Page 35

Jaxson

ALESSANDRO’S GAZE NEVER lifts from his feet as he swiftly traverses across the field toward us. Either he’s worried about tripping or stumbling in front of the new kids , or he’s hiding what his normally pleasant face can’t. My stomach twists as I catch him discreetly wiping away tears and trying to disguise the gesture by brushing a hand over his gelled faux-hawk, held in place with enough product that there’s no reason to check on it.

He’s about fifteen feet from us before I can hear his erratic breathing, how it gets hitched in his throat. When he does reach the patio, he spins on his heels to face the field, head still down, refusing to look at or acknowledge anyone. So obviously Xander, Ethan, and I check in on our true-mate bonds with Billie, feeling anguish, remorse, and an alarming amount of anger.

“Fuck,” Xander groans, stumbling back a few steps and clutching his chest as if the intensity of her rage moved him physically.

“That’s...” Ethan starts, then swallows. “That...” He stops, realizing he doesn’t know what to say, and instead he turns to gaze at the side of Alessandro’s hunched form.

Alessandro draws in a long inhale and forces his head up—forces himself to stare at Billie, who is alone in the middle of the field, experiencing some seriously hot-blooded fury. He had to leave her there, knowing what she was feeling. This time he doesn’t wipe the tears away. He lets them trail down his face, and he blows out a congested breath. “She needed enough emotion to withstand the double draw of energy.”

Bringing my gaze back to the field, I focus on her small huddled form about fifty yards away from us. After a moment, she spreads her arms wide and opens her chest. That alone has the hairs on the back of my neck standing up. The air around her begins to waver, and the ground below her shimmers with moisture. My eyes bulge, seeing small leaks of her power change the environment around her. Only to flinch in shock. It was just shocking, all right ? Everything was quiet, and then out of nowhere, she yelled out, “Haduken!” and smacked her palms together.

I throw a forearm up to cover my eyes from the large wave of, not her normal green but, bright-white energy exploding out from her. Like after a rock is thrown in a lake—if the rock were a meteor and the lake were a pool of rolling magma—the first wave is massive and followed by smaller waves and ripples. The bags of gravel and rock salt placed at the ten-foot and twenty-foot marks disintegrate. They just poof out of existence, leaving behind clouds of dust. What remains of the backs of the white plastic chairs are scorched black, smoking, and burning on the ground.

My jaw drops open and doesn’t close, seeing the targets at the thirty-foot marker blow apart, and the ones at forty feet split open, the chairs falling to the ground. Even those at fifty feet don’t remain unharmed, getting knocked over and spilling their contents onto the ice-coated grass. What shocks me more is the even totality of it, the equal destruction in every direction. Her first wave shrinks to dim ripples by the time it reaches us, still holding enough power to move us all a few steps back.

Fine! Fine! Not all of us.

It moves everyone but the twins and Xander. And Xander is already running to her, refusing to let her power slow him down. He’s sprinting to our mate, who was thrown to the ground from the force of her own power, her small frame curling in on itself. Ethan and I race after our alpha on our way to her, everyone else following close enough for me to hear.

“ Mama mia! ”

Assad shouts. Heydar grunts his agreement.

“Holy shit,” Naomi rasps. I peek over my shoulder, noting the dark eyeliner around her wide eyes making the whites look gigantic among her delicate features.

“Woo-hoo!” Asher cheers, throwing a fist in the air. “Duchessa of Destruction, and we’re hers!” Although I’m worried about my mate and her well-being, a small smile cuts across my lips looking at her two gentry. The two kids her fox took under her, seeing what Little Fox saw, what she felt: excitement, loyalty, and play, even in difficult situations.

I weave through the five circles of—well, Asher had it right: destruction. Dust clouds swirl in the cold air, mixing with the black acrid smoke spiraling off the melting plastic of several chairs, the soles of my old sneakers providing little protection from the jagged pieces of gravel scattered over the yard, the rock salt crunching underfoot. By the time I get to Billie, Xander’s half kneeling on the ground next to her, his hands hovering over her body curled up in a fetal position, his glowing eyes following his hands, assessing her injuries.

Her ribs expand with her effort to breathe through her nose, and her exhales are punctuated with her standard “Fuckity, fuck, fuck! Breathe, Billie” growls of pain, garnering another unexpected uptick of my lips. Fuck, I love her.

Xander reaches for her forearms, wanting to see her hands, having curled herself around them like she doesn’t want anyone to see them. Keeping her eyes tightly closed, she tugs away from him and shakes her head, hissing, “Just give me a minute.” Xander exhales a frustrated growl and brings a hand to the back of her neck. She returns his growl. “No, X, please.” She pants. “I... I need to figure out how to deal with the pain.”

Growling more, Xander snatches his hands away from her and speedily shoots to standing. His glowing eyes stare at her with a mixture of pain and ire, while smoke damn near puffs out of his flaring nostrils. Clenching his hands into fists at his sides and gritting his teeth, he forces himself to take several steps away and then turns around so he doesn’t have to see her.

It’s got to be killing him to know he can ease her pain, take it away, and she’s not letting him. If I had the ability, I’d rather her yell at me for not listening than stop myself from helping her. I look up to find Ethan, his body rigid, his jaw tight, while he inspects the damage with Heydar and Annabelle, distracting himself from the pain she’s choosing to feel.

