Chapter 7 Miranda
MIRANDA
The heavy iron bolt slides home with a sound that is final. Clunk.
Jax leaves the cabin like a storm front moving out to sea—loud, destructive, and leaving a sudden, ringing silence in his wake. He’s gone to "secure the perimeter," which in Wolf-speak likely means pissing on trees and scaring the local wildlife.
I am alone.
My ankle throbs, a dull, rhythmic ache that syncs up with the dripping of the faucet I fixed earlier. Drip. Throb. Drip. Throb.
I force myself off the mattress. Pain is just a signal. It’s the dashboard light telling you the suspension is damaged, but the car can still drive if you ignore the rattling. I hop-limp to the window, needing to verify the structural parameters of my cage.
I push the shutter open.
The humidity hits me first, a wet, suffocating palm against my face. Then the darkness. The fog has lifted slightly, revealing the swamp in grayscale.
We are high up. The cabin sits on pylons, elevated at least twelve feet above the water line to account for flooding. I look down.
The water below is black, still, and reflective like oil.
Then, the surface breaks. A snout, armored and prehistoric, breaks the tension.
Then another. Three massive alligators are circling the pylons, their tails drifting lazily in the current.
They aren't just passing through; they’re patrolling. They know there’s meat upstairs.
"Variable assessed," I whisper, my voice tight. "Egress is impossible. Ground level is a kill zone."
I latch the shutter. The cabin is small, suffocatingly intimate. It’s one room, divided by function rather than walls. Kitchen. Hearth. Sleeping area.
My eyes land on the corner near the woodstove.
It’s not a bed. It’s a pile of furs, heavy wool blankets, and what looks like an old sleeping bag, all arranged in a circle. A nest.
I shouldn't go near it. It’s where he probably sleeps. It’s where the Wolf curls up when the man is done pretending to be civilized.
I limp over to it anyway.
I kneel on the good leg, reaching out to touch the fur. It’s coarse, possibly bear or wolf. I lean in, the mechanic in me needing to analyze the data, and inhale.
The scent hits the olfactory nerve and bypasses the logic center entirely.
Cedar. Woodsmoke. Rain. And underneath it all, a deep, heavy musk that smells like raw testosterone and amber.
It’s aggressive. It should make me recoil. Instead, the tension in my shoulders—the mainspring that’s been wound to the breaking point since I arrived at Belle Rêve—suddenly uncoils. My lungs expand. My brain stops whirring through escape scenarios for a microsecond.
It smells... safe.
"Stop it," I hiss, jerking back. "It’s biology. Pheromones. Chemical manipulation."
I hate it. I hate that my body recognizes safety in the scent of a predator. It’s a glitch. A wiring error.
The sound of heavy splashing outside snaps me back to reality. The stairs groan.
I scramble back to the bed, sitting down just as the lock disengages.
Jax enters. He brings the swamp in with him.
He’s covered in mud—thick, black sludge that streaks his bare chest and plasters his jeans to his thighs. He’s soaking wet, hair dripping onto his shoulders. He looks like something dredged up from the bottom of the bayou, primal and terrifying.
He wipes a muddy hand across his face, leaving a streak of dirt on his jaw. He looks furious. The air around him vibrates with a low-frequency growl that I feel in my teeth.
"They're lined up," he says, kicking the door shut and slamming the bolt home. "Ten of 'em. Standing right at the property line like statutes."
"The vampires?" I ask, clutching the blanket.
"And the Humans," he spits the word like a curse. "Hunters. Mercenaries. Gregor’s boys."
He stalks to the sink and turns the tap on, splashing water over his face and chest. The water turns brown as it sluices off him.
"Matilde," he growls, grabbing a rough towel. "She’s paying them. Fifty grand for the safe return of her 'traumatized niece.' She’s buying an army with old plantation money."
"She hired humans?"
"Money makes the world go round, chérie," he says, tossing the towel onto the table. "Especially for men with no morals and expensive toys. They got UV lights, silver rounds, thermal scopes. They’re sweeping the grid."
He walks over to the stove, where a cast-iron pot has been simmering all day. He grabs two tin bowls and ladles out a thick, dark stew. The smell is rich—meat, potatoes, heavy spices.
He walks over and shoves a bowl into my hands. "Eat."
I look at the stew. "What is it?"
"Nutria," he says, sitting on the floor with his back against the wall, stretching his long legs out. "Big river rat. Tastes like rabbit. Don't be precious about it."
