Page 69

I only pay attention to half of what he says. I look at his blue eyes, full lips, and high cheekbones. I look at his face, which I thought I would never see again. His soft features get harder, and he pulls me closer to his bare chest. Yes, he moved.
I quickly understood why he stiffened: Elise was standing in front of us with purple magic swirling around her eyes.
Jaxon wraps his body around mine. I don’t have the energy to do much of anything.
“Please, please don’t hurt her. She’s everything to me. I’ll do anything you ask of me as long as she’s safe.” Jaxon begging for my life breaks my heart. He knows that Elise is stronger than he is. I shake my head, but that hurts too.
Elise’s voice is hoarse from screaming, “Felix wouldn’t want me to hurt her.” She looks weak and strong at the same time. Her face is streaked with makeup and tears, and her body is stiff, which makes for a confusing contrast.
Elise walks slowly over to Felix, who is lying still on the marble floor. A tear falls from her eye and lands on Felix’s shirt. She lets out purple magic while putting her hands on his chest. She says some words softly, but nothing happens. She cries and leans her head on his chest.
Jaxon and I don’t say anything, but I do cry. I know Elise isn’t the good guy here, but she didn’t deserve to lose her brother. She loved him very much and never thought he would get caught in the crossfire.
The sound of Elise’s crying is drowned out by the sound of footsteps. I turn to see five members of the pack rush into the room. Three people focus on Elise, who looks weak but isn’t.
“Don’t touch her,” Jaxon says. The pack members stop moving right away.
Elise looks up and sees the werewolves in the room. She didn’t know they were there until Jaxon told them to stop moving. She only looks at them and then at Jaxon.
“I really want to kill you and everyone in your pack for being a part of my brother’s death.” The pack members stiffen but don’t attack her. “If Felix didn’t get a goddamn conscience and choose to save the person and then that goddamn dog, none of this would have happened.”
She takes a deep breath through her nose and then lets it out right away. She looks at Felix and blinks away her tears.
She says in a low voice, “I’m going to kill her for what she did to you.” She looks at Jaxon. “I hate people. I hate werewolves even more. But I hate my mother the most. I won’t kill you all because Felix wouldn’t want me to. I’m going after my mother, but if any of you try to follow me for any reason, I won’t hesitate to kill you. She’s mine to kill.”
Then Elise looks into my eyes. I can almost feel her pain. She is going through a lot right now because she lost her brother and her mother betrayed her. I give her the most sympathetic look I can muster up, even though I’m in a lot of pain. The black spots take over my vision again, and I can tell I’m about to pass out.
Elise puts her hands on Felix’s chest and opens a portal that takes her and Felix’s body out of the room. Now that the twins are gone, I feel safe in the area. My eyelids flutter shut.
“Calla, stay with me! Don’t pass out on me! Doctor!”
Jaxon yells words that sound like a jumble to me. But one sentence stands out to me, and it’s not even Jaxon’s voice.
“We found her!”
Then my brain goes blank.
***********
The first thing I notice is how bad my head hurts. Then my left side hurt. Then my throat felt tight. I can see the fluorescent lights through my eyelids even when my eyes are closed, and I know right away where I am. The sheets on the bed are the same ones that are in the pack house infirmary, but they are a little rough.
I spend too much time in this room. I came here after the vampire attack, then after the nightmare spell, and now I’m back here again.
I can clearly remember what happened that brought me here. I remember the blood, Felix’s dead eyes looking up at the ceiling, and Jaxon’s pleas for me to be spared. As I try to figure out where I am, my eyes flutter open. I can see my mom and Maisie sleeping in the bed next to mine right away. It looks like they added another bed just so they could stay with me.
Mom’s arms are wrapped tightly around Maisie’s body, as if she’s going to disappear. The two of them are snuggling close together.
I carefully sit up, and right away I feel pain in my stomach and my head. It takes me a few seconds to get my bearings, but then I can sit up straight without feeling like I’m going to fall over.
I’m not dumb enough to try to stand like I did last time, but I still need to make sure Maisie is safe. I don’t know what they did to her while she was with that evil coven for hours.
I grit my teeth as I lean forward to look at Maisie. She looks fine to me, but I know that emotional pain doesn’t show up in a physical way. Thank the heavens that she looks completely fine.
