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Skyler doesn’t take me home; instead, he drives me to the pack house and says I can get ready with him and Jaxon can drop me off. I agree. I’ll send my mom a quick text to let her know we’ll be there for dinner at seven.
I put on the dress, and all of a sudden I wish I hadn’t given in when Skyler told me to. It’s nicer than the other dresses I have, maybe too nice for the dinner my mom is making. Well, that’s all I have. The dress is made of silk and has thin straps. The pink dress looks good on me, and I have to say that I do look good. I hope I don’t look too fancy.
When I walk out in the dress, Skyler whistles. “Wow, girl! Jaxon is definitely going to hit me for this.”
“Why?” I ask, but Jaxon knocks on Skyler’s door before he can explain.
“Calla, we’re going to be late if we don’t leave now—” Jaxon stops talking when he sees me at the door. His eyes move from my face, which has a little more makeup on it than usual, to my cleavage, my waist, and finally to the edge of my dress, which is definitely showing a lot of thigh. He clenches his jaw and stares at me, moving his eyes back up my body. It feels like I’m being watched closely. I don’t just stand still; I slowly walk toward him.
I look back at him with the same intensity. He has a strong jawline because he is holding back, and he is wearing a long-sleeved button-down shirt that fits well and has the sleeves rolled up to his forearms. I look down his body, and I feel sexy and confident in the way he looks at me.
Skyler has smartly left, so it’s just the two of us now. With his werewolf speed, he gets in front of me in a flash and grips my waist with hands that say he’ll never let go.
“F**k. You look amazing.” He pulls me close and moves a piece of hair out of my face.
“Alpha, you don’t look too bad either.”
I really don’t know where this new bravery is coming from, but the fact that his irises are getting darker shows that he likes it.
He says, “Now, now, if you keep saying things like that to me, I’ll have to bend you over and show you how much of an Alpha male I can really be.”
I bite my lip and try to forget about my wet underwear. But he can tell I’m turned on because of his stupid werewolf senses, and he gives me that perfect stupid grin that shows he knows he’s gotten to me. He leans in and kisses the spot on my neck where his mark is, and I shudder against him. To keep myself steady, I have to hold onto the front of his shirt. He kisses my neck all the way up to my ear, and then he whispers to me.
“But we can’t skip dinner.”
Then the warmth of his body goes away, and when I look up, I see him casually leaning against the door, as if he’s been waiting for me.
I stomp past him and down the stairs, saying, “You’re the worst.”
Jaxon, the evil genius that he is, just laughs at me.
We listen to music and talk about nothing and everything at the same time on the way to my house. It’s easy to be with him. I never thought I could be this close to someone who isn’t family, but I feel like I can tell him anything and he will love me more. Jaxon has made me the happiest I’ve ever been.
It’s exactly seven when we pull into my driveway. We got there just in time. I get out of the car and see Jaxon opening the back door and taking out a gift that is wrapped nicely.
I walk around to his side and ask, “What is that?”
“It’s just a small gift for your mom. She made dinner, so it’s the least I could do.”
I laugh and say, “Jaxon, you’ve already met her. A lot.” “You didn’t have to buy her anything.”
He takes my hand and starts to walk me to the house.
“I know, but I promised you I wouldn’t let you down. If this is what it takes to impress your mom and show her that moving in with me is a good idea, then I want to do everything I can.”
“Aw, you’re so cute.” I kiss him on the cheek while standing on my toes. I think I can see the tips of his ears turn pink, but he opens the unlocked door before I can say anything.
“Mom, we’re home!” I yell from the door. As soon as I smelled the red sauce, I knew she had made her own lasagna. I can’t help but think about how good it tastes.
“Hey, honey! Come into the kitchen!” my mom yells from the other room. I hold Jaxon’s hand and squeeze it when I feel some of his nerves through the bond. We walk hand in hand to find my mom. Up until now, he’s been pretty calm, but I think the thought of seeing my mom in such a formal setting has made him a little nervous.
I think it’s cute that he can beat the crap out of anyone without getting nervous, but he gets nervous before seeing my mom. It makes me love him even more. As we walk into the kitchen, I can tell he’s starting to calm down.
“Is it okay that I made lasagna?” my mom asks as she puts the oven mitts she was wearing in a drawer.
“Sounds perfect, Ms. Dalton,” he says like a true gentleman.
“Please, for the last time, call me Aurora.”
“Okay. Thanks, Aurora. Here’s a little gift for you. It’s actually for you, Calla, and Maisie. You can all open it when you’re together.”
