Page 12

12

Jax

I could’ve gone home with Dakota. Probably should have.

Hell, the wolf in my head was snarling that I hadn’t tossed him over my shoulder and dragged him back to my place so I could keep an eye on him. If it’d just been to keep him safe, that would’ve been one thing, and maybe it wasn’t even the worst impulse, but I’d gotten in over my head, and I wasn’t sure I trusted my instincts anymore. Maybe I just wanted to pin him down in my bed again, and that wasn’t going to solve anything.

Well, nothing magical.

He’d be all right for a few hours.

Wouldn’t he?

I thought about nabbing his phone number out of the company directory and calling him, even picked up my phone to do it, but this was—fucking crazy, wasn’t it?

I was losing my fucking mind.

So instead of searching the directory for a personal number that he hadn’t given me, I called my sister.

“What’s up?” she answered, sounding curt, like she was on her way somewhere.

“Do you have a minute to talk?”

“Sure.” Her voice was muffled like she’d pinched her phone between her ear and shoulder. I heard the rustle of paper. “You okay?”

“I’m—”

With a heaving sigh, I got up from my desk and paced along the wall of windows that looked out over the hills around our building. The streets tilted in sharp angles, buildings jutting toward the sky like they were vying for sunlight.

“I’m in trouble.”

“You’re not in trouble,” Jillian said. “We’re fine. Everything’s fine. Tell me what’s going on.”

Right then, I realized I was hearing an echo of her voice.

“Jill, are you still in the office?”

“Hold on.”

I heard the rustle of papers, the snap of a door shutting, the pad of her heels across the carpet. A second later, she appeared in the open door of my office.

Jillian hung up her phone and slipped it in her pocket. “Why are you still here?”

I could ask her the same damn thing, but we knew each other well enough we didn’t have to bother. We were on edge, and for me, the Igarashi meeting wasn’t even the worst of it.

I sighed, dropping onto my couch. “Because here, I’m in charge.”

Jillian’s brow rose. “You’re not in charge everywhere, Alpha ?”

My next exhale flared my nostrils. “If I go home, I’m going to devolve into a—a...”

“A lost pup?” Her expression softened. Better than anyone else, she knew what it was like to feel powerless and afraid. We’d been there together, but our last alpha had given me freedom and opportunities he’d tried to deny her. It was why we fought—I wasn’t going to live in a world where half my heart couldn’t have everything she deserved based on something as nonsensical as gender.

I sighed, raking a hand through my hair, unable to admit how small I felt, even now.

“Tell me what happened,” she said gently.

My breath hissed through my teeth as I dropped my head forward. “I fucked up.”

I could almost hear the eye roll in her voice as she came in and sat on the chair opposite me. “If you’re talking about messing around in Dakota’s office, no, I don’t think that was a great call. But most of us are werewolves and used to worse. Nobody even noticed.”

I stared at the light reflecting off my black oxfords. “You did.”

“And I’m... letting you off the hook for it. He doesn’t seem like the kind of guy who’s trying to trap you in a civil suit or anything, so as long as he’s consenting and you’re not being a fuckhead?—”

I flinched, and she broke off at once.

“You’re not pressuring him, are you?”

I hissed. “No! No. I wouldn’t—every time I’ve touched him, he’s... he’s been there of his own volition. I’m not stupid enough to?—”

“Force yourself on a mage?”

“On anyone. Fuck, Jillian, you can’t think?—”

I raised my head only to see her smirking at me. “I don’t,” she said. “But you haven’t told me what the issue is yet.”

“He... has been with me of his own volition, but he didn’t—he didn’t know what he was doing.”

Jillian grimaced, holding out a hand. “Okay, no. You stop right there, Ajax Fyse. He’s a grown man, and we’re not fucking doing that. You’re not so awful that it’s incomprehensible to him that he might be attracted to you. He...” Her nose wrinkled. “He thinks you’re hot.”

“No, I mean he didn’t know .”

She was looking at me like I was crazy. How could I blame her for that? I wasn’t being clear at all, but it was hard to admit a misstep of this magnitude.

I blew out a breath, uncrossed and recrossed my legs, and fidgeted before I tried again. “Like he didn’t know about magic. Didn’t know about us. He had no idea we’re werewolves. I just told him, half an hour ago, that he’s a fucking mage. He had no idea.”

“Shit.” Jillian blinked. “How is that possible?”

“I don’t know. I have no idea who his family is, where he came from.”

“But you went to Howl last night, right? He found Howl.”

“Yeah, but the wards just keep out humans. He got in. Why would he think anything of it?”

