24. Twenty-Four
TWENTY-FOUR
J ax
Stepping through the double French doors that lead to the backyard, I give Harley’s hand a soft squeeze. Keeley takes a handful of long strides toward the patio table and drops down into one of the chairs. The moment she does, my mom looks up from where she’s just adjusted one of the fruit platters.
And just like every time, she smiles like the first day they brought me home.
It’s the smile that helped soften the blow from the loss of my parents. The one that told me no matter what happened, I’d have a place to call home. Without her, I’d have lost myself in the darkness.
“Hey you,” she says, rounding the table and crossing the patio.
I wrap an arm around her waist and pull her into my chest. “Hey, Ma.”
When she pulls away, she gives me a wink before turning her attention to Harley. “And you must be the infamous Harley Thomas.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t say infamous,” Harley says with a nervous laugh.
Mom smirks and holds out her hand. “I’m Ginny.”
Harley places her hand into my moms. “Thank you so much for having me.”
“Ginny, did you ask Zayden about Harley having any allergies? Or if she’s a vegetarian?” Dad asks as he comes from the kitchen with a bottle of wine in one hand and his phone in the other.
“I’m allergic to bees. So as long as we don’t eat them, I think we will be fine. I’d really prefer you don’t feed me tofu, but if that’s all that’s available, I’ll pretend to like it anyway,” Harley informs him without missing a beat.
Dad slides his phone into the back pocket of his jeans before looking up and giving Harley the warmest smile. “Bees aren’t on the menu today. If you wanted tofu, we’d have to order in for that. Otherwise, I was planning on grilling some steaks.”
“In that case, medium rare,” she tells him, holding her hand out with a shy smile.
He shakes her hand and his eyes slide to me. “The infamous Harley Thomas.”
“I already told your wife I’m not infamous.”
Dad barks out a loud laugh. “My son has pink hair. I’d say every prank you pull on him continues to make you more infamous.”
Harley’s cheeks grow pink as she drops her eyes to the ground. “He totally keeps using the shampoo without second guessing it, too.”
“It’s in my shampoo?” I growl. “How did you even manage that one?”
She shrugs innocently. “Same way you managed to run off with all my pens and highlighters. Magic fingers.”
Dropping her hand, I place mine on the small of her back. I guide her to the patio table and pull out a chair for her to sit. As she lowers herself into the chair, I push it in and lean down. Bringing my mouth to her ear, I whisper, “You’d know all about my magic fingers. Wouldn’t you, doe eyes?”
“Zayden, go help your father with the steaks,” Mom says, taking the seat across from Harley.
“Keeley, you’re in charge of protecting Harley from any and all invasive questions until I get back,” I declare before placing a kiss to the top of Harley’s head. “I’ll be back.”
She tilts her head back, staring up at me with her big blue eyes. “I’ll be right here.”
I drag my eyes from hers, stopping briefly to admire her lips from this angle before snapping my gaze to my mothers. “I mean it, Mom. No invasive questions.”
Mom raises her hands up. “I promise I won’t ask anything invasive, Zay.”
Bringing my eyes back to Harley’s, I give her a wink just as my dad calls my name from the kitchen. “That’s my cue. Don’t cause any trouble.”
“Never,” she whispers with a smirk.
Leaving Harley on the patio, I walk through the patio doors and hang a right through the swinging doors that lead to the kitchen. Dad stands at the island with five ribeye cuts in front of him. He turns to the seasoning rack next to the stove, spinning it until he finds the one he’s looking for.
Walking up to the island, I grab two of the rubber gloves out of the box next to the steaks and slip them on. Dad starts coating the steaks as I grab oil and lather the steaks while massaging in the seasoning. The comfortable silence between us is what I miss most about living at home.
“She looks like her mother,” Dad murmurs as I flip all the steaks over.
“You’ve met her parents?” I ask, masking my anger with curiosity.
“I have.”
“What was your impression of them?” I flick my eyes up to his face, staring at his profile while he seasons the other side of the steaks.
“I’ll just say that Harley’s already exceeded my expectations of how today would go,” he states coldly.
“She’s nothing like them,” I say flatly.
“I know, son.”
“She gave her full-ride scholarship away to someone who couldn’t afford to go to school,” I admit, returning my attention to the stakes.