My mom looks at me funny and doesn’t touch the gift. She starts to look around us and at the couch in the living room, but she doesn’t seem to find what she’s looking for.
“Are you okay, Mom?”
As she walks quickly around the house, she mumbles, “They called and told me I didn’t need to come.”
“What are you talking about?” I don’t get why she’s so upset, so I hold her shoulders still so she stops walking around the house. Jaxon comes up behind me and tries just as hard as I do to figure out why her mood changes so quickly. Her hands are shaking and her eyes are wide open, which makes her look frantic.
“The daycare called and told me that you picked her up.”
I need a few seconds to think about what she says. Then it hits me like a train: my mom is talking about Maisie.
“I didn’t pick her up, Mom!”
As the panic rises, my heart drops to my stomach. This can’t be happening. My mom was supposed to pick her up today. We made a schedule over the weekend for who would pick Maisie up on what day. Wednesday is Mom’s day. We talked about it. Why wouldn’t she call me to make sure I was the one picking her up? And why would the daycare give Maisie to a stranger and say it was me?
I don’t need to look into her disappearance any more because I already know what happened.
The coven took Maisie.
The downward spiral of fear and worry has begun, and even with Jaxon’s hand on my back, I can’t stop breathing heavily. My mom is too busy freaking out to notice how upset I am about Maisie’s disappearance, but I bet I’m even more upset than she is.
A mother always worries about her kids, but I might be worrying more about Maisie because I know who took her. I was so worried about the coven coming after me that I didn’t even think about them coming after my loved ones. I trusted Felix and Elise too much. I should have taken Jaxon seriously. He’s my friend, and he’s lived in this supernatural world his whole life, so he knows better than anyone what they could do.
Why did I let my friendship with Felix blind me so much? I trusted him. I had faith in him. And now my sister’s life is in danger. If she passes away…
“Calla, take a deep breath for me,” Jaxon says, putting his hands on my cheeks and breathing through his nose to get me to do the same. I do, but a sob catches in my throat and I start to sniffle again.
“Baby, we don’t know for sure that the coven took her.” He sounds so sure that Maisie is safe, but I can feel how he feels. I’ve gotten good at going deep into the complicated mess of feelings that are in front of me. At first, it was hard to understand that I was feeling things that weren’t coming from my own mind. The only thing that makes me think Mr. Alpha isn’t completely sure what he’s telling me is that I’ve learned how to understand it.
When my mom picks up the phone and starts mumbling words that are too low and jumbled for me to understand, my anxiety goes through the roof. But I get the idea: she’s calling 911. I can’t let her do that.
I quickly pull the phone away from her, shaking hands, and say, “Mom, you can’t call the police.” She looks at me with glassy eyes.
“Give me the phone, Calla.” I know she’s really upset and confused by what I’ve done, and I would be too if I didn’t understand why the police wouldn’t be able to help. I have to find a way to make my mom believe that Jaxon and I are taking care of things, even though I’m crying. Well, as well as a missing 6-year-old can be.
“I can’t, Mom.”
Jaxon has been pacing the living room the whole time this conversation has been going on, and I’m sure he’s been mindlinking with some of the pack to see if anyone knows where Maisie is. He has said that there are wolves outside my house all the time, so it’s possible that he has people watching my mom and Maisie. I don’t know half of what he does, but I’m glad he’s here to help me sort this out.
My mom starts yelling at me and tries to take the phone from me. She looks like a mother bear protecting her cubs with her angry eyes. I make a bad choice and throw the phone against the wall. I hear the plastic crack as it breaks apart before it even hits the ground.
“Calla, what the hell? What is wrong with you? Your sister is missing, and you won’t even let me call the police?” She runs past me in a panic looking for her phone. I think she’s running to her purse by the front door, but in her panic, she doesn’t see that it’s right behind her on the kitchen counter. That should give me a few minutes to talk to Jaxon.
He saw everything that happened with my mom, but he seemed to be out of it. And angry.
“Does anyone—”
“No,” he says, not even needing to hear the rest of my question. “The pack guards I had assigned to Maisie were knocked out. They just woke up, but they don’t know what happened or who took her.”
The tears that are always there are now coming out with more force. He puts his arms around me right away. I’m sure silk, and not gets on his nice button-up-whole shirt, but he doesn’t seem to care as he runs his fingers through my hair to calm me down. It would have made me feel better at any other time.
“Skyler and Ezra are coming here with some of my best warriors. We still don’t know if—”