“Other than the room full of werewolves?”

“Yup. That he didn’t know were werewolves.”

“Fuck,” Jillian hissed.

I sighed. “It’s worse.”

“Worse how?”

“I, uh, Awakened him?”

Jillian’s mouth dropped open. “He was a virgin?”

I flinched, nodding.

“Did you know?” she demanded.

Another nod. “He said he wanted me. Seemed so firm about it. I thought it was, I don’t know, an act of rebellion against an uptight mage family or—or something like that. Then I saw him this morning and I thought, well, maybe it was something more insidious. Like... a trap somehow. With Igarashi.”

Jillian’s face screwed up in distaste. “Jax, did you really accuse him of that? And he didn’t even know ?”

“I know. I know , Jill. I fucked up, and I apologized in his office, then he—he seemed to forgive me, which, you know, great.”

She scoffed. “That’s a hell of a way to forgive you.”

“Yeah, so I asked him to dinner.”

She arched a brow. “Just to dig yourself in deeper.”

I rolled my eyes. “So I’m not as good at one-night stands as I was in my twenties.”

“Or you’re bad at them when you’ve freaking Awakened a darling little virgin mage who tells you how much he wants you, big strong alpha man.”

“It’s not like that.”

Her lips pressed into a thin line. “Isn’t it?”

I sighed. “It’s a little like that. But I like him, okay?” I liked the way he looked at me, how his eyes darkened and the way he felt when he reached for me—all warm and supple. “And if I’d known he was going to be working here, I wouldn’t have risked taking him home in the first place, but what would you have had me do, escort him out of Howl and send him home in an Uber? That’s as shitty and condescending as any other ridiculous alpha impulse I’ve had.”

Jillian sighed, deflating until her arms hung limp against the cushion on either side of her. “Okay, fair enough. If he was going to go home with someone from Howl, it’s probably good it was you.”

“That sounds so unconvincing.”

“No, it’s just—” She shook her head, twirling her hand in the air before dropping it back onto her seat with a thump. “Who the hell would go to Howl to lose their virginity? And as a mage? It’s asking to get eaten alive.”

“He didn’t know.”

She held up her hands. “I know. I know. But... shit. That could’ve gone bad .”

I swallowed hard. Didn’t want to think about it. “It didn’t.”

She heaved another sigh. “No... it didn’t go bad. What are you going to do now though?”

“His magic’s going crazy. I said I’d help him. But I don’t know what the fuck I can do for a mage. I just know—” I waved at my desk, my laptop, my oh-so-imposing office chair—all the trappings of having my shit together.

It was all crap.

“What about Prudence?” she said.

I paused. “Do you think she would help him? She’s not big on other mages...”

Jillian shrugged. “You could ask if she has any insight. Maybe she’d be willing to come by the office and give him some advice. It doesn’t sound like he has anyone else, and she of all people would understand that.”

I shook my head. “He said he was adopted. Normal human parents.”

Prudence was one of the first mages who’d agreed to work with us. She was selling copies of grimoires, reproduced from her impressive library and much in demand. The mage families were a lot more willing to deal with us when we had her books on our homepage.

Not that that had impressed her any. Prue seemed generally displeased with everyone, but liked us better than she liked her magical peers.

“It’s worth a shot,” I admitted.

Jillian held her hand out at my desk in silent order to make the damn call. I got up, and my heart was only racing a little when I dialed Prudence’s number.

She answered on the second ring. “What?”

My lips twitched. I’d liked her abruptness. It seemed so real compared to how other mages carried themselves.

“Hey there, Prudence. I was wondering if you’re in town right now. I’ve, um...” I glanced over at Jill, and she nodded me on. “I’ve got a new employee. Freshly Awakened mage. He’s new to the whole thing, and his magic’s getting the better of him. Do you think you could maybe come, I don’t know, check him out?”

“You want me to make sure he’s not going to blow up the building?”

I grimaced. “Or give him some pointers.”

She sniffed on the other end. “What’s his name?”

“Dakota Morris.”

“Don’t know any Morrises,” she grumbled. “Who’s his guardian?”

That gave me pause, but there was nothing for it but to tell the truth. “I—I don’t think he has one.”

She was silent a moment, but when she spoke again, her tone was filled with interest. “Well, all right then. I’ll come by tomorrow.”

I grinned, and Jillian high-fived the air. “That’s great, Prudence. Really. I’ll treat you to lunch. Thank you so much.”

She hummed. “Tomorrow then.”

And the other side of the line went quiet.