: Chapter 45

Jaxson

Though Savannah’s scream had torn through the forest minutes ago, it still echoed in my mind.

Fury coursed through me as I growled and leapt up the side of the gully. Her scent was everywhere, clouding my mind and causing my wolf to panic. I feared that if I shifted now, he’d take over, and I’d lose control.

Why the fuck had she chased after Billy alone?

Protect her.

Anger rippled through my body, and I ran faster than I ever had on two legs. The thought of Billy’s hands on Savannah sent me into a rage, and I couldn’t understand it. She was nothing to me, just a LaSalle. A means to an end.

Lies.

The smells of blood and fear flooded my senses, and I slowed. The forest was dead quiet, apart from Savannah’s breathing…and her heartbeat. I could feel it from twenty feet away, as if it were my own.

The reflection of the full moon shone over the lake, and Savannah moved through the trees toward me. She was wounded, terrified, but underneath it all, her alluring scent called to me.

Her eyes locked on me, wide with fear. “Jaxson!”

With a few steps, she closed the distance and crashed into my arms, her body trembling. I could smell Billy’s scent on her, and my anger spiked anew. “I told you to stay with me.”

She didn’t answer, just buried her face in my chest. I tensed but held her tight, breathing in her intoxicating signature as her pounding heart steadied. My anger dissipated. She was alive. That was all that mattered.

I gently moved my hand up her back and felt the lacerations through her torn jacket. She flinched, and a whimper escaped her throat. Guilt pummeled me, and my body shook with fury. Billy was a dead man.

Taking a slow breath, I listened intently. Two heartbeats. Hers. Mine. And nothing else.

The woods were empty. Billy must have fled.

“You’re hurt,” I said, my voice rough.

“I’m okay,” she whispered. “Just hold me.”

I should have been calculating, planning, tracking Billy. Ransacking the cabin. Looking for clues to the identity of the sorcerer. But all of that was laughable with her in my arms. Suddenly, the battle, the danger, the stakes, none of it meant anything.

At this moment, there was only her. The scent of her hair so close to my lips. My wolf, who had been raging, was quiet. Focused. We were perfectly aligned. This was where we were supposed to be. Holding her. Protecting her. Reunited.

A part of me knew it was madness, but it was drowned by every sensation in my body.

Savannah looked up at me as she slid her hands to my chest. I could smell her emotions. The fear and panic were gone, replaced by a scent I had never encountered before. I couldn’t quite name it. Rightness. Belonging.

Mine.

Her pupils spread, and her pulse throbbed against my fingertips. Could she, somehow, sense it too?

The lightness of her touch sent heat straight through me, turning my fear for her safety into pulsing desire. All I could think about was kissing her, claiming her, taking her right here under the moon.

I dragged my thumb over her bruised cheek. She winced ever so slightly but bit her lower lip. I could smell her need. Her desire. And I wanted to taste it.

Were we mad? Her eyes told me yes.

But they compelled me, luring me in, lighting a fire that no sanity could extinguish. I slipped one hand to her ass and lifted her. Her body was soft and inviting. She gasped and wrapped her legs around me, pushing her heat against me.

Fuck.

I had to have her. I growled, and my other hand gripped her hair as my mouth claimed hers. She parted her lips so easily, and she tasted divine, like citrus on a warm summer’s day. Her fingers moved over my body, touching and exploring. I ached to feel and lick every inch of her. She kissed me hard, like she was ravenous. Her need only intensified mine, and it took every last ounce of control I had not to rip off her clothes and bury myself in her.

As if sensing my thoughts, she moaned and moved against my hardness. I could almost feel the wet warmth of her body, a drug pulling me onward. I could lose myself in her. Nothing else mattered in the world but this. Her.

Mine.

“Jaxson.” Sam’s voice cut through the night air, drenching my desire like ice water. She stood in the shadows of the trees, flames of shock and fear flickering in her golden eyes. “Are you mad? What are you doing?”

No bullet had ever hit me so hard. It was like an ocean wave slamming into me.

What was I doing?

Guilt, shame, and anger flooded me. I dragged my mouth from Savannah’s and set her down. What had I done?

She’s ours.

No, she wasn’t.

Everything was wrong. The moment had been perfect. But it wasn’t. Tendrils of panic twisted beneath my skin. I had to get control. Savannah was a LaSalle, my pack’s enemy. The people who’d murdered my sister and driven Billy to insanity.

I scrubbed a hand through my hair and stepped toward Sam. She turned her back on me and leaned against a tree. I could smell her despair and confusion.

What had just happened had been like a heat, but far more powerful. Maybe for another of our kind it wouldn’t have mattered, but I was the alpha, and she was a sorceress. A LaSalle. Not one of us.

