Page 9

8

The Pointy End of a Demon

Harry’d been in her fair share of bars and clubs, bumping and grinding against random sweaty strangers there was no chance she’d see again the next day. As a twentysomething in New York City, those experiences were basically a rite of passage.

Howlin’ Good Time was more dive bar than trendy hot spot, its ancient jukebox tucked in the corner next to a small stage that was occasionally used for live entertainment or karaoke nights. But gone were the peanut dust and shells that once littered the floor; and while the tables and chairs were mismatched and well used, the corner booths and tables boasted lush, padded benches and high-backed antique chairs that would’ve looked chic and trendy in a city poetry club.

Someone had given the place a facelift with fresh paint and a retro-antique style right down to the elaborate crystal chandeliers and dimmed, ambience-creating lighting. This was the type of place that Cassie would absolutely adore.

Harry smoothed her dress’s skirt and glanced around the familiar unfamiliar place, sending a tentative smile to the shifter bartender.

“Hey, Kailani.” Harry tried ignoring her awkwardness and the nearly dozen people staring at her as she approached the counter with a small wave. “It’s good to see you!”

“Look what the cat dragged in.” Kai paused in her glass cleaning and smiled warmly. “Or should I say the angel and the seer… because I’m assuming you’re the reason those two have been watching the door for the last fifteen minutes.”

She nudged her chin to a corner table, one with the elaborate high-backed chairs, where Elodie and Lennox sat, waving Harry over. She returned the gesture, letting them know she saw them.

“It’s girls’ night out. The first in a long time.” Harry’s mouth went dry as she fought to keep a confident smile on her face and not give in to the nausea rolling around in her stomach.

“Say no more. I got you covered.” Kai slipped a shot glass filled with a pink foamy liquid toward her. “A shot of Liquid Courage. On the house.”

“A little bit of that definitely wouldn’t hurt.” Harry downed it after a quick sniff, realizing it wouldn’t have mattered if it smelled like battery acid if it helped her get through this night a bit easier. The sweet liquid slid down her throat, tickling her nose in the process. “Wow. That’s really good.”

“And packs a pretty big wallop if you consume more than one, but it does the trick.”

“Thanks, but I don’t want to get you in trouble. I’ll pay for it.” She reached into her purse, but the shifter waved it off.

“Owner’s perk. I don’t have to answer to anyone except me.”

“I was wondering about the new ambience. Charlie was allergic to change of any kind… which surprises me that he willingly sold the place.”

Kai chuckled. “No one was more surprised than me when he offered me the deal. Technically, he’s still a silent partner, but he’s very, very silent and living the retirement life right now, hopping from one cruise ship to another.”

“Good for him. And good for you, too. Congrats.” Harry slid a look toward Elodie and Lenny, their heads bowed close together as they spoke to each other. “I guess I should get this night started, huh? Do me a favor and if it looks like I need another dose of Courage, send one my way. Wallop packing or not.”

“Will do.” Kai chuckled and gave her a little salute as she turned to help her next customer.

Harry made her way across the room and was given twin smiles… well, a smile and a slight grimace.

“I have to admit, I thought you’d bail,” Lennox admitted. She filled up three empty glasses from what looked to be a pitcher of frozen margaritas.

Harry chuckled awkwardly. “I had to make sure Nora and Grace were set up with streaming access. Nora said something about watching the Halloweentown series… to give Grace an idea of what she had to look forward to being in Fates Haven.”

Elodie snorted. “Hopefully minus the evil warlocks.”

“Maybe Nora’s gnomes can be considered the evil entity of the Haven story. If they keep up their current rate of underwear snatching, I’ll be going braless and commando in another week. I haven’t gone without a bra since I was in the third grade.”

They all chuckled, some of the awkward tension melting away.

“Grace is your friend’s daughter? The one who’s having difficulty reining in her shifter?” Lenny asked.

Harry couldn’t even be surprised news traveled the way it did. She nodded. “She’s more like a niece to me, but, yeah. We’re dividing and trying to conquer, so while I stick with Gracie and try to find answers in the supernatural community, Cassie is trying to find them direct from the source. I hope being here in Fates Haven will break our unlucky streak.”

Elodie added, “You heard Nora at the town council meeting. There’s been something stirring in the air.”

“Pollution?” Lenny joked, earning her an eye roll from the angel.

“Something… other . If you ever meditated with me, you’d probably feel the difference, too.”

