“Joanna left us. Her betrothed left her, and she ran away from the pain and her Pack. When she returned… the man she brought with her was covered in lies and deceit. It wasn’t until she’d brought him back to us that he ripped it away and became his true self.
“I should have…” his voice shuddered. She gripped him tight, hands on his shoulders and legs wrapped around his chest. “I should have killed him when I had the chance, ended it when I saw him for what he was. Joanna would have hated me, so I held back. I couldn’t bear her hatred aimed at me. So, the shifter stayed. He became part of the Pack and ripped his way through her family, through the Pack until there was little left.
“The night he attacked her family, I was there. I’d been in the house. Her mother screamed. Her father roared. Her brother died without a fight. It all ended while I was doing nothing.”
The words sank into her like claws. They ripped and dragged as she tried to imagine this kind of horror. “Is your world always this violent?”
He buried his face in her stomach. She could feel his tears falling down her skin, hot and filled with leaden regret. She had to believe there was a brighter side to his world. There had to be light and happiness, but all she’d seen so far was pain and horror. It made her almost sympathize with the people hunting shifters.
Almost.
Sydney was no monster. Her hands were stained with failure, but she would not hunt those who lived peaceful lives.
“What were you doing while they died?” She almost didn’t ask, but something compelled her to do so.
“My Alpha commanded me to protect the submissives that were present.”
Her heart swelled. Her fingers grazed his skin, sending shocks through her, as she pulled his head up. He wouldn’t look at her, but she waited for those dark eyes to meet hers.
“You didn’t do nothing,” she told him softly. “You protected those who needed you. You can hate yourself as much as you want, but I know the truth. You did the right thing. The people who died… they were fighters. They knew what they were doing. You stood in front of those who weren’t and offered your life for them.”
She could see he didn’t believe her. Not immediately. Both of them bore scars from their lives, times they blamed themselves for. Times they could not go back and change. She smiled, starting to see how their pieces fit together. The scars they bore had groomed them for one another. They understood each other’s pain and the ways they broke themselves. It took one who knew, who lived through it to help someone else through it.
“Be careful, Jax Andrews, because I just might be falling for you.”
“After all that and you think you love me?” His voice cracked. He tried to pull away, but Sydney held onto him. He was strong, but he wasn’t about to use that against her.
“I’ll take back my confession if you keep acting like a grumpy ass,” she threatened with a smirk. Worry sparked through her, a single thought burning with electric fire.
What if he didn’t feel the same?
It was early to proclaim things like love. Most men ran for the hills upon hearing things like that. Jax would soon grab his clothes and mount the motorcycle parked outside. Her heart hammered in her chest. What had she been thinking?
“I don’t deserve a mate,” Jax said.
Her head cocked to the side. “What’s that?”
He pressed his lips together, leaning back as he mulled over his response. She couldn’t keep her hands to herself. They roved over his skin, over his cheeks, his neck, his shoulders, and down his chest.
His eyes drifted closed, and he leaned into her touch like a man starved for water. She was the waterfall.
“A mate is a shifter’s destined lover. Someone they can’t help but love, the balance in their life that makes it worth living. They are the light that helps them rise each morning and take on another day.”
Her breath caught in her chest. It contracted, leaving her breathless. “When does a shifter get a mate? How do they know?”
“I’m sure it feels a little like this,” he said, lifting her to throw her back on the bed.
“This?” she croaked.
Her body was alive with electricity. His words crackled across her skin, dancing through her so fast she wasn’t sure she understood. His head dipped, and his lips traced a line down her stomach, scattering her thoughts before she could even grasp onto one.
She should have been able to call her Chief with news. There should have been progress, yet she’d fallen into Jax and had no idea how to pull herself out. Her hands were glued to his skin, her eyes to his. The longer she stayed, the more they began to feel like the same person.
The dream drifted back to her in chunks delivered in a blurry focus. Had someone really been in the cabin with them in the night? Or, had she dreamed it because of the madness that surrounded her? She’d lived through one invasion. Her mind could have easily made this one up, but somehow, it felt more real.
Her mind said someone had been in the cabin with them. A woman. She’d come to warn them. Sydney shut her eyes and tried to fall back into the night before, tried to dredge up the woman’s words.
“What is it? Jax asked.
“There was someone in here last night. She came to warn us, but I can’t remember what she wanted to warn us about.”
He jumped to his feet. He surged into full alarm, racing from window to window, peering outside to scan the landscape for threats. Her heart warmed, but her body still felt cold from the fear that crept toward her. What had the woman wanted to say? Why couldn’t she remember?
“Why would one of the hunters want to warn us of anything?” She smacked her fists against her temple as if that might help dislodge the memories.
“It was a hunter?” His voice nearly cracked.
Her brows furrowed. She pressed her eyes shut. “Yes. I believe she… she kept you asleep. Her magic kept the room dark and you asleep, so she could speak to me, but I can’t remember everything she said.”
“You didn’t try to wake me?”
“I, uh, I don’t remember. I don’t think it would have worked even if I’d tried. Like I said, she used magic.”