My wolf surged inside me. She. Is. Ours. I forced him down with a snarl. It wasn’t right.

“Where’s Billy?” Sam asked, her voice pitched flat as she tried to maintain control.

I turned to Savannah. Her lips were swollen from our kiss, and her cheeks were flushed. My chest clenched, and I doused the surge of desire that ripped through me.

“Do you know?” I asked.

Anger and fear flashed across her face, and she glared at me. “He’s dead.”

My chest tightened as the forest spun and the nightmare coiled around me. “What? Billy was mine.” My voice was icy and rough, almost unrecognizable.

Disappointment and hatred cut across Savannah’s face. “He attacked me. I pushed him, and he stumbled over the ledge.”

“Where?” I growled, barely able to control the emotions whirling inside of me. He couldn’t be dead. She must have been mistaken.

Savannah led us through the woods. Sam didn’t speak. She didn’t have to.

My senses had been so consumed by Savannah, I hadn’t scented Billy. But now that I’d reined myself in, it was clear as day. His scent was everywhere and all over her. I would have killed him myself for touching her, but that wasn’t the point.

Finally, after a few minutes of walking, Savannah stopped at the edge of a cliff. “Down there.”

I stepped around her up to the edge. Down below, Billy’s body gently bobbed against the rocks. It was true. A wave of emotions erupted over me—sorrow, anger, regret. Guilt.

Sam appeared at my side. “He tripped, huh?” She arched her brow at Savannah.

Savannah’s lips trembled, and she rubbed her arms. “Yup.”

A lie.

We could both smell it. I scowled and dropped over the ledge. Billy’s eyes were still open, staring at the sky. I knelt and closed them. Then I closed my own and let the grief bore into me.

The last thread tying me to my sister was dead. The person who remembered her best. The person who’d loved her so much, he was willing to abandon everything he believed for justice. Vengeance.

Her true mate, bound together in life and death.

I prayed to the moon mother that I would never have a bond like that, one so fierce that it could drive me to betray my pack, my kin. I was the alpha, and I couldn’t risk being bound by love or desire or anything else.

I gave myself sixty heartbeats to dwell in that darkness. Then I opened my eyes and stood. I would grieve for Billy and my sister later, but for now, I needed to lead. I needed to set things right.

I looked up at Savannah, who met my eyes. In that moment, I knew for certain that she was not as she seemed.

When I’d met her, she’d been an unassuming waitress who had run down a werewolf on the road. She’d had no idea magic was real. Yet…she’d hunted werewolves and demons, rescued Sam and Madison, and now, somehow, she’d managed to take out the third strongest member of my pack. On her own.

It shouldn’t have been possible.

What the hell was she? A beautiful, perilous mystery—that much was certain.

My wolf pitched in my chest, desiring to run to her. But the heat between us had been wrong, a tragic slip. I was the alpha. I couldn’t let my carnal needs cloud my judgement. I had to be stronger. She was a LaSalle, and the woman who’d killed my brother-in-law. It had been self-defense, but she’d taken justice and answers from me. I had loved him once.

I couldn’t let myself forget any of that.

Sam watched me from above. “I’m sorry, Jaxson.”

My heart ached with regret and failure, but I buried my emotions. “Billy betrayed the pack. He signed his own death warrant.”

She nodded. “There’s something more you need to see back at the cabin.”

I scooped Billy’s body up, then froze. Several claw marks cut through his chest. He must have been wounded in the fight earlier. But he hadn’t healed, which was…impossible.

Suspicion settled over me. I could practically taste Savannah’s apprehension, the worry she’d tightly wound around the secret she was concealing.

I tossed Billy over my shoulder and met Savannah’s blank, emotionless stare.

She was hiding something, and I was going to unravel it.

Savannah

I followed Jaxson and Sam through the forest. The two were silent. Jaxson carried Billy’s body draped over his shoulder, and though I tried my hardest to focus on the ground, I couldn’t help but steal glances at Billy’s lifeless form.

Jaxson’s demeanor was cold and distant, and I mirrored it.

What had I been thinking?

When I’d seen Jaxson coming toward me in the woods, relief had dulled my senses. I’d fled into his arms, my soul aching and broken, as if his touch could soothe my shattered spirit. And then suddenly, for one fucked-up second in my fucked-up life, everything had been right. It hadn’t mattered that psychopaths were trying to drain my blood and kill me, or that I’d killed a man, or been shot at, or hunted by monsters. It didn’t matter that I was covered in blood and that everything was wrong.

That moment had been right, and my body knew it. My hands and lips had moved on their own accord, compelled by his scent, his strength, and that golden light burning in his eyes.