“No way in hell will I make that mistake again. Any benefits gained from the meditation would immediately fly out the window with all that… other stuff.”

“It’s called training,” El said wryly.

“It’s called not ever happening. I’ll leave all that ‘training’ to you. I’m perfectly happy with my life of leisure at the tattoo shop.”

Harry chuckled. She missed this back-and-forth banter.

Suddenly, she felt silly for being so worried. Like Cassie, Elodie and Lennox were her ride-or-dies. If one of them ever texted wear a disguise, bring a shovel, and don’t ask questions , she’d don a blow-up unicorn costume, raid Nora’s garden shed, and seal her lips shut with Gorilla Glue.

They both would do the same, although Lenny would probably forgo the unicorn costume for something a bit more on-brand for her. Like a velociraptor.

Seeing her inner struggle, Lenny paused with her drink halfway to her mouth. “What’s wrong?”

Harry swallowed the lump forming in her throat. Len may be pissed, but she still cared. “I really missed this… and the two of you. I’m sorry for being such a—”

“Nope.” Elodie cut her off with an adamant head shake. “No apologies. No guilt. We wasted enough time without one another to be bogged down by all that other nonsense.”

Lenny lifted a pierced eyebrow. “Speak for yourself. I wouldn’t mind an apology or twelve. And a little groveling to go along with the guilt isn’t exactly unappealing either.”

Elodie shot their friend a warning glare, but Harry intervened with an emphatic “I’m sorry, Lenny. Those words are so inadequate, but they’re true. There’s no excusing the way I cut away from everyone.”

“There’s really not.”

“I know.”

“It was pretty shitty.”

Harry nodded. “It was totally shitty. I can’t even count the times I thought about coming back, or picking up a phone, but by the time I’d pieced myself back together, I was sure everyone here had moved on. What was the point in ripping open old wounds?”

Elodie glanced from Harry to Lennox as the seer contemplated. “I won’t forget.”

“I wouldn’t expect you to. Hell, I wouldn’t want you to either. It happened. It’s part of our history.”

Lennox looked deep in thought before giving Harry a slight nod. “I guess we could see where this thing goes. But another fuckup and I’ll be the first to call you out.”

“I wouldn’t expect anything else.” Harry smiled tentatively, a heavy weight sliding off her shoulders.

Elodie whooped loudly, lifting her glass in the air. “Let’s hear it for the official reinstatement of the Trouble Trio’s GNO.”

Chuckling, they all clanked their drinks before taking long drafts through their straws.

Elodie hiccupped and giggled. “Fates Haven thought we were menaces when we were sweet, innocent teenagers. Can you imagine the havoc we can create now that we’re adults?”

“I can’t, but I’m kinda looking forward to finding out.” Harry grinned wide.

“Wait,” Lenny interjected. “When were we sweet and innocent?”

Harry’s worries melted away with each joke and laugh—and the flowing drinks didn’t hurt either. Kai kept the margaritas coming, swapping out different fruit flavors each time they went up for refills. Harry sashayed back to the table, a mango-peach margarita pitcher in her hand, when the bar’s door opened.

She didn’t need to feel the temporary rush of outdoor sauna to know who’d arrived.

The air shifted, knocking her off-balance the second her eyes locked on Jax. She stumbled, catching herself on a nearby table before she ended up wearing their next round of drinks.

It should be illegal to look that damn good wearing jeans and a T-shirt, and yet Jax looked edible. Sex on two well-toned and muscular legs. Sex with a scruffy, angular jaw. Sex with flashing, silver eyes that lasered in on her the second he glanced her way.

Maddox was on his left, and although she didn’t know the man-bun blond in the suit, the third guy on the right had such a striking resemblance to Marie that he couldn’t be anyone other than her grandson, Silas. The last time she’d laid eyes on him, he’d been baby faced and awkward, and sported a mouth full of braces.

It took everything in Harry to pull her gaze away from the four hot guys, or if she were honest, the one in the center. She quickly headed back to the Trouble Trio table and took her seat, her legs a little unsteady.

Jax being here with his friends didn’t need to be a thing. They were all adults, albeit she was a slightly tipsy one who now regretted that last round.

“And there goes the neighborhood.” Shoulders deflating, Elodie locked her pink glossy lips around her straw and sucked down her replenished drink as if it were a milkshake. “I swear sometimes I think I’m cursed.”

