Chapter 66
Chapter Sixty-Six
Jax
If it weren't for bad luck
This morning I seriously consider how shitty it would be for me to abdicate my role as pack Alpha as Shawn lay tightly snuggled against me, his head tucked in the crook of my arm.
Because I absolutely do not want to move out of our bed, much less let him out of my arms.
But he senses I’m awake, rolls over with a sleepy smile I’d kill or die for, and says those four magic words to me.
“I’ll make your coffee.”
I know even if I don’t get up, he won’t let me not get up since he knows I have a meeting. That helps me find the will to drag myself out of bed and into the shower while he makes my coffee.
I arrive at the office thirty minutes before our scheduled meeting, and they show up five minutes later.
Fuck. Me.
Fortunately, I have a jumbo travel mug holding more coffee.
Morning introduces Alizée Moultaire, who’s a younger cousin of Dahlia de la Floren from the Des Moines coven. Her brilliant red hair looks natural, and she’s curvy in a way I’d probably be all over if I were into women.
Which I’m not and never have been.
She’s short, maybe 5’-2”, if that, but I sense she can handle herself.
Morning wastes no time. “She’s here for a site assessment and to plan logistics. Also, to help confirm the, eh, delicate situation.”
I’m not awake. I’m really not. Yesterday took way more out of me than I realized. “No offense, but how’s a human supposed to do that?” I ask him.
“Well,” she says, looking all sweet but radiating a dark energy I belatedly didn’t notice, “perhaps if you address the question directly to the person in question who’s sitting right fucking in front of you, you’d get the answer.”
“Sorry,” I say. “It’s been a pretty…chaotic twenty-four hours and I’m neither awake nor at my best.”
She slowly arches an eyebrow over a sharp hazel eye. “My mother was a tiger shifter,” she says. “I do not shift, but I am not human. My father was a bloodline witch, brother to Dahlia’s mother.”
“You mean warlock?” I stupidly ask before I can stop myself.
“Gee, it’s like you think I don’t know anything about my family history.” She looks at Morning. “Are all the dogs like this?”
“I’m sorry,” I say, genuinely meaning it because I’m wishing I’d never crawled out of bed. “Let’s start over, please? Jax Crowe, Ocala Pack Alpha and chronic sufferer of self-inflicted paw-in-snout disease when I’m under-caffeinated and exhausted.”
That finally earns me a smile and she looks at Morning again. “You’re right—he’s a hoot and a half.”
He casually smiles but I sense the steel behind it. “Don’t worry, Jax. She’s like this with everyone she likes.”
“If she likes me, I’d hate to see what she does to people she doesn’t like.”
Her smile fades. It’s almost as if the room loses oxygen and wraps around her. “If I have my way, you will absolutely get to see what I look like doing that when I get my chance at these unholy fucks.”
“I’m sorry,” I say, again.
And meaning it.
Again.
“Who did you lose?” I gently ask, because that level of barely constrained rage can only come from personal loss.
“Well, first my cousin, Dahlia’s brother,” she says.
“In a different attack. But then my parents. The atmosphere in the room settles. “I killed one of the fuckers because he’d been injured and his people left him behind. I…convinced him to tell me who hired them. He admitted that while it was shuffled around to help disguise the true source, it was on Sterling’s orders, and he was of Sterling’s pack. ”
Morning examines a hangnail. “She kept him alive over seven hours before she finally killed him. She got the information out of him in less than fifteen minutes.”
“The rest was for funsies,” she snarks. “Because I could.”
Morning’s cold smile returns as he meets my gaze. “Frankly, I think she was too kind. But she earned points from me for style.”
A chill fills me. Not from her energy, but because of my worry for Mal and for Todd. “So what do you know of the…situation?”
She glances at Morning before focusing on me again. “Nothing, although I have my suspicions. Don’t worry; he didn’t break your confidence.”
“Do I have your confidence?” I ask. “Because without that we can’t go any farther. I have sworn to offer protection, and no one will make me break that oath.”
“You do have my confidence, and my oath that I will not harm anyone here today. I have also sworn an oath to this one”—she hooks a thumb at Morning—“to behave myself today regardless of what’s going on.
Unlike Sterling, I never break an oath, unless I die.
