Chapter 10 Jax
JAX
The silence is heavy, waiting for a follow-up strike.
I move before the filament in the bulb has even cooled. My hand finds the shotgun by the door in the pitch black, muscle memory guiding me.
"Stay down," I order. My voice is a low vibration in the dark.
Miranda is frozen at the table. I can hear her breath hitching—a sharp, terrified intake of air. She’s counting. I can practically hear the numbers ticking in her head, her way of forcing order onto chaos.
I slip out the door, moving into the storm.
The rain hits me like a wall of gravel. It’s coming down in sheets, turning the swamp into a grey, drowning world. I slide along the porch wall, staying in the shadows, shotgun raised. My eyes shift, the amber glowing hot as I scan the tree line.
Nothing.
I drop off the porch, landing in the mud. It sucks at my boots, warm and sticky. I move to the generator shed on the side of the cabin.
The fuel line has been severed. It wasn't a tear. It was a cut. Clean. Surgical.
I crouch, scanning the mud for prints. The rain is washing the evidence away as fast as it forms, but there’s nothing. No scent of vampire rot. No smell of unwashed human hunter.
It’s a test. Someone wanted to see how fast I’d react, or maybe they just wanted to flush us out into the open.
Wolf.
The command slams into my brain. I need the senses that human skin can't provide. I need to talk to the Pack without alerting the enemy.
I strip my shirt off, tossing it into the shed. The change takes me mid-stride. Bones crack and reshape, a familiar, searing heat that tears through my muscles. I hit the mud on four paws, massive and lethal.
I tilt my head back and let it rip.
Awooooo-roooo.
The howl cuts through the thunder. It’s an order: Perimeter breached. Hold the line. Sound off.
I wait, ears swiveling against the rain.
Seconds later, the answer comes. A chorus of howls from the deep bayou. Remy. Beau. The twins. They’re out there. They’re watching.
I huff, steam rising from my snout. The perimeter holds. The intruder is gone.
I shift back.
The return is harder. It leaves me gasping, naked and shivering in the mud. I grab my jeans from the shed floor and yank them on, not bothering with the button.
"Jax?"
The voice is small, barely audible over the rain.
I spin around, shotgun snapping up.
Miranda stands at the top of the stairs. She’s wrapped in a yellow raincoat she must have scavenged from the hook by the door. It’s three sizes too big, drowning her, but her face is set in that stubborn, angular line I’m starting to recognize.
"Get back inside," I roar, the human voice scratching my throat. "I told you to stay put."
"The power is out," she yells back, descending the stairs. She’s favoring her bad leg, gripping the rail white-knuckled. "You can't secure a perimeter in the dark. You need lights."
"I can see in the dark. You can't. Go inside."
"I’m not sitting in the dark waiting for the boogeyman," she snaps. She reaches the bottom step, mud splashing her bare feet. She’s holding a heavy waterproof flashlight. "I fix things, Jax. That’s my utility. Let me fix the generator."
I stare at her. She’s soaking wet, shivering, and terrified, but she’s looking at me as if I’m the unreasonable one.
"It’s a fuel line," I say, wiping rain from my eyes. "Clean cut."
"Then it’s a splice job. I can bypass the sever if we have tubing. Or I can shorten the feed." She limps toward me, shining the light in my face. "Do you have tools, or do you just plan on growling at the engine until it starts?"
I shield my eyes, growling for real this time. "I got tools."
"Then let's go."
She points the light under the crawlspace of the cabin. "It’s down there, right?"
"It’s tight," I warn her. "And it’s wet."
"I’ve worked in crawlspaces in Chicago pre-war buildings," she says, ducking her head. "I don't care about spiders, Jax. I care about efficiency."
She crawls in.
I curse under my breath—a string of Cajun profanity that would make my Mémère wash my mouth out with soap—and follow her.
The space under the cabin is a nightmare of damp earth, rotting wood, and cobwebs. The rain blows in from the sides, turning the dirt to sludge. There’s barely enough room to sit up.
Miranda is already at the generator housing, the flashlight clamped between her teeth. She’s wrestling with the casing.
"Hold this," she mumbles around the plastic, handing me the light.
I take it. The beam illuminates her face. She’s focused, eyes narrowed, hands moving with a speed and precision that contradicts the shaking of her body.
"This is a clean cut," she says, running her fingers over the severed rubber. "Razor blade. Sharp."
"I know."
"Whoever did it knew the make of the generator. They bypassed the safety cage." She looks at me, violet eyes stark in the harsh light. "They wanted us blind."
