He’d fallen first.
I scowled, looking between Dakota and Kent, certain that I was missing something.
“Better,” Kent said. “Werewolf healing.”
“Mmhmm,” Dakota hummed.
“I’m glad you’re all right,” I offered. “And I’m lucky Dakota had the wherewithal to save me.”
Dakota pursed his lips. “Well, the poison you had wasn’t meant to kill you. Either of you. Just make you sleep. But you woke up on your own, didn’t you, Kent?”
Kent laughed, just a little puff of breath. “Yeah, well, you know. Second cup of the day. I probably didn’t drink as much as Jax did.”
“Right.” Dakota sounded unconvinced, but he was on edge. He was looking for threats, and Kent had—well, he was a lot of things, not all of them great, but he’d never been that.
He’d joined us in leaving the Wildwood pack. He knew what loyalty meant and what it cost.
I squeezed Dakota’s hip, and he sank back down. At the very least, with his arm around my waist, he didn’t seem to think there was much in the world that could get to me.
Hell, he was probably right.
But we had a rival pack trying to take me from my family, and as soon as I got back on my feet, we were going to have to deal with that.
Moon or no, I was going to tear Grant apart.
28
Dakota
Jax slept for too long that night, crashing and sleeping through dinner, then straight through the night as well, as though being asleep for days had somehow been exhausting for him.
Me? I was obsessing over how the poisoning had happened to begin with.
Kent had always rubbed me the wrong way, and his near escape was just... very convenient, since he’d ingested a drug that was literally supposed to leave him asleep for almost two months. The notion of him not ingesting enough of it just wasn’t sitting right with me.
I didn’t have time to address that right away, though, because when Jax woke up again, he woke up mad, and by the time I got back to where he was thumping around in our bedroom, he was half dressed already, growling to himself as he buttoned his shirt.
“Jax? What are you doing?” I asked, just as he hissed in frustration and pulled his hands away from his shirt.
He’d grown claws. He was so angry he couldn’t seem to control them, as he was staring at his hands with narrowed eyes, like they were betraying him in the moment. Also, he didn’t answer me.
I came to stand in front of him, taking his hands in mine. “Jax.”
He looked up at me and huffed. “I’m going to see Grant.”
That... was basically the last thing in the world that I wanted. But also? That was silly. Jax had started the fight with Grant already, and he’d not only been winning, he’d been plain old dominant. Grant hadn’t had a hope against him.
It was why they had burned our house down, and why they had followed up with trying to poison Jax. Why they had started this bullshit with the plan to challenge me. Grant was literally doing every possible thing to take over the pack without having to actually fight Jax, because he knew he had no chance of winning that fight.
“Why are you going there?” I asked, trying to retain the calm that came from that knowledge. Grant couldn’t beat Jax in a fair fight. He probably couldn’t beat Jax in a fight if he had a weapon and Jax had one arm tied behind his back.
His only hope was cheating.
Jax scowled at me, then back at his buttons. “He’s hurting the pack. My pack. My people. It’s one thing when he poisons me, but burning the house down? Poisoning other pack members? It can’t be allowed to continue for another three weeks until the full moon.”
It was a fair concern. Who knew how much more damage the asshole could do in three weeks.
So I went over to the dresser in the room and pulled out a pair of sweatpants and a T-shirt. “Put these on,” I said, tossing them to him. “You won’t rip them turning.”
