9. Jinx
Chapter 9
Jinx
“Get up, boy.”
The voice slices through sleep like a rusted blade, familiar and jagged. Hot whiskey breath washes over my face, and I’m thirteen again, counting the seconds until violence breaks out.
“Get the fuck up, boy.”
Usually, he passes out in his chair after the bar. Not tonight. My body moves before my mind fully wakes, muscle memory from years of dodging fists. I roll off the bed, face pressed to hardwood as something heavy impacts where my head was moments ago.
The thud would have been so much worse if I hadn’t moved.
I pop up, facing the man who fathered me. Not father. Never father. Just a shitty alpha with no pack and a mate he manipulated into staying. Hatred burns in my gut, pure and potent as any thirteen-year-old’s can be. One day, I’ll see him dead.
Will that day be today?
“Ah, there you are, boy.” His laugh carries more malice than mirth. But that’s good. Keep his attention on me. Not on Mama. Never on Mama.
Don’t ask about her. Don’t draw his attention there.
“You’re drunk.” I cross my arms, standing tall enough now to look him in his dead eyes. Eyes I share. Eyes that make me want to find the sharpest spoon in the kitchen and ? —
He scoffs, trying to match my stance but stumbling instead. The clock reads 3:47 AM. A Wednesday. Fucking perfect.
“Go to bed.” My voice cracks on the words. “I have school.”
“No school.” He gags, and my stomach drops. He’s drunk-drunk tonight.
The house is too quiet. Everything’s too quiet.
“Yes, school.” I know I should stop, but the words spill out anyway. “The principal came knocking last time you kept me home. Want that to happen again?”
I do. But the smile that spreads across his face tells me I’ve miscalculated. It’s the smile that says his fists need something to break.
“You locked me out, James.”
“I went to bed at midnight.” The words tumble out, sharp and stupid. “I locked the door because this is a shitty neighborhood. Or did you fucking forget that too?”
“What did you say to me, boy?”
His rage burns through the alcohol haze, and I know ? —
“Jinx.”
A different voice. Softer. But the memory has its teeth in me, dragging me under—colors blurring, timelines merging, past and present colliding like tectonic plates?—
A scream tears through my vocal cords, raw and primal. My body convulses, muscles spasming as past and present separate violently. Cold hardwood slams against my cheekbone, the impact sending shockwaves through my skull that momentarily drown out my father’s phantom laughter. Stomach acid claws up my esophagus, burning a jagged path that matches the broken fragments of my consciousness. Each inhale sounds like tearing fabric, exhales like wounded animal whimpers.
“Hey.” That soft voice again. Theo. My Theo.
“I’m good.” The lie tastes like copper and fear.
I’m not good. I’m broken. Held together by scar tissue and spite. My soul’s so fractured even the pieces have pieces.
“You aren’t good.” He stays across the room. Smart omega. Beautiful, brilliant omega who knows exactly how dangerous I am right now.
Get out. Get out. Get OUT.
“I need to run.” My legs shake as I stand, the past and present bleeding together like watercolors in rain.
“Jinx.” His voice carries a weight I can’t handle. Now I remember—we passed out together after bringing her back. Cayenne . All lemon-sharp defiance and too-sweet submission.
You don’t deserve her either. My father’s ghost laughs from the corner.
Sometimes I see him there. But he’s not real.
We made sure of that.
He’s dead. Just memories now. Just the ghost I can’t seem to exorcise from my fractured mind.
“We should talk.” Theo lingers in the doorway, freshly showered and holding a steaming mug. He’s wearing nothing but leather pants, dark tattoos stark against pale skin like a roadmap of beautiful corruption.
Fuck, he’s beautiful.
And I’m his disaster.
“I can’t.” My voice splinters as I pull on sweats and running shoes. The sun’s setting already—how long was I lost in the nightmare?
My legs itch. My skin crawls.
Everything screams run, run, RUN.
Go. Run. Leave them because they deserve better.
The voices never shut up. My father’s ghost conducting a chorus of self-hatred in surround sound.
Exhaust them out.
I step close to Theo, pressing a kiss to the corner of his mouth. “I need...”
“I know.” Unshed tears shine in his eyes. He won’t let them fall. Not for me. “Go.”
Stepping into the hall feels like another failure. Another crack in my already shattered psyche. One too many concussions as a kid, they said. But it wasn’t the hits that broke me—it was watching my mother’s light dim day by day until?—
Stop.
The house is quiet as I move through it. Too quiet. Where is everyone?
Where is she?
STOP.
Walk out the door. Exhaust your brain. Exhaust your demons.
The mantra loops as I step into twilight air. Cold bites my bare chest, shocking some of the past away. Not enough. Never enough.
I take Ryker’s path around the property, forcing myself to focus on each step. The crunch of gravel. The burn in my lungs. The way my breath clouds like smoke signals spelling SOS.
Some days the nightmares stay buried. Others?—
“Wake up, boy.”
I stumble, nearly eating gravel.