"They wanted you blind," I correct. "I don't need lights to kill."
"Well, good for you," she mutters, grabbing a roll of electrical tape from my discarded shirt pocket. "Some of us rely on the visual spectrum."
I watch her work.
It’s... distracting.
We’re crammed together in the mud. My leg is pressed against her side. I can detect the heat of her thigh through the thin material of the raincoat. Every time she moves to torque a nut or strip a wire, her shoulder brushes my chest.
The air down here is stagnant, trapped. It smells of gasoline, wet earth, and her.
"Hand me the pliers," she commands, holding out a hand without looking.
I slap the tool into her palm. Her fingers brush mine. She’s freezing. My skin is burning hot, the Wolf metabolism running high to combat the cold.
"You're cold," I say. It comes out rougher than I mean it to.
"Thermodynamics," she says, twisting a wire. "It’s wet. I’m losing heat. You, on the other hand, are radiating like a blast furnace. It’s annoyingly efficient."
"You want me to leave?" I ask, leaning closer. "Give you some space?"
She pauses. She looks up at me, her face inches from mine. Rainwater drips from her nose.
"No," she says softly. "Don't leave."
Then she clears her throat and turns back to the engine. "I need the light steady. Stop twitching."
"I ain't twitching."
"You're vibrating. It’s like leaning against a V8 engine."
I snort. "Maybe I’m just allergic to bad mechanics."
She laughs. It’s a small, startled sound, but it hits me in the chest. "I’m an excellent mechanic. You're just a hovering client. The worst kind."
"I ain't a client. I own the shop."
"Possessive," she murmurs, tightening the clamp on the fuel line. "There. That should hold."
She reaches for the pull cord. "Give it a yank. I don't have the leverage."
I reach past her. My chest presses against her back. I can feel her spine stiffen. I’m surrounding her, my arm brushing her ear as I grab the handle.
I pull.
The generator coughs, sputters, then roars to life. The vibration shakes the ground under us.
"Yes!" She pumps a fist, grinning. "Fixed. Logic prevails."
She turns to face me, excitement flushing her cheeks.
And then the wind shifts.
A gust of wind blows rain sideways under the cabin, soaking us both instantly. It washes over her face, her neck, her hair.
It washes away the last of the cedar smoke from the cabin. It washes away the mud. And finally, after three days of living in my space, it washes away the last lingering trace of Belle Rêve.
The scent of dried roses and formaldehyde vanishes.
I freeze.
My nostrils flare, taking in the new info.
It pierces me like a blow to the solar plexus.
It’s not just copper and sugar. It’s richer. It’s Brass—sharp, metallic, clean. And underneath that, something impossibly sweet, like vanilla heated until it caramelizes. It’s the scent of a woman. My woman.
The Wolf slams into the front of my mind. MATE.
The logic is gone. The restraint I’ve been holding onto with a death grip snaps.
I drop the flashlight. It rolls into the mud, casting wild, erratic shadows against the pylons.
"Jax?" Her voice wavers. She senses the shift. She sees the predator surface.
I don't speak. I move.
I grab the lapels of the oversized raincoat and shove her back against the wooden pylon. It’s not gentle. It’s not civilized.
Her head hits the wood with a soft thud. Her eyes go wide, violet meeting the burning gold of mine.
I nestle my face in her neck, right over that starburst birthmark. I inhale. deeply. Greedily.
There is no rot. No death. Just life. Just her.
I groan, a low, rumbling sound that vibrates against her skin. My hands slide up, gripping her jaw, tilting her head back to give me better access.
"Jax, what are you—"
"Quiet," I rasp against her throat.
I lick the stripe of rain off her skin. She tastes like the storm and something sweet enough to rot my teeth.
She shudders, her hands coming up to grip my biceps. She doesn't push me away. She holds on.
I pull back just enough to look her in the eye. My breathing is ragged. The scar on my neck is throbbing in time with my heart.
"The rain," I whisper, my voice a wrecked growl. "It washed it off."
"Washed what off?" she breathes, her pupils blown wide.
"The Crypt," I say. I lean in again, brushing my nose against hers, inhaling her breath. "The rot. The Duvals."
I press my hips against hers, letting her feel the weight of me, the hardness of the spike in my pocket digging into my thigh, the only thing keeping me from biting her right here in the mud.
"You don't smell like them anymore," I say, the conviction in my voice crashing over me like the storm. "You smell like mine."