29
Jaxson
“What?” I growled into the intercom as shock whipped my thoughts into
a frenzy.
The voice on the intercom echoed back. “There’s an aggressive reddish
wolf here who wants something, but we can’t get close to her. I don’t
recognize her, but the scent’s familiar. You’d better come down.”
I ran my hand through my hair and cursed.
It had to be Savannah. At least that explained why the vixen wasn’t
answering her phone. I’d called a dozen times. I’d even considered calling
that harebrained cousin of hers.
“Send her to me,” I said, and hung up.
Of all the times to turn into a wolf and march across town.
I glanced at the images on my laptop. Nearly two dozen werewolves,
none of whom had woken after last night. Things were fucked.
The elevator binged in the hallway, and moments later, claws scratched
on my door.
I swung it open, revealing a beautiful wolf with silken fur and pale blue
eyes that sparkled with laughter like sun on a mountain lake.
My muscles stiffened as I caught the aroma of her body wafting through
the air. I scented the subtle spark of lust that rose from her, hidden as it was
beneath a storm of confusion, fear, and dread.
My own wolf surged in my chest, demanding to be free, to go to her, but I
forced him down. I had to stay in control.
“Why the hell are you a wolf?” I snapped.
She raised her tail and trotted in, broadcasting, Being a wolf is way more
fun.
“We need to talk. As humans. Did you bring…clothes?”
She shook her fur. Don’t need them.
My skin itched as frustration took hold. As Savannah sniffed around my
apartment, I texted Sam: Savannah’s here. Bring clothes. Urgent.
I stalked into the bathroom and grabbed a towel.
If it had been any other wolfborn, I wouldn’t have cared. We respected
each other’s natural form, which was part of who and what we were. But
Savannah was still new to this, and I knew she wasn’t comfortable in the
same way.
Moreover, while I was used to seeing other wolves naked, I already knew
there was no way I could see my mate standing nude before me and keep my
thoughts straight. And with shit hitting the fan, I needed my mind sharp.
I thrust the towel forward and turned my head. “Shift. We have to talk.”
She hopped up on the couch. Her lips pulled back to show her fangs, and
the hair on her back bristled as she growled. No. I am never shifting back.
Ever.
Had she lost her damn mind?
My patience ran out. With a snarl, I let my alpha presence wash over her,
holding nothing back. “Shift!”
She staggered backward and whined in protest, but I pushed my power
into her and forced the change.
Her body convulsed as her back arched and limbs extended with pops and
cracks. She howled in protest as her fur retracted into her skin and bright red
hair poured down from her scalp. Her lips curled in a snarl as her muzzle
retracted, then relaxed into the familiar curves of Savannah’s face.
Her expression of fury and betrayal faded into one of sheer relief. With a
shudder and a cry of triumph, she dropped to her knees, naked on the stone
floor—completely human once again.
I turned my head away and held out the towel.
Although my eyes were trained on the windows, the image of her body
burned in my mind. The inviting dip of her back and smooth curves of her
ass. The vibrant, bittersweet red hair draped across her skin. The way her
chest and bare breasts rose and fell as she hung her head, and the exhausted
smile of relief on her soft, full lips.
It was far more than I had meant to see but far less than I wanted.
I turned the rest of my body to give her privacy and to conceal my sudden
stiffness, though she’d surely smell my arousal all the same. Even with years
of practice, it was too much to hide.
I silently cursed.
What was happening? Women shifted around me all the time. It was who
we were. Wolfborn. There was no shame in it, and we all understood when
others in the pack felt glimmers of desire. It was instinct. Natural.
But I had never, never felt like this.
Heat flushed my neck as I imagined Savannah crawling to me across the
tile, her pale eyes inviting me to join her on the floor. I was so aroused, it
hurt. And worse, I could smell her readiness, a deeply repressed scent of
desire that stirred beneath a storm of emotions.
She’s our mate. It’s right.
It was not.
The towel jerked out of my hand.
“Well, shit. That was a fucking nightmare,” Savannah said.
“Are you okay? What the hell were you thinking, running across town on
four legs?”
She snarled. “Thinking? I was thinking that my wolf is a treacherous
bitch! She took control. Finding you was the only thing I could get her to do.”
“You need to get control of yourself,” I growled in return as I spun to
face her.
She’d wrapped the towel tightly around her body and tucked it in the
front. Savannah was tall, and the towel wasn’t quite as large as it should have
been. I followed her legs all the way up to the hem.
She tensed, and heat flooded my neck. A cool wave of her magic filled
the room, and shadows swirled around her like a black evening gown.
I snapped my eyes up to hers. They were burning with hatred, which
instantly killed my rising desire. But it wasn’t my roving eyes she was angry
at.