“Shut up.” The words rip from my throat as I spot him behind a tree. Logic says he’s not there. The bullet I put in his head says he’s not there. But my broken mind?—
I bolt into the forest.
“Stop!” Birds scatter at my shout, their wings a thunderclap of judgment.
His laughter follows, echoing between trees like a twisted game of Marco Polo.
This isn’t working. I can’t go back to the house like this, can’t let them see me fracturing again. Especially not her.
I veer toward the gatehouse. No guards there, just AI systems that won’t judge my madness and a stash of marijuana to quiet the voices.
Except...
Movement catches my eye. A shadow where no shadow should be.
Everything in me goes still. The feral part of my brain that’s always hunting, always waiting for the next threat, rises to the surface.
Someone’s in our gatehouse.
I drop low, moving from tree to tree with predatory grace. The setting sun paints everything in blood-red warning signs. I catch his scent on the wind—alpha, smoke, foreign.
Kill him.
No. Focus. If we kill him, we can’t protect the pack. Can’t protect Cayenne.
Cayenne.
Red bleeds across my vision. What if he’s here for her?
I scale the nearest tree, muscles moving on pure instinct. From this height, I can see him clearly. Male. Alpha. The scent of gun oil clings to him like cheap cologne.
Threat.
My body moves before my mind can catch up. I launch myself at the fence—the one Ryker thinks can contain me—I’ll never tell him different. The world blurs as I sail over it, landing on the gatehouse roof silent as death.
“What the fu—” A door slams. “Who’s up?—”
I drop on him like judgment from above, driving him face-first into concrete. The crunch of bone on asphalt pleases my demons and I itch to do it again. “Who are you?”
“Hired.” He wheezes. “PCA.”
“Jinx!” Ryker’s voice cuts through the red haze a second before he slams into me.
My head cracks against concrete, and for a moment, I’m thirteen again, tasting blood and failure as my father’s ghost laughs?—
“What the fuck is happening?” Her voice. Sharp as citrus, sweet as sin. “Get off him!”
“Can’t do that, trouble.” Ryker’s weight pins me down, his scent sharp with alarm. Usually, he smells like cracked pepper and wilderness. Now he’s all storm-front warning, his alpha presence pressing down like a physical weight.
“Like fucking hell you can’t.”
A grunt, a shuffle, and suddenly Ryker’s weight vanishes. I suck in air that tastes like lemon drops and danger. Something in my fractured mind clicks back into place, just enough to process the scene around me.
Finn hovers at the edge of my vision, hands raised like he’s approaching a wild animal. Which, fair. Theo’s there too, his omega presence a steady anchor I can’t quite reach.
But it’s her—all fire and fury—that draws my predator’s focus. Her scent cuts through the chaos in my head like a blade of clarity—bright lemon and electric ozone, something that calls to the broken pieces of me in a way that shouldn’t be possible with a beta. The pack bonds pulse with shared recognition, and even through the red haze, I can feel it—the way her presence slots into our fractured pack like the missing piece we never knew we needed.
“Jinx.” Finn’s voice shakes. “Stay down. Please.”
I roll, catching Cayenne as she starts toward me. Her smaller body fits perfectly under mine, and something primitive in my brain purrs at having her pinned.
“Don’t move, Cayenne.” Finn’s voice cracks on the last syllable, his normally steady hands now visibly shaking as he takes a half-step forward before freezing in place.
“Jinx, let her free.” Ryker’s words emerge rougher than usual, a microscopic tremor running through them that I’ve never heard before—not even during our worst missions. His body has gone unnaturally still, muscles coiled so tightly I can see individual tendons standing out along his forearms.
“Jinx.” Finn’s breathing has accelerated, his glasses slipping down his nose unnoticed as beads of sweat form along his hairline. The air around him seems to shiver with the sharp tang of distress—something between burnt coffee and static electricity.
I hide my smile against Cayenne’s throat, breathing in that addictive citrus. The voices in my head quiet for the first time since waking.
“Hey there.” Her voice holds no fear, just that same sharp challenge that drew me to her in that bathroom. “Havoc.”
I lift my head, really seeing her. My hand cradles her skull, protecting it from the concrete even in my feral state. Her hair feels like silk against my fingertips. So soft. Too soft for someone like me.
“Glitch,” I whisper, focusing on her face. My glitch in the matrix. My beautiful system error.
“Jinx, let her go!” Ryker’s alpha command rolls over me like thunder.
I laugh, and it sounds unhinged even to my broken mind. “No.”
“Ryker.” Theo’s voice floats over, smooth as smoke. “Use your pack bond.”
“Hey.” Cayenne’s legs wrap around my waist, drawing me into her heat. The winter air suddenly feels miles away. “Focus on me.”
I let her pull me closer, let her unexpected softness ease the beast raging behind my eyes. She hums, the sound vibrating between us. “There you are, big guy.”
“I prefer Havoc.”
