by Sam Hall
“Why of course it would?”
“Because, my love, you’re a nix.”
“No!” Mason’s reaction was explosive. He was up and out of his seat in seconds, backing away.
“Of course she is, brother. Think about it, about how they all reacted on the stage. They got within her radius, and the pull was too great. Unless they were already mated, she turned them into mumbling fools. It’s why they chased her through the forest after her father died, why they went away so quietly when they could’ve just fought it all out that night.”
Mason looked like I’d gutted his pet dog in front of him and then laughed, his eyes going to me, then to Zack in this endless flicking loop. And I saw it, some of my aunt’s expression in his eyes. Fear mostly, but then something that had my blood running cold. Anger, pure unadulterated anger that throbbed inside him like a heartbeat.
“Guys, this is Zack, Mason’s brother and my boss back in the city,” I said by way of introductions.
“The guy you had waiting for you upstairs,” Declan said, not entirely friendly.
“Yeah, we’re not going into that right now. So awesome big reveal, Zack. Mind telling me what the fuck that means?”
“It’s a stupid bloody word,” he said, settling down in Mason’s chair. “Used in the old country to describe a fae-mermaid type creature that lures men and women to their deaths with their beautiful songs. The truth gets kinda mixed up with the retelling of course.”
Those dark eyes came to settle on me, similar in shape and colour to Mason’s, but oh so different in expression. There was something still and calm there, like he’d been waiting forever for this day.
“A nix is a special kind of wolf, one with much greater powers than the usual. We all contain within us the ability to find our true mates, but them? They find many. In pre-Christian times, they were barbarian queens with legions of lovers who fought at their side. She calls all eligible suitors to her, then pits one against the other to find the most worthy.”
There was something oddly ageless about Zack’s tone, like his voice was not his own but that of history reaching from beyond the grave.
“And now?” I asked, my eyes focussed on the table, not wanting to hear the answer and knowing I needed to.
“And now they have their natures schooled and trained, coerced and corralled, forced into a shape that society can tolerate. She is made less by their inability to cope with what she is.”
“You knew. This whole time, you knew.”
“You stumbled into my gym leaking power, and only the agreements I have with my clients prevented a riot. It’s why I trained you, babe. To overcome bigger foes than you. To build your discipline. To contain your powers. To honour your limitations, not push past the point where your innate control would falter.”
At his words, the lessons he’d imparted about recognising tiredness, hunger, all came back.
I turned my head to look at him. “Why? How do you know this?”
“Shut up, Zack. Shut the fuck up,” Mason growled out.
“Because it’s what our mother was.”
Chapter 21
“Where the hell are you going?” Zack asked Mason.
“I’m looking for the gun safe keys. We’re gonna need to turn this place into Fort bloody Knox if she’s at all powerful.”
“You know how powerful she is. You feel her pull.”
“No, no, this is not fucking happening again. She’ll do the right thing, make a choice.”
“Of course she will, but it won’t be just one. You knew that. Deep in your heart, you knew. When her father asked you to reject her, why were you so willing? Your only true mate, and you’ve lived what? A loveless existence, all out of loyalty for one man. Who knows the feel of a nix’s power better than we do? You rejected her because you rejected what she is.”
“No.” Mason shook his head over and over, like that would change anything.
I felt a sinking sensation. This should’ve been when the tears and the recriminations came, but that might be for later. I’d cried so much already. Instead, I just felt something cold and hard in me that may have been what Zack called this nix thing but I called something else—anger.
“You two obviously have a lot of family trauma to process, and I don’t want to get in the middle of it. Really, I don’t. Forgive me for being selfish, but I need everything you know about what a nix is, and then I need a whole lot more. Declan, did Dad ever talk to you about this?”
“Never. What is it? I’ve only ever heard it down at the pub when… Is it some thing that makes you polyamorous? Like a curse?”
“A blessing,” Zack replied. “But we’re schooled very hard to assume otherwise. What do you think when you look at her? That you ache for her to reach out and touch you?” Declan shifted uncomfortably, but then nodded. “And if she touched you and another of your brothers? If she touched you and me? Does your need diminish? Would you ache less for her?”
Did everyone wait on his answer with bated breath too? It was hard to say, but I knew I did. Those whiskey eyes slid to me, searching my face, but for what? Then he shook his head.
“I’d be glad that she still thought I was worth touching. We were too young when we were together. I know we needed to break up but…” He swallowed hard. “I regretted letting her go, even when I knew I had to. But I wouldn’t make that mistake again.” The knife of his words cut me so cleanly, the sting took a while to register. “If it meant dealing with other blokes on the scene? Well, I’d just have to find a way to make that work, wouldn’t I? If this is part of her… Well, you can’t have half a woman, can you? If you care, you care for all of her.”
“The problem is so many will feel the same. She’s stronger than Mum, isn’t she?” Mason asked Zack.
“You can tell for yourself.”
“Isn’t she?” he pressed.
Zack nodded slowly.
