Updated: March 24, 2019
*Just a heads up, I fixed Lena's name in this chapter. It was accidentally spelled "Lina", and that may have confused a few people, but it is Lena.*
-Corvo-
I spent my days either cooped up in the office or out on patrol runs with Jax. Anything to keep my mind off the inevitability of me going to the Council in April to see my mate killed for a crime she didn't commit. The thought brought tears to the surface of my eyes, but these tears weren't from the images of L beheaded, but for what I would do to Jeffries for allowing something like this to happen. L slipped through the cracks and the Council endorsed it without a glance of remorse. They allowed mercenaries to have their way with her from a young age. The idea of her hurt again – my muscles tensed and contracted while my hidden fangs emerged from their caves inside my gums.
The door to the office swung open and Jax stepped in, his jacket slung over his right shoulder, ready to pull on when necessary. I watched him through the giant window looking over the backyard and surrounding mountains. There wasn't a view in the world in comparison to the one around Emerald, but I couldn't enjoy it anymore. I didn't have the familial support I needed, and my mate was hundreds of miles away locked away in some dungeon awaiting a trial she had zero chance of emerging from alive. There wasn't a thing I could do to stop it, and knowing that wrenched my insides until they were a piece of twisted twine at its breaking point.
"Corvo, you called," Jax said from the entry. He kept the door from closing with his foot. I shifted slightly in my seat on the bay window and addressed the blonde man I'd since formally named my Beta. He was my father's Beta, but Jax always respected me a little more than him. While we hid the unbridled loyalty the two of us shared for one another until the day my father died, Alej never questioned. He assumed Jax would take his loyalty to him to the grave. And in a way, he did, just not his own plot.
I cleared my throat and stood, "we're going into the city."
"To Manhattan?" Jax pushed his brows together and threw on his coat. He and I both needed time away from the pack, even just for an afternoon. The mountain, minty air suffocated us in our sleep, demanding our lungs to push harder the long we stayed up on our little hill. I needed time away from my family, and Jax? He had so much on his mind I was sure I could see the problems spilling over from his ears but when I blinked they were gone. My imagination held my sanity in its hands, sure to crush it one of these days.
"Yes," I grabbed my jacket from the stand by the door and pushed between the large man in the middle of the doorway and the edge of the door. He followed me down the steps and out the front door, our presence undetectable from our muffled steps. I didn't have the time to stop and chat with anyone between the house and my car.
At the edge of the porch I froze, Jax nearly sending me down head first, but he halted inches before contact. I felt a slight push of wind at my back. He shuffled to the side to get a better view only to sigh at my younger sister who had her camera to her eye. She lowered it carefully, eyes narrowed as she approached us. Our relationship wasn't anywhere near being what it used to be, and her suspicions grew every day to find out the secrets I hid in my head. She had every right to know. But I couldn't bring myself to end her adolescence with the truth of what happened in the last year. She wasn't ready to take on that responsibility. Ethel didn't deserve the kind of responsibility I carried on my back. It strained me, and while unloading some of it on here would most definitely benefit me, I couldn't do that to her.
"You two going out?" She asked as if I needed her permission. Ethel grinned and let the camera fall to the middle of her chest where it dangled by the strap around her neck. She fooled with the fabric of her coat and waited, unmoving. I knew she wasn't going to let me pass without an answer. She tapped the metal toe of her shoe on the concrete, the clicks a rhythm I couldn't help but find myself replicating with my fingers on the fabric of my jeans.
"Yes," I answered before Jax could open his mouth. We started down the stairs but Ethel stepped in front of us, legs spread just slightly to take up as much of the walkway as she could. "Ethel move," my jaw ticked once.
"You can't use that voice on me. We have the same blood," she smirked. "Where are you going?"
"So I need your permission to go anywhere?" I asked, my voice scratched over with a pumice. "Last time I checked I was your older brother." I didn't dare bring my title into the conversation. Family held a higher post to me than any pack position I held. I refused to turn into the man my father became in his final years. Power hungry and willing to kill to attain it.