Lenny chuckled. “You really ought to be used to this by now. This is, after all, Fates Haven. It’s not like there are a whole lot of places to unwind.”

The angel shot Lenny a dark scowl. “How does one get used to pure evil?”

Harry’s gaze bounced from friend to friend. “This could be the margaritas making my brain a little fuzzy, but I’m lost. Who is pure evil?”

“Silas McCloud.” Elodie threw a disdainful glance toward the new arrivals. “Look up narcissistic demon hole and you’ll see a picture of his smug mug right there… beady eyes, sharp fangs, and all.”

Harry slid a look to Marie’s grandson, now sitting at the end of the bar. Dark hair that was shorn on the sides and longer on top flopped over twin pools of piercing, oceanic blue. He laughed at something Maddox said, his head tossed back.

“Maybe I need a new contacts prescription, but I don’t see beady eyes or sharp fangs.”

“He disguises them well. Trust me. They’re there.”

Harry shot another look toward the bar, and mentally cursed when her gaze collided with Jax’s. Turned halfway on his stool, he didn’t bother hiding the fact he stared. Harry shifted uncomfortably in her seat, her cheeks heating.

Why the hell did he have to look at her like that? And with Elodie sitting right across from her?

Harry ripped her gaze away and made a futile attempt to ignore the physical response Jax’s attention conjured. She peppered Lenny with a pleading look. “You’ll have to help a witch out here because my Elodie-ese is a little rusty. What’s the deal with Marie’s grandson? I know he only visited during the summer, but I don’t remember him being—”

“Evil incarnate,” Elodie finished.

“Would Jax and Maddox really be friends with him if that were the case?”

She scoffed. “He’s a good actor, and not that I don’t adore Jax and Maddox, but they’re easily duped. Trust me. The demon practically had the entire Angel Academy staff and student body fawning all over him when he was the guest instructor my last year before graduation. It was nauseating.”

Lenny chuckled. “I’m sure it had nothing to do with the fact that he gave you your very first ‘needs improvement’ score ever.”

Elodie’s face reddened. “Because I didn’t execute the drill his preferred way. I did it better, and faster, my way. He’s so lucky all his underhanded tricks didn’t cost me my first Guard assignment selection. If it had, he would’ve found himself on the pointy end of my celestial blade.”

“And yet here we are years later and you’re still pining over the fact you didn’t end up on the receiving side of his pointy end,” Lenny murmured. “Then or now.”

Harry choked on her drink, having chosen that moment to take a sip. She coughed, tears leaking from her eyes as she wheezed. “Excuse me?”

Elodie glared at the seer. “That is not what this is about.”

“I think the angel doth protest too much. Honestly, I think you two should just have a naked battle already and call it a day. Fantasy fulfilled.”

“I do not fantasize about sex with Silas McCloud.”

“Would you like me to play the recording of you sleep-talking that weekend we went to the T-Swift concert? Because those moans of ‘Oh, Silas’ say otherwise.”

Harry’s head spun as she tried to wrap her head around all the information being tossed around. “Okay, pause, rewind, and press play again, but this time, in slow motion. You used to have a thing for your old academy instructor—”

“Guest instructor,” Elodie corrected. “It thankfully only lasted a semester, and I did not have a thing.”

“Correct,” Lenny agreed, “because it’s not past tense.”

The redheaded angel shot Lenny a look that would’ve frozen her into an ice sculpture if she’d had elemental magic, but Lennox didn’t back down, lifting a pierced eyebrow. “I dare you to tell me I’m dead wrong.”

El opened and closed her mouth, looking like a fish out of water. “Stop using your seer gifts on me. It’s rude and not to mention against the girl code.”

Lennox chuckled. “You know I’d have to tattoo you to experience a Sight. Plus, I don’t need to use my gift to see what’s staring all of us right in the face. Except, of course, you and Silas.”

“But what about Jax?” Harry heard herself blurt.

Her friends’ heads swiveled her way, both wearing twin looks of confusion. It only fueled her own, which was worsened by the damn margaritas.

“What about Jax?” Elodie asked cautiously.

“I mean… the Fates Festival. The Finding Ceremony.” Harry’s throat nearly swelled closed. “The Blue Willow Wisp.” Her gaze bounced from friend to friend before landing and staying on the angel. “Your wisp guided you to Jax at the Finding Ceremony. The two of you are… Fated.”

Understanding slowly dawned on her friend’s face as she reached across the table and took her hand. “No. We’re not.”