“Then I’m glad you called this meeting, Paige, as we have a massive security risk to plan for. What you’re emitting is a call, a chemical signature that lures all potential candidates for mate close. It’s intense and overcomes normal inhibitions—inhibitions that protect you. Men will grow more desperate the longer the call goes out. It can…” Mason’s eyes went wide and glassy. “It can result in people doing things they wouldn’t normally do. I wish Adam had confided in me. We could’ve planned and been better prepared.” He shook his head decisively. “Nevertheless, we move forward with what we have, help you find your mates quickly and cleanly.”
“But not you,” I said, the words feeling like millstones falling from my lips. I knew the answer, read it on his face before he even opened his mouth. A mouth that had kissed me so damn thoroughly.
“Not me. It’s why Adam told me to say no, I can see that now. He needed someone to keep his head, keep you protected.”
“And you can’t do that if you love her?” Zack said.
“What I feel isn’t relevant. Zack, I need you to take her out of here. Take her upstairs, keep her quiet and sated. I need the guys to focus on what I’m going to tell them.”
Mason was trying to be all sensible, but it won him no friends as steady growls came from the enforcers.
“And we can’t protect her by her side?” Micah said. “You said yourself she needs to take multiple mates. So what, you’re discounting us?”
“You kept us from the gauntlet showing when she got back to town,” Will snapped.
“Yeah, and they’re the blokes worst affected by this, who we need to keep out of here,” Mason shot back. “I’m not standing in the way of anyone’s romantic goals. If she wants you, takes you as her mate, that’s between the two of you and the other blokes she takes. But there’s guys out there who are gonna insist on being considered, who, the longer this goes on, are gonna stop taking no for an answer.”
I watched the man I’d wanted to choose as my mate fight a war within himself, with combatants I didn’t know, about things I hadn’t experienced. He wasn’t j
ust talking about me, he was talking about her too.
“I want an hour of your time, that’s it. Then we work out a security roster, factoring in those who want to pursue things with Paige. We need to look at who’s got gun licenses that are in date and what you can—”
“Do I get a say in this?” I interjected, and Zack smiled when my words cut through the chatter. “What if I don’t want to take a mate? What if I don’t want to choose the next alpha? Fuck, what if I don’t want to stay in Lupindorf anymore? Maybe I want to go home to my flat and my job at the gym. To my life!” My voice rang through the silent space. “Maybe I don’t want to be a fucking nix!”
“I’ll fight every bloke here for every single point but the last one,” Zack said, “and you can too. You know that. You know how strong, how capable you are.”
Because he’d reminded me of it every day until I believed it.
“You’re going to need to be. But your call has begun. If you want me to ring some people at home and set up something to protect you until you’re ready to make a decision, it’s done. You know Margaret and the ladies would take shifts at the gym to give you backup.”
Margaret was the tiny martial artist master who’d shown me how to throw.
I nodded, sucking my breath in, then out again. Zack had trained me to recognise when I was starting to push myself too far, too hard, and I was feeling it now. My heart racketed around in my chest, like a frightened bird rather than a sophisticated blood pump. My limbs shook with adrenalin. My heart and my adrenals were pumping potent hormones into my bloodstream, dilating pupils, contracting muscles, readying my body for fight or flight.
“I need to run,” I said, which provoked a low growl from the guys.
Paws slamming down into the dirt, propelling those powerful bodies further. teeth flashing, tongues lolling.
“That’s…not wise,” Mason ground out.
“Why? Because you’ll want to chase me?” I got to my feet, feeling it throbbing within me. My smile was my wolf’s smile when it came. “Who said you’ll get a chance? Maybe it’ll be me on your heels.”
“She’s not resting until she’s expended some of that energy. If you think you’re gonna cage her up in her room and feed her dick, you’ve got another thing coming, Mase,” Zack said.
“Because you trained her.”
“Damn fucking straight I did. That was the problem with Mum that you could never see. She never learned how to accept and control her power. She tried to fit herself into the mould everyone else wanted her to be in and then hated herself when she failed.” Zack got to his feet, every inch of him bristling. “I never wanted another woman to be stuck in that kind of bullshit shame spiral. I wanted her to walk through this world an unapologetic queen who would take down anyone who tried to make her feel small.”
It was then that I knew I loved Zack. I’d known all along, my wolf sniffing in frustration that my monkey brain had taken so long to clue in, but now that we were both on the same page, my fangs ached for his flesh. I stood as well, something that got everyone’s attention, but I paid it little mind.
“You got your car keys?” I asked him.
“Of course.”
“Then let’s go. I know where we can go to let off some steam.”
“Paige, you can’t,” Mason said, moving to get in my way but I froze him with a steely stare.
He cared, way too much probably. Always had, always would, but part of him was stuck back when I was just a dopey teen and he was a young man in his twenties, coming up the pack hierarchy. Nothing would work between us until he let that go. If he let that go. I shoved my hands into his jeans pocket, freaking him out initially before I fished out the ring of keys, walked over to the room where the guns were kept, and unlocked it.
“What the hell are you doing?”
“Dad taught me how to shoot. You remember that. I’m taking Zack out to the promontory. It will give me space to stretch my legs, and it’s far enough out of town that we’re highly unlikely to run across any of the contenders. And if I do?” I unlocked the safe and pulled out a pistol, making sure it was unloaded and grabbing ammunition too. “You’ll remember I’m a damn fine shot.”
