Chapter 16

Jaxson

In my most powerful form of wolf, I stalk out of the medical room, head hunkered down while my father, in the same, black and gray wolf form, follows behind. I aim to rush down the hall, to do right by my mate and rid this bloodline of such scum, but my father’s leniency only goes so far with me.

He moves in front of my path, head held high and teeth showing, wanting me to submit but even as my Alpha, he cannot penetrate my anger. I raise my head up with his, showing him I do not intend to submit to a ruling based solely on the perpetrator being his second son, and only on the severity of the harm he has caused the future Luna of our royal pack.

You will stand down, son. Or I will force you.

You’re being more disciplined with me than you are with the son that clawed into my mate’s back. If you intend on blocking me from establishing justice, father, then I will have no choice but to force my way through your decision and make a choice that is best for the future of this pack.

You cannot overstep my ruling; he says firmly through the link. I don’t care what he says at this point, I just need to release this pain building in my chest. Stand down, Jaxson, now!

His wolf howls a noise so deep from his chest, so harsh in tone, that I cannot get past how firm he is being over this ruling, over my intentions to make this right. He would be as angry as I am, perhaps more, if the tables were flipped and he had to deal with choosing his mate over the mistreatment caused from his own blood.

I won’t allow this to go on.

A familiar, fruitful scent catches my nose and soon my attention, seeing Aurora push herself to an awkward, leaning stand against the doorframe where she tries to hold herself upright, her legs failing her seconds later.

I shift back, just in time to catch her in my arms before she hits the ground completely. She hums a noise in my arms, her eyes blinking open and closed slowly, with pause, and I brush the small trail of blood that drips off her throat and shoulder from where I marked her.

She looks complete with my marking on her neck. Like a bow on a present, an extra dazzle of beauty that solidifies the fact that she is my mate, and she will live as my Luna for our future.

I look over my shoulder, my father gone along with the warriors I had allocated to guarding her door. He better hope he handles Xander before I get Aurora settled back in bed and then take matters into my own hands. It all fizzles away with a brush of her hand across my chest, scratching her nails lightly against my taut abdomen, making my wolf stir with excitement from just an innocent touch.

“My head,” she groans, her beautiful, bright blue eyes nothing like I have ever seen. Every inch of her is perfect but the windows of her soul pour out in the expression of cyan jewels for eyes. It makes me melt. “I hear so much in my head, Jaxson,” she mumbles. “So much noise.”

“You’re transitioning,” I say, pressing my hand to her head, feeling warmth build against her forehead. “It will pass soon, I promise.”

“Transitioning?”

“I marked you,” I admit, sure of my decision to do so. “Your link is opening to my pack, to my wolf, and it will be disorienting until it settles. For now, you should be back in bed. You’re still hurt from—” I stop, unwilling to say the words aloud, even if they bare the harsh truth. “Let me help you, sweetheart.”

I pull her slowly with me to a stand, keeping her to my chest as I make it back into the room and set her in bed. It’s the only thing still intact, a nearby lamp and chair both splintered from my father and I shifting so suddenly.

I reach into a cabinet nearby and find a pair of adjustable scrub pants. I slip them on and tie the knot against my pelvis, covering me somewhat while Aurora lays out on her side and watches with heavy, tired eyes.

“Luke,” she says, my heart striking with a bit of pain. “Where is Luke?”

I can only imagine it being the male that ran into the library to save her, something I feel guilty over not being able to do myself. I picture them in the courtyard, holding her to his chest, and tapping into her mind and knowing that she feels a lot of love and compassion for him. Pushing away my own pain, I sit beside her in bed again, brushing my hand through her scalp.

“He’s in the barracks for now, sweetheart, but I will fix that immediately.”

“It wasn’t— it wasn’t him—” she pants. “He— it was—”

I cut her short, knowing it hurts for her to try to explain what really happened. She’s not strong enough for this. “I know what happened. I saw it when I marked you as my mate, Aurora. My father is handling Xander now. I will make sure your friend is taken care of as soon as possible. It wasn’t right for me to take Xander’s words over what happened, but you were out cold, and I had nothing else to go off of. I didn’t expect this, Aurora, and if I knew, I would have stopped it before anything bad would have happened.”

She struggles to sit up, her arms trembling under her frail stature. “I need to see him— he is hurt—”

Healer Michael, I called through the link, my wolf finding him quickly. Please attend to the man in the cells of the barracks, the one believed to have hurt Aurora. I want him to be tended to at once and brought upstairs to the medic wing immediately. He isn’t at fault.

Yes, sire.