His skin seemed to radiate the heat of his anger. Since they’d slept together, he’d become protective, possessive. Her jaw tightened.
“I’m not some fragile thing you have to protect,” she snapped. “I’ve put my life in the line of danger for years without your help.”
He snarled. “You’re human. Therefore, you are fragile.”
Her jaw dropped before she snapped it shut. Her nose crinkled with distaste. If this was how he would treat her, she wanted nothing to do with it. She’d stared death in the face to save lives. If he would lord over her and limit her life to make sure she remained safe, this wasn’t going to work.
Her heart broke, a physical pain rippling through her as she kicked her feet over the edge of the bed. She reached for her pants, yanking them on even though Jax snapped the button. Using a hair tie, she rigged a way to keep them closed and shoved her feet into shoes.
“Where are you going?”
“I’m going to go look for the missing people. Wherever the hunters are keeping them can’t be far if the woman’s magic was that strong.”
“You can’t be serious?”
“Watch me,” she growled.
***
Jax’s wolf howled and thrashed against his body as they watched Sydney march out the door. Her head was high, her jaw tight with the rage she hid behind her eyes. What had he done wrong? Was it so bad to want to keep her safe?
The wolf screamed. It told him to follow her. Make sure their mate survived. They’d failed keeping so many others safe. He could not fail his mate, too.
He couldn’t allow her to die and become one of the voices that haunted him. They swarmed him, lashing with his failures until they left searing pain along his skin. His chest tightened, his lungs screamed. The wolf fought its way out, but he held back.
“You could at l
east wait for me,” he shouted, slamming the door behind him.
“I don’t need you.”
The wolf snarled in his mind. He was grateful the sound was silent, that his mate could not hear it. She wouldn’t like the wolf’s attitude. It wanted to lock her inside the cabin while they searched for the missing shifters. Doing that might kill Sydney.
The woman was a cop. She’d been shot at. She put herself in that situation to protect others. With each step toward her, Jax understood a little more. Sydney did not think she needed protection. She put her life on the line for a greater reason, unafraid of when death might take her after what she’d been through. As long as she did something good for the world, nothing else mattered.
“Hey, I’m sorry,” he said when he caught up to her.
She said nothing.
He cursed himself. He wasn’t very good at this. A simple apology wasn’t going to suffice, not while the wolf still howled to make sure she was safe. It wasn’t going to be pleased until they knew all threats to her life were eliminated.
What had he done to deserve a mate? Perhaps this was karma. She was reckless and uncaring of her own life. It would serve him right when he lost her, too. His penance was forever trailing behind her, struggling to make sure the spitfire he loved so much stayed safe. He would fight the world if that were what it took.
Finally, she stopped. Her shoulders sank, and her eyes roved over the landscape as she collected her thoughts. He reached for her, pulled her in for a kiss, but she pushed against him.
“Why has anything changed?” her voice was low, a whisper kept between them despite the wide-open skies above them.
“You’re not just some woman I met on my travels. You’re not a pretty face I’ll later say good-bye to. You’re my mate.”
“Okay. I’ve been your mate since the beginning. Right? Before this morning we worked together. Now, all of a sudden, you want to shelter me, and it’s suffocating.”
He swallowed past the lump in his throat. One of the voices haunting him spoke of her body, dead and unmoving. It spoke of her blood spilled and her eyes empty. His soul shattered at the very thought.
Yet, she was right.
Who was he to hold her back from her own redemption. She stormed ahead of him, feet pounding the earth with the force of her irritation. There was strength in her, a kind he hadn’t taken into consideration. Jax knew about the power of physical strength. He knew about prowess and speed, but he didn’t take into consideration the power of determination and heart.
Both of which Sydney had in surplus.
She fought with everything she had for people she knew nothing about. That kind of strength might get her killed, but if he stood in her way it would strike a divide between them. His heart shuddered, the wolf howling with displeasure, but he knew what he had to do.
Chapter Fifteen
Sydney questioned why the universe thought she was a fit for Jax. Not because he wanted to lock her away in a gilded box for her protection, but because of the gentle man she’d witnessed inside him. He was more than she deserved, and she wasn’t sure why they were meant for each other.
If anything, she was almost certain she’d get him killed in this investigation. The worry wormed its way through her heart, leaving rot in its wake. Her clamped a hand over her chest as if she could grasp her heart, and wring the worry from it.
The people they were tracking were killers. They hunted his kind, and she was leading him right into their den. She scanned the mountain landscape and wished she could do this on her own. She didn’t have his tracking skills, and it left her without choice.
Her body throbbed with the power of what they’d done together. It was surprising how close working on an investigation could bring people. She felt like she knew him inside and out already. She wondered if that was because of how they worked together or if it was part of the bond that knit them together.
Sydney turned, lips parted with words she needed to get off her chest when her phone vibrated in her pocket. Frowning, she dug the thing out. Her boss’s number flashed across the screen. Since she’d stormed away from the cabin, her cell had recovered enough bars to get an incoming call.