” She holds her hands out. “And I’m not into auto-necromancy, so my track record so far is pretty damned good. ”
I can’t help it—I like her. I really like her. Rocky start or not—and I fully and readily admit that was my fault—I suspect she’ll soon become a welcome fixture around here.
“Shortly before Marchman approached me,” I start, “our pack took in a refugee shifter, running from their birth pack for a variety of reasons. Unbeknownst to me at the time was the identity of the refugee’s problematic…family.”
She waggles her fingers at me in a “give it to me” way. “Just rip the bandage off, Spot.”
“He’s Sterling’s youngest son, a gay omega.
He despises his father and ran away several times, just for them to track him down and haul him back.
He successfully hid that he was gay until this last time, when they caught him in a compromising situation, and his father was forcing him to marry a female omega, or else.
And the ‘or else’ option was unambiguous. ”
“Sounds like that fucker. And?”
“Normally, we have a process that takes several weeks to acclimate newcomers, make sure they’re a fit, and then we…initiate them.”
She smirks. “You fuck their brains out in an orgy. I dance skyclad all the time and have dabbled in sex magick, so you’re not shocking me.”
“Anyway,” I continue. “Obviously, the circumstances have greatly shortened our usual timeline. I gave serious thought to moving him somewhere else and hiding him until things die down, but Morning warned me Mal’s life was in danger on multiple fronts, and not just from his father.
That moving him was riskier than integrating him into the pack. ”
She slowly nods, her smirk fading and turning grim. “And you are 100% right about that,” she quietly says.
“He’s a good kid,” I continue. “He hasn’t been here long but he’s a hard worker, everyone who’s met him likes him, and I couldn’t in good conscience send him away.
Especially since my best friend developed a mate bond with him and, long story short, we triggered his first-ever mating heat yesterday.
By the way, did you know a beta elk shifter can get an omega wolf shifter pregnant right off the bat? ”
Both her eyebrows skyrocket. Even Morning looks a little surprised at that update. “No shit?” she says.
“I shit you not. I’m biased, sure, but I think it’s safe to say he doesn’t smell like Sterling’s pack when his first time fucking during his first heat not only wasn’t with a wolf but an elk, and that same elk knocked him up.” I decide not to mention my own impending fatherhood.
She bursts out laughing. “That poor kid. If it weren’t for bad luck, he wouldn’t have any.
” She sits back in her chair, far more relaxed now.
Her energy still swirls around her, but in a calmer, lazy way.
“Well, suffice it to say yes, I feel a fuckton better.” She glances at Morning. “And yes, you told me so. Happy?”
He smiles but doesn’t answer.
“Can we go meet him first?” she asks me.
“Sooner the better. That way, if there remains so much as a whiff on him that might cause trouble, I’ll have time to come up with something to help.
I heard some…rustlings about the missing son being an omega, and potentially a gay one.
With this development, I’m certain we’ll only have to worry about Sterling’s pack searching for him. ”
Thank the Goddess something gives me hope. “Yeah?”
She nods. “Like I said, I don’t make promises I can’t keep. And once I put the word out that no one fucks with him, he shall remain unfucked.”
“Except by his mate,” Morning jokes.
“Lucky bastard,” she says.
I call Todd and hear Iris in the background. Combined with Todd’s tone when he answers, I can tell he’s already had a morning.
“This better be good news,” he says.
“Did you get your hearing back yet?” I tease.
He snorts. “They were supposed to come over at lunch, and she slams in here early, all Hurricane Mom, practically tackled poor Mal, and then nearly bounced the baby out of him happy dancing around the kitchen when she got done yelling at me for not feeding my new mate enough. Apparently, it does not matter to her that he’s only been here a few days, and I’m neglecting my mately duties by him arriving here skinny in the first place. ”
I burst out laughing. Yep, sounds like Iris. She’s a good mom. In the past, she and Caleb have taken in stray kids needing a place to stay.
I get to the point. “So, hey. I need to stop by with a couple of people, just for a minute, to talk to you and Mal. Without your mom. I mean, we can talk outside. She doesn’t have to leave.”
“Good, because I don’t even think your father could help you drag her out of here at this point. Dad’s just sitting back, smiling and drinking coffee, and letting her plan the baby shower of all baby showers.”
