Page 27 of Eternal Light (Fated in the Stars #5)

Through Teeth and Tears (Jay)

Rowan is a real-life werewolf. Like the stories they learned in school. Like the ones Finn reads Nix and Luca when they ask — and sometimes when they don’t. It’s not fantasy or history; it’s reality.

Sure, Nimue had called Rowan ‘Wolf’ — not just a wolf, but the Wolf — and said he has been, since the dawn of time, and Jay had thought it made sense. They all had, although to Jay’s knowledge, no one had said so to Rowan.

So many of Rowan’s characteristics are instinctual, after all, and he’s always struggled with controlling his wolf — since they found Nix especially.

This is nothing that Jay could have expected — not in a million years.

Gideon is leaning in the doorway, preventing onlookers from getting a look at the Rowan-wolf, while Finn smooths things over with the nurses and those bowled over by his run through the unit.

“He’s cute, eh?” Gideon asks teasingly as Leo wrinkles his nose.

“You okay, Leo? You’re not exactly a dog person,” Grayson jokes quietly.

“I am a Rowan-person,” Leo insists. “Doesn’t matter to me what he looks like.”

“Yeah, but can we get him to turn back?” Jay asks, scratching down the back of Rowan-wolf’s neck and over a thick, muscled shoulder. He must weigh 175 pounds, and when he stands up, he must be at least four feet tall at the shoulder.

Grayson slides into the bed beside them again, running his hand down Rowan-wolf’s flank. “It’s pure magic,” he whispers, eyes closed. “Like he’s tangible, but I can see this…aura…all over him. It’s pretty. He’s pretty.”

There’s a huff of moist breath under his arm.

Grayson’s voice is fainter yet, and when Jay checks in, his mate’s eyes are twitching behind his eyelids, and his lips are so pale that they look blue. “Hey, Pretty, look at me.”

“Shit. Gray, you okay? You look much worse,” Leo asks, taking their mate’s wrist in his hand.

“M’okay. Just missing Nix. Using magic is harder when he’s so far away.”

Using magic?

Jay’s stomach drops. “What were you using magic for, baby? At The Guild? Before?”

Grayson doesn’t answer, he just runs his hand up and over Jay’s shoulder. When he does, it occurs to Jay that his shoulder feels exponentially better than it did an hour ago.

“Gray, what did you do?” He grabs a cup of water off the table and offers it to his mate. “Come on, drink some water for me.”

Grayson accepts the water gratefully, and Jay vows to get him some sugar at the earliest opportunity. That had helped at the safe house and again at Nimue’s place—something about how the sugar helps fill his soul.

“Gray, did you heal Jay? With magic?” Finn asks with a touch of awe. “Ignatius said you had a Talent, but you’ve no training, and this isn’t a tiny leaf on a dead plant. You could have really hurt yourself, and–”

And Nix goes unsaid.

“He what now?” Gideon growls.

Grayson groans at being thrown under the magical school bus.

Pulling his head out, Rowan-wolf looks at Grayson, and Jay has a front-row seat for the small baring of teeth.

It’s crazy impressive, and Jay wonders what it feels like.

Still, they need to get the Rowan back who can use his words and not his teeth to express himself.

“Okay, let’s give Gray a break for a bit.

Rowan, could you come back to us, please?

I miss your face…your other face,” Jay says as gently as possible.

He would never want Rowan to think he didn’t love all of him, and if the wolf was going to be a regular fixture in their life, he’s going to be damned sure Rowan feels welcome.

Just not with his wolfy tongue in Jay’s mouth.

With a wild shake of his head, Rowan-wolf pushes his nose back under Jay’s arm like a toddler hiding his eyes, thinking, If I can’t see you, you can’t see me.

“Rowan Foster. We need to know what you know about Luca and Nix, and as cute as you are like this, it is not conducive to communication. Now, please,” Gideon tries.

Still, Rowan shakes his head, and his whimpers start up in earnest.

“Ro, you aren’t in trouble. It’s going to be okay, but you have to tell me what happened,” Leo offers, and he braves a hand down Rowan’s spine and then another. “You are so handsome like this, but I really miss your person-face, too.”

Leo is using his extra-sweet cajoling voice—the one he breaks out when Rowan is in rut and won’t let the others leave to use the toilet. Rowan must recognize it because he pulls his head out, tilts it, and then rolls his eyes.

It is the strangest thing to see in the face of a giant wolf. So human.

“No? Alpha will have to make you, then, and I’ll have to wait outside because you know how that upsets my tummy.” Leo sighs and gets to his feet.

Leo leaving disappointed is the worst of all threats, next to Nix feeding himself.

Jay watches as Rowan-wolf sets his front teeth into the back of Leo’s pants and pulls him back.

“If you don’t want Leo to leave, baby, you have to change back,” Jay says, disentangling the cotton from the sharp teeth before they need a third set of scrubs.

