Chapter 2 - Jace #2
He chuckles.
“I knew you’d be awake. It’s weird, isn’t it?
How fresh and green it is out here.” He walks to the side of my bed and, in the darkness, places a tray of food on my bedside table.
I sit up with a huff. “I slept like the dead, though. It was incredible,” I smirk, picking up the tray and pulling it onto my lap.
In true Miles style, he hasn’t bothered with the fanciful touch of toast or egg or jam and butter.
The plate is piled high with crispy bacon. Nothing else.
I laugh again. “Breakfast fit for a king,” I say happily, spearing the bacon and shoving it into my mouth.
“Oh my word, that’s fucking incredible,” I mumble with my mouth full of food.
“Beats gruel,” he snorts, amused.
I hold the plate out to offer him some, and he shakes his head. “Nah, man. I ate about three pounds of the stuff while I was making yours.”
I roll my eyes. “Of course you did,” I snort.
“I’m going for a run, wanted to know if you were keen to join?” he asks, pulling my curtains open to look out into the still dark meadows around the estate.
“Mudder is itching to get into those trees and explore,” Miles says, speaking of his wolf.
Mudder earned his name because from the first time Miles shifted, his wolf had this uncontrollable urge to roll in the dirt.
Wet sand, dry sand, swampy waters, rivers…
he just wanted to roll, and no matter how hard any of us tried, we couldn’t hold back the laughter when seeing the absolute glee on Mudder’s face every time he broke free of Miles' control and got to coat himself in raw nature.
Even funnier, though, was the first time Miles shifted back to human form, coated head to toe in slick brown mud from the edge of the riverbed.
Man, we laughed for days.
“Jux is keen too. It will be nice to stretch our legs without adhering to a strict route,” I agree. It takes me three minutes to finish the entire plate of bacon. Then I’m out of bed and stripping my sweatpants off.
Nudity is barely a second through when you’re a shifter.
Yes, you can turn with your clothes on, but it takes those extra few seconds for your wolf to wiggle free of them after. And it’s not like Miles hasn’t seen my naked ass a thousand times.
He tosses his clothes into the corner of my room and begins his shift.
Static breaks out over my body.
Electricity spikes at every nerve ending, shooting energy through my entire being. My legs bend and break without pain or sound, and within the blink of an eye, Jux is standing in my bedroom. My wolf. Me. My other self.
I growl, low, deep, and dangerously hyped. He didn’t get to run last night and isn’t too happy about it.
Ready? Miles asks telepathically.
Try and keep up, I say.
I bolt from the room, Jux screaming with excitement. Claws click on the marble floor as we sprint down stairs and burst through the front door into the crisp morning air.
The entire compound is quiet, and it’s absolutely beautiful.
It feels like the world belongs to us, and I think to myself, it does. This is my world. My pack. My territory.
Miles shoots past me, and I realize I’ve been lost in thought instead of focused on kicking his ass. I’ll never hear the end of it if he beats me to the tree line.
Go! I snap at Jux, who leaps into action.
Muscles ripple over my body. Every inch of my is alive with the chase. My blood flows faster, my lungs take deeper, more focused breaths. The scents around me are a thousand times stronger in wolf form. The world is a magnificent place through these pitch black eyes.
I can focus on the smallest blade of grass or the tallest tree. I can hear a squirrel on the highest branch, and a mole digging deep beneath the earth. Sunrise smells like yellow and orange flames.
And Miles is almost at the tree line!
Pushing harder, I run at his flank, snapping at his heels. He yelps when I catch him on the thigh with my canines. It throws him off, making him stumble for one step, and I bolt past him, enticing a dangerous snarl from his lips as he tries to return the favor and misses me.
Come on, buddy, you can do better than that! I taunt him.
Jux howls with joy as we burst into the forest. The earth is muddier, fresher. It smells of wilderness and adventure. A massive change from the dry desert sands and baking, relentless heat.
I run until my feet splash into the ice-cold river. Jux skids to a stop and dips his muzzle into the stream.
Ice cold water soaks my tongue and down my throat into my belly. Alive.
Out of nowhere, a body slams into my side, and I’m thrown into the water. Rolled twice and absolutely soaked down to my undercoat.
HAHA, take that, show off. You didn’t even see me com….
I have him by the throat with his head under the water before he can finish his thought. What I think is going to be a winning move backfires.
