Chapter 27 Jax
Jax
Shit, my mouth tasted awful, sharp and bitter like bile, made all the worse by how dry my tongue was.
I swallowed reflexively. My joints ached. I’d never had a fever in my fucking life, but I’d watched enough of those high-drama medical shows when I’d gone home alone after work that I knew how it was supposed to feel.
This was awful. How did humans stand this kind of thing?
I groaned, scowling, and a warm hand with the softest skin I’d ever felt smoothed over my forehead, brushing my hair back from my temple with a light-fingered touch.
My eyes fluttered open, less because I made a conscious decision to open them than the absolute necessity of seeing Dakota there beside me.
The haziness cleared. As I focused on his beautiful face, a sense of peace washed over me. It didn’t matter any longer that Reeve had stalked my dreams or that my mouth tasted terrible.
Dakota was there and so heartachingly perfect.
“Hey there,” he whispered. His eyes were glistening with tears, and I wanted to draw him into my arms and kiss his closed eyelids until he could take a full breath. And, well, I wanted to spare him what was surely some rancid morning breath.
Morning? I had no idea what time it was.
It didn’t really matter, but everyone else in the room—Dakota, Jillian, Prudence, and Seth with his arms crossed in the corner, wearing a heavy scowl—all looked like they were ready for the day.
With one hand, Dakota continued combing his fingers through my hair. The other gripped mine, and I squeezed him back hard.
His smile trembled for approximately two seconds before he fell on me with a sob. His face pressed into the center of my chest, and my wolf wanted to howl at the agony of him crying.
Instead, I pulled him in. He half crawled, half scooted his way onto the bed without lifting his head. I felt his tears on my bare chest.
“Shh,” I hissed, tucking his head under my chin as I squeezed him close. “It’s all right.”
Above his dark hair, I caught my sister’s eye. She nodded.
It was all right. I wasn’t lying to Dakota.
But shit, even if it hadn’t been, I’d have done whatever it took to stop Dakota from crying.
“He did good,” Jillian mouthed over his head. She looked down at Dakota with a staggering amount of fondness, and I tightened my arm around his waist.
Dakota, in a surprising display of wolfishness that I wasn’t sure he would’ve been capable of before I’d bitten him, nuzzled into my neck with a soft, rumbling growl. He wiggled in close, sniffing the warm spot beneath the corner of my jaw where my scent was strongest.
My heart melted when I felt him go lax against me. My scent, even when I was rumpled with sleep and sweaty with fever, comforted him. Clearly, that meant we were staying in this bed forever, and I was never letting him out of my arms again.
Seth waited until I’d settled back on the pillows, not quite sitting but generally more upright, before he shoved off the wall with his shoulders.
“They got us in our own home,” he announced. His voice was deeper than I’d ever heard it, like he could infuse a growl into his very essence to encourage our enemies to back the fuck off. “Twice now.”
I nodded. “We’ll have to be more careful.”
This time, they’d come for me. Frankly, I’d rather let them do that than come for any of my pack.
“Between this shit and what happened to Cash, we can’t let our guard down until the challenge is over.
I want two-person security patrols at home and at the Crescent Building, in addition to our regular security protocols.
” Seth’s voice was clipped, but his anger wasn’t directed at our pack.
Well, maybe at himself, a little, but we’d address that once he felt more secure.
None of this was anyone’s fault, except the person who’d done it, and no Crescent wolf would resort to this kind of underhanded duplicity. These tricks were the behavior of a man who’d burn a house to the ground rather than fight—I just didn’t know how Grant had managed it.
It wasn’t like Seth or any of his people would’ve let just anyone walk into our building.
“And I want everybody in the pack who’s not sharing their location to fix that, now.” Seth stuck his chin out. While I didn’t think he could track everyone’s locations at once, maybe that wasn’t such a bad idea.
I glanced at Jillian. She’d bitten her lip. We weren’t the kind of pack to demand that degree of compliance, normally, and it’d always raise our hackles to consider that kind of push.
Considering whether sacrificing freedom for safety was worth it would always be a good thing, though. Whatever choice we made, we’d weigh it to make sure it was the right one.
When Jillian inclined her chin, just a subtle gesture but more than enough for me, it was decided.
“Okay, spread the word then. Make sure everyone knows what happened, what to look out for, and that this is a safety protocol. Once we’re sure the danger’s passed, they can do whatever they like, but let’s strongly encourage everyone to get on the same page.”
