Chapter 15 Jax
Jax
Iwas trying to keep my shit together.
Holding onto sanity with ten claws, dug in hard.
But even on my best day, I had my fucking limits. And this was a bullshit day on which I got to sit across from a smarmy fucking asshole and hope that the right combination of queso and tequila could get me through it.
All right, I wasn’t drinking.
I didn’t trust myself to drink. Or, well . . . I did. It wasn’t like I’d get wasted. I just needed to hold it together around these people that I definitely did not fucking trust.
So I was a man down, and queso was picking up a lot of slack.
Well, his buddy, chorizo helped.
And then, Dakota got up.
The hair on the back of my neck stood on end, and there was no sense in that.
Dakota was allowed to go to the restroom by himself. Of course he was. He was an adult. This was our city, a place the pack frequented, our home. I shouldn’t have worried about him at all.
But I was wolf enough that I didn’t like losing sight of him while there was a threat nearby. It was a toxic, feral impulse, and I was better than that.
I tried to be better than that.
Fuck, around these assholes, I really was not better than that.
He was gone, and I could stand it for a few minutes, until one of the Wildwood wolves got up and headed in the same direction. A cold chill gripped my chest and—okay. Respecting Dakota’s space and privacy came up second to the need to make sure he was all right.
Immediately.
I leaned over and squeezed my sister’s hand. She gave a little jump—my twin. Someone who’d shared a womb with me.
She’d never jumped at my touch before, and when she realized it was just me, she caught herself. Forced a smile. Pressed into my hand in apology.
All that made me want to do was toss the fucking table over and start throwing fists and claws at every damned interloper who’d made her feel this way.
“I’m okay,” she insisted before I could even ask, taking another sip of her drink.
My nose flared.
She was lying, but it didn’t serve anybody to call her on it. She was trying to be okay, at the very least, and I shouldn’t upend that just because I was mad at everyone else in the room.
With a huff and a clench of my jaw, I glanced around the room. More than one of our pack mates had their eyes on me, and I caught Kent’s eye and jerked my head.
Kent wasn’t pack muscle. Seth would keep everyone safe, but I needed someone to be there for Jillian.
“I need to go check on Dakota—” I said to Jill quietly.
She shook her head, her smile still false and frozen in place. “I’m fine. Go. Seriously. I’m fine.”
My stomach twisted. Even if I wanted to believe her, I wasn’t fucking fine.
It wasn’t until Kent rounded to our side of the table that I got up.
“Our pitcher’s empty,” Kent said, as if that were his excuse for coming over.
I was grateful he didn’t make a big show.
He reached across Dakota’s abandoned seat to snatch the one nearest Jillian off the table.
Once he refilled his glass, he offered to pour her another serving as he dropped into the chair beside her.
Good. I’d always thought—
Well, I didn’t think Jill would pick Kent, but I’d always thought he liked her. If a crush kept her safe for a few minutes while I went after my mate, good. Didn’t have to mean anything.
Even walking through the restaurant made me nervous. Dakota was nowhere to be found, but there was no way a wolf—especially one from such an insular pack as we’d come from—would risk making a scene and exposing us to humans.
On the off chance I was wrong, it wouldn’t matter. Dakota could protect himself. He wasn’t just a wolf. He was a mage. He could split any other wolf in two, no matter how big he was.
And this one was, well, rather big.
When I got to the hallway tucked out of the way toward the back, where the restrooms were, the blond wolf who’d followed Dakota came out. Truth told, if I’d had to fight him, I’d have been a good deal more concerned about the outcome than I was about fighting Grant.
The wolf was big. Young, but there was something in him I recognized—the kind of hardness you had to wear to survive a pack like we had come from. Of course, for me, that’d been a mask.
I wasn’t so sure about this kid.
He stepped out into the narrow hallway that led to the restrooms and when he saw me, his lips tilted, spreading into a tight smirk. Even his dimples seemed sharp and threatening.
I wanted to growl at him. It took every fucking ounce of my self-control not to.
And that motherfucker’s smirk went from predatory to smug as hell. He knew I was pissed, and all he did was nod at me. He walked by, and his meaty shoulder bumped into mine.
Fuck, was he enormous. Was he bigger than me?