Her lips peeled back in a wolfish gesture “Damn it, Jax, I can’t get
control. It’s like my wolf has a mind of her own. She locked me out!”
“You’ll learn. I’ll help.”
“How is it that you can command my wolf when she won’t even listen to
me? I should have control over my own body. Not you. Not any man,” she
muttered.
“I do because I’m alpha.”
“Well, I hate all your alpha bullshit,” she snapped.
My muscles tightened as rage burned across my neck. I bared my teeth in
warning. “It’s who I am, so get used to it.”
Her lip quivered, and she twisted away and stared out the window. “I hate
that you have control and I don’t. It’s fucked up. She should obey me, not
you.”
I wanted to go to her, but my feet were frozen to the stone tiles. “You and
your wolf are the same, Savannah. You need to stop treating her as something
different or her feral instincts will have power over you. Accept that she’s a
part of you, and then you’ll get control.”
“She’s not a part of me. This is something someone did to me.” Savannah
snapped her head around. “I fucking hate being a werewolf.”
A knife twisted in my chest as bile tinged my mouth.
I let the silence hang in the air, softly inhaling the scent of her body and
her emotions. Resentment. Bitterness. Loathing.
Savannah despised my power over her, despised being a werewolf, and
despised everything I was and stood for. How much more would she hate me
if she found out that we were fated mates? That she had no cho
ice in the
matter?
More than anything, Savannah Caine despised being told what to do. Her
anger would be apocalyptic.
I gave a low, bitter growl. The fates rarely chose people who were good
for each other. The three sisters generally made the cruelest pairings, then sat
back to watch the world burn.
Billy and my sister had fed off each other. They’d fought and squabbled
just as much as they’d fucked, and they’d pushed each other to drink and
danger. But the thing that they’d bonded over more than anything else was
their hatred of the LaSalles. Ultimately, that hatred had ended my sister, and
then Billy.
I didn’t want to be bound up in some twisted, ironic knot of fate with a
woman turned werewolf who hated everything we were.
I had to fix this.
It’s fate. You can’t fix it.
“We’ll fix it,” I growled.
“What?” Savannah asked, suddenly shaken from her own silent stare.
I’d been talking to my wolf, but it could have just as well been her.
“We’ll fix your situation, Savannah. But first, we’ve got bigger problems.”
“Fuck. What now?”
“Kahanov.” I turned the laptop toward her. “He retaliated last night while
we were sleeping. He has more power than any of us suspected. Twenty-one
more members of my pack didn’t wake up this morning.”
Darkness settled over my soul. I wanted to hunt. To kill. To protect my
pack.
Savannah’s eyes widened, and she braced against the counter. “Twenty-
one…”
“They’re sleeping, not dead. We need to find a way to wake them and
stop him.”
Her voice broke with half a sob. “Oh, my God, this is all my fault. Why?
Why do I bring an avalanche of shit down on everyone around me?”
Rage and protectiveness flared within me, and I steadied her as she
swayed. “It’s not your fault. He’s a monster, and we’re going to stop him.”
She nodded, and I sucked in a deep breath. There was no good way to
explain the next part. I let some of my alpha presence wash over her to calm
and steady her before I spoke.
“There’s something else you need to know. Kahanov sent dream
messages to many, and rumors are flying. He wants you in exchange for the
lives of the sleepers.”
She clutched her towel, and her fear filled the room. “Your pack hates
me. Someone will—”
“You’re safe. My pack obeys me, and none of my men or women would
ever do anything to harm you. Yes, they may resent you, but they’ll protect
you while we find a way to stop him.”
Savannah shoved away from the counter and placed both hands against
her temples. Despair tore into her breaking voice. “He’s going to do this
every night. It’s not going to be twenty people, Jaxson. It’s going to be forty.
Sixty. A hundred. Two hundred. How many are in your pack? How many are
you willing to lose for a LaSalle? You’re going to have to hand me over
sooner or later.”
Her body quaked with tremors of anguish and betrayal, and my soul
couldn’t take it. My wolf howled in my mind and clawed at my heart.
With a lightning-fast motion, I seized Savannah’s raised arms and pulled
her to me. She gasped in horror and shock as she looked up into my eyes.
My fangs erupted, and I growled, “I am never going to hand you over to
him. Ever.”
30
Savannah
Jaxson’s words hit my chest like a sledgehammer, driving the breath from
my lungs. His hands dug into my forearms, but it was his voice that locked
me in place. It had been feral—a primal growl just at the edge of being
human.
I am never going to hand you over to him. Ever.
No one had ever spoken like that to me. Not with that kind of conviction.
Or possessiveness.
It’s the truth. I could smell it, clear as day.
He stared down at me with a golden fire burning in his eyes, flames of
certainty and desire. His muscles rippled with a tension that vibrated down
through my arms. I wanted to melt, to dissolve into him.