And I’d devoured every second.

I touched my bruised lips. He’d tasted so good. That kiss had been everything, and I’d wanted him so badly—a heat that had driven me to madness. Dread coiled in my chest.

What was wrong with me?

Clearly, a lot.

I’d seen it in his eyes, and I could practically smell it on him now. He’d been ashamed that he’d kissed me.

Who wouldn’t be? I’d killed a man with my bare hands, and then I’d kissed his brother-in-law.

Sam’s shocked and revolted look had told me everything I needed to know: I was the real monster in these woods. I was just a filthy, wolf-murdering, bloodstained LaSalle, and though I’d thought that maybe Jaxson had seen through all that, that he’d seen something more, the only things he felt for me now were regret and shame.

Bastard.

My chest constricted, and heat flushed my neck. I clenched my hands and stalked along behind.

Why couldn’t life let me have one moment?

It didn’t matter. This was for the best. Jaxson Laurent was a freaking werewolf and my family’s sworn enemy. Hell, his brother-in-law had tried to kill me, and it seemed like half the werewolves in the state were okay with that plan.

It was screwed up.

Jaxson and I could never be together. Period. I knew toxic when it hit me in the face.

The three of us stepped out of the forest onto the road. Headlights blinded me as a truck pulled to a stop, and Tony emerged.

Jaxson slid Billy into the bed, then stepped around and opened the back passenger door. I looked away but could feel his eyes on me.

So now he was going to be polite? Asshole.

Ignoring him, I stepped up and slid onto the back seat. Tony looked at me in the rearview mirror as Jaxson shut the door and climbed in the front. Sam got in the back with me but didn’t spare a glance my way, just clicked on her seatbelt.

Was everyone going to give me the cold shoulder now because I’d killed Billy?

I killed him. Just like I’d killed the shifter at the Taphouse. And the one at the sanatorium. My hands trembled, so I slid them under my thighs. I was a murderer, how many times over?

Oh, my God.

An image of my reflection in the water—with glowing honey eyes—flashed through my mind.

Nausea overwhelmed me, and before Tony could drive off, I opened my door and threw up on the road. The others waited as I retched, and once my spasming had subsided, I sat up and closed the door again, wishing I had a bottle of pop. “Sorry,” I muttered.

Without a word, Sam handed me a piece of gum. I took it, unwrapped the silver paper, shoved the stick in my mouth, and chewed aggressively. Minty fresh. If only there was something that would take away the stench of death just as quickly as bad breath.

Jaxson’s shoulders were tense in the front seat, but he said nothing. Tony pulled a U-turn, and we drove in silence.

My nerves were shot, and everything hurt, especially my back. I hadn’t seen it yet, but I was pretty sure it was going to scar. Jaxson had touched it, and then we’d kissed, and…everything went to shit.

That kiss. Kill me now. Never mind the fact that I was scratched to hell and exhausted—or that I’d just killed freaking Billy—I’d never shared a more intense kiss with any guy. Well, not that I’d kissed many guys before, but none of them had tasted as good as Jaxson had.

Heat pooled in my center, and I shifted awkwardly. How could I be horny at a time like this?

Jaxson gripped the oh-shit handle, his knuckles white.

Damn it all to hell, he’d definitely noticed. That meant Tony and Sam had noticed, too. I was getting turned on while we were driving around with a dead man in the back. My cheeks burned, and I silently cursed.

I had to get away from these damned werewolves.

To clear my mind, I concentrated on the look of shame and horror I’d seen on Sam’s face when she’d caught us kissing. That was enough to kill whatever desire had been on my mind.

They all hated me.

Ten eternally long minutes later, Billy’s cabin appeared. The place looked like a war zone. Smoke still wafted through the trees, and bodies were strewn across the ground. I pried my eyes away. I’d seen enough death in the past week to last me a lifetime.

Tony parked, and we climbed out of the car. Jaxson’s gaze was on me, but I stared ahead, silent and cold.

Regina appeared on the porch. She shared a look with Jaxson and then tensed. “Who did it?”

I was guessing Jaxson had just told her in wolf talk that Billy was dead.

“Me,” I snapped. “I killed him, and I’d do it again. He was a psychopath.”

My words came out in a torrent. I was just so tired of everyone silently scrutinizing and blaming me for his death. What did they expect? He was either going to kill me or hand me over to an even bigger psycho.

I shivered and suddenly felt sick again. Billy was a goddamned monster. My family may have driven him to it, but that didn’t give him a pass. Evil was evil.

Regina shot daggers at me with her eyes as I climbed the front stairs. Brushing past her, I opened the screen door and strode into the cabin. I’d come here for answers about who was hunting me, and I was going to get some with or without their help.