Page 49 of Oakheart

I breathed in, but I didn’t smell Evie. She wasn’t there.

If she’d found them, she would’ve been at my side. I knew that more than I’d ever known anything in my life, and my heart twisted so hard it almost split in half.

Maybe she’d gotten away. I had to believe that she had.

I sighed. “Hey.”

There was so much I needed to say to him, and right then, I was glued to the bed, trapped in horror, pretty damn sure that I couldn’t come up with a whole sentence.

Awkwardness hung in the air around Jax, but I couldn’t feel it. I half wished he were like one of the alphas I was used to, that he’d yell and berate me and hurt me and just... put all this back in a context I knew how to handle instead of waiting patiently like he was.

How fucked was that?

Instead, he asked, ever-so gently, “How are you feeling?”

Like I’m dead. Like I failed at everything that ever mattered. Like if I really am here, I wish I fucking weren’t.

I shook my head, trying to clear it of all the spiraling darkness. Jax frowned at me and waited.

I took a breath, and it sent such a stab of pain through me when I breathed in deep that my stomach clenched and the flow of air staggered.

I wished that I could tell him I was fine, but that was so far from the truth that when I rolled my eyes his way, all I had was honesty, and it came out in a choked whisper. “We fucked up.”

He scowled. “What are you talking about?”

I tried to breathe again, and the inhale croaked through me. But I needed to tell him. Whatever I could do from here with the time I had left, it was all predicated on me telling Jax what was going on. Getting him on my side. “Things’ve been bad, Jax. Real bad. And Grant?—”

He jerked. “Grant? Reeve’s little brother, Grant?”

He didn’t know. He had no idea that Grant killed his own brother and took control.

Fuck, it’d be nice if there were someone else there to explain it, because every breath and every word made me want to crawl into the fucking dirt.

What the fuck ever. The how didn’t matter. I nodded. It was Grant.

I wanted to trust Jax and believe that keeping Evie safe would be enough for him to help me, but she wasn’t pack to him. She wasn’t his family.

Even if Jax were the best alpha who’d ever led a pack, I couldn’t risk not putting this in terms that mattered to him. His duty was to look after his pack, and if Evie was ever going to be safe, that meant taking Grant down.

“He saw an article—some deal you were making. Or, you know, the company? Big deal. So fucking stupid, Jax—” I took another shaky breath, and my head rolled on the pillow. It was so hard to hold it up. “He wants—he said you took from the pack when you left. Wants to collect on the debt. I think he’s gonna—think he might... take it back.”

“What the fuck right does Grant have?—”

I grimaced. There it was, the anger I’d expected.

But Jax caught himself, steadied his temper.

“Reeve’s dead, Jax,” I whispered.

He turned toward someone past me.

Ah, there was Maia. Still pretty. Maia.

She didn’t look scared, even with her alpha looking at her like that, even when he demanded, “How long?”

“Since just a year after we left,” she whispered.

Good, therewassomeone there to explain all the shit I didn’t have the words for.