“But you are. We all saw.… I don’t understand.”

“The Blue Willow Wisp was wrong, Harry. So, so wrong.”

“The Wisp is never wrong,” Harry whispered, the words sending a searing ache through her chest.

“It was that year, and it fucked up so badly that no one has seen a Wisp since. Or the Fate Witch, but that’s beside the point.” Elodie paused. “Wait… did Jax tell you that we’re Fated? Because if he did, I’ll go over there and kick his ass so hard my boot’ll tickle his tonsils.”

“No. He…” He didn’t say anything .

He had to have known what she thought, and he’d chosen not to correct her.

“So there hasn’t been a Finding Ceremony in…”

“Thirteen years,” Lennox finished. “Nora didn’t tell you? It’s kinda a big deal that she finally convinced the town council to give the festival another go. Even without an actual Fate Witch and Finding Ceremony, it’s a big accomplishment.”

Harry grimaced. “When I left, I bound Nora to a Witch’s Oath. She couldn’t talk about anything Fates Haven related unless we were in Fates Haven. If I kept hearing about everyone back home, there was no way I would’ve been able to stay away, and I couldn’t come back because…”

Because she thought Elodie and Jax had Mated. That like other couples led together by the Blue Willow Wisp, they’d found their happily ever after and did exactly what the Fates Haven welcome sign instructed and Became Fated in Fates.

She looked to Elodie. “Are you sure you’re not Fated to Jax?”

“Would I secretly want to be on the pointy end of an insufferable demon narcissist if that were the case?” She snapped a warning finger toward Lennox. “Do not say a damn word or I’ll personally show you what all that meditation has done for my training regimen.”

Lennox mimed zipped lips. “Not saying a word.”

Elodie squeezed Harry’s hand. “I’m not Fated to Jax, Harry. No one in Fates—tourist or citizen—has found their Fated since the Finding Ceremony the year you left. The town is at risk of losing its Highest-FMP-in-the-world designation.”

“ No one has found their Fated?” Shock struck Harry still.

“Not a person. And the more time that passes, the more the magical ley lines diminish. At least, that’s what Nora says is the reason behind all these wonky power surges and dead spots.”

Harry shot Lenny a grim look. “Your Sight? Maddox said something about it being on the fritz? Is it because of the ley lines?”

She shrugged. “Your guess is as good as mine, but that’s the working theory.”

“Well, shit.”

“Pretty much sums it up.”

“I don’t know about you two, but I’m suddenly really freaking thirsty.” Elodie grabbed the empty margarita pitcher and hightailed it toward Kailani.

Harry let everything sink in deep and still had difficulty processing.

Fates Haven was losing its mojo. Literally.

Both the Blue Willow Wisps and the Fate Witch were AWOL.

And Elodie and Jax weren’t Fated—to each other or to anyone else.

J AX TOOK A sip of his beer and realized too late that he’d been nursing the same one for the last hour and it was about as cold as fresh piss. He pushed it away with a grimace so he didn’t make the same mistake again and realized there was no point in pretending he wasn’t distracted by the Trouble Trio reunion happening in the corner of the room.

Good things never happened when those three got together, and judging by the occasional furtive glances they kept shooting his way, tonight wouldn’t be an exception.

“Looks like you owe Elodie that Sugar Tits subscription box, huh?” Silas teased coyly from over the rim of his beer. “Guess the Fates Haven gossip mill wasn’t so hoaxy this time around after all.”

Jax threw him a glare. “You have a point to the commentary?”

“Just a few observational facts.”

“And are you sharing the rest of them with the class?”

“Nope.” Silas popped the p with a smirk on his face. “Gonna keep them to myself and release them in one dramatic wave. It’s more entertaining that way.”

“You and I have different definitions of entertaining,” Jax grumbled.

Maddox chuckled. “I may be a party of one, but I can’t wait to see what those three get into.”

“You’re definitely a party of one, and I can already tell you exactly what they’ll get into: mayhem, mischief, and—”

“Margaritas,” Silas interjected. “Looks like a lot of margaritas have made their way into them, too.”

Fuck. He wasn’t wrong. As they spoke, Elodie unsteadily sauntered from the bar to her table with another pitcher of frozen something in her hands. The girls each took large swigs before getting up from their seats, Lenny manually hauling Harry from her plush chair with a yank. They laughed their way to the back pool table.

