Several people were seated, looking out of place in the mayhem, and they were all looking at her as if she had grown another head. But she ignored them as she focused on her mate.
Jax had someone by the throat, dangling him up in the air. It was the man Jax had warned her not to piss off.
“Jax, stop!”
Red eyes turned to meet hers. Half beast, half man, the man she loved was covered in blood and full of murderous rage.
Jax threw the man aside and ran around the mess he’d made to pull her into his arms, covering her in blood in the process. She could feel his heart working hard as it beat against his chest.
“Did they hurt you?” Jax asked.
“No. But we have to go,” she whispered.
Would they make it out alive after what Jax had done?
“I need to finish what I started,” Jax growled as he released her and turned away from her.
‘At what cost?’ she asked him in his head, grabbing his arm to stop him.
Why was he going against everything he had taught her?
‘We have to stop them, Layla.’
‘We can’t afford another war. We have to go, Jax. The Hunters got Faith.’
Jax turned back to her, and his rage disappeared. He shifted back to the form she was used to.
“How?” he growled.
But he started to pull her out of the room before she could answer. She was at the doors when she looked back at the man Jax had been about to kill and saw the snarl on his face. His anger hit her in the face, and she stumbled as if it was a physical punch.
Maybe she should have let Jax kill him.
As soon as that thought entered her head, she pushed it away. Despite how crazy they all seemed and all their stupid laws, dark magic and assassin vampires, they were wolves. They weren’t supposed to be the enemy. The Hunters were the enemy they all had to worry about.
Jax pulled her out of the hotel without anyone stopping them. He was peeling out of the car park when he met her gaze.
‘How did you break through the Circle’s wards?’
She remembered the way they had all looked at her and shrugged. In the back of her mind, she already knew that was one more thing that made them different—another reason for Jax to doubt their bond.
The wards going out of the parking lot felt like a little tickle, a far cry from how strong they’d felt when they had arrived. Butshe didn’t relax until Jax had sped further from the hotel and made sure no one had chased after them.
And only then did the wolf loosen its grip on her and disappear as if it hadn’t come.
It was inevitable now.
They were going to war with the Circle.
Chapter 26
“Are they coming after you?”
Jax cradled the phone on his shoulder while he thought about how to answer Dylan. The Hunters spotted near Faith’s college were all the proof they needed that those bastards were involved in all the disappearances. The whole pack would be worried.
Did he want to worry them with details of how much he’d pissed off the Circle, too? No.
But it had to be done. The pack had to prepare for the fallout that was coming. Once again, he was the reason everyone would suffer.