It’s met with another pitiful whine, but Rowan-wolf closes his eyes with a subsequent sigh. There is a surge of magic or power in the room, and Grayson gasps.

There’s a flash of light—and then Jay is holding a very naked Rowan on his lap.

“Oh, thank fuck,” Leo breathes, running his hand through Rowan’s red hair. “Hey, Ro.”

“How was that?” Finn asks, unable to hide the curiosity in his voice. “Did it hurt? Do you feel the transformation at all, or does it feel like it looks to us?” He’s gearing up for a line of questioning.

“Are you okay?” Grayson asks. “That was so cool, by the way.”

Ignoring them, Rowan drops his forehead on Jay’s good shoulder. “I’m sorry, Alpha.”

Sorry for what? Jay wonders. His own list of needed apologies is so long—today, yesterday, and forever.

“It’s okay, Ro.”

“It’s really not. I let them take Nix and Luc. I–I was at the store when they came for them.”

“You left them alone?” Leo asks, getting up to pace, grabbing handfuls of his already messy curls. “Does no one take me seriously?”

“Nix tried to stop me, but he was craving brownies, and Luc, too. And I wanted…”

“Happy mates,” Gideon sighs, rubbing a hand over his face and around the back of his neck. If there’s anyone who understands how tempting this kind of caregiving feels, it’s Gideon.

He hands the scrub top and pants to Rowan, who stands to put them on. They’re a tight fit, but at least he won’t be shocking the staff with his dick.

“Yeah. But when I got back, the door was ajar, and they were gone. I could smell decay…you know? It’s like what Grayson described? And magic.”

Running big hands through his hair, Rowan tries to get comfortable in his scrub pants. He can’t find a spot for his dick that isn’t obscene, and it’s ramping up his scent from annoyed to genuinely pissed off.

Finn must realize it, too, as he reaches into Rowan’s pants and pulls The Cock? until it’s caught gently in the waistband of his scrubs before pulling the scrub top down over it. It wouldn’t feel ideal, but at least it’s not caught and is minimally mobile at the same time.

“Thanks, Finnie,” Rowan whispers before yanking Finn in close to lick and bite at his neck in gratitude—or maybe for the hand on his dick. His scent is getting spicier, and Finn moans at the onslaught.

“Ro, reel it in. You can’t do that here,” Gideon groans.

Even Jay is getting hard in his hospital gown.

Shit. While Rowan has always been sensual and sexual, he’s never had them all hard as a rock in five seconds or fewer—and Jay and Grayson are infirm.

Ha…well, no, he’s quite firm.

He wonders if it’s the sheer animalistic nature of Rowan’s wolf. Maybe this is how Nix’s omega and Rowan’s enigma communicate all the time.

“Jay!” Leo snaps his fingers, and Jay growls at the affront.

“Hey there, big guy…You were growling and stinking up the place.”

Stinking up the place?!

“Pardon me?” Jay growls, raising an eyebrow.

Leo looks pink-cheeked, and his cinnamon scent is much less angry/disappointed and way more fuck-me-now.

“What Leo means is: three enigmas pumping out let’s-fuck pheromones would be bad, given Grayson and Ro are both on track for a rut in the next month. We can’t afford that right now, yeah?” Gideon says, his voice strained.

Jay sees that everyone in the room is hard and sweating.

Grayson staggers into the bathroom with Finn on his heels.

“Is he okay?” Jay asks Gideon, who has Rowan on his knees with Gideon’s hand in his hair, counting backward from a thousand in German.

Gideon nods. “He will be. He’s such a good boy.” The words send a shudder through Rowan, but he only counts a bit louder and closes his eyes.

When Grayson and Finn come back five minutes later, there is a bit more color in Grayson’s cheeks. Finn reaches for a glass of water, his lips red and puffy.

“No, don’t ask me,” Finn says, then puts his hand up and sucks back another full cup of water.

Jay looks to Grayson, who is heading back to bed with Jay, but Leo intercepts the enigma and pulls him down on his lap. The scent of vanilla-basil floats by on a soft breeze.

Oh, come on.

“Focus on your shoulder, Alpha,” Finn suggests.

“Easy for you to say. Since when is a bullet wound supposed to be a cure for a hard-on?”

“Too soon,” Rowan says as he stands up, kissing Gideon’s palm.

“Fuck, sorry.” Jay is getting tired of doing shit he’s truly sorry for, so he changes the subject to the most pressing matter of where the hell are his mates.

“What’s the plan now?”

Leo sighs. “We get them back.”

“Duh,” Grayson huffs from his lap and wiggles his butt.

There’s a growl from the end of the bed, and Rowan clenches his jaw to get the noise to stop. “I say we march in there and take the bastards out.”

It has an appeal: teeth and claws, and Carnell’s heart in his hand.

