"You can't treat her like that, you're going to end up pushing her away," Lavina said.
She and Jax were in the study, Lola was up in the guest room and everyone was coming down from the night's turbulent events.
"You're telling me I can't protect her?" Jax was on the verge of becoming Alpha and more wolves were starting to recognize the shift in his aura. His wolf was more present when he spoke and other wolves felt it.
Lavina stood back. She looked around the room before mustering the strength to lock at him.
"This isn't protection, it's possession. You need to be gentle with her or you will lose her. After all these years you've finally found your mate, don't fuck this up, Jax,"
"How am I supposed to protect her if I don't know where she is or what she's up to?"
"By trusting her!"
The papers shuffled when Jax leaned his hands down on the table.
His tall build towered and his hair fell in front of his face.
"You're not coming down from the high," Lavina referred to the anger that had spiraled in Melissa's bedroom. For a werewolf, any heightened emotion was like a high and it took time to come back down- just like it would when coming down from a mind-altering drug, it was the same chemical complexity minus the serotonin when you were angry.
"No."
"Are you even trying?" Lavina's voice came out a hushed whisper.
"You have a mate. how would you react if he was in danger, threatened every day by someone who you up until a day ago thought was a myth?"
Lavina walked up and stroked his arm.
"I'd be terrified of losing him but I would also appreciate every second like it was our last. I wouldn't act like I've already lost him,"
Jax straightened up and fixed his hair. For a second his eyes fell to Lavina's lips, the plump, cherry-red color that had always been her signature.
"Instead of preparing for the worst, how about you enjoy having this time with her? Who knows what's gonna happen later,"
The door opened and Ash's rugged expression landed on Lavina's manicured hand stroking Jax's bare arm.
"Aren't we looking cozy," his voice was low and menacing.
Jax pulled away and glared in response to Ash's insinuation. Lavina brushed her hair back and smiled.
His chest swelled and his feet pressed onto the floor when Lavina walked past him. She turned and brushed against his body when leaving the study, Ash grinned as he towered over her flustered face.
The smell of rose and strawberries seeped up his nose and touched his senses before disappearing into the hallway.
Ash stood confounded for a second and then turned halfway to face his cousin.
The blank distrust peeled away at Jax and he dropped the stack of papers down on the desk.
"Didn't she use to smell more like lavender?"
Jax didn't bother to acknowledge him with more than a stale answer. "Don't know, don't care,"
"Your wife is in her room alone. Don't you think your time would be better spent talking to her rather than your ex?"
"Mind your tongue." Jax seethed as a muscle in his jaw feathered.
He walked across the floor and rolled his shoulders back.
"I agreed to stay and protect her but you let me know if your loyalty is shifting and I will pack my shit and go," Ash said- holding his cousins' menacing glare.
"You agreed to stay and help out with her integration because you're getting paid and because Uncle would kick your ass if you returned without having held up your part of the deal. Don't act like you're a fucking saint staying behind out of the goodness of your heart." Jax snapped, his wolf stepped up and it was quickly becoming more about the power of rank than dominance.
"Easy there cousin, don't forget that I'm an Alpha too." Ash's eyes glowed and had this been any other pack with another Alpha, Ash would have declared a challenge and they would fight until only one remained.
The ground would be painted with the blood of both wolves and the body of the less fortunate would lay on open grounds for the pack to see- only to be removed on the third day and cast aside in a shallow grave.
The proper burial for a werewolf was for the body to be set on fire. It was believed that this freed the spirit of the human and the spirit of the wolf and they together sought out the moon goddess, going back to where it all began.
They stood eye to eye, Jax was still very much up in his thoughts of anger and menace while Ash had a control you didn't often see. His chest swelled but he looked at his cousin with a narrowed gaze and was the first to step back.
"Lucien might be the one who wants her but you'll be the one to send her straight into his arms." He said and left.
Jax turned and grabbed the back of the chair, in a swift pull he lifted it and threw it against the wall.
On the other side of the door, another crashing sound boomed down the hallway.
The sound of glass shattering and metal bouncing against the floor caught his attention and Jax ran out of the study.
Ash stood stiff down the hall and watched the scene unfold as Jax joined him.
In the entrance, stumbling in with a beer in his hand and a pulled-down expression with hazy eyes that couldn't focus was Nash. He fumbled over his own feet, his palm pressing into the sharp bed of glass and his blonde hair sticking between his lips as he took another drink of the beer.
His disoriented gaze looked up and around until it landed on a familiar face in the shadowed hallway.
"Jax!" He said, raising his beer and tripping on his way over.
"Nash, what the hell is this?" Jax laughed.
he grabbed the beer from his friend and put it down on the sidewall table.
"I'm back..." Nash raised his finger, his lips puckered in a whisper and he squinted when Jax's face suddenly duplicated in front of him, "...but I think we should talk tomorrow yeah,"
"Oh really," Jax grinned. Nash shook his weary head and pointed to the stairs. His sticky hand patted Jax's shirt, leaving a muddy mark on everything he touched as he patted his way up the stairs.
"Really? Him?" Ash asked.
Nash had come back from his two-year-long disciplinarian academy education that had prepared him for his duties as Beta to Alpha Jax.
He had learned about the rules, laws, defense tactics that were only taught to the second and third highest rank, and everything he'd need to know about running a pack in the Alpha's absence.
They watched Nash stumble up the stairs and heard a car driving off outside.
Lavina came out from the kitchen with a bag in hand and a weekend bag in the other.
"You're leaving?" Jax asked.
"It's time to go home and cuddle up next to my own mate. You make sure you take care of yours," she said. Her gold ring turned on her finger as she graced Jax's arm.
"I will. Don't be a stranger," he wrapped his arms around her and held the hug for a second longer than Ash deemed friendly behind him. Only because it was familiar, it was long past due and they could finally say goodbye in a way that they hadn't before Lavina left.
"Ash," she said bowing her head respectfully.
"Lavina," he lowered his head. ", I like your new perfume." He continued.
Lavina noticeably stiffened and her lips pulled up.
"I'm glad," she said sweetly. She grabbed the bags and headed out the door. Her coat clung to her body and her legs looked lean in the high heel stilettos that clicked against the floor.
The guys turned around and looked up at the second floor when a loud scream echoed through the house.
"Shit!" Jax screamed and ran up the stairs with Ash behind him.
His hands shot out when he tumbled into the guest room where Lola was pressing herself back abasing the wall and staring wide-eyed at a naked Nash on the bed.
"Shh," Nash slurred and spread out over the covers.
"What the hell." Lola seethed.