Page 47 of Phantom’s Mate

Jax showed no emotion. He just said to the guards, “Put these two in the brig until they fucking see sense.” To his lieutenants, he added, “Stay alert. Make sure no one else does anything stupid, at least for the rest of the damn day.”

After everyone left, Jax snapped the artifact case shut and sank down into his chair, resting his head in his hands. He looked exhausted.

Nick told himself Jax deserved whatever pain he was going through, but he couldn’t stop thinking about all those women and cubs. And how much Jax reminded him of Brandon, trying to hold their old crew together with nothing but sheer will power.

He wished he could grab the artifacts right now, that DB was here to pull them into the spirit world through one of his doorways, and take them back to Titan. Nick fingered the amulet in his pocket. He’d taken to carrying it around with him, in case Britt needed to leave her place.

But that would still leave Jax to be dealt with. And whatever he did to Jax, it would probably be better not to have any witnesses.

He was about to see what his chances were for engineering a fatal accident, when he felt a hand on his shoulder.

Startled, he swung around.

It was Britt.

Chapter 22

Nick stared at Britt, shocked. “What are you doing here?” he burst out. Whatever he decided to do, he sure as hell didn’t want her to see it.

“I came to stop you from destroying yourself.”

“You don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.” He deliberately made himself sound harsh, but she didn’t flinch.

“I know you took on my pain. My anger. And it made yours worse.” She put her hand on his arm. He could barely stand to let her touch him. He wanted to just crush her into his arms and take them both away from here.

But that would lead to worse destruction than killing Jax. At least, it would for him.

“You shouldn’t be here,” he said. “Why the hell did you come?”

“Why did you come?” she countered.

“You know why.”

“Because you still can’t let it go.”

He jerked away from her. “Because they deserve to be brought to justice!”

Britt spread her arms, looking around. “And how are you going to do that, exactly? Blow the place up? Bring your dragon friends in to kill them all?”

“If I have to. We need to get those artifacts back.” He gestured over his shoulder to Jax. “They’re dangerous. One of his guys already sold one to hell knows who, and when the word gets out…”

“And what about the women and children?”

“We’ll get them away from here. These guys are murderers. They massacred Titan’s entire village. And Jax will never be anything but a psycho criminal. I’d be doing his women a fucking favor.”

“You sure?” Britt said softly. She nudged him and tilted her head towards Jax, urging him to look.

While Nick had his back turned, a woman had come into the building, carrying a baby bundled in a blanket. Jax’s face lit up, and he got up and went over to her, putting his arm around her and murmuring to the baby.

The woman looked up at Jax and smiled, but it was the look in Jax’s eyes that stunned Nick into silence. It was the same look all his friends had when they looked at their mates.

Love—deep and true.

Jax leaned his forehead on his mate’s, letting his shoulders drop. For her, he didn’t put on a show of strength.

“Bad meeting?” she said softly.

“I don’t know what the hell to do,” he admitted. “Rhett’s losing control of his cat, and he’s on the verge of challenging me. They’re all on the edge.”