Jax
The last person I expected to hear from when we got out of the airport was Cash Roberts. Fuck, he was almost the last person I expected to hear from for the rest of my life.
Back when Jill and I had left our pack in Idaho, Cash had been one of the people I’d expected to stand at my back. Sure, I’d had Seth there too, but it would’ve been a tough choice on who I’d ask to be my second if Cash hadn’t made it an easy one.
When the stakes got real, I’d seen the doubt flicker to life in his eyes before he’d even uttered the words, “I can’t.”
After a lifetime of snarling under the oppressive claw of our alpha, Reeve, I’d thought we were really going to do something.
Together.
Instead, Cash had buckled so fast it made me doubt whether I was even up to challenging Reeve. Back then, I could tell just from the way that Jillian looked at me that she wouldn’t hold it against me if I backed down, but she was why I couldn’t.
Our pack had been?—
Well, Reeve had enforced a strict hierarchy in the pack.
For the most part, I’d benefitted from it. Even years later, acknowledging that twisted my stomach.
But I’d been a young male wolf—strong enough to do what needed doing, but enough of a kid that I didn’t dare step a toe out of line.
When I was sixteen and crossed six-foot-five, that started to change. Reeve didn’t seem so big and intimidating anymore, and we butted heads more often, because there was one person who’d been at my side through every step, my twin sister, and Jill?—
Well, she didn’t reap the benefits of Reeve’s favor at all.
I hated how he’d always called her “little bitch,” instead of using her name, like she was a dog and not a person. He said, over and over to the chortles of his inner circle that “his bitches” were only good for one thing—breeding.
He’d never bothered looking at the whole of our pack, seeing the strengths each member possessed.
Jillian was whip smart. Resourceful. Even when we were kids, she was capable of so much that it brought me up short, not because I’d ever doubted her, but because she’d learned to maneuver in a world that was working against her in ways I’d never even had to think about.
We talked about leaving every night, and I was determined to do it. Take her away from the middle of fuck-all and give her the life and opportunities she deserved.
By the time I’d gotten into college, things had gotten tense enough that Reeve had been relieved. He thought he was getting me out of the way without it having to come to a confrontation.
When wolves like me came of age, they either fell in line—which wasn’t going to happen—they got out of the way, or the pack got a new alpha.
Seth could’ve challenged him too, but when I’d asked him, thinking he might lead the whole pack and Jill and me would just slip away, he’d laughed. He didn’t want the responsibility. That wasn’t his strong suit, but he’d back me.
Cash had nodded along. That night, I hadn’t realized how uncomfortable he looked, but he’d come to me later, head down, and said he couldn’t get involved. Even after, when I’d won, I’d expected that to change for him, but it didn’t.
Reeve would’ve been well glad to get rid of me, but Jillian? Not a chance he was letting her go.
Thing was, she got into school too. We’d approached his rustic log cabin together and told him at the same time.
Me? I could fuck right off, but he was keeping her. He said a girl like that didn’t have no business with that much schooling.
For me, going without her wasn’t an option.
Staying with Reeve sure as fuck wasn’t.
Even when Cash bailed on me, I hadn’t had a choice. I’d kill the motherfucker who meant to hurt my sister before I ever let that happen.
But my fight was to leave, and I’d won it.
I didn’t kill Reeve while he was panting and bleeding face down in the dirt. I wasn’t staying in Idaho for anything, so the pack would need to figure out what they were going to do moving forward. That was the excuse I gave myself for leaving him alive, but if I dug right down to the center of it, I hadn’t had the stomach to kill somebody.
That wasn’t the kind of thing a wolf admitted when he wanted to lead a pack.
