She could hear his sharp inhale before he turned around and canted his head, arched his dark eyebrow up and leveled her with those serious caramel brown eyes of his. “What did I say about saying sorry for things that aren’t your fault? This ain’t your fault.”
She smiled from where she was bent over, head thrown back so she could look up at him. She couldn’t help herself.
“What’s funny?”
“You said ain’t.”
With a deep, reverberating chuckle, he pulled her up straight again and hugged her to his chest. “I’ll probably say it a lot. That’s how people talk here.”
“Well, then I ain’t sorry for being about to Change uncontrollably and maul everyone.”
Jax snorted and shook his head. “Woman, you can’t hurt anybody here. I keep telling you. They’d welcome the fight. She-Devil can’t scare any of the shifters in these mountains. It’s not like with Red Havoc. You can’t topple a crew here. Damon’s Mountains are fuckin’ concrete at this point. Been through more battles together than anyone would ever believe. You can do your worst, and they’ll just laugh and play swat-the-kitty. Now, I won’t let them hurt you too bad, but She-Devil’s about to learn some tough lessons on proper animal behavior.”
“So that’s why we’re here? To tame She-Devil?”
“No, Anna,” Jax murmured, tone going deadly serious. “We’re here to save you.”
Right. Annalise forced her lips into a tight smile and then followed him as he led her down the trail again. Poor Jax, thinking she could be saved. He didn’t know She-Devil’s thoughts, though. He wasn’t in her head, listening to all the ways she planned on killing things around her. He hadn’t heard She-Devil’s plan to kill the Red Havoc Crew, and then move on to the lions just to sate her thirst for violence.
Thank God she hadn’t been Turned into a dragon because she would’ve burned the world to ashes by now.
Every step was agony as her cells begged to morph into the panther. Chest heaving, she stepped out of the edge of the woods with Jax and winced against the harsh sunlight that shone from between two mountains in the distance. A sudden and piercing headache blasted across the back of her eyes.
The chatter of a crowd made her dizzy, and she swayed on her feet as she scanned the river in front of her.
“Anna,” Jax said. “This is Bear Trap Falls.”
There was indeed a waterfall that a tall man with black hair and dark eyes was diving from. It was one of those graceful ones that belonged to an Olympic diver. She’d only ever been good at belly flops.
“That’s Creed,” Jax said, gesturing to the man who hit the water with barely a splash. “He was my alpha growing up before I went rogue.”
Further down the sandy beach, there were a couple dozen lawn chairs in neon pinks, oranges, greens, and blues. Tiki torches had been stuck in the ground, and there was a literal giant pulling a pair of beer bottles from an old, scuffed, blue cooler. Sitting in the chairs, there were at lease fifteen people talking and laughing. Some wore bathing suits, some wore cut-off shorts and flipflops like Annalise. The men wore mostly jeans with the rippling muscles of their chest and abs on full display. The pervert in her rejoiced. Across the river a few shirtless men were tossing a football and having a loud, echoing argument about who threw the most like a girl.
In the sky, a falcon circled, and through the woods she could see movement. A massive silverback gorilla walked beside a chestnut-colored grizzly bear, both sets of eyes warily on her as they made their way slowly through the trees.
Beside her, Jax lurched forward as someone shoved him from behind, and Annalise reacted. She snarled and crouched, ready to Change and kill the assailant of her mate, but Jax’s attacker looked shockingly familiar. He had Jax’s face. Same height and build, just different tattoos across his arms, and a single, long scar that zigzagged down his cheekbone.
“Cut it out, fucker,” Jax muttered, locking up with him and wrestling. It was funny watching two grown-ass giant men play-fight like little kids.
“Ma!” his twin yelled as Jax got him in a head lock. “Ma! Ma, Ma, Ma, Ma, M—”
“Holy hell nuggets, what, Jathan?” a tiny woman in a yellow polka dot tankini yelled over her shoulder from where she sat in a bright orange chair. She had brightly dyed red hair and wore sixties-style horn-rimmed sunglasses and a floppy straw hat. In her hand was one delicious-looking purple beverage that Annalise was pretty sure was some type of pomegranate flavored beer.
Jathan twisted and escaped the headlock, then shoved off Jax and straightened up. “Your least favorite son has returned.”
So, that was Willa. Even wracked with waves of pain, Annalise smiled at the way Willa’s face transformed when she laid eyes on her son. She’d never witnessed a bigger smile.
The tiny Second of the Gray Backs screamed and high-kneed it across the sandy beach, her brightly painted red toes digging in with each step until she reached Jax and threw her arms around him.
Jax caught the little wrecking ball and picked her up off the ground with his hug. “Hey, Ma.” He probably had fifteen inches of height over her, but she was squeezing his neck so hard his words had come out strangled.
It was so fucking cute seeing her giant, muscled-up, tatted-up, badass mate rest his cheek on top of his mother’s head and swing her gently. Up until the point Willa wiggled out of his arms and shoved him in the chest. “Village idiot, you can’t pick up your damn phone anymore? I called you three times.”
“You called twenty-four times, like a psychopath, and I wasn’t ready to talk,” Jax said without missing a beat.
Willa narrowed her soft brown eyes, the same color as her son’s, and arched her gaze to Annalise. “Are you her?”
Annalise stood there confused, her body humming with the urge to Change. “Am I who?”
“Are you the one who is gonna fix my boy?”
Annalise shook her head, baffled. “He doesn’t need fixing.”
“Oh, good,” Jathan said with a grin. “Jax found a lunatic. A hot lunatic, though.” He nodded at Jax with a wink. “Good one, bro.”
When Jax shoved him hard in the shoulder, Jathan took two harsh steps backward and flipped him off.
Willa took a step closer, dragging a calculating gaze to Annalise’s neck, right where Jax had bitten her, then back to her eyes. The tiny woman felt much bigger than her frame, though. She was heavy, dangerous, and she was standing too damn close to Jax, and therefore too damn close to She-Devil. Annalise snarled and doubled over. Desperate to hold onto her skin, she put her hand out and pleaded, “Don’t come any closer. I can’t…I can’t stop her.” A panther scream clawed its way up her throat, and this was it. This was the moment that had mortified her to think about. The moment when she would shame Jax in front of his people and show them how broken she’d become.