Mudder lets out a gleeful yelp, not even trying to escape. Instead, rolling deeper into the river floor.
I let him go and step back. Jux shakes from head to tail, sending a shower of water over the trees and rocks around us.
I sit, panting, watching my moron friend coat his shaggy, chocolate brown fur in thick clay-mud.
That’s going to be hell to rinse out, I laugh.
Mudder lifts his face, coated in mud, his tongue lolling out the side.
How can anyone take you seriously, looking like that? I burst out laughing.
From somewhere to the west, a sharp, sweet, deathly enticing scent catches my attention, and Jux snaps his head to the side. Mudder’s ears are pinpoint straight, his eyes piercing the tree line.
The she-wolf walks towards the river, clearly aware of us. Her gold and yellow eyes are on us as she lowers her head to drink in elegant, slow laps of her pink tongue.
Mika! Jux barks, slamming against the walls of my mind.
Shut up, I snap at him.
Mika! He snarls, angry that I won’t let him run to her.
So, not everything has stayed the same. Some things have changed far more than I could have imagined.
Her wolf’s legs are long and elegant. Slender, yet rippling with agility and strength. The light brown coat she used to have has turned amber. Silky as it catches the soft breeze drifting through the trees.
My heart is hammering in my chest. It’s close to impossible to keep Jux in control at this point. He’s kicking and screaming against my mind.
Mira… the memory still shoots pain through me.
Not only because it physically hurt to reject her, but because I hate the fact that I put her through that agony.
I wronged her in ways I can never take back.
How do you even apologize for that? What could I possibly say to explain what I did in the past.
Mira. The cast out. The reject. She was teased relentlessly when we were younger. I’m embarrassed to think about the part I played in that. Perhaps I was egged on by the anger I had towards my father’s control over me. The restrictions, the aggression, I had no way of releasing.
She didn’t deserve what I did to her.
Fuck.
She turns to look right at me, both eyes sharp as they lock with mine. The energy spilling from her is dangerously charged. Her wolf snarls, but I don’t know if it’s at me or at Jux.
Through the trees, the sunrise streaks bright shards of light into her fur, turning it pure gold to match her eyes. My heart aches, and I can’t tear my eyes off her.
Mira. I’m so sorry for what I did all those years ago. My silent thoughts aren’t for her. They aren’t for anyone.
Hey, moron, are you coming? Miles snaps.
Your sister…
Yes, I see that. I’ll stop by her place after my run and say hi. Mudder still wants to go deeper into the forest.
I turn away from Mika with great effort to follow my Beta into the woods.
Back at the mansion, the chef is serving up a massive buffet breakfast. The bacon I had before sunrise is long forgotten, and my body is screaming for more food.
In training, we learned to survive on scraps and gruel. Only occasionally being treated to a feast after taking down a rogue pack. We ate for sustenance. Not for pleasure.
The aromas assaulting my senses right now are making me struggle not to drool over the table. I flash a grin at Miles. His eyes are gleaming with excitement as he reaches for a plate.
The elders have joined Miles and me around the massive table with a few other high-ranking pack members.
Everyone is buzzing with energy, excited to talk to me, to build rapport with their Alpha, and to hear about the training.
But the rule of Black Ops is that we don’t discuss what happened there.
The location remains classified. The methods remain classified.
Miles and I are both fine with never speaking of any of that again, so it’s a relief when we can respond to explain only that.
“I heard rumors that training takes place in a desert?” Lexus remarks. “Your wolf must have hated that.”
“Unfortunately, everything to do with Black Ops is classified, including where we trained,” I remark calmly.
“Oh, but did you move around, or just train in one place?” Lexus tries a new direction.
“Classified,” Miles snarls, angry that the man has pushed his luck with his Alpha.
Lexus raises his hand in defense, a smirk across his face. “Alright, heel boy,” he laughs.
“Do not speak to my Beta like that,” I growl dangerously.
“Sorry,” Lexus mutters, conceding with a scowl across his face.
Jeremy sighs loudly. “I heard you boys going out for a run early this morning. It must be good to be home,” he changes the topic, but I don’t appreciate being called a boy. I bite my tongue in lieu of the fact that I have not yet been sworn in as Alpha.
Patience, Jux. Our time is coming.
