Chapter 18
JAX
I roll onto my back and pull Tippy against my flank, and we lie together, sated and blissed out.
After a moment she whispers, “Jax, we didn’t use contraception.”
I’m stricken. “Shit. I’m sorry. I-I didn’t even think.”
She props up and pushes my hair away from my face, strokes feather-light fingers along my cheekbone, claws sheathed, and her eyes soft and dewy. “I’m not worried. If you aren’t.”
I can’t help my face breaking into a huge grin.
The fact that she’s not worried means… that maybe she is considering that we are mates.
“I’m not worried,” I whisper. I nearly add, “my mate,” but it’s only our first time together, so I hold the words back.
Suddenly I recall the graphic illustrations that were scattered all over the floor earlier.
“The pictures that fell out of that book, what was that about?”
She hesitates. “It’s the legend of Agdar and Leonora, a wolf and a vixen shifter of olden days.”
“Where did you find it?”
“Aunt Felicia gave it to me to read.”
I sit up higher, taking her with me as I lean against the headboard. “Your auntie gave you that book? It’s practically pornographic!”
She giggles. “You are hardly in a position to take the moral high ground, Jax Summers.” She hesitates, smirking a little. “Aunt Felicia said it would be some,” she makes air quotes with her fingers, “‘light reading’ over the weekend.
I snort out a laugh. “Smut, more like.”
“Don’t be rude. It’s art. “
“Okay, artistic smut.”
“And ancient.”
“Ancient artistic smut,” I tease.
She slaps me playfully on the chest. “That book must be the same age as the Labyrinth. That would make it four hundred years old.”
“So you reckon she gave it to you for a reason?”
“Yes, I think so. Auntie’s been quite weird lately, and very pro-wolf suddenly. She was even flirting with Traggar.”
“Yeah, I noticed an energy between them when I met them in his den,” I say, remembering the look on Traggar’s face as Felicia left with the Silver Book of Runes in her claws.
“Tell me the legend,” I ask.
I listen intently while she recounts the myth. And despite my earlier banter, it resonates with me at a deep level.
“And so,” Tippy finishes, “that is supposedly where our wixen powers originated. A mate bond between the wolf mage Agdar and the vixen shifter Leonora. The story has been hushed up, because mating with a wolf…” she giggles, “is not the done thing among vixen shifters.”
“And to your knowledge, wolves and vixen shifters haven’t mated since?”
“Not to my knowledge. Wixens’ magical powers have faded through the centuries, and our numbers have dwindled, so now there is only one wixen in every generation, and I can tell you, I was not sired by a wolf, but by a good-for-nothing fox who Mom threw out after my youngest sister was born.”
“What does that tell you?” I quirk an eyebrow.
“Well, if it’s true, I guess the way to regain our powers would be… for a wixen to, erm, mate with a werewolf.”
She chuckles and presses her lips to mine.
We roll together back onto the bed, the sound of our sighs and kisses filling the room.
Something blooms in my heart as we kiss. It’s happiness, I realize. Pure, unadulterated happiness. The kind of bubbling joy I haven’t felt since my childhood, since before Mom disappeared.
This sense of being cherished and cherishing in return. Of finally belonging.
Yeah, this is magic alright.
The time has come to be the Jax Summers I was meant to be. Not some numbed-out prick, hiding his pain and loneliness behind a cynical facade and a nicotine habit.
But why now? Why has our love blossomed just before my mission?
It doesn’t take a moment for me to know the answer.
To know that the timing is, in fact, perfect.
Because finally, I have a future to look forward to. And a mate to come back to.
There’s no way I’m going to risk throwing that away.
TIPPY
For the next two days, we hide in our love den.
No-one comes to disturb us, and I wonder if the whole of Wolftown guesses what’s going down. If they haven’t, my hollering as I orgasm will surely warn anyone who approaches.
Much of the time we spend naked, slicked with the sweat and scent of our lovemaking.
My body is no longer just mine. It belongs to Jax now too.
My soul as well.
There’s no doubt in my mind that we were meant to be together, and I wonder why we fought it for so long.
When hunger drives us out of bed, I cook us a meal. And Jax prepares the next. He actually cooks delicious food, I’ve discovered.
“Why have you never cooked for me before?” I ask, tucking in to an amazing pasta full of the flavors of tomatoes, sweet peppers and herbs, all foraged from the supplies that were here when we arrived.
“Probably because I’ve never had a home to invite you to.”
“You could have cooked at my place.”