I take a spoonful. It’s hot, salty, and gamy. It’s the best thing I’ve tasted in twenty-four hours.
I eat. I don't hesitate. I scrape the bottom of the bowl.
Jax watches me, his spoon paused halfway to his mouth. His amber eyes narrow, assessing.
"You eat like a soldier," he observes. "Most city girls would turn their nose up at rat stew."
"I'm not picky," I say, setting the bowl down on the floor. "Fuel is fuel. If the engine doesn't get intake, it seizes."
"You talk like a machine," he grunts. "But you eat like you've been hungry."
"I grew up in the system, Jax," I say, looking at my hands. "Foster care. Chicago South Side. The funding was... inconsistent."
He goes still. The spoon lowers.
"There was a home when I was eight," I continue, my voice detached, reciting the specs of a broken history. "Mrs. Baker. She locked the fridge at night. If you missed dinner, you didn't eat until school lunch the next day."
I gaze up at him. "I learned to scavenge. The bakery down the street threw out the day-old bagels in a clean bin. If you got there before the rats, it was a feast."
Jax stares at me. The amber in his eyes shifts, swirling like molten gold. His jaw muscle ticks.
"You ate out of the trash," he says. It’s not a question.
"I survived," I correct him. "I fixed the problem. That’s what I do. I take broken situations and I make them work."
I laugh, a dry, brittle sound. "That’s why I took the test. The DNA kit. I didn't want the inheritance. I wanted... calibration. I wanted to know where I fit in the schematic. I thought if I found my blood, I wouldn't be just a spare part anymore."
I gesture vaguely toward the window, toward the vampires waiting in the dark.
"Turns out, my blood is poison. I went looking for a family and walked into a slaughterhouse. Stupid."
The silence stretches between us, heavy and thick as the humidity.
"It ain't stupid to want a pack," Jax says quietly.
He sets his bowl down and leans his head back against the logs. "But blood don't make family, Miranda. That’s a human lie."
"You have a pack," I point out. "You have people who look like you. Who are what you are."
"My Pack," he says, the capital letter audible, "is built on loyalty. Yeah, we share the Wolf, but that ain't what binds us. I got wolves in my pack who hate each other’s guts, but they’d die for each other. We bleed for the ones who stand beside us, not the ones who share a last name."
He looks at me, his gaze intense. "Matilde? That ain't family. That’s a hierarchy. She’d drain you dry to keep her power. That ain't a pack. That’s a parasite."
"I don't have a pack," I whisper. "I just have a wrench and a very bad credit score."
"You're breathing," he says. "That’s a start."
He stands up, the movement fluid and powerful. He looms over the small space, casting a long shadow.
"Sleep," he commands. "You take the bed. Leg needs elevation."
"Where will you sleep?" I ask, eyeing the nest.
"Floor," he says shortly. He walks over to the pile of furs and kicks off his boots. He doesn't bother with a shirt. He just drops onto the blankets, curling onto his side facing the door.
I lie down on the mattress. It smells like him. The cedar. The musk. It’s everywhere.
I turn onto my side, staring at the wall.
Tick. Tock. The clock in my head is running fast.
I close my eyes, but the images won't stop. Matilde’s teeth. The nails in the window. The Hunters with their UV lights.
I turn over. The springs squeak.
I stare at the ceiling.
I turn again, restless, my skin itching with phantom anxiety.
"Stop fidgeting," Jax’s voice comes from the dark. It’s low, rough, vibrating through the floorboards.
"I can't," I whisper. "My gears are grinding. I keep thinking about the door. About them coming in."
There’s a rustle of fabric.
"They won't come in."
"You can't know that," I argue. "Physics says any barrier can be breached with enough force."
"I am the barrier," he says.
I lift my head. I can see his eyes glowing in the darkness near the stove. Two burning coals of gold. He’s watching me.
"Go to sleep, Miranda," he says, his voice becoming a rumble that feels strangely like a purr. "I’m right here. Nothing touches you unless it goes through me first."
"Why?" I ask. "Why protect me? I’m a liability."
He is silent for a long time. The air shifts, thickening with that heavy, electric tension that makes all the hair on the back of my arms stand up.
"You're safer with the Wolf who wants to eat you," he says finally, the words hanging in the air like a promise and a threat, "than the Vampire who wants to drain you."
“Isn’t it the same?” I mutter, turning over. But somehow, deep down, his words calm my restless heart and slowly, sleep claims me.