“What’s up?” Sydney cringed at her informal greeting.
“Where the hell have you been?” His voice was sharp and bitter.
She faltered, at a loss for words. Jax caught up and gave her a questioning glance, lips silently forming a question. She held up her finger and got control of herself.
“I’m sorry, sir. I’ve been tracking the hunters through the mountains. There’s no signal in places.”
“Hunters?”
Her mouth turned bitter. Her boss wouldn’t understand what she meant. He knew nothing about the supernatural side of the investigation she’d been pulled into, and she wasn’t about to explain it to him. He’d have her committed faster than she could say Shifter.
“I’m sorry. That’s what I’ve been calling them since it seems like they are preying on people.” It was a weak save, but it was the best she could do in the moment.
Her boss grumbled on the other end. He dragged the silence out until she could barely handle it. His temper, his gruffness, it all had to have come from somewhere. It most likely came from the reason he’d called.
The darkness in the night, her visitor, entered her mind again. Sydney grimaced, trying to dislodge the faded memory from the recesses of her mind. There’d been a warning. Something dire that she needed to remember.
“Trisha Bantiff is dead.”
Her knees gave out. She slammed into the ground, rocks biting into her knees. She couldn’t feel the pain, but she knew she would deserve it later. The woman had come to warn her, but Sydney fell back asleep. She could have called, could have had a protective detail stationed outside the woman’s home.
“Wait.” She gripped the phone so hard her knuckles ached. “Didn’t you put a patrol car outside her house?”
Silence. The minutes dragged on, growing heavier with each ticking second.
“You said she didn’t need it. I followed your advice. You said she didn’t need it and now she’s dead.”
Arms surrounded her. She wanted to throw herself to the ground, to scream and cry and curse the world for her failures. Sydney didn’t know if this was what she was meant to do. No mater what she tried, people died on her watch. She couldn’t save anyone, as much as she wanted to, as hard as she tried.
She was poison. She destroyed everything she touched.
She slapped Jax’s touch away. If he stayed, she would just poison him, too. She would lead him into the hunters’ nest and watch him die. His blood would be on her hands, too.
“Hey,” Jax whispered. “Hey, it isn’t your fault. None of this is your fault.”
He repeated the words in her ears. Over and over, he fed her the lie as he patted her hair. She couldn’t escape his arms as he held her tight. She couldn’t avoid the tears that fell down her face.
The phone slipped from her hand and fell to the ground. The call ended as the screen cracked on a stone. It was going to cost her to fix it but gone was the desire to care. There was so much more she’d lost.
“Get up.” Jax’s whisper turned into a command. He pulled her to her feet. “You have a job to do. Now, get on your feet and catch a killer with me.”
She couldn’t do it. Her knees were still weak, unable to hold her. Her limbs were heavy with guilt and grief. She dropped to the ground once more. Jax lurched forward and caught her. He gripped her tight to his chest. She could hear the steady and determined beat of his heart.
“This won’t destroy you,” he growled the words.
No, but it was the end of her career. It was clear she’d never been meant to save anyone. The world turned to ash in her fingers.
Jax shook her, gentle but strong enough to get her attention. Her body sparked with adrenaline, and she found her feet beneath her, hand snapping to the gun that should have been at her hip.
“There
’s my mate. Now, we need to get on with this hunt. This won’t begin to pay for the things we’ve done, but the best we can do is go forward while trying to make the world a better place.”
“I don’t think I can do that,” she said with a scowl. Sydney tried to look away, but Jax grasped her chin.
“We can do this. We have to try, at the very least. Life isn’t just one bad thing after another. Good things do happen. You happened to me, for one.”
She shook her head, jerking away from his grasp. “And I’m only going to get you killed. Go back to the Lodge. Hang out with the friend you met there. Move on with your life.”
He looked as though she’d stabbed him through the heart. Perhaps her words had. They’d been a jagged knife slammed through his chest. Rejection hurt, no matter the reason behind it.
Sydney licked her lips. She searched for the right words and failed. As much as she wanted to hold on to Jax, to feel him pressed against her body, she knew if he stayed she’d get him hurt.
“You can’t get rid of me that easily.” His voice was weak, but he wouldn’t give up.
She couldn’t either. Trisha’s life wasn’t the final nail in the coffin. She needed to catch the people who’d killed her, at the very least. There were two other lives at stake.
“That’s a face I recognize.”
She gave him a small, tight-lipped smile. He returned the favor by pulling her into his arms. She leaned her head back as he claimed her mouth. The kiss was hesitant, a brushing of lips that told her she’d hurt him more than she’d meant to. She wrapped her arms around the back of his neck and pulled him in for a deeper kiss.
He growled in response, his tongue delving into her mouth. It dredged up her soul, bringing it back to life with fury and determination. She had the power to do this. With him on her side, they could do anything together.
She gripped his shirt, knuckles going white with the power of how she clung to him. He pulled back and gave her a small smile. The wounds her words had inflicted were not completely healed, but it was a start.
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