“You never asked me to. Come to that, you’ve never invited me to meet your family, either. Why not?”
I sigh. “It’s complicated, Jax.”
He cocks his head. “Explain it to me.”
“Vixen shifters are wary of guys. We’ve been left high and dry by our own kind way too often.
Our skills and abilities have been disrespected by fox shifters, and they’ve often left mothers alone to raise the cubs.
” I pause, twirling pasta onto my fork. “These days, vixen shifters demand a lot of respect from the males they allow into our lairs.”
“And you thought I wouldn’t be respectful enough?”
“You’ve been pretty surly over the past few years.” Seeing the remorse etched all over his face, I reach for his hand and squeeze it. “I do understand why.”
He shakes his head. “I just didn’t know how to express what I felt, so I chose to be a rude bastard to you. It’s no excuse, but that’s the truth. I promise I’ll make it up to you, Tippy.”
He holds my hand tightly as he continues in a low voice. “I guess all the pain and trauma I went through affected me. I wasn’t like that before Mom disappeared. I was a happy, normal kid, y’know?”
“What was it like back then? In Sparkle?” I ask. I’ve always been curious about the glittering city that sits above the Labyrinth and denies us our freedom.
“It felt perfect. As a kid. You didn’t see the cracks, how dark and ugly everything was behind the facade.
Sparkle was literally like living in a theme park.
My family weren’t wealthy, but we had each other, we had a nice enough apartment, the streets were safe to play in and there was loads of free entertainment.
But you want to know the highlight?” His eyes shine and I nod.
“Mom made the most amazing apple pie, and the best custard.”
I laugh. “Right, that’s it, you are definitely baking me apple pie sometime.”
“You bet.” He grins, and now that he’s more relaxed, I dare to dig a little deeper.
“Your mom was a cleaner, right?”
“Yeah, she worked in the big office blocks in the city center, DeVines department store and the entertainment arena as well. She even got to clean Devine Tower. She met the mayor a couple times.” He snorts.
“She saw right through him. I remember her saying how he’d fooled everyone into believing he was our great benefactor, when all he cared about was himself and the DeVine dynasty.
She reckoned that was what power and money did to folks, made them into despots.
She was wise, our mom, she had no time for fakery. ”
His face starts to cloud with sadness, so I change tack.
“What about your dad? What did he do?”
“He maintained the roads and buildings, laboring. He was a man of hard work and few words. He totally adored Mom, and I guess he loved us too, but he was always a bit distant. When Mom disappeared, he just… gave up and smoked himself to death. Clem looked after him, angel that she is. I washed my hands of him, which I regret, but I was fucking angry that he’d done so little to find Mom. ”
“Did he try?”
“Barely. Just said the authorities were doing their best to find her. That made me so freaking mad, because they were doing fuck all. That’s when I took it into my own hands and tried to hack through the dome walls to find her.
It all went downhill from there. I got put in a school for delinquent teens.
Me and Clem didn’t see each other for long periods, which was the saddest thing—we’d been inseparable as kids. ”
I nod. “Clem told me how close you were. How much she looked up to you.”
“She said that?” His green eyes soften, then he pulls a rueful face. “So you had some idea I wasn’t a complete jerk, then.”
“I knew you weren’t a jerk from the moment I set eyes on you.”
“Even though I spent three years trying to persuade you otherwise?”
“Oh sure, you tried. But in my heart, I knew who you were, Jax.”
He gifts me the most beautiful smile, and then suddenly there are tears in his eyes, and I see my gentle, soft wolfman behind the hard shell he’s worn for so long.
He huffs a big sigh. “You really don’t need to know any more about my shitty past.”
“Yes, I do. It helps me to understand you, Jax. Tell me about the school they sent you to.”
“Remand school was shit, more like a prison for kids than a school. Discipline and cruelty, that’s all I remember, and terrible food.
And running away… yeah, I did a fair bit of that.
I was so angry, with everyone, the world, the fakeness and lies of Sparkle.
And I was sure Mom was out there somewhere, I just had this sense inside me, like she was…
imprisoned, or held against her will. Somewhere…
” He trails off, staring at our joined hands.
“Do you think she’s still alive?”
“I try not to dwell on it… it’s been such a long time now. I don’t believe she would have voluntarily left me and Clem. Ever. Which would make me conclude the worst. But I try not to go there.” His jaw works, as though he’s trying to hold back a dam of emotion. “It takes me to a dark place.”
“If you don’t want to talk about this now, we don’t have to.”