Chapter 19
Jaxson
I have always had a temper, there is no mistaking my fits of rage when things don’t work out the way I had exactly planed out. I don’t like calling it meticulous by any standard but severe could be a more ambitious word to call it what it is. When I get mad, I’m furious, there is no lever lower than that.
Seeing my mate curled into the lap of another male, who tenderly cradles her in his arms, I begin to ponder if there is a level higher than severe.
I stomp into the room to rip her from his arms, but she flinches away from my hand, as though I am a threat, and she is helplessly at my mercy. I pause, my warriors circling the two of them, one of them threatening to grab for the mutt holding my mate but I slam a fist into his forearm, watching him recoil away from doing so.
It’s obvious I’ve had this situation mistaken.
I went to check in on my mate, holding another present I grabbed from a quilt shop in the royal pack town outside, but I was met with shards of a lock, a broken fire stick, and a determined kitten wanting to march out of the room, the same room I assumed my mate was taken from.
I came across James in the hall, bloodied and stark naked, something so odd about his placement as he laid face down, grumbling nonsense about servants and silver trays. I assumed it was unrelated, but I smell his blood on my mate, even muffled under the stench of Luke who clings to her paired with her own blood staining her back.
When my eyes reach the sight of her shorts torn down the side of her hip, exposing her skin pink and flushed with fear, I realize I do know a temper worse than severe.
“Everyone out,” I snap, my warriors seemingly picking up my tone and rushing from the room so fast that they bump into one another until the room leave my mate, the longtime friend of my mate, and myself, seething in ferocity.
“Explain, now,” I bark, speaking to both of them.
Luke coos at my mate, watching as she shivers in her lap like she’s been thrown into an icy blizzard. He looks up and meets my eyes, seeing his once pale features running a bright pink color. I can only picture that I match the sight.
“She just showed up in here,” Luke huffs, shaking his head as she buries her face into his neck. “She was crying and covered in blood when she got here. Said something about a royal stopping her but nothing more.”
She is trying to block me from the mind-link but we both know that being a royal, and a future alpha, means that I can easily break into her head whenever I deem it important. I don’t waste time trying to convince her of that theory and instead rip my way into her thoughts.
She flinches, my eyes showing the scene she had experienced first in her bedroom, breaking the lock of her door. Then I see the corridor and even feel her rapid, startled pulse as James stops her in the hallway, using his wolf to pounce on her back and shove her forward a few paces.
I can smell the blood like it’s my own, seeing the horrendous act of my warrior stroking himself over my mate, like a promise to violate her right there in the hallway. It makes my blood run hot, my wolf beseeching to be the one that kills James where he lays.
“She shouldn’t have left her room,” I say out loud, my thoughts pushing so rapidly through my head and my wolf that it simply blurts out of my mouth.
Luke glowers up at the sight of me, smug in a sense, as he pulls her closer to his body. “If this your way of handling it, then I must admit, you’re just as horrible as the rest of the royals.”
My fist clench at my sides and finally grow tired of the sight of him mocking me, holding my mate, and I pull her up with a single swipe, letting her cave into my arms that cage around her hips. She takes a moment before ultimately giving in, settling into my hold.
Luke leans back against his cot, still sporting a cocky look in his eyes like I’ve got a damn reason to worry about my mate being in love with him over myself.
Kill James, I send through the link, feeling Aurora jump when she hears it through the pack mind. I want him dead in the next five minutes. The next royal to lay a hand on a commoner will end up just like him. If you don’t like my rules, then reject the pack and leave.
Aurora shivers, pulling back enough for me to see her cheek has been hit so hard that her bones refuse to settle straight. It makes me sick. I can hear my father barking in my mind to meet him in his office, but I don’t listen, muting him for a moment and pleading that my mate finally catches her breath and feels safe again in my arms.
I’ve ignored this problem long enough, I know that, but this one little proclamation won’t stop anything. If it is to have an outcome, the royals will hate me and hate my mate for setting these rules to favor her kind. I don’t give a damn.
I just know what needs to be done now, better than never.
Aurora
It’s not often that I get to leave my room unattended, but it is more satisfying not hearing my door lock every time it opens and closes. Jaxson has been trying to fic the palace, trying to calm the tensions between royals and their commoner pets, and sometimes I think it is working.
I hardly hear screams at night but when I do, they are shut down seconds, maybe minutes, later. I sleep easier, knowing that I can leave my room as long as Jaxson is in the palace and not off doing some sort of mission to stop rogues or to find his brother.
I take advantage of those moments, like now, freely leaving my bedroom and slowly making it down the long stairwell, in the open. I pass royals still and dare not look in their direction. I don’t want to push my fleeting luck more than I already have and end up under another royal like James.
I escape into the gall hall, trying to replay the feeling of my parents in the back, expectant and happy to see me. It was the only part of the night I try to replay over and over again. They jumped from their seats and embraced me.
My mother smelled divine, like our kitchen when we invited over friends for a large, delectable dinner. My father smelled of out home and the cedar logs he used to build the place with his own hands. I steady myself under the largest chandelier, under very little light as the glass isn’t illumined and the courtyard is dreary with cloudy weather.
I don’t mind it, swaying back and forth under the chandelier. I’ve never danced, and never claimed to know how to, but the idea intrigues me at least in this moment in time.
It’s interrupted moments later and my mind flashes to the worst possible outcome when I hear steps nearing the doorway of the gala hall. It could be a royal like James, wanting to kill me before they turn rogue and leave the pack Jaxson is trying to form. It could be Xander, sneaking through his home of many years and ready to end this once and for all.
I brace myself as usual, knowing that no matter what, I have to survive it.
