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My stomach churns savagely as I watch him hurt someone he considered family until I dropped into his life.
“Jackson… stop.” My words are weak, barely audible, but Sawyer is already there, tugging Jackson back from his cousin.
The three men grapple and fight in an ugly, vicious attack until Jackson is able to pull free. He grips my arms not at all gently in his desperation and drags me up before shoving me behind him.
I can smell and see the blood on his face. It streams from his nose, and there’s a gash over his eyebrow. His cheek is already swelling, the skin red and tight across the bone. I cling to his back, not sure if I’m trying to keep him with me or protect myself from the anger around us.
“You touch her again, and I’ll stuff your balls down your throat,” he threatens his brothers.
My heart clenches. I didn't want to be the reason he’d go against his family, but I seem to have made it even worse.
Sawyer wipes the blood off his lip, his eyes flashing red as his wolf urges him to allow the shift. He doesn’t, and I’m glad he doesn’t, because there is no controlling an angry vargr wolf. He could kill Jackson and me without meaning to.
“Let’s be real here, Jacks. She attacked us,” Sawyer snaps. “Your little girlfriend is a wolf in sheep’s clothing.”
“She used her power on me,” Cade says, his eyes locked on me. I want to bend under the weight of that glare.
“I don’t give a fuck. You put your hands on my mate.”
I suck in a breath.
We’re not mates, not yet, even if we both want it—though he may change his mind when he realizes what I’ve done.
I try to control the shiver of fear that works up my spine. We’re standing on the edge of a cliff, and I’m about to jump. I’m terrified that Jackson won’t take this leap with me, and I’m terrified he will.
“Are you stupid?” Sawyer moves toward us, but Roux grips his arm, stopping him. “Your little ‘mate’ was freeing the boy. She’s working for the Order.”
Jackson twists his head slightly so he can meet my eyes as I press against his back. I don’t know what the look in his eyes means, but after a moment, he turns back to Sawyer. “She’s not working with the Order, asshole. Did you miss the part where Ayden had his arm around her neck?”
The kid flicks his attention to me, fear dancing in his eyes. Cade has him on his knees, his hands locked on his shoulders to keep him in place. I try to access my power, but it feels out of reach. I work to unravel whatever spell the girls hit me with, pissed that they’d even try it considering what happened last time they used magic on me.
“Funny,” Cade mutters, “considering I walked in on her undoing his bindings.”
Jackson turns to me, and I hate what I see when he does. Suspicion.
“Did you free him?”
I lick my lips. This is not a conversation I want to have in front of everyone.
“What we’re doing isn’t working, Jackson. We sit here and wait while the Order sends more hunters, all the while building their ranks. We need to start fighting.”
His jaw slackens, and my heart feels like it’s going to beat out of my chest. “You freed him.”
“I want to survive.” I want to find out if we have a child together that I left behind. “Ayden and his group can help us.”
His face contorts, pain rippling across his expression.
“You freed him…” He repeats, but this time the inflection of his words is so flat it burns through me.
I don’t want to look at him and see the dismay, the betrayal. It was bad enough to see it on Cade’s face, but I don’t think I will survive it from Jackson.
“We need him,” I murmur.
I risk glancing at Jackson, needing to know what he’s feeling and thinking, but I wish I hadn’t. The look on his face cuts through my heart like the sharpest of blades. He isn’t just upset with me. He’s devastated that I am standing on what he perceives to be the wrong side of this fight.
I lower my lids, pain spreading through me. “Something is coming,” I murmur, closing my eyes. “Everything is building up to something worse than we have ever faced. I wish we could just bury our heads in the sand and ignore it, live our lives in this paradise, but we have to think about what we are leaving behind for the next generation. Tessa and Abel are having a baby. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want that pup to be hunted every minute of their life so they can be forcibly bred. I don’t want my children to suffer the same fate I have either.”
I don’t add that I’m concerned that might already be happening.