Why the fuck was I standing there worrying about how big he was?
I shoved into the bathroom to find Dakota there, leaning over the sink with his hands braced on the countertop to either side. At the opening door, he glanced into the mirror and caught my eye.
The smile he gave me was drawn and tired. I locked the door and slid up behind him, running my hands down his arms.
“Did he say something to you?” I asked softly.
There was no evidence that Dakota had been harmed, but he was one of us now. There wouldn’t be.
He shook his head, pressing off the counter to lean back against me, crossing his arms around his middle so he could touch mine.
“Nothing bad,” he clarified. “He said—” Dakota dropped his head back against my chest and closed his eyes. “He said Grant’s not going to challenge you. He’s going to challenge me, because we’re equals.”
The growl that rumbled in my chest was loud and immediate. Dakota slid his hands up my forearms and squeezed, pulling my wrists in to hug him tightly around the middle.
Like fuck I was going to let that bastard—
“It’s fine,” Dakota insisted before I could finish my thought.
“Shit, it’s good. There’s no way that asshole knows what I am.
He could never even guess. I read Prue’s book—the witchwolf is lore.
A fairytale. He can’t know about how it works.
So I’ll take him unaware, and if I have to, I’ll put him down. ”
“No,” I snarled.
Dakota didn’t even flinch. He turned around in my arms and slipped his hands up my chest, around the back of my neck, drawing me down until my forehead settled against his.
“I’ll be fine, Jax. Seriously.”
I squeezed my eyes shut tight and shook my head.
No.
I’d stood over Reeve’s broken, bleeding body, knowing that I could kill him. Maybe even thinking I should. And I hadn’t been able to do it.
I wasn’t about to let Dakota’s hands get bloody because I’d failed.
If I’d torn Reeve’s goddamn head from his shoulders, I could’ve taken over the pack instead of fled it. Grant wouldn’t have had a leg to stand on now.
We’d have had a very different life. I never would have met Dakota.
I—
I couldn’t regret the path I’d taken to get here, because my life now was everything I could’ve ever hoped for. But I’d be damned before I let my mate kill a man because I’d not been strong enough to.
“The language in the code is vague, if I remember right. We cannot seek assistance from outside the pack in a challenge, and—your magic. It’s yours.
You earned it. But our old pack may not see it that way.
They could look for a loophole because your power didn’t come through you through your wolf, or through pack. ”
Dakota sniffed. “They won’t even know if I use magic. Or they don’t have to. I’ll be subtle.”
“It’s not worth the risk. I won’t let him challenge you.” I tightened my arms around him, like I could crush Dakota into the shape of my body and keep him safe there.
Dakota’s warm hand cupped my cheek. He tilted back on his heels, not pulling away, but just creating enough distance to look up at me clearly and prompt me to open my eyes.
“We’re equals, right?”
I nodded. He’d marked me just as I’d marked him.
I loved him.
I would never imagine trying to hold him beneath me.
Well . . . not like that.
“So,” he said, “you don’t always get to make every decision.”
Dakota was biting his lip against a smile, and a funny little flip turned my heart over. “No,” I agreed, biting back a grin of my own. “Not every one. But this one, I do.”
Dakota sighed, pursing his lips, but he didn’t interrupt or tell me I was being a dick.
I turned my face into his palm and kissed his skin.
“This is my mess. I didn’t kill Reeve. I left the old pack open to infighting and trouble.
I paved the way for Grant, and I didn’t check in for years.
Not because I couldn’t. Not because I didn’t have the resources.
I didn’t want to. I didn’t want to see if I’d fucked things up back there.
It was easier to pretend everything was fine—”
Right up until I found Cash half dead in a motel room.
“I need to fix it,” I whispered. “And I need you to be safe.”
Dakota frowned. His brow pinched.
In every way that mattered, he was stronger than me, but I wasn’t going to fall apart while he cleaned up my messes.
“I will not let Grant challenge you, Dakota. It’s not happening.”
Dakota sighed, slumping into me again, and though he didn’t agree aloud—
Well, one way or another, we’d sort this out together. But it wasn’t going to end up with my mate locked in a death match with a fratricidal lunatic.
Not a chance.