Jax nearly swallowed his tongue. Harry selected her cue and got into position to break the balls apart, her dress hem rising to reveal a tantalizing amount of bare thigh. The sleek, red fabric tightened around her ass with every movement.

He’d always been an ass man and she had a spectacular one. Then and now. He couldn’t help but watch her glide around the table, biting her lower lip as she contemplated every shot as if about to take a calculus exam.

“This is fucking painful to watch.” Silas’s groan ripped Jax’s attention away from Harry’s legs. “Put yourself out of both our misery and go over there already, man.”

“And what exactly would that accomplish?” Jax demanded.

“Hell if I know, but at least I wouldn’t have to bear witness to that fucking sad-sap pining look on your face.”

“I do not have a pining look.”

Maddox grunted. “It’s a little bit pining.”

“Fuck you both. It’s not.” His gaze reflexively veered to the pool table; and at the sight of Elodie and Harry teasingly bumping into each other, something stirred deep in his chest. “Fuck.”

Pining.

“He sees it now,” Gavin declared correctly.

Chuckling, Maddox knocked his beer glass into Silas’s. “Job well done, my friend. I applaud you and your insight.”

“And I bow with my ass planted on this stool.” Silas smirked.

“Even if you were right—which you’re not,” Jax lied, “there’s no way in hell I’d go there again.”

“To the pool table over there or to the gorgeous brunette currently shooting daggers your way?” Silas asked.

Jax took a quick glance at the pool table. Sure enough, as subtle as she tried to play it, Harry snuck them a quick look, and her eyes, even from the distance, practically lit up with an increasing swell of undecipherable emotions, none of them too happy looking.

“Both,” he answered. “Getting involved with Harlow Pierce is like attending a county fair. The food’s delicious—while you’re scarfing it down. The game’s fun—when you win the human-size unicorn prize. But then the fair packs up and heads to the next town and you’re left behind with nothing more than memories, food poisoning, and a house with a new bedbug infestation.”

“That’s the story you’re sticking to?” Silas snorted.

Kailani whistled, the sound piercing through the already loud bar, bringing everything to a low hum as she held up a paper stack before slamming it down on the bar. “The town council dropped off interest forms for the Fates Festival events! Choose wisely and place your forms in the box at the end of the bar.”

People swarmed the stack. Even Maddox leaned over on his stool and grabbed a form.

“What?” He shrugged. “There’s no harm in seeing what they’re offering.”

Silas chuffed and took a sip of his beer. “No way are they offering anything I’d be caught dead doing.”

“You mean you’re not participating?” Elodie’s voice oozed false sweetness as she stepped up next to Silas, flanked by Lenny and Harry, all looking a bit tipsy. “However will the rest of us recover from that devastating disappointment? Scared of the humiliation when people realize you all aren’t the big bads that you pretend to be?”

The demon swung around to face the angel, his signature cocky smirk firmly in place. “Oh, angel eyes, I’m the absolute baddest. It just wouldn’t be fair to the other participants. If we entered, the highest rank anyone else could get would be second.”

A challenge hung in the air.

It didn’t need to be a physical thing for people to see it. Hell, the entire bar went silent, holding their collective breaths, gazes volleying back and forth between the two. Jax knew firsthand how quickly this could get out of control.

He cleared his throat. “I think what Silas means is that our gifts would make it too easy for us to win these kinds of events. It wouldn’t be fair for those who didn’t have the same talents.”

Harry snortled, earning his attention.

“You have something to say, sweet pea?” Jax challenged.

“Not so sure I’d consider egotism a talent for”—she picked up the list of scheduled festival events and tromboned it in front of her face, attempting to put it into focus—“Paintball Pandemonium. Or Dud Runner.”

“I think you mean Mud Runner.”

The witch waved her hand, the move wreaking havoc with her balance as she swayed. “Dud Runner. Mud Runner. It doesn’t matter. Egotism still won’t help you.”

“It’s not egotism when it’s true.”

“It’s not true unless it’s proven.”

Elodie and Lenny nodded their agreements, instantly becoming Harry’s cheerleaders.

“And how do you suggest we do that?” Jax rose to the bait, doing exactly what he’d mentally warned his friend against.

The Trouble Trio shared a few looks before Harry folded her arms over her chest, matching his pose. “I would think a firsthand demonstration would do the trick. Your group… the Big Bads… against our group—”

“The Trouble Trio,” Elodie interjected, looking smug.

