That explained why there had been occasional shouting everyone had heard through his office door that morning.
I understood why he was worried about it, but really, Jax was willfully misunderstanding his sister if he thought there was a chance in hell that she would ever walk away from the pack, let alone when we were all under threat.
Still, he was a good brother, so I wasn’t surprised he was trying it, even if it was doomed to fail. And also piss her off.
“Okay, so this is why I brought you two here. You know wolves and you know wolf law. We need to figure out how to keep this from even being a damn thing. If I have to fight Grant, then we’ve already lost. So how do I avoid that?”
Three weeks was a long damn time to wait, especially with Jax walking around looking like a ghost.
Jillian was constantly angry, and I couldn’t blame her. She shouldn’t have to put up with a threat of the people who’d made her childhood miserable, even if I was sure we were going to beat it.
If I had to break all laws in existence and just kill Grant myself, outside of any duel, and be ejected from the pack or even go on the run, I wasn’t going to allow the bastard to hurt my family.
But Prudence and Seth’s fix was so much simpler than that. So much easier and more elegant. I still wasn’t looking forward to what came after, but at least it was going to make it so Jax didn’t have to worry about me getting killed.
We met the Wildwood wolves in a pack-owned piece of land outside the city that we sometimes used for a “company retreat” on full moons, to shift and run and be the wolves we were on the inside.
My ancestor, whom Prudence and I had eventually determined to be my great-great-grandfather, was a bit snide about going to the woods to run like animals, but he seemed to realize that I needed him to leave me the fuck alone for this. Bad enough I had a ghost barnacle attached to my soul at all, and Prudence was looking for ways to put him back to rest, but even he didn’t want to make me look like I was nuts, talking to thin air about how it was a damned bigot. Family pride or something—I was his descendant, his namesake, and he didn’t want me to shame him any more than being a wolf already did.
There was a huge house on the land, with fifteen bedrooms and ten bathrooms sitting on a man-made lake, and unlike the house my family had lent us in Japan, this one was not cut off from the rest of the world. It had full modern amenities, from electricity to super-fast internet to every streaming service that existed.
But we didn’t invite the Wildwood pack to the house. No, they were invited to an empty field on the other side of the lake from the house.
Most of our pack showed up in casual clothing, clearly ready for a fight, including Jax. Of course he was ready for a fight. Hewanteda fight. He’d been itching for it, almost, since the meeting at the restaurant.
I suspected he wanted to fight the guy who’d warned me about Grant, but I could have told him that was a mistake. Thatguy? That guy was one of the best allies we had in the Idaho pack. He cared about Cash, and he’d warned us, so I hadn’t been blindsided by the whole idea of me being challenged.
He’d given me the opportunity to do what I did.
I showed up in a suit, completely unprepared for a fight.
If I hadn’t known the plan before, I’d have known it then, from the smug grin on Grant’s face as he watched me approach.
Jax looked a little confused and even more concerned, which was a little funny, because it was the same as the guy who’d warned me that I was the one about to field a challenge. But then, maybe that was the problem between them. They had too much in common, and not enough at the same time.
Instead of focusing on any of that, though, I ignored the Idaho pack. I looked straight at Jax, smiling at him as I walked up to stand before him, then right there in front of both packs, I rolled my neck all the way to the side, looking up at him with soft eyes.
As quietly as possible, I asked, “Where do you want me, Alpha?”
I watched Jax’s eyes dilate, and knew that in that moment, where he wanted me was on top of him.
Riding him into a mattress.
Beneath him, taking everything he had to give me.
Literally anywhere private, where I could swallow his cock down and he could watch me take every inch.
But that wasn’t the answer I needed in that moment. Jax, who’d always been just the man to rise to every occasion, immediately figured out what to do. He reached up and clasped a hand over my exposed neck, using the grip to guide me to his left side, between himself and Seth, just slightly behind the two of us.
Was anyone in my pack buying that I was submissive to Jax? Not even a little. Even Jax knew damn well that I was the lastman in the world to ever be properly submissive—it wasn’t what he wanted from anyone, let alone me.
But in this case, in this moment?
It was what he needed.
Whatthe packneeded.
I might not have been born a wolf, but I was one, straight down to my bones, and in the end, I would always,alwaysdo what my pack needed me to do. Up to and including get on my knees and pretend obeisance.
