Chapter 32
Dakota
Confronting Kent hadn’t exactly been the plan, but then I’d walked into the room and seem him there. Seen him acting like everything was just fine, and he hadn’t tried to basically murder the man I loved.
Smiling and laughing and sitting on our fucking couch when he was also working against our pack from the inside.
After discovering none of the poison in Kent’s coffee, we’d gone through everything Seth had saved, and frankly, the truth had been so transparent I was surprised he hadn’t caught it right away.
No poison in the coffee grounds or cream or sugar.
No poison in Kent’s cup. No poison in the coffee filter with the grounds. Just in the pot and Jax’s cup.
There had only been two people in that room, so there were only two ways for the poison to get into Jax, and since no one in their right mind thought Jax had poisoned himself, I thought the answer was transparent as fuck.
Poor Seth had been at a loss for what to do.
Oh, he’d been furious with Kent, that much had been apparent from the way he’d crumpled the paperwork in his hands, every muscle in his body tense and ready to leap into action.
But of course I was the one who’d broken.
Jax could have died.
Even now, looking at him, he was . . . pale and wan, with huge dark circles under his eyes.
Far worse, for the first time since I’d known him, Jax looked . . . uncertain. I could see that teenager who had challenged his alpha, but who hadn’t been one hundred percent certain of himself in that moment. Who hadn’t been sure he was doing the right thing.
So I had to handle this . . . if not delicately, since we were way past that, then at least carefully.
Unfortunately, Kent decided to try to head me off.
“He’s just panicking because we don’t know what happened,” he insisted to Jax.
Then he turned to me, a snotty superior look on his face.
“But you can’t blame me for everything just because you’re scared.
We’re all nervous. But that doesn’t mean I’m a bad guy.
” He motioned to Jax. “Jax has known me for way longer than you’ve been around. You don’t know me like he does.”
A low vibration filled the room, and for a moment I was afraid I was doing something magical without intending to. I looked around, desperately trying to seek out Kosuke and hoping he could tell me how to stop it. Instead, he was staring at . . . everyone, in fact, was staring at Seth.
Who in turn was glaring at Kent.
And growling, long and low, in a clear threat. I wasn’t the one making the noise. It was him.
Jax turned to look at his best friend and second, then at where his ire was centered, and frowned.
Jax didn’t say a word to him. Didn’t ask a question. Didn’t hesitate for a moment at his friend’s anger. He just looked at him a moment, then turned to me. I nodded to him, so he turned to Kent, who suddenly seemed less annoyed and more flustered.
Kent started to open his mouth again, but Jax wasn’t listening anymore. He marched through the living room, covering the small space between where Kent and I were standing, squared off, as half the pack looked on, waiting to see what was going to happen.
And it was so simple, the moment.
Jax reached out and laid a palm over the base of my neck, as though calming. Or maybe claiming. I held still. Okay, fine, it was Jax. I leaned into it.
But then, Jax reached out and similarly laid a palm over the base of Kent’s neck.
Or rather, he tried to. Kent jerked back, clearly expecting something more angry or violent, even though he’d been watching a second earlier when Jax had done precisely the same to me.
At that, Jax cocked his head, and leaned in, pressing his nose into Kent’s space and taking a deep sniff.
This time, Kent took a full step back.
Every pack member present took a collective breath, because we knew. It was obvious, without a single word spoken by anyone, what was going on. On the night of the challenge, right now, anytime Jax put a hand on me or came into my space, it wasn’t a threat. It was a comfort.
Jax was the man who had, till a moment earlier, been in the kitchen trying to make macaroni and cheese to feed the whole pack. He gave us everything he had, everything we could ever need. Jax took care of us. He did not threaten.
Not unless you weren’t part of our pack, and even then, he mostly ignored.
No, Jax was only a threat to a person under one circumstance.
And Kent? Kent, who by his own admission had known Jax for decades, and debatably knew him as well as anyone other than Jillian? He had clearly decided that Jax was a threat to him.
It could mean only one thing.