Harry nodded supportively.

“There’s four of us and only three of you. We wouldn’t want you to cry foul at the end of the Festival when you don’t win a single event.”

“Then we’ll find a fourth. We’ll call ourselves the Fearsome Four.”

Jax shot a look to Silas and was met with a coy, interested smirk. Maddox shrugged. And Gavin was doing Gavin things and didn’t have a damn thing to say, his nose buried in his book.

This was a fucking bad idea.

Everything in Jax told him to abort and abort quickly. Instead, he met Harry’s gaze head-on. “Three events. The Fearsome Four against the Big Bads. Winner gets what?”

“I think it should be a matter of what the loser has to do.”

“And what’s that?”

She shrugged. “Maybe we should let the good citizens of Fates Haven decide that… unless that’s a little too high stakes for you guys.”

A small round of whoops and cheers sounded around the bar at the gauntlet that Harry had just thrown down.

He gladly picked it up. “You’re on, sweet pea. And why don’t we go one step further and let these loyal patrons vote on what three Fates Festival events will be part of the showdown?”

“Sounds good to me.”

After another round of cheers, Kai went into action, setting up a makeshift voting station for people to put their selections. There was no way this wouldn’t come back to bite him on the ass in a need-stitches-and-a-tetanus-shot kind of way, but so far, Silas and Maddox were too busy attempting to rile up an already flustered Elodie and Lennox to share his sentiments.

Jax smirked at his friends’ antics. Some things never changed.

An overexcited voter brushed past Harry, knocking her off-balance and straight into him. His arms shot out and wrapped around her waist, preventing her from spilling to the floor.

Sucking in a groan, he closed his eyes and tried ignoring her sweet lilac scent. He failed miserably, every inch of his body humming as if brushing up against a live wire. It took a few seconds to realize that the sensation came from him.

Or more accurately, his mountain lion.

The bastard was purring, the vibration pushing his chest further against Harry’s back.

“Is the ground moving, or…” Harry’s voice trailed.

Jax quickly shut off the damn purr and, with great difficulty, took a half step back but kept his hands braced on the swell of her hips. “You okay?”

Her cheeks pinked, whether from the alcohol in her system or something else. “Yeah. Thanks. Guess I went a little overboard with the margaritas. It’s been a while since I’ve been off duty.”

His lips twitched. “Plus, you’ve never been able to hold your liquor. Let’s not forget the homecoming incident junior year.”

Harry shot him a look over her shoulder that put her back once again firmly against his chest. “That night was to remain buried in a deep, dark vault never to be spoken about again.”

“Afraid what Lenny would say if she found out it was really you and not Maddox that threw up in her little purse thing?”

She spun in his arms, putting them chest to chest as she drilled a fingertip into his sternum. “Deep. Dark. Vault. And you’d be smart to remember that I know a few secrets of yours, too, Jaxon Atwood.”

His smile slowly dimmed as he reflexively glanced at her mouth mere inches away. “Don’t I know it.”

She swallowed, the move more prominent with their close proximity.

He couldn’t tear his eyes off her, and when her own gaze dropped to his lips, he released a small groan. “You’re killing me here, sweet pea.”

Her mouth opened and closed a few times before her knees gave way. He caught her before she hit the floor. A commotion sounded around them as her friends hightailed it to her side.

“Is she okay? What happened?” Elodie brushed the back of her hand over Harry’s forehead.

“Pretty sure it was margaritas on what was probably an empty stomach,” Jax said dryly.

“No, no. I’m okay.” Harry’s face was white as a sheet. “What was the vote?”

“I think you’ll have to find out the results tomorrow. We should get you home.”

“No, no. Really. I’m fine.” She swayed.

“Yeah, I don’t think so.” Catching her body with his shoulder, he dipped down and picked her up in a fireman’s carry. “I think it’s way past your bedtime. Kai? Hit me with a bottle of water?”

“Sure thing.” She tossed him one, which he caught with the hand that wasn’t currently planted just below Harry’s round ass cheeks.

“Put me down,” Harry ordered, squirming on his shoulder. “Jax! Seriously! This is not the view I expected when I came back to Colorado. I’m not impressed.”

Elodie and Lennox chuckled, watching the show.

“Wow. It’s like no time has passed.” Elodie smirked.

“If only,” Jax murmured, glancing to his friends. “You got those two?”

