Page 21 of Tides of Fate

Nix would be safe and healthy. Nix would be free to be his happy self, always smiling and gentle, untarnished by the horrible memories of Hayes in his life and on the field.

He’d be his old self, and Jamie wanted that more than anything.

“Oh fuck, Nix. Really?” Jamie knows he sounds ridiculously excited and happy.

“Yes. If…you are so unhappy, I will…just stay at home. I can do that for you. The others will be happier too, I’m sure. Gideon wanted to do it, anyway. It will be fine. Good, even.”

Nix stands and brushes off his pants, pasting on a horrible, fake smile that doesn’t reach his eyes.

“Can we go home, Jay? I’m tired. It’s been a long day.”

Jay?Did his Nix just call him Jay? The name lands like a punch to the gut.

Nix has never—not once, in the whole time they have known each other—called him anything but Jamie or James.

Jamie had just let himself feel like he could be Jamie again. After he’d locked that boy away under mountains of grief. After he’d been given this second chance with the love of his life.

“No, it’s okay. I mean, what was I thinking, right? I might be strong, buthe’s cruel,” Nix chuckles, and it’s not in amusement. “Always knew how to make it hurt worse—made me wish I were dead, you know?”

Pacing, he digs his hands into his hair and pulls roughly.

“Made me think I didn’t deserve you. Not that he said your name or anything, but he reminded me I’m just weak and stupid. What was I thinking? It’s a good thing you stopped me.”

He trips, and when Jamie moves to catch him, Nix recoils.

Jamie thinks this might be the worst thing to ever happen to him.

What has he done?

Had he heard a single word Ruthie said today?

Even after all that talk about how fear rewires your brain, how it changes the way you see reality.

They’d spoken about how important it was for Jamie’s pack to make their own choices. How everything he’d told Grayson and Nix—in the beginning—had been right. How he’d said they deserved to make their own choices. That he could master his fear, not the other way around.

Only for him to jump at the first chance to wipe that fear away—and at Nix’s expense.

Jamie hasn’t really changed at all, has he? He’s still stuck in the same cycle.

Fear, dominance, fear—around and around like a demented, not-so-merry-go-round.

Jamie just wants off. He needs to get off before he takes his family down with him.

Gideon, spirit crushed, standing in the gym.

Luca, curled on the other end of Ruthie’s couch, small again—so small—because of Jamie.

Rowan, usually so animated, now stone-faced and closed-off.

Even Grayson, their normally serene Grayson, manically throwing cosmetics into a basket at the store, angry at him and at life.

But it’s the glimpses of Finn, slipping through the house like a ghost on the edge of their life.

And Leo—his unshakable Leo—who had only wanted a single afternoon alone with his mate, ending his bonding day looking guilty and sad.

It is his bonding day, for fuck’s sake—and Jamie had let his fear ruin what should be one of the happiest days for any Were.

Jamie can’t let any of them continue like this.

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