Chapter 11
Jax
“Fucking Theo,” I mumble under my breath, clenching my fists as I try to rein in my rage and the ever-present desire to let my shadows consume me and obliterate every fractured piece of my warped soul.
Why the fuck did he have to go to that room?
I meant what I told Serafina. Theo will not harm her. But now I have to explain this to him, explain her to him, when I can’t even explain it to myself.
Why did I bring her here?
Why do I so desperately want to see her live?
She’s right to question me, to distrust me.
Hell, she should.
And yet, the thought of harm befalling her…
My steps falter for half a heartbeat before I force myself forward.
Was bringing her here really the best option? The only option?
“What else were you to do?” Ajja’s voice threads through my mind, soothing as always, a balm to my ever-fraying sanity. “If you left her there, she would have died. Those men would have killed her.”
“But is she really any safer here?” I ask aloud, knowing he can still hear me even as he hunts with other wraithwolves across the continent.
I continue my path to the courtyard where Theo waits.
“You’ll make sure she is.”
I swallow hard.
But what if I don’t?
What if I can’t?
The shadows ripple along the walls, matching the erratic beat of my pulse.
I force them to still.
If only I could do the same with my mind because time and time again, it refuses to focus on what truly matters, and now, I’m constantly plagued by one incomprehensible question: Why do I care?
“Because she fought,” Ajja murmurs, his voice a faint echo.
He’s right. She did fight. In a world that turned its back on her, when every odd was stacked against her, she fought.
At least for a while.
I shiver at the memory of that fight leaving her.
And I still don’t know why.
I shake my head sharply, as though I can dislodge the image of the woman sleeping in my bed, wearing my clothes, bathing in my shower, and haunting every twisted corner of my mind.
“She’s a responsibility,” I tell myself. “A duty. Nothing more.”
But even as I think it, I can see her eyes blazing with defiance, chin raised ready to combat my every word, and I can’t help but smile, something I try my hardest never to do.
But for a moment—this moment—I allow it.
Because nothing about her has been a disappointment.