Page 132 of Wolf's Mark

There was that word again. I grimaced and she laughed. “Don’t do that,” I told her. “I’m not ready.”

“Like hell you aren’t. And who is that hunky attorney?”

“A human,” I told her.

“Growl,” she murmured and Jax shook his head.

“It’s time to take my mate home as I said.”

“That’s just it, Jax. That’s not my home and we’ve been pushed into an arrangement neither one of us had anything to do with or likely wanted. I don’t think being together is going to ultimately make us happy. Mate or no mate. Pheromones be damned.”

He moved in front of me, tenderly brushing a strand of hair from my face. “You need to hear this, beautiful lady. Maybe we were orchestrated into an arrangement that could potentially save the entire Wolfen population, but it wasn’t because either one of us had been forced into meeting. True?”

“Yes, but there is no way our meeting was a coincidence.”

“Why couldn’t it have been? Or maybe you’d prefer to think of it this way. Fate led us to one another. Whatever the goddamn case, I don’t really care. You need to know this right here. Right now. I found you, the person that was meant to be in my life and in my bed. And I am never letting you go.”

CHAPTER 32

Jax

The stench was ripe, the air thick with the scent of wolves.

Some were because of the Alphas I’d ordered to secure the house, keeping an eye out for any unwanted creatures. However, I could also gather an odor representative of another beast.

My instincts and my keen senses told me it wouldn’t be long prior to a planned attack. Murders had continued to increase, as many as ten people attacked at a time. However, subsequent attacks hadn’t occurred within the same area.

Yet.

“Why does Mama like you?”

I’d spent zero time around a child with the exception of Daphne, although even that had been limited. I’d never read a bedtime story. The kid had been a brat coming out of the womb, brilliant and precocious. She’d mastered music by age three, jumpedahead in school by several grades, and never had time to talk to her old uncle.

“Does she like me?” I asked Britney. This girl was just as precocious as my niece and she was exactly like her mother.

Ferocious with all things.

In the two days since bringing them both to live at the house, Britney and Sedona had turned one of the guest rooms into a fairy princess room. She acted as if this was one great big adventure, using the bridge as her personal playground.

“Well, duh, Jax. Can’t you see her face? The way she looks at you?” She rolled her eyes.

It was impossible not to laugh. “You’ve been watching too much television, kid.” I finished cutting the peanut butter and jelly sandwich she’d asked for, realizing I’d gotten more peanut butter on my hands than I had on the bread. And I’d mangled the sandwich to boot.

“Mommy won’t let me.”

“Uh-huh. You know the bookPinocchio?”

“Yes, Mommy read that to me one time. I didn’t like it much.” She shook her head vehemently and frowned when she saw the condition of the sandwich as I placed it on the kitchen table.

“Well, do you remember the part about the little boy lying and his nose grew longer?” It dawned on me I could scare her to death. I would stick with Wolfen politics. It was much safer than navigating the mind of a five-year-old.

She cocked her head before hopping up in a chair. “Don’t you know you’re never, ever supposed to lie? Mommy thinks the sun and the moon rise and set on you.”

As she took a bite of her sandwich, I found myself holding my breath. The kid would keep me entertained for hours on end. She was as delightful and refreshing as her mother.

“How’s the sandwich?”

“Dry. Can I have some milk?”

---