Maddox nodded. “Yeah, I’ll dump them off at Lenny’s place. You sure you got her? I don’t mind taking her home, too.”

“Nah. You’re heading to the other side of town and I have to pass Pierce House on my way.”

Harry braced her hands on the small of his back as he walked toward his truck in the back parking lot. It was just the two of them and the twinkling stars overhead. “I’m sorry, Jax.”

“Yeah? You’re sorry about what?” He dug his keys out one-handed and, standing at the passenger door, unlocked the pickup.

“I lied.”

“About?”

“I am impressed with the view back here. Thirteen years ago, I didn’t think your ass could look any better than it did then, but I was woefully mistaken. I’d take this view over the one from the Mount Evans summit any day of the week.”

“Ditto, babe. Ditto.” He swallowed a chuckle and, after opening the passenger door, gently deposited her on the end of the seat. Her eyelids, half-mast and quickly dropping, fluttered open as she gripped the front of his shirt.

“I can’t go back to Nora’s,” she claimed adamantly. “Not like this. Not…”

“Twelve sheets to the wind?” Jax smirked.

“Teenagers are harsh, Jax,” Harry yell whispered. “I don’t remember ever being so… moody. But if I come back home like this, I will never hear the end of it. She’ll use it to extort something out of me. Please.”

He couldn’t even ask her please what because her eyes drifted closed. Jax sighed and got her settled in the seat, putting on her seat belt and making sure she was fastened in tight. By the time he came around to the driver’s side and started the truck, she’d pushed her forehead against the cool glass and was already fast asleep.

This entire night was one bad mistake after another.

Letting Maddox talk him into going out. The Big Bads versus Fearsome Four challenge. Not letting Mads take Harry the fuck home.

And he was making another one, driving past Pierce House and heading away from town. He badged through the ranch’s front gate and toward his cabin. He had no neighbors. Just his four walls and nature, and the bubbling creek feet from his back deck that made for some great morning fishing.

Jax didn’t bring people here.

Ever.

And damn if he would think about why that was changing right then and there.

Pulling up to the front porch, he cut the engine and glanced at the woman at his side, her soft snores filling the small space.

He’d settle her in his bed and sleep on the couch, or better yet, head outside to sleep on the hammock hanging on his back porch. No fuss. No muss. And no intoxicating Harlow Pierce sweet scent tempting him to do something stupid.

He jogged up the steps and unlocked and opened the front door before heading back to a sleeping Harry. “Up we go…”

She stirred when he opened her door, eyes fluttering open as he settled his hands on her hips. He wasn’t prepared for the intensity of her gorgeous periwinkle eyes and froze, his body inches away from hers.

“Why didn’t you tell me, Jax?” Her gaze roamed his face, unfocused but searching.

“Why didn’t I tell you what?”

“That you and Elodie never followed through with the Fated Ceremony.”

His throat dried as he forced himself to meet her confused gaze. “What would that have accomplished?”

“I dunno. Everything. Nothing.” She peered up at him through her lush lashes. “Weren’t you even a little tempted to go through with it? I mean, the Wisp led her to you.”

“I wasn’t tempted in the least, sweet pea,” he said honestly.

“Why?” Her question was barely a whisper.

He propped his forehead gently on hers, and answered equally as softly, “Because she’s not my Fated.”

Harry was. He felt it in his soul. In his blood. With every heart pound. But hell if he’d let himself act on it right then. Or ever. No matter how tempting the woman in front of him may be.

Eyes wide and blinking, Harry slowly and subconsciously wet her bottom lip, her gaze dropping to his mouth seconds before she leaned within kissing distance. Jax reflexively shifted closer, his mind foggy with need.

A split second before contact, his hand shot out, gently cupping her cheek and halting the forward momentum. His inner mountain lion hissed at him for stopping something they both wanted more than their next breath.

“I’m sorry, Harry… but I can’t.” He released a slow, staggering breath. “It’s really not a good idea.”

The look on her face nearly ripped his insides into shreds, worse than his cougar could’ve ever done. She nodded and pulled back, the move loosening something in her body because she paled instantly, hand clapping over her mouth.

“I don’t feel so—” She lurched forward, her forehead hitting his chest as she evacuated every ounce of margarita she’d consumed in the last eight hours. Possibly her lifetime.

Jax grimaced at the heavy fruit scent hanging in the air… and all over him.

Yep.

One bad decision after another. Tomorrow he was determined not to have any repeats.