“Do you understand? I won’t trade you. Won’t hand you over,” Jaxson
growled in that unearthly voice.
I bit my lip and nodded. The fear and despair burned away inside me,
leaving only embers of determination in their wake.
Emotions shuddered through my body as Jaxson’s power pressed in
around me like waters of the deep. His signature was out of control, wave
after wave of forest scent rolling over me. It shook the air like an earthquake,
and the sounds of icy streams cascading down a mountain slope filled my
ears. I could taste the new snow on the air. It was so real, my tongue turned
cold.
How I longed to warm it in his mouth.
My mind drained of its senses, and I pushed toward him, trying to reach
his lips. But his hands, still clutching my raised arms, locked me rigidly in
place.
I struggled and pulled back but couldn’t move. A faint part of me
screamed in rebellion against his control. But the rest of me reveled in his
power, his mastery of the moment. So I let him hold me there, in silence and
stillness.
My world was crumbling around me. A sorcerer was trying to cut out my
soul. Dozens of werewolves couldn’t wake because of me. And I didn’t even
have control over my own body or magic.
And amid the storm, for one moment, I’d found something steady.
Immovable. A rock that I could hold on to. A promise that wouldn’t be
broken.
Our eyes didn’t part as we stood in stillness. Finally, I let my arms relax
—submitting, no longer pushing back or pulling, but content to just be in his
steady grip.
The tension left his body, but he didn’t let go. And then, slowly, his head
began to drift downward toward mine.
I beckoned him with my lips, letting them part as I breathed him in. Did I
really want this? The kiss of a man who hated my family and despised what I
was? A man who had more control over my body than I did?
Yes.
Jaxson’s hands released me, and he gently traced his fingertips down my
forearms, around the bend of my arm, and softly up to my shoulders. My skin
was flushed and sensitive, and almost burned at his light touch. He pulled me
closer as he brought his mouth to mine. Our lips brushed across each other,
quietly searching.
My own were soft and dry and desperate for his kiss. We’d done it before
in the Michigan woods, in the heat of despair and chaos and barely surviving
death. This was everything that hadn’t been, yet the overwhelming sense of
rightness was the same. My mouth didn’t just want him—it needed him.
I pressed my lips against his.
He parted them, drawing in everything I had to give. My pulse raced as I
kissed him back and let my tongue search for his, wanting nothing more than
to taste him, to drink him in.
Heat rose within me as the waters of my body met, and my legs trembled.
I needed more. His kiss was too hesitant. Too soft. I bit his lip and pulled him
to me. He gave a low, possessive gro
wl that sent shivers along my spine and
raised the hair on my skin.
He dug his fingers into my shoulders, and I moaned with delight. He bit
my lip in turn, but still, it wasn’t enough. My flesh needed his. We were too
far apart.
I shifted my arms and let the towel slip away, though the little dress of
shadows I’d woven around myself stayed in place.
As the towel landed at our feet, Jaxson broke off our kiss and met my
eyes. His pupils dilated, devouring me.
My arms were pinned between us. I pressed my palms to his chest. His
steady heartbeat pounded against my fingertips as his hands began to drift
slowly down my shoulders to my back and then down along my sides.
A shiver ran through me, and my skin prickled beneath his gentle touch.
At last, after an agonizingly slow descent, his fingers came to rest on my
waist. I licked my lip, and he gently pulled my hips forward. He was hard and
unyielding against me, and I wanted everything he could give.
I undid his shirt one button at a time, moving my hands deliberately
beneath his steady gaze. Each button was a choice that I couldn’t walk away
from. It didn’t matter.
After the last button, I slipped my hands beneath the cotton cloth, parting
it so I could drag my fingers over the strong contours of his chest and around
to his back. I pressed forward with my whole body, feeling his skin at last
against my own in the space where his shirt was opened.
Warmth flowed between us like rays of the sun emerging from the clouds.
My breath turned shallow, and I lifted my mouth to his.
A knock sounded from the door. My heart stopped, and suddenly, Jaxson
and I were standing five feet apart. Had he pushed back from me, or had I
pushed away from him?
It had better not have been him. Not again. Not like the last time. The
shame. The embarrassment. The regret.
But this time, the only thing in his eyes was shock. Perhaps frustration.
He glanced up and down at me and almost smiled.
The knock came again. “Jax?”
It was Sam.
My brain started working again, and I snatched my towel off the ground.
The only thing I had under my makeshift robe of shadows was flesh, and it
was suddenly very drafty in the penthouse.
There was no way around it. Sam was going to give us hell.
I pulled the towel tightly around me like a suit of armor. Jaxson paused at
Untamed Fate (Magic Side: Wolf Bound Book 2) Page 21