“It won’t be an issue,” Jillian said. “People are on edge. I’m sure they’ll appreciate that we’re taking charge of the situation.”
I nodded.
“Anything else you need from me?” I asked.
Seth’s jaw flexed. “No, just—” He grimaced. “I’m glad you’re back.”
Against my shoulder, I felt Dakota’s little nod.
“Me too,” I agreed. “Prudence?”
Her head popped up, and she looked like she was on the verge of falling asleep. No wonder she’d been so uncharacteristically quiet.
“We’re putting you on retainer, if you have the time to discuss with Seth any magical steps we can take to defend our territory. Clearly, we need to be prepared for threats of all kinds, and you know more about magic than . . . ”
I scowled. It was a given that she knew more than anyone in our pack, but I didn’t know how far that stretched.
She scoffed. “Anyone on this coast, certainly. I’d be happy to work with you,” she told Seth.
He nodded, and they left together, leaving just Jill, Dakota, and me.
“Glad you’re safe,” my sister said quietly, sparing another quick, grateful look at Dakota before she squeezed my arm and left too.
Dakota snuggled closer to me, and I held him tight.
We stayed like that for a long time. All I wanted to do was sleep, but I was afraid to let myself drift off again. Given that I felt kind of shitty, it wouldn’t have been that easy anyway.
As a distraction from the achy, unpleasant feeling that reminded me of wolfsbane working through my system, I let my fingertips drift under Dakota’s shirt. The warmth of his skin was a balm to my every ache and pain.
“When I was asleep . . . ”
“Yeah?” he asked when I drifted off, lost in the smoothness beneath my touch.
“When I was asleep, you were talking to someone. Was it Prudence?” She was the only person I could think of who didn’t know the full story of how Dakota had come to be part of our pack.
Or maybe she did, and Dakota had already told her, but I couldn’t think of anyone else he would need to lay out the whole story for.
For some reason, the question had heat rushing into Dakota’s face. Even when he pressed his cheek against my chest to hide, I could feel his flush against my skin.
“Not exactly . . . ”
“Not exactly?”
He grimaced and peeked up at me. “Not at all.” He took a deep breath, and it hitched in his chest before he let it out. “I’m haunted.”
I blinked. “Haunted? Like, with ghosts? What the hell do you mean, haunted?”
“I mean, when we went to Japan, I . . . picked up a hitchhiker, kind of. My great-great-grandfather, who is, yes, a ghost. He’s kind of .
. . attached. To me. It’s not a big deal.
He’s just been around, and we’re handling it, but I don’t want to like, blast his spirit out of existence, you know? So . . . I was talking to him.”
I blinked.
Since Japan? It’d been weeks.
“He helped me, though!” Dakota was beaming and chipper, and it only appeared mostly forced.
“To figure out how to help you, I mean. He knew the antidote and how to prepare it. He’s .
. . okay, he’s been kind of a dick, but he’s getting better.
Less . . . you know, speciesist. He’s grown a lot, so it’s been kind of, ah, good? I guess?”
All the times Dakota had glanced off into a corner like a cat seeing something none of us could. Every time he’d interjected, annoyed beyond anything happening in the moment.
I’d discounted it all as stress. And—
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
He shook his head. “I didn’t want to worry you. There’s already so much going on, and by the time I even realized, we were dealing with Cash and the challenge and, I don’t know, it’s a magical problem.”
“But it’s a magical problem, happening to you,” I whispered.
I hated the idea that I could miss something like this, that Dakota could have any struggle that he kept to himself.
“Is he here now?” I asked.
Dakota’s gaze flicked toward a chair against the wall. “He says hello. His name is Kosuke.”
I blew out a breath. “Hello, Kosuke-san.”
I didn’t know if I was looking at the right place, but it didn’t really matter. Immediately, my attention was right back on Dakota. I didn’t care about ancient, racist ghosts.
I cared about my mate, and that he trusted me, even when things were difficult.
“Dakota—” I pushed up on my elbow, and Dakota fell onto his back under me, sinking into the pillows.
He bit his lip. “Yeah?”
“I understand why you didn’t tell me, and I appreciate you wanting to keep stress off my plate.”
“But?”
I smiled, leaning over him and combing my fingers through his soft hair. “But you’re my mate. To me, that means we have one plate, and I want to know everything that’s on it, okay? As soon as you feel okay to share it with me.”
Dakota stared at me, his eyes wide, and I realized that him withholding this had less to do with him not trusting me, than with the fact that he’d never had anyone who was all in on sharing everything with him.