I locked everything up again and then handed back the keys. “You’re a good man. You know what you’re doing and will work with the guys to keep me safe. Given the circumstances, I’m particularly grateful for that. But Zack’s right—I’m not sitting in this house, riding Zack’s dick twenty-four-seven to keep your paranoia and childhood issues in check. That’s for you to deal with. When I get back, when I’m in the right mental frame, we’ll talk about how you want to tackle security.”
I probably seemed like some kind of ice princess right now, but despite the subordinate role I’d been raised to take, I was still born to rule. Back then, I’d thought it’d be at the side of the next alpha. Now? I fell back on my training, packing up the seething mass of emotion inside me and shoving them down deep. Being rejected by Mason nearly killed me the first time, but this time, I was using it as fuel to keep on moving forward. Whether he was coming with me depended on how effective the surgery was when they removed his head from his arse.
Zack seemed to read my thoughts, smirking as I strode out the door, the house, and into the carpark. As if to give credence to Mason’s concerns, some of the contenders were perched on the footpath outside the house or sitting in their cars, waiting.
“Don’t follow me,” I said, in a normal conversational tone, one most couldn’t hope to hear, but somehow, I knew they would. “If you want to do anything other than jerk off repeatedly to dreams of me, you’ll stay the fuck away until I say so.”
“C’mon, babe,” Zack said, slinging an arm around my shoulder, just like he always did. “Show me this beach head of yours.”
Chapter 22
I was always told the moment a girl takes her mate is one that transforms her life.
I gave Zack directions out to the prom, several hours drive from Lupindorf, and didn’t say too much. He shot me sidelong looks. What else was he going to do? The coastal lands out here were resolutely flat and scrubby, not exactly picturesque. But I found that relentless monotony soothing somewhat, taking the manic energy in my body and coiling it tight, to be unleashed later.
Later came when we reached the sea, the sands blinding white, the water turquoise blue, and winds that had originated around the Antarctic circle buffeting us when we stepped out of the car. Despite being very pretty, the place freaking stank of rotting seaweed, which inhibited property development. When we got out of the car, walking up the tussock covered dunes and past the brightly coloured patches of succulent pigface plants, we were the only two out here.
“So what do you want to do? Some sprints to bleed off some ad…”
His words trailed away when I pulled my jumper off over my head, then my shirt. It took a lot to pull Zack’s beast up to the surface, but his eyes flashed silver when he saw my sports bra appear, then get tossed onto the sand.
“You want me to chase you down.” This was a statement, growled out not by him but his wolf. His eyes didn’t shift from my nipples, like he could already taste them in his mouth.
“No, I’m going to hunt you.” I pried off my shoes, socks, unzipped my jeans, and then pulled them and my underwear off. “If you don’t give me a challenge, something to strive for, I won’t give you what you want.”
“And what do I want?
“You know. You’ve been preparing me all this time for it, haven’t you? Honing me into the perfect mate?”
“That’s not what I was doing. Who knew the challenges you were going to face better than me? I wanted you to be strong enough to meet them, to go beyond all this bullshit, to be who you really are. Did I want it to be me you chose? Did I want you to look into your heart and see me? Fuck yeah, I did. I fucking love you, Paige. I always will.”
“And I fucking love you, Zack.”
My head tilted to one side, a strange power thrumming through m
e, letting me say what I’d known for some time but couldn’t. He actually staggered slightly at my declaration, but I didn’t need that right now. He’d told me what I was, so I had a name for it now, but I felt it more. Rising to the top, this godawful power that declared to any and all that he was mine, mine, mine.
“Strip down and then run, my love,” I said. “I wish I could give you time to stretch first, but I can’t. It’s riding me hard, what’s in me. I need you to run, Zack.”
Some of the dominance he’d worked so hard to build in me trickled into my words, forcing his hands to his shirt, then his sweats as I watched him reveal that big, beautiful body of his. I hissed at the sight of him, hard for me, his knot swollen and painful looking, a trickle of slick sliding between my thighs as my body readied itself to take him. Would it hurt? I thought idly. No possible answer seemed to deter me. I would take him inside me, stretch my cunt around him, and milk him dry as I bit into his flesh.
“Now, Zack.”
My voice was sharper, hoarser, harder.
He dropped his clothes in the sand and turned on his heel, running from a dead start off towards the rising promontory at the end of the beach. I counted my heartbeats, feeling the air caress my skin as he went. He got smaller and smaller, those powerful legs digging into the sand to push him farther. I grinned, dropped down into a semi crouch, and then I was off.
I usually fucking hated running and did it just for the endorphins and cardio, but right now, every muscle in my body had decided to cooperate to meet this goal. We cut through the air, my wolf and I, feet landing lightly on the sand, much lighter than Zack’s bulk allowed. He was all intense stamina, but right now, I was speed. A manic thrill coursed through my veins, pumping, pumping all that fucking glorious adrenalin through me, making me feel more alive than any other moment in the world. I ran and I ran and I ran, the landscape feeling like it whipped past, the breeze tearing at my eyes, the gap closing, increment by increment until…
