don’t talk to her. Don’t look at her unless it’s with the respect she rightly deserves. ”
The silence was absolute, except for the snuffling toddler and the sound of my own pulse in my ears.
“Go,” he said, not to the women, but to me.
I moved. I floated past the couch, the kitchen, the judgment, until Jess’s hand closed around mine, warm and steady. He didn’t tug, didn’t squeeze, just let me know he was there.
We climbed the stairs together, not speaking, not looking back. The door to his apartment shut behind us, and the world outside collapsed into a single, blessed point of quiet.
He let go of my hand then, but not before squeezing it once, hard enough to remind me that not every part of me was breakable.
Some pieces, it seemed, could be mended.
We didn’t speak for a long time. Jess dropped my hand at the door and motioned for me to sit, then locked the deadbolt with an unnecessary click.
He moved through the room like a caged animal, pulling a throw blanket off the back of the sectional, rearranging pillows until there was a small fortress built for me in the corner of the couch.
I let him, not wanting to break the fragile peace his presence offered.
He gestured to the nest. “Sit.”
I did, crossing my legs at the ankles. He dropped down beside me, not touching but close enough to radiate heat.
He took a deep breath, staring at his hands, and then—almost tender—reached for my boots.
I jerked back on instinct. He stilled, waiting.
When I didn’t protest further, he tugged them off, one by one, setting them upright against the sofa.
Then he lifted my bare feet and set them on his lap.
He ran a thumb along my instep, finding a knot there and working it loose. My eyes closed on their own.
“They’re so fucking ignorant,” he said so quietly I almost missed it.
“That group of them, anyway. The way they look at you. The things they said. They thought I couldn’t hear them, but I did.
There’s a reason they were inside instead of out with the other women.
They’ve burned all their bridges with them.
None of the other women can stand that little clique.
But, I’m not sayin’ other women won’t talk, Prima. They will.”
I didn’t know what to say, so I said nothing.
His grip tightened a fraction. “If you want to leave, I’ll take you wherever you want to go. But if you stay, I won’t let anyone harm you. Not again.”
His jaw worked side to side, the vein in his neck visible. “I know I’m the worst of them.”
A thousand responses crowded my tongue, but none seemed right. I wanted to ask why after all this time; he cared. I wanted to ask what happened to the man who used to laugh with me on the lakeshore, who said I had eyes like Texas wildflowers.
Instead, I asked, “Why did you let me go, Jess?”
He looked like I’d slapped him.
He didn’t answer right away, just kept kneading my foot with the careful brutality of a man who’d learned to heal with his hands only after he’d broken everything worth fixing.
Finally: “I didn’t let you go. I didn’t have a choice.”
He dragged his palm down his face and exhaled hard.
“After that night at your house, your dad told me you’d changed your mind.
That you were gone and weren’t coming back, ever.
That you didn’t want a wolf with nothing to offer, not when you could have a future.
I tried to call, but you blocked my number.
Your mom wouldn’t even let me on the property after that.
I thought you had been given a choice, and you chose another life.
That you’d right and truly rejected me.”
“But it’s not true,” I said, hating the desperate note in my voice.
He nodded, slow. “I know that now. But back then? You were gone, and I was filled with rage. I left for deployment early. Didn’t look back. I figured if I wasn’t good enough for you, I’d make myself good enough for someone, or die trying.”
He traced a circle on my heel, eyes locked on the motion. “Spent the next five years doing exactly that. Recon, then Delta.”
He looked up then, and his eyes were dark, almost black.
“That’s where Bronc found me. I served with him.
When he became Alpha of Iron Valor, he asked if I wanted to join him here.
Told me I could have a pack, a purpose, something bigger than my own pain.
I’ve been here ever since, and it’s here I’ve found my true family.
I don’t get back to Rising Moon to see my parents and siblings very often anymore.
I’ve tried to bring them up here, but for some reason they’d rather wallow in their poverty down there. ”
“But you never stopped waiting,” I said. It wasn’t a question.
He shook his head. “Not really. I had no idea how you’d ever make it back to me. I tried to move on, but once you know your mate is out there somewhere, there is nobody else. So no. I never stopped waiting.”
We sat in silence, his hands moving up to my ankle, thumb pressing small, perfect circles into my skin.
“When I saw you that night in the club, I was on recon for an op. I couldn’t believe it,” he said, voice low. “I thought we’d made eye contact. Did you see me?”
I nodded my head.
He smiled, crooked and sad. “Before that, when you were dancing, it wasn’t like you noticed anyone. You were just… in the moment. Lost in the music. For a second, I thought maybe you were happy.”
My throat closed. “I wasn’t. I never—”
He cut me off. “I know. When you finished, I saw you rush off stage like you couldn’t get away fast enough. I knew you didn’t want to be doing that. I knew you were made for more.”
His hand moved up to my calf, massaging the muscles there, working out tension. “That’s when I knew you were still mine. That you’d never stopped being mine.”
I let the words settle over me, heavy and warm.
His hands stilled, holding my leg in place. “I know you’re scared. I know you think you’re broken, and I haven’t done a single fucking thing to help put your pieces back together. But if you’ll give me another chance; give us another chance, I’d like to try.”
He pulled me onto his lap my legs draped to the side, careful as if I might shatter. He settled me against his chest, arms circling my waist. I could hear his heartbeat through his shirt—strong and steady. I could feel the heat of his skin, the tremor in his muscles.
For the first time, I let myself lean into him, just a little.
“I want to stay,” I whispered, so soft I wasn’t sure he’d hear.
His arms squeezed tighter, just for a second.
“You don’t have to decide tonight, Prima,” he said, using the name he used to call me again, breath tickling my ear.
But I already had.
I was done running. I was done with being a haunted house. I wanted to be the place where he could come home.
I pressed my face into the curve of his neck and breathed in deep. I could smell the smoke of the bonfire, the sharp scent of his sweat, and—underneath it all—the wild, warm promise of what we could still be.
My wolf stirred, lifting her head without whimpering for the first time in years.
I let it howl.