"Last time I checked you're the reason our father is dead," she started, her arms crossed. While I wasn't willing to go there, she'd used it ever since the funeral. "As much as I dislikeyou, you're still my brother and I still care," Ethel gritted her teeth with each word, the strap around her neck a little too tight at the back. I let out a breath and allowed my shoulders to fall.
"We're going to Manhattan to meet with a few friends," I said. I didn't lie, but I hoped Ethel didn't see through the thin wall between truth and deceit. She narrowed her eyes, jaw clicked for a moment before she nodded half-heartedly.
"Anyone I know?" Ethel asked. She played at the hem of her leather skirt with a bright silver zipper down the middle of it.
"Nobody we associate with would everbe friends with you," Jax chuckled. He shoved past both of us leaving me to glare awkwardly after him despite his inability to see through the back of his head. Ethel pinched her lips and laughed once before retreating into the yard, obviously convinced we weren't up to anything absurd. Or at least I hoped she was convinced. I stood in my place and watched after my Beta who reached the car and pulled the passenger door open.
"You comin'?" Jax called after me. His voice snapped something back in my head, which allowed me the movement of my legs again. I jogged after the car and climbed into the large SUV. It roared to life and I sped down the driveway before Ethel could turn around and continue her interrogation. Jax shuffled through the music on his phone, each song only getting a second or two in before he switched.
"If you were anyone else I would've had your head for talking to my sister like that," I said. I stared at the road ahead of us but Jax was still in my peripheral. He laughed quietly to himself and flipped through his phone. I rolled down the windows. Spring air flooded the car with hints of pollen that caused Jax to sneeze suddenly. His entire body jerked forward but he recovered quickly, throwing himself back into the seat.
"You don't have the balls to talk to Ethel like that," Jax rolled his eyes and switched the song on his phone. Satisfied, he set the black device on his lap and looked over at me, his blonde brows high on his forehead.
"Says who?" I said, and huffed out my chest a bit. "I've been an ass to her ever since she could walk."
"You should cut her some slack, she cares about you and doesn't want to see you-," Jax said but I cut him off before he could finish his sentence.
"End up like our father?" I snapped, a bit of venom attached to my words. I ticked my jaw twice and let my eyes wander off the road for a second to get a look at Jax. He frowned, just barely, the edges of his lips tipped down toward his shoulders. His fingers rubbed through the scruff on his chin and he watched me from the corner of his vision. We pulled onto the highway just west of Emerald land, and headed off toward Manhattan.
"I wasn't going to -,"
"You were," I hissed and returned my gaze back to the road ahead. "Your son," I started but regretted the words ever leaving my lips the second I heard a defeated sigh leave him. Changing the conversation wasn't a skill I picked up from my father.
"He's still with his grandparents in Hematite," Jax said. "They don't think I'm able to care for him, me being a single father as well as Beta... again."
"You cared for him for the first two years of his life – why the sudden change of heart?"
"They're traditional, thinks a child needs both parents to grow up in our world," he shrugged. "We talk every night before he goes to bed... or at least I talk and he tries to at least."
"Jax if you need some time off-,"
"No, my place is here. Ryder is in good hands – and my priorities right now lie with the pack."
"He's your son."
"This girl needs us, and you need me," Jax cut me off with a quick jab to the throat with his words. "Ryder is happy over there. He knows who his father is and that's all that matters."
"Thank you," I couldn't think of anything else to say. Jax sacrificed a relationship with his son to help me, and despite Ryder being safer in Hematite than here, I couldn't help but wonder what Jax's life would be like if I hadn't named him Beta. Either he would've left or brought Ryder here, but I fear the former would've come to fruition.
Cole and Roddy's apartment was on the eighth floor in an upper Manhattan strip. A twenty-something year old building with windows aged slightly longer than the outside bricks and a front entrance that left too much to the imagination.