Her smile transforms her entire face—teeth flashing white against flushed lips, eyes crinkling at the corners with a mischief that makes the air between us seem to crackle with electricity. The temperature rises three degrees in our immediate vicinity, the concrete beneath us somehow warming despite the evening chill. “Okay, Havoc.” Her fingertips create five points of burning contact as they slide up my chest, leaving trails of goosebumps in their wake. “Come here often?”
I lean down, nipping her ear where I marked her before. “Not yet.”
“That so?”
“Are they flirting?” Finn sounds scandalized. “In the middle of his episode?”
She arches under me, all invitation and challenge. “Wanna fuck?”
The last of the red haze burns away, replaced by something darker. Something hungrier. A laugh bubbles up from my soul, real and unrestrained.
I drop my head to her throat, right over my previous mark. “You may not know it yet,” I whisper against her skin, feeling her pulse jump. “But you’re mine, Glitch.”
The pack bonds writhe between us like living things—Ryker’s frustration burning hot as forge-iron against my consciousness, Finn’s disbelief tingling like static electricity along my spine, Theo’s knowing amusement wrapping around me like silk cords. But all these sensations fade beneath the overwhelming reality of Cayenne’s body against mine—the way her scent explodes with cinnamon heat and electric interest, the way her curves slot perfectly against my angles like puzzle pieces clicking into place with an almost audible sound.
Made for me.
My broken pieces recognize hers.
Somewhere in the back of my mind, my father’s ghost fades. His laughter replaced by Cayenne’s steady heartbeat against my chest. The red haze that usually takes hours to dissipate burns away in seconds.
“If you two are done eye-fucking each other,” Ryker growls, “we have a situation.”
“PCA?” I keep Cayenne pinned beneath me as I turn my head, eyeing the man still face-down on the concrete.
“Since when do we have guards?”
“Since about three hours ago.” Ryker’s growl holds a hint of guilt now. “I was going to brief everyone at dinner.”
Well, shit.
“So this is the additional security Malachi insisted on?” Finn helps the guard up, already apologizing. “And no one thought to inform the rest of us?”
“I was handling it.” Ryker’s jaw ticks.
“Clearly.” Cayenne’s fingers tap against my chest, drawing my attention back to her. “Is this how all your pack meetings go? Lots of growling and testosterone?”
“Only the fun ones,” I murmur against her throat.
“If you two are done,” Ryker cuts in, “we need to discuss proper threat assessment protocols. Again.”
“In my defense,” I shift to better shield Cayenne from the cooling night air, “coming across an unknown alpha in our territory after a nightmare isn’t exactly conducive to rational thinking.”
“Inside.” Ryker’s command carries enough alpha weight to make the guard flinch. “All of you. We need to sort this out.”
I push to my feet, pulling Cayenne up with more gentleness than I know I possess. My hands linger on her waist, steadying her. Or maybe steadying myself.
“You good?” she asks quietly, those green eyes searching my face for cracks.
“No,” I admit, because lying feels wrong with her. “But better.”
She nods like that makes perfect sense. Maybe it does.
“Jinx.” Her voice drops to a whisper as the others start toward the house. “Want to work off some of that feral energy?”
And fuck, I want to. Want to pin her against the nearest surface and lose myself in her lemon-sharp sweetness until the past stops haunting me. Until my father’s ghost shuts the fuck up.
But there’s something in her scent. Something under the arousal and challenge that makes the predator in me stir for a different reason. Not prey. Not exactly. But hunted.
I lean close, letting my canines graze her ear where I marked her before. “When I take you again, Glitch, it won’t be about working anything off.”
Her pulse jumps, but her laugh holds something brittle. “No?”
“No.” I breathe her in deep, trying to place that shadow in her scent. “It’ll be about marking every inch of you until you stop smelling like someone else’s target.”
Something flickers behind her eyes—pupils contracting to pinpoints for a fraction of a second, throat muscles tightening in an aborted swallow, a microscopic tremor at the corner of her mouth that vanishes before it fully forms. But her scent betrays what her face won’t—the bright lemon notes suddenly turn acidic and burnt, carrying metallic undertones like blood on copper wires. The change hits my alpha receptors like a physical blow, triggering a surge of adrenaline that makes my canines ache with the need to eliminate whatever caused that shift.
“Targets are for amateurs,” she says, but her heart races against my chest. Through the lingering haze of my episode, I can scent every nuance of her anxiety—not just fear of being hunted, but something deeper. Something that makes her pull away even as her scent calls to every protective instinct I possess. “I prefer to think of myself as a system error. A glitch in everyone’s carefully coded plans.”
“My glitch,” I growl, and something dark and possessive unfurls in my chest when she shivers.
“Jinx!” Ryker’s voice carries across the yard. “Now.”
I step back, immediately missing her warmth. “We’re not done here.”
Her smile is all sharp edges and hidden wounds. “Oh Havoc, we haven’t even started.”
But as she walks away, her bravado can’t quite hide the way her hands shake. Someone’s hunting my beta. Someone’s made her run far enough and fast enough that she ended up in our territory.
My father’s ghost laughs from the shadows, but for once, we agree on something:
They just made their last mistake.