“We did. It’s good to be back. But I’m eager to start working,” I say. “When is the ceremony meant to take place?”
“The ceremony is set for tomorrow night, of course, being the new moon,” Jeremy says.
“Good timing,” I nod, grateful I didn’t come home a few days later and miss it.
“Also, the Moon Goddess Magic has chosen your mate, and as the ritual requires, you will claim your fated mate at the same time as you claim your position as Alpha of this pack.”
“I have to claim my mate so soon?” I snarl, displeased and taken completely by surprise. This was never part of my plan.
“Yes, the ceremony is as it’s been for centuries, Jace. We will not stray from the Moon Goddess’s path,” Marcus says sternly.
Fuck, maybe I should’ve paid more attention when they were teaching rituals and traditions in class.
My jaw clenches, and I glance at Miles, who looks ready to tear someone’s throat out if I so much as blink to give him the go-ahead. I shake my head, a subtle move. Miles relaxes.
We have to realign our thoughts now that we’re home.
It’s not him and me against the world. It’s not him and me against all odds of survival.
We have a pack now. A pack that is going to rely on us fully.
The pack is our priority over all else. It’ll take a while for us to calm the trained instincts of Black Ops.
This is home. It’s quieter. Safer.
“I understand,” I say gruffly.
After a moment of silence in which the sound of cutlery against plates is the only noise in the dining room, my father casually announces, “The Moon Magic has chosen the Omega, Miranda Nelson.”
My entire body contracts. Every muscle twitches in disagreement. No. It can’t be her. There must be some mistake.
Jux bellows his approval, Mika! He snarls.
This must be some horrible trick of fate. This can’t be right.
“Oh, isn’t she the girl who does the tech stuff?” Lexus remarks.
“Yes, that’s the one,” Jeremy nods.
“A bit of a quiet one then, she’s not really as social as some of the other Omegas,” he says.
“Still, the Moon Goddess has spoken,” Jeremy shrugs.
“Of course, of course,” they continue chatting, and I sit in stunned silence.
“Do you remember Miranda, Jace?” Marcus asks.
I nod. “I do,” I growl, a little too aggressively. I swallow hard and nod again. “It’s been years, though, and people change,” I say.
“Indeed. You might want to go and catch up with her before the ceremony,” he says.
I nod in silence, my thoughts running off the charts.
I could reject her again?
Jux snarls and leaps from the back of my mind, where he was sitting relatively calmly. He practically tears through my flesh at the thought of rejecting Mira’s wolf.
I grab the edge of the table, digging my fingers into wood to fight my wolf from shifting me right here in front of everyone.
Fuck! I growl angrily as my eyes flare in preparation for a shift.
“Jace?” Jeremy gasps.
I grip the table harder, and the wood splinters beneath my fingers.
I snarl and hold my head down with my eyes squeezed shut.
“Jace, what’s wrong?” Marcus asks, standing.
“Is it the food? Poisoned?” Lexus snarls in a panic.
I shake my head and hold my hand up. “Please excuse me,” I manage to rasp roughly as I stand up and storm from the dining room.
Pressing my body against the wall in the hallway away from prying eyes, I command Jux to calm down.
If you reject her again, I will tear you to pieces!
Our wolves don’t speak, but the message is clear. I can feel his claws against the inside of my chest, raking against my organs. I will not let you take another breath.
For fuck sake, calm down. I demand, using every ounce of my will to push Jux back into his place in my mind.
I take a few shaking breaths, my fists clenched at my side.
Miles arrives in front of me. “Jace, what the fuck is going on?” he whispers.
“It’s ok. Jux had a moment. It’s fine now,” I snap.
“You can talk to me, man, that’s what I’m here for. Anything you need.”
I place my hand on his shoulder. “I know, Miles. I know. The whole fated-mate thing caught me off guard. I didn’t know it would happen so soon. But it’s fine. It’ll be fine,” I say, reassuring myself more than Miles.
He nods, but he can see through me. He knows me too well.
“Alright, man. Let's get some food. I’m starving,” he says, letting me keep my thoughts to myself for the moment.
I take a deep breath before I step back into the dining room. Whatever it takes… I will do it. To be the best Alpha for my pack. I will claim Mira as my fated mate. I will sacrifice my own ideals and thoughts. As long as it is in the pack's best interest.
It’s a worthy sacrifice.