They ride with me in my truck, Morning in the backseat and Alizée riding shotgun. She’s dropped her facade with me now and I feel sorry for her. She wears her grief like a thick cloak, and her persona when I first met her was obviously her protective act.
“It’s really pretty here,” she wistfully says. “I wish I could return to Tennessee after all this is over, but…” I notice she brushes at her eyes. “It’s painful, you know? I hate feeling that way, giving up land literally drenched in my family’s blood, except it hurts too fucking much.”
“We have several guest cottages, if you want to stay here for a while to decompress.”
“Decompress. Damned accurate word.” Alizée stares out the windshield.
“If you’d ever told me we’d all be joining forces like this, I would’ve said you were nuts.
What’s it say about me that one of my new best friends is a vampire, and another is whatever the fuck he is back there? ” She hooks her thumb at Morning again.
“Ah, you precious little child,” he jokes. “Keep that up and it’s like you’re asking to get spanked.”
“Promises, promises.”
I text Todd we’re almost there.
He and Mal are waiting out front for us. When I park the truck, Alizée gets out immediately and circles them, keeping a few feet away.
Todd pulls Mal behind him, turning to keep himself between her and Mal. “Jaaaax?” he asks.
“It’s okay,” I assure him. “She’s a friendly. Let her do her thing.”
After making a full circle of them, she kicks off her sandals. “May I approach him?” she asks Todd.
He looks at me and I nod. Still, Todd keeps a protective arm draped around Mal’s shoulders. Mal looks nearly panicked as he looks at me, but I hold out a hand, hoping he senses this is okay.
Alizée stands right in front of Mal and holds her hands out, palms up, and closes her eyes. “Hands, please. Flat on top of mine. Palms down.”
Mal looks up at Todd, then to me again, and tentatively lays his hands on top of hers.
Morning silently watches this unfold, arms crossed over his chest and wearing an inscrutable expression.
She takes several long, slow, deep breaths and doesn’t close her fingers around Mal’s hands. Finally, after what feels like an hour but was probably only a minute or two, she opens her eyes and wistfully smiles.
“Lucky kid,” she says. “May I hug you?”
Mal looks a little less nervous but I sense remaining tension in him as he hugs her.
She pats his back, rubbing her hand in a circle between his shoulders, and whispers something to him even I can’t hear.
Then he’s clutching her tightly, sobbing, and she slowly rocks him as she tips her head, indicating for Todd to join their embrace.
I force myself not to intervene because I suspect if this was bad-bad, Todd would’ve already drawn and used the gun I’m certain he’s wearing holstered in the back of his waistband, hidden by his shirt.
I can smell the gun oil.
Finally, after a few minutes, Mal ends the embrace, and she cups his face in her hands and kisses his forehead.
“Just do what they tell you,” she assures him. “You’ll be fine. Don’t do something dumb like leave because you think you need to. You have everything you need here, and you’re surrounded by love. Trust them and their judgment. Believe.”
He nods, sniffling, wiping his eyes with his hands.
She offers Todd a smile and a hug, and he accepts, and she whispers something to him, too. His smile beams as she pats his back the way she did Mal.
When she slips her sandals back on I notice every toenail is painted a completely different color. Then she returns to us. “Okay. I’m good. Let’s go.”
She heads toward the truck. Morning gives me a silent shrug before following.
I walk over to Todd and Mal. “Is everything okay?”
They’re both smiling. “Yeah,” Todd says. “Everything’s perfect. We can talk later when we don’t have Typhoon Iris underfoot.”
I give them hugs, duck inside to quickly say hi to Caleb and Iris—because I would receive a ration of shit from her if I didn’t since she’s basically a bonus mom to me, meaning I’d also receive a ration of shit from Dad and Pops because she’d yell at them to yell at me for not saying hi—and return to the truck.
Alizée now wears a dark pair of sunglasses that completely conceal her eyes.
“Was that…good?” I ask.
She nods. “He’s fine. Not a hint. But let me tell you something.”
She looks at me and her tone chills me—literally—to the bone. “You let anything happen to that kid and I will personally make what I did to the fucker who killed my parents look like a toddler’s birthday party.”
In the backseat, Morning chuckles. “Oooh, the kid just landed himself a fairy godmother.”