He chuckles softly. “I bet that pissed her father off to no end.”
I grunt my agreement. Pulling the gloves off inside out, I walk around the island and drop them into the trash bin. “I, uh, I need to talk to you about something.”
“Grab the vegetables out of the fridge and start chopping while I put this salad together,” he says.
I open the right door to the stainless steel fridge and grab the bag with all the fresh produce. Once I place the bag on the gray marble countertop, I make my way to the cabinets next to the oven for a cutting board.
The layout of the kitchen is similar to the one at the mini mansion. The only difference is my mom designed this one with white cabinets and the gray marble to match the stainless steel appliances. It’s slightly bigger than the one she designed for me.
The mini mansion is mine. Once the pack graduates from school, the house will be signed into my name. That’s why the master bedroom is mine and designed to my liking. It’s not because I’m the alpha—it’s because that’s where I’ll live for the rest of my life.
Taking a deep breath, I start absently cutting into a red bell pepper and tell him, “I think something’s wrong with me.”
“Like what? Wearing red lipstick doesn’t mean there’s something wrong with you. It’s a lifestyle choice I wouldn’t have made myself, but…” he trails off, mixing spinach into the lettuce with a shrug.
Grabbing a paper towel, I scowl at him as I wipe the red from my lips. “I’m trying to be serious here, Dad.”
With a soft chuckle, he says, “I know. I just couldn’t take you seriously with red lips.”
With a weighted sigh, I ask, “Remember when I scratched Kee?”
“That wasn’t your fault,” he murmurs, his eyes boring into me.
Dropping my focus back to the pepper, I say, “I know, but it’s like that. I’m struggling to control my…urges.”
“That’s not something you’ve had issues with since puberty,” he states.
“No, not those urges,” I rush out. “I mean…ah, fuck,” I mutter, squeezing my eyes shut.
“Oh,” Dad says, “you mean the mark.”
I crack my neck twice by tilting my head side to side. “I don’t know what to do. I thought it would pass with the full moon, but it’s just getting worse.”
“Have you had sex yet?” he asks pointedly.
“No,” I admit, bleeding all the honesty into the word.
“Does she know?”
I jerk a nod, picking up another bell pepper and slicing into it. “I told her after the game last night.”
“Having sex with her will increase the need to mark her,” Dad explains.
“I know that, that’s why I’m asking for advice here.”
“Have you ever wanted to mark anyone before this?” he asks gently. When I bring my eyes to him, he adds without any accusation in his tone, “Sexually, that is.”
“Is there really a difference between the two?” I ask under my breath.
“What’s going through your head right now?” he replies gently.
I place the knife on the counter next to the cutting board. Pressing both my palms into the cool marble, I hang my head between my shoulders. Of course he knew all these years and never said anything until now.
“I’m scared of that happening again,” I whisper.
“Zayden,” he says softly.
When I lift my head, I find him leaning against the counter next to the stove with his arms crossed over his chest. He stares at me, eyes filled with an endless amount of understanding and grace.
“It’s in our genetic makeup to want to protect the ones we love. Keeley was an accident, your mother and I know that. Your love for your sister made the wolf in you feral to protect her. Marking Harley is different. There’s the exchange of blood. There’s the literal mark that every wolf would see when they look into Harley’s eyes. Scratching Keeley and marking Harley aren’t the same,” he tells me.
Clearing my throat, I admit, “I wanted to mark Harley the moment she walked into class on her first day of school.”
His brows disappear into his dirty blonde hair. “That was over a month ago.”
I nod my agreement, still saying, “It was.”
“That’s not entirely normal, Zay,” he tells me gently.
“I know, but it’s not what you’re thinking. I can handle being apart from her in a way a mate couldn’t. I don’t have the maddening need to keep her attached to my hip at all times. I haven’t experienced the heightened awareness when she’s around either.”
He shrugs and states, “She’s not a wolf. You wouldn’t know until she’s experienced the change.”
“I don’t want to turn her. I just want to mark her,” I say confidently.
He rubs his jaw, staring at the salad in front of him as he contemplates my words. Then, he says the one thing that has my blood boiling and turning to ice all in the same sentence.
“Maybe she has hunter blood.”