Even Ben cracked a smile. “Why do you want to be a part of my crew, Grizzly. This is panthers only.”
“Well, my mate is a panther, and she picked this place, so I’m settling. You can let me in, or I’m just going to hang out here, pestering the shit out of you until you do. I’m unpledged, been a rogue since I was eighteen, and I have a big stake in this crew.”
“Being?” Jenny asked from where she was approaching, holding little Raif’s hand.
“Being this pretty kitty right here,” he said, making his way toward Annalise. He wore faded blue jeans, and his tight, white T-shirt was streaked with dirt from unloading 1010, but under his baseball cap, his smile was bright and easy, like it had been in Damon’s Mountains. He draped his arm over her shoulders, and she instinctively leaned in closer to be nearer to him, and to feel the warmth and safety he always blanketed her with. She-Devil purred.
“Wherever she goes, I go,” Jax said. “She wants to be Second of Red Havoc, so here I am. You’ll have the fealty of my bear when things go south here, Ben. And they will. You know it and I know it. I’ll back you in whatever decisions you make for the crew so long as they keep Annalise safe.”
Ben shook his head and kicked at the dirt with the toe of his boot. At least he hadn’t given a hard no yet. Sensing weakness, Annalise pounced. “Think about it. You and the boys won’t have to watch me at night anymore. Jax is a grizzly and protective of me. He can handle any of my night shifts on his own. You can sleep.”
“I think you’ll be good for the crew, Annalise. I vote yes for both of them,” Greyson said, raising his hand and shocking the ever-lovin’ shit out of her. That was way more than a single syllable caveman grunt. She was going to mark off number five on her short-term-goals list as soon as she had her journal in hand again.
“I vote yes,” Jenny said quietly.
“I like bears,” Raif said earnestly, raising his hand like he was in school.
Ben looked at Anson, who rolled his eyes and raised two relaxed fingers. “I like fighting.”
Ben gritted his teeth so hard a muscle twitched in his jaw. “Before I consider letting a goddamn dominant Gray Back grizzly into my crew, Annalise, you have to tell me something.”
“Okay, shoot.”
“Tell me what this crew means to you.”
Annalise smiled. “It means home. I know what you all were doing out in those woods—protecting me from myself, protecting me from the lions. I watched you exhaust yourself. Ben, I started thinking you were going to put me down, but you gave Jax a chance to help me instead. You’re a good alpha. I want to be a better panther, be a better shifter, and I know you can help me. And maybe someday I can be valuable to this crew, too. I don’t feel so sick anymore. So unsteady. I think I can do this, be a good Second if I work hard enough. I want that. It gives me something to aim for. But I can’t join your crew without Jax.” She wrapped her arms around his waist and rested her head against his pec. “I picked him before I ever met him. Grizzly, human, panther, it wouldn’t matter to me. He’s just my Jax, and I’m his Anna.”
Ben shook his head. “I can’t fuckin’ believe I’m about to do this.”
“Do it,” Jenny drawled.
“Dooo iiiit,” Anson said. “I love stupid-decision Sundays.”
Ben cleared his throat and crossed his arms over his chest, lifted his chin high, and smiled down at Annalise. “I thought I was going to lose another one, and it ripped me up. I couldn’t sleep. Couldn’t eat. I was sick, just thinking about you not being salvageable. Whatever Jax did to help you…I owe him.” Deep emotion welled in the alpha’s eyes, and he cleared his throat hard. “Jax and Annalise, welcome to Red Havoc.” He turned and wrapped his arm around Jenny’s shoulders and kissed her on the side of the head as he walked them back to their cabin.
“We’re still not the C-team though, so fuck you,” Anson said, shoving a middle finger in Jax’s face.
Jax snapped his teeth and barely missed biting his finger off.
Anson yelped and slunk toward his cabin. “I’m not scared of you,” he said when he was almost there, but he did check over his shoulder a couple of times.
Greyson gave them a half smile, then made his way back to 1010, climbed up in the big rig, and drove it away from the trailer. In the woods, Barret’s panther screamed again.
“Are you sure this is the life you want?” Jax asked, hands on her hips as he turned her slowly to face him.
Annalise scanned the clearing, from the row of cabins, to 1010 sitting in the evening shadows of the Appalachian Mountains, back to the man she loved. Inside of her, She-Devil was quiet and steady, watching her mate. Everything she wanted was right here. “I think it’s the life I need. I think maybe Beaston was right. I used to think the bite was a curse, but now I think fate was giving me a gift instead. I had to go through what I went through so I could appreciate you. So I could be stronger. I used to wish for my old life,” she said, slipping her hands up his chest and around his neck. “I just wanted to be steady again, but there was no adventure back then. Every day was the same. Maybe I was stunted by normalcy. Now I think I wouldn’t really understand joy if I hadn’t learned how bad things can get. And I know I would’ve never understood how much I could shoulder if I hadn’t been tested. Jax,” she murmured through an emotional smile, “we’ll never be alone again.”
Jax looked so damn proud. “I wouldn’t change a single thing about you, Anna.”
But she knew what he really meant. Lifting to her tiptoes, she pressed her lips to his and hugged him tightly. And when she eased away, she whispered, “I love you, too.”
Today was the first day of the rest of her life when she would get to mark one of the last numbers off her list. She would live happily ever after in the woods with a bunch of gross boys who were probably making moonshine on the mountain behind the cabins.
This moment right here, standing in front of 1010, nestled in the mountains that called to her heart, safe and warm and whole in the arms of the man she adored, she, Annalise, Almost Alpha of the Red Havoc Crew, had found the life she wanted.