AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Hey man,” I reply, offering him a fist-bump.
He knocks his knuckles against mine, giving me a half-smile.
We all just stand there awkwardly for a few moments until Quinn finally breaks the silence, looking toward the steaming pan of lasagna set in the center of the kitchen table. “Well, should we eat?”
“Yes,” Lo sighs in relief. “Let me just grab the garlic bread.”
She spins on a heel and heads for the oven, Quinn following behind her to assist. Tanner also slips away to reclaim his seat at the table, Iver heading over to join him and leaving me alone with Jax once more.
I lean in closer to him, meeting his eyes as I drop my voice low. “To answer your question, yes, I am gonna do right by Lo,” I say.“I love her, and she loves you, so I really hope you’ll give me a chance to prove that. I don’t want to take her away from her family, I want to be part of it.”
“Well, you certainly seem to know all the right things to say,” Jax murmurs in response, swiping a hand over his chin.
I stare into his eyes to convey my sincerity. “It’s the truth.”
Jax sighs, raking a hand through the tawny strands of his hair. “Listen, I’m happy for you two, but… that’s my little girl.” He turns to watch Lo striding toward the table with the pan of garlic bread in her hands, and I follow his gaze, the easy smile on Lo’s lips bringing one to my own. Then Jax turns back to face me again, his stare hardening. “You treat her right, you hear me?”
“I will,” I answer without hesitation. “You have my word.”
“I’ll hold you to it.” He claps me on the back, steering me toward the table to join his mate and children. “Welcome to the family, Javi.”
I can’t even describe the feeling that settles over me as we all sit down at the table for dinner. The lighthearted banter is easy to fall into, everyone laughing and ribbing one another good-naturedly, and for perhaps the first time in my life, I just get this sense ofbelonging; like I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be. And not to brag, but the lasagna turned out pretty damn good for a couple of amateur chefs who had no idea what we were doing in the kitchen.
Like I told Lo when we embarked on making this meal, my guilty pleasure has always been watching cooking shows. I’ve never had an actual kitchen like this to practice in, so I’m glad my first attempt at making something complicated didn’t suck.
Iver warms up to me more and more throughout the evening, and we actually start laughing and joking around like we used to. Lo’s brother Tanner is more interested in his phone than the conversation, but I suppose he’s at that age.
Quinn is cheerful and kind, and Jax becomes more relaxed and easygoing the more we get to know one another. He even starts asking me about what it’s been like to lead my pack for the past couple years, and we swap stories about the less glamorous parts of the Alpha position while Iver chimes in with his own anecdotes from the past year since he’s stepped into the role.
All in all, the whole ‘meeting the family’ thing doesn’t play out like I’d hoped it would.
It’s so much better.
39
“Anything yet?” Sloane asks, pushing back her computer chair and craning her neck to peer at my screen from across the aisle.
I shake my head, frowning. We’ve had all hands on deck in the IT hub working to verify the truth of Delilah’s threat, and while we’ve located the message board on the dark web she referenced, we haven’t been able to find any evidence that she actually used it to reveal the six-pack’s location to the hunters. That doesn’t mean we’ve stopped investigating, though.
The existence of the message board itself just proves she had the means to betray us, so until we know otherwise, we’re operating under the assumption that we’ve been compromised. I suppose the silver lining of this whole thing is that we now know about the message board, so we’ve been mining it for information on the hunters in anticipation of a potential attack.
We’re also using it to dispense warnings to other shifter packs. In reviewing the message board, we’ve found mentions of a couple of other packs’ locations, including the one in Denver that we’re aligned with. We immediately called them to let them know, and as a result, they’ve gone into complete lockdown- which is rough, considering the full moon is only a few days away.
We should probably consider going into lockdown too, or at the very least, upping our security measures. Some of the things I’ve read on the message board made my stomach turn. In one post, they went into disgusting detail about the capture and torture of a young shifter male, and the way they bragged about having a ‘bonfire’ with his corpse was truly horrifying. Apparently, they’re under the impression that being a shifter is some sort of disease, so they burn the bodies of the shifters they kill to avoid catching it.
Ignorant monsters.
“Are you gonna go down to train, or keep at it here?” Sloane asks, glancing down at her watch. “The afternoon session starts in a few minutes.”
Shit, I’d completely lost track of time.
“I’ve gotta get outta here for a while,” I breathe, locking my computer and shoving my chair back from my desk. All this digging around on the message board has my brain scrambled.
I was planning to get in a workout today, so I’m already dressed for it, rocking leggings and a tank top with my long blonde hair French-braided in pigtails. All I need is my gym bag, which is conveniently packed and ready, stowed beneath my desk.
I stoop down to grab it, then shove up from my chair, slinging the strap over a shoulder. “You comin’?” I ask, glancing over at Sloane.
She’s already on the same page, standing beside her desk with both hands buried in her unruly curls, working to wrestle her hair into a ponytail. “Definitely. I feel like I’m going cross-eyed from spending so much time staring at a computer screen.”