Gideon’s phone rings, and when the alpha pulls it out, his eyebrows go all the way to his hairline. “Lauren.”

“Gideon,” she intones, and even over the line, it’s clear that her superiority rankles Gideon’s wolf.

“I thought you’d want to know that Nix and Luca are locked in Carnell’s wine cellar as of ten minutes ago. They’re fine, but hungry.”

That makes Rowan growl and jump to his feet.

Gideon visibly swallows his pride. “How do you know that?”

“He has a phone he…borrowed from a dead man.” She sounds proud.

Just hearing his omega has made his mark on his abductor causes pride to fill that achy place in his heart.

“Do you have any suggestions?” Gideon asks. He sounds uncertain and a bit defeated.

Lauren must be surprised, too, because she hesitates for a moment before responding, “I must say this is easier than I thought, and much less fun.” She pauses again. “Do you need me to fly in and save the day, Gideon Carnell?”

Gideon growls at his mother-in-law, and color floods back into his mate’s face. It’s a kick in the pants and a reminder that Gideon has a job to do—and that Lauren thinks he can’t do it.

“Don’t you dare.”

“Good. Is everyone alright?”

There’s a cacophony of voices in the background. Jay detects Frankie, Antonio, and even Artem asking questions of concern at the same time. Lauren covers the receiver, and they can make out her admonishment to shut up.

“Gideon?”

Gideon looks at him and hesitates, not wanting to lie to his fearsome mother-in-law but also not wanting to alarm them all further. It occurs to him that the news outlets might have gotten a hold of the shooting and that he hasn’t checked in with Margot since this morning.

Leo whispers, “Stop beating yourself up. You were shot. Cut yourself some slack.”

“Excuse me?” Lauren almost yells down the line.

Jay should have realized that if anyone would hear Leo’s whispers, it would be his super-spy mother.

“Did you say Jay was shot?”

The cacophony starts up again on the other end, but Lauren just walks away this time, until there’s the sound of a door closing.

“Debrief. Go.”

Finn is searching the internet on his burner phone via the hospital’s free Wi-Fi through the encrypted browser Lauren set up.

He holds the phone up, and there it is in the news: Jay Rhodes of Phoenix Records and formerly Ripley Records has taken a fatal gunshot to the chest. The article is ten minutes old.

Fatal?

Shit, that they haven’t publicized that he didn’t actually die is a fuck-up of epic proportions.

“I’ll call Margot,” Leo offers.

“Boo-Boo, wait.” Lauren stops her son’s call. “Let me hear what Gideon has to say, and then we’ll worry about the public and your staff. Go ahead.”

Gideon gives her a play-by-play of the events of the day.

It’s strange to hear her curse, and her rapid-fire line of questioning is beyond intimidating.

The next fifteen minutes are spent running through Jay’s fuck-up—everything from the nurse and doctor to Grayson’s attempts to heal him with magic.

“Grayson. How are you holding up?”

“Not well, ma’am. But I’m ready to do what we need to do.”

“Of course you are. So brave. Jay, are you feeling up to getting out of the hospital?”

“Yes, Lauren.” Jay is definitely ready to get his pack to a safe place.

“Good. Let’s get you some better accommodations, and then I will hopefully have news about Carnell.

Boo-Boo, call Margot and let her know I will be in touch about strategy.

We need to keep Carnell in the dark as long as possible, but we need to get our boys back before that pesky BBS does Carnell’s work for him.

I am waiting on some helpful intel now that he’s on our radar. Can you hang in a few hours longer?”

Can Nix and Luca hang on that long—that’s the real question.

Once Gideon hangs up, they find Jay yet another set of hospital scrubs. They get him unofficially discharged under Finn’s care, and it’s almost midnight before they walk down the hall toward the elevator.

Once in the elevator and the doors close, Rowan’s head pops up like a hound on the hunt. It’s an apt analogy, but when his mate drops into a crouch to smell the buttons and then presses the fifth floor, Gideon balks.

“Ro, time is ticking for Luca and Gray.”

“I know…but please?”

The doors slide open before Gideon can answer either way, and the five of them follow Rowan’s nose down the hall, past the deserted nurses’ station to a room lit only by lamplight, where a young woman with gorgeous curly hair is lying beside a small boy of about nine or ten, both of them asleep on the bed.

He’s intubated, and the monitors beep a slow rhythm. Finn checks the board beside the bed, looking for any clues about what’s wrong with him. His chart would be at the nurse’s station, but Finn would never violate a patient’s privacy beyond what’s readily accessible on the board.

Grayson steps out of Jay’s hold to approach the bed and frowns. “Who is this, Ro?”

“It’s Winnie and her brother, I think? Ansel. She helped me call you earlier, and I could smell her in the elevator. I feel like we’re supposed to be here, you know? Why does he smell like that?”

That scent is strawberries, patchouli, and…decay.