Yeah, not me. I can’t do that. I’m not like them. Falling to my knees, I reach for her. Heat is simmering from her, and I gently slip off her knit hat. It’s so drenched with sweat that even the poms look droopy. Poor poms . I brush her sweat-soaked hair back from her blotchy face, noticing the short, jagged, faint red lines streaking down her cheeks and the drying tears over them. Licking my dry lips, I murmur, “Why do you want to deal with the pain?”

“So she can learn how to recover faster,” Assad states from behind me. I rotate my head to him. His arms are crossed over his wide chest, his head tilted to the side, staring at our mate with a look of admiration and the ghost of a grin on his face. “The pain is making her vulnerable.” Squinting his eyes, he glances around at the blown-apart bags and sweeps an arm out. “What would be the point of doing this if you’re left open for an attack after?”

Billie comes to standing without placing her hands on the ground, letting them hang at her sides. They’re swollen and red—really red. Her bloodshot eyes find Assad’s. “How long?” she asks.

He turns his stopwatch to her, which I didn’t even know he had. “Two minutes seven seconds, Duchessa .” He pauses, shakes his head, and grunts. “Much too long.”

She numbly nods and snickers. “Yeah, could have just given me the length of time. No need for the commentary.”

Alessandro has remained silent standing next to Assad, staring at her hands, which she’s still trying to keep hidden close to her body. Shaking his head, he rewraps his arms tightly around his waist and takes a shuddering breath. “ Non lo sapevo, la mia stella . I didn’t know the pain...” He sucks down a clogged inhale. “That the level of emotional or physical pain needed would be so great.” Alessandro looks up from her hands to her face, his eyes shining with tears, and his lips set in a thin line.

Billie steps toward him and lifts her arms, hugging him with her elbows over his shoulders, and I gasp, really seeing her palms. They’re not just red. No. There are blisters from her palms all the way down her wrists disappearing under the sleeves of her jacket. I trail my eyes back up—and shit, her fingertips. The skin on her fingertips is peeling back, and there are patches of black.

Alessandro greedily wraps his arms around her waist and burrows his head into her shoulder. His body trembles with his gasping, shaky breaths. Billie winces and forces a smirk. “Sandro, it’s fine. We needed to know what it takes. It’s not like you created the process. It wasn’t you who decided the emotional and physical pain needed for the slam-badda-chicka-BOOM to—” She pulls back, grimacing as she tries to giggle. “To take out anything in like a thirty-foot radius. And”—casting her gaze around, she motions with her elbow and sighs— “I mean, it seems like a more-than-fair trade-off. I wouldn’t want it to be painless and easy to do. It’ll make me really evaluate and think about using it.”

His hand touches the side of her face, and his brows furrow—he’s probably feeling the heat and seeing the thin cracks on her cheeks. Dropping his hand, he turns, his eyes studiously taking in the damage she created. He nods in agreement, because it does make sense. Placing his hands on his hips, he shrugs. “No royal alive that I know of has this power, and we...” Hesitating, he casts an assessing gaze over our audience and quietly states, “As royals, we do not record our powers. Everything we know about them is either from journals of old, before we stopped recording, or passed down orally from one generation to another. Only other royals and those who are bonded to us know what we can do. All are sworn to secrecy. Too many royals have died or been used for powers such as this.” My stomach knots at hearing his words, the reality that even when we get the wolf packs in order, because we will, and then resolve the lab testing, my mate will still be a target. There will always be others who want some part of her. Blondie growls and slams his tail down. Yeah, I’m with you buddy. We won’t let anything happen to her or Little Fox.

“That’s why royal powers are such a mystery,” Ethan murmurs, startling me. I spin my head around, finding him floating his way right by me to stand behind Billie. Just came out of nowhere like a freakin’ ghost. His hands latch onto her hips, his fingers gripping through the puffy jacket, pulling her to him while he bends over to nuzzle her neck.

Alessandro nods. “ Si, mio amico . When people know of your power, they will treat you differently and may become envious.”

Billie relaxes into Ethan’s hold and tilts her head to the side, her face still blotchy and... wet. It’s straight-up wet. Not glistening. Not shimmering. Nope, her face is drenched with sweat. And even more sweat is being added in the form of streams rolling from her hairline and disappearing under her collar. Ethan hums and burrows deeper. Closing his eyes, he inhales and rubs his cheek and mouth along her neck. He’d probably say he’s assessing her, but he’s also scent marking himself with her—kind of masturbatory if you ask me. And why the hell didn’t I think of doing it? My fingers comb through my hair, which are still damp with her sweat. There, much better.

His eyes open, and I see the dip of his brows when his gaze catches sight of her hands. “Why don’t we get inside?” he suggests, kissing her head before straightening up. He peers around the group, his face—yup, you guessed it—is glistening with her scented sweat in the light of the setting sun. His eyes focus just behind me, where Xander’s standing motionless with his back to us. “Have you sat with the pain long enough to let Xander help you, my love?” Ethan asks loud enough for Xander to hear. His body trembles, and his fists unclench and clench.

Billie adjusts her position in Ethan’s arms and swivels her head around until her eyes land on Xander. They flash bright green and white, and I feel a subtle wave of her power drift on the wind over to him. His shoulders drop from his ears, and he releases a long exhale before turning around.