The door is halfway open, and the hinges make a little noise that draws my attention to it. My friend walks right up to me. If I didn’t already know that he could read my mind and probably knew I had just woken up, the timing would be creepy.
Jaxon holds my face in his hands and brushes a piece of knotted hair away from my face. He sits down on the bed’s edge and puts his forehead right away against mine. He sighs deeply as he lightly strokes my cheeks with his thumb. I can see the dark bags under his eyes, which show that he didn’t sleep at all last night.
His messy hair also told me that he had been running his hands through it, which is something he does when he’s stressed or doesn’t have control over a situation. I can only guess how stressed he’s been in the last 24 hours. The whole pack must be worried, but especially Jaxon, because I almost died again.
The warmth that spreads through my chest is calming, and the tingling that happens when skin touches the skin is also calming.
He was worried about me.
He doesn’t say anything; he just stays close to me to reassure himself that I’m safe and alive again. When I get past the distraction of him being so close, I am the one who breaks the silence.
“Is Skyler okay? And what about Maisie? She looks fine, but mental trauma can last a long time and-”
“Both of them are fine. Maisie was found alone in a room coloring. She was a little scared after being transported from daycare, but she’s young and wasn’t hurt. I hope she forgets about it as time goes on.”
Hearing the news makes my shoulders drop into a more relaxed position. Maisie is fine.
“Skyler…” Jaxon goes on, “Skyler had us worried for a minute, but he held on. He’s tough. It seems like he’s too stubborn to die.” The smile shows that Jaxon really cares about his best friend’s mate. It’s easy for me to forget that Jaxon and Skyler are also good friends. They probably spent a lot more time together before I came along and took all of his attention.
“I really believe that Felix saved his life. Without the healing magic…”
No, that warlock or he. Jaxon said his name. When I think of my dead friend, I close my eyes. He died because he didn’t listen to his coven or his mother, but he did what was right. I’ll never see his warm brown eyes again or the way his lips would curl up when I said something too “pure” or “ethical.” How am I supposed to go to that class without him? Knowing that I was to blame for his death…
All I can see when I close my eyes is his open-eyed stare after he was hit by a magic blast. I have no idea where Elise took him…
I don’t even know I’m crying until Jaxon wipes my tears away and kisses my forehead, cheeks, and jawline. He does this with small kisses to show that he loves me and understands. He gently grabs the back of my neck and holds me against his chest as I cry, even though my tears keep falling. I cry for Felix, for Skyler, who is hurt because the coven was after me, and for my mom and sister, who had to deal with this supernatural life because of me.
Every breath hurts my ribs, which makes me remember why they hurt in the first place. Then I cry more, which makes my body hurt even more. It looks like this cycle of pain will never end.
It takes me a little while to get my act together, but Jaxon is there for me. He tells me sweet things and kisses me on the head. I slowly pull away from him when the tears stop. Jaxon’s eyes are always on me.
“What happened to the coven?” I ask hoarsely.
“Some of the more violent and stubborn members are in the cells. Some were able to get away, but I don’t want you to worry about any of that, baby. They only have defensive magic, so nobody can hurt you anymore— not with me around.”
He looks at my face, then down my neck, and finally across my body. The off-white hospital blanket covers part of me, so at first I don’t know what he’s looking at. Jaxon grits his teeth and makes his fists so tight that the skin around his knuckles turns pale. I put my hand on his tense muscles, and that’s when I noticed my own injuries.
I knew I was hurt because it hurt to breathe and move, but I didn’t think about how bad those injuries might have been. I have a few bruises on my arms and legs, and the same hand I used to calm Jaxon is covered in them.
I can feel a light bandage around the part of my stomach that hurts the most. I suddenly want to look in the mirror and see how I look.
I whisper, “Jaxon, can you help me get to the mirror?” while still looking at the purple and blue spots on my skin that used to be pale.
He says, “I don’t know if that’s a good idea, baby,” and he sounds stiff as a board.
I look up at him through my lashes and sigh. The fight in me is slowly going away.
“Please.”
He groans when he sees me, clearly wanting to give in to my sad pleas. He runs a hand down his face, and his eyes glaze over. This is a sign that he is talking to other members of the pack. He is back on me in ten seconds.
“The pack doctor says you need to stay in bed for a while. You shouldn’t move around unless you have to go to the bathroom, and you’ll need someone to help you. You have a lot of injuries,” he says, the last part sounding more like a complaint.