"I've seen prices for these places," Jax said as we pulled up onto the street. "How the hell do they afford this without jobs?" He looked out the window like a child at the entrance to an amusement park. His eyes glittered, fogging over while his wolf took a view of the high-rise buildings that were so unlike the colonial-style buildings on Emerald land. We didn't venture into the city often, but we came enough to remember the architecture and how to get around. And yet, every time felt like the first. Rediscovering a brand-new city with buildings higher than we've ever seen.
"Excess Ruby money, I'm sure," I said. "With nobody else left alive they had full control over the bank accounts."
"What were they in?"
"Real estate, same as us," I returned. We pulled up into a spot on the street and hopped out of the car. I went around to the sidewalk to step up next to Jax who glared up at the massive building in front of us.
"Eighth floor?" Jax brought me back to the surface with his hard-worn voice that scratched my inner ear. I nodded once and went forward to the cracked open front door to the building. A small brick held one of the doors open, a large moving van parked just down the street hummed while movers worked inside the trailer. The hinges on the door squealed and protested but I heaved the heavy glass open for both of us. The lobby was as white as a hospital operating room. Dazzling mirrors without a speck of dust on them glittered behind the empty receptionist desk. Marble floors reflected our images as if we were staring into a pool of ocean water. A line of metal mailboxes hung on the furthest wall, some with red tabs sticking out of them and others without. With no elevator in sight, we diverted into the stairwell and climbed the seven flights of metal stairs to the eighth floor. Jax swung into the hallway first with me right behind, both of our lungs working harder than normal. I checked the saved text message from Roddy and turned my gaze back to the numbers on the doors. Their door was a dark green, darker than the grass outside but lighter than the emerald stones embedded in the furniture at the pack house. '86' was nailed to the front of the door just below the peep hole. Jax and I exchanged a glance before I shrugged and reached forward to knock on the door. I hit hard twice only for the door to swing open on freshly replaced hinges. At the motion, I grabbed at Jax and pulled him to the side of the door and out of view. My chest heaved, and I nodded at my Beta who took a defensive step next to me in case someone emerged from the apartment.
We waited, backs flush against the wall. A moment later someone cleared their throat from inside the apartment. I creased my forehead and glanced at Jax who stared back, equally as confused. I took heed and whipped around inside the apartment, living room bright and in view. Papers were strewn on the floor, the off-white carpet barely in view underneath the mess. The throat cleared again. My head shot up at a man and a woman both dressed in dark gray and navy. The woman was blonde, hair taut against her skull and chopped just above her shoulders. The man, on the other hand, had his dark brown curls glued back against his head with a sickly amount of gel. They watched Jax and I carefully, their eyes scanning to make sure we weren't dangerous. Their iris' held almost no color, the pupils blending into the rest of the eye besides the sclera. I knew those eyes, and I knew what they wanted. I moved into the room with Jax at my side who held a defensive stance, arms rigid and muscles tense. It wasn't normal for the Council to send random watch dogs out looking for people without a note to the surrounding packs detailing the search. I studied the female from the toes up, and once I reached the sunken eyes on her face she let out a quick breath and blinked.
"No need to worry boys, we aren't here to hurt you," The female came forward with a hand outstretched. I watched as her fingers, nails painted a dark cherry red, dangled in the air for a moment but I refused to give mine over. She retrieved her arm and stepped back next to the man again. "Lena," she introduced herself. "This is my partner, Benji."
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Hey guys,
It's been a little while since my last update and I apologize. My course load is leading me down a crazy path this semester, but the classes are giving me so much inspiration. Think Global Occult and other things associated with the supernatural. (The great part about senior year in college is that you get to take weirdly fascinating classes)
QOC: Who do you think Lena and Benji are? What do you think they want, and where are Cole and Roddy?
Comment, like, and follow!
Much love,
Kate