Nodding, I swallow back my misgivings at what I’ve just agreed to. “Jax is coming tonight. I can’t… I can’t see Tristan yet. Not like that.”
Jess’s curls bounce as she nods her head. “Si… thank you.” Her voice wobbles at the end, and I lift up my arm and wrap it around your shoulders.
“This isn’t for them,” I promise. “This is for me and you, Jess. I’m going to get better.”
“Damn fucking straight.”
23
JAX
I’m rocking back and forth on a stool in the bar, waiting for Sienna to call me up.
As I tilt the legs back again, Emmett slaps his hand down on the bar in front of me. “Will you quit that?” He asks exasperatedly. “I don’t need any more broken furniture.”
The legs slam down on all fours, and I give him a salute. “Sorry, man.”
I start to tap out a rhythm on the wooden bar with my fingers, and he moves down the other end with a shake of his head. A wireless is playing music quietly in the background, the bar empty apart from me and a few older guys huddled in the corner, giving me the stink eye.
I focus on the music, listening to the rise and fall of the bass underneath the main melody. It’s catchy. Not a band I’ve heard before, but that’s not a surprise. The wall stops most things from crossing over, and the wireless in Navarre plays its own stuff. Mainly from Haven’s End and a handful of other bands. Our own gloriously fucked up little fishbowl.
“Hey,” I call down to Emmett. “You got a guitar here?”
He glances down where he’s pouring a beer. “Maybe,” he calls back. “You play?”
The bones of an idea are shaping in my head. “Yeah. Mind if I borrow it?”
He walks closer to me, wiping his hands with a cloth. “I’ll dig it out. You’re staying upstairs tonight, right?”
When I nod, Emmett’s face settles into something more serious. “You take care of that omega,” he murmurs, his eyes steady on mine. “I’ll be listening. Any hint that she needs help and I’ll be there. You get me?”
His tone gets my back up, and I have to bite back my snappy response. I owe him. We all do. He took in our Soul Bonded – and her batshit best friend – without batting an eye. Hell, he’s putting the rest of us up in his damn storage shed.
And if the fact that he’s a good-looking son of a bitch winds me up, I’m not about to fucking admit it.
“What’s your story?” I ask carefully. He’s living in the middle of nowhere, out on the edges of a fucking forest, running a tiny little bar that’s clearly shitting money.
His face tightens, and he turns away. “None of your damn business.”
Studying him, I lean back in my seat and clear my throat. “Fair enough. I’ll look after her.”
Hell, it’s all I’ve wanted to do since the moment I found her in that crowd before our first Bonding Ceremony. Even if she despises us for it, Sienna knowing the full truth feels like a truck’s been lifted off my shoulders.
A full night with my Bonded. Alone. My knee jiggles. I just want to talk to her. To breathe in the same damn air as her, and try to work out a way for us to move forward. Learn what she needs from me.
I might’ve been a shit Soul Bonded so far, but I’m planning on an A in my next assessment.
I hear Sienna coming before I see her, slow, shuffling steps that twist my heart inside my chest. She still takes the breath from my lungs when she appears. Still beautiful, even when she looks like one strong breeze is gonna blow her over.
Not on my watch.
Slipping off my stool, I approach her where she’s standing in the doorway. Her eyes meet mine and it fucking hurts to see them so flat, the sparkle that she still had in Navarre despite all the shit we threw at her well and truly extinguished.
“Shortcake,” I murmur. I keep my distance even though it fucking kills me as she turns without a word, and I have to watch her struggle up the steps. My hands reach out and then back to my sides.
Not yet.
I follow her down a clean but worn hallway, the dark wooden floorboards creaking under my feet as she leads me to a small bedroom. There’s a tiny single bed pushed up against the wall with mounds of covers, and a mattress on the floor.