I help settle Aurora down to laying back in bed, pulling a sheet over her arms while I watch chills brush up the side of her body. “Stay still, Aurora, I have my healers checking in on your friend. He will be brought up here when he is able. Okay? He’s not a prisoner of our pack. I promise.”

“Just us commoners are,” she huffs, gritting her teeth while I know the pain of her marks have her in a bad state. “We’re all just peasants. Just abused here.”

I tip my head back, so exhausted from this topic. The last thing I need is to argue with her over this. I need to prove she isn’t less than to me, but as it stands, I can’t possibly tell her that while she is wounded from marks of a royal, made in the intention to show that she isn’t as good as the rest of the pack.

“I am going to fix this,” I say at last, exhausted from knowing that no matter what I believe, what I say, there will be prejudices of her status for years and years to come, even as a Luna. Not unless I handle these things now.

She hisses a breath, turning off of her back and trying to lay on her stomach, to ease the pressure off her marks. “Where are my parents? Are they okay?”

I nod, recalling how upset they were when she had gone cold in my arms. They pleaded with my father to let them take her home, to keep her there until she was at least twenty, so she wouldn’t get hurt more, but I refused, thinking that she had been hurt by one of her old friends, and not my own damned brother.

They left yesterday, unable to accept that I wasn’t letting her leave my side.

She wasn’t awake when they said their goodbyes.

“They went home,” I say, watching her eyes shoot up, pale and saddened at my words. “They asked me to let you go with them, but I wouldn’t let them. You belong here, with me, whether you agree or not.”

She buries her face into the pillow.

I can’t stand to see her cry anymore.

Leaving her room, I stop in the hall, watching Michael, my most trusted healer, help my mate’s friend limp through the hallway, one arm wrapped over Michael’s shoulder, his other arm hung over the shoulder of an aid, his body crooked and covered in blood. He has cuts and teeth marks still marked across his torso and legs. Xander did unspeakable damage to his body.

He gives me a harsh, sour look through his bruised eyes. Even if I hate that my mate cares for him so much, nearing the boundary in caring for him, I can’t deny that it’s even hard for me to see him so wounded because of Xander and his hatred for commoners.

“Let me,” I say, pushing out the aid and slipping under Luke’s arm to take some of the pressure off his wounded leg. He scowls but I don’t care, pointing the aid to the door down the hallway from where Aurora cries into her pillow still. “Right here,” I add, helping him sit back onto a bed.

He sighs, exhausted, leaning back onto the mattress like it’s sent from the heavens above. He fights to lay back, to relax, but as I see the long, extensive cuts to his arms and to his side, including an array of bruises. He doesn’t lift his sour look off of me, though, practically scathing at the sight of me with him while my healer tends to his open wounds.

“Where is Aurora?” he asks, breathing so heavy, so harsh, that I think he will hyperventilate at this rate. “Is she okay? Your guards wouldn’t tell me a thing while I was sitting half-dead in your jail, your highness.” His tone is dripping with snide. I have to hold back from wanting to bark at him for speaking to me like this, but I realize that it would only fuel Aurora’s pain more if I snapped his neck and left him for dead.

It surely exhibits the dynamic between royals hurting the commoners.

“She’s healing,” I say, watching Michael work at a gash down Luke’s leg, a mark so long and bold that I can see through his skin and into the bloody tangles of his muscles. “I marked her this morning. Saw everything that really happened. It was a misunderstanding blaming you. My father says he will deal with Xander for what he did to Aurora, and to you.”

He give me a narrow stare, like he doesn’t believe me. Given the record, I wouldn’t either.

Swallowing hard, my stomach hurts when I add, “thank you for trying to protect her at that moment. I hadn’t known what was happening and I should have been there to stop it. But I want to thank you for stepping in.”

“Thank me enough to throw me in the barracks?”

My wolf wants to snap. I hold back for Aurora’s sake. “It was a misunderstanding,” I snarl. “I am making it right. This damn dispute between commoners and royals, I am ending it.”

I replay the moment he told Aurora she can’t be with him or their friends because of her being mated to me, a royal. I could feel it hurt her, and no matter if I want her around this wolf or not, she needs her friends. I know it wounded her deeply hearing that they didn’t want to come, that’s why I held back telling her that I knew her friends refused the invite. I was hoping for the gala to be amazing and seeing her parents there would be enough for her. It obviously wasn’t.

“She doesn’t love you,” he growls.

He’s trying to piss me off. It’s working.

“Not yet,” I say, holding my breath. “It won’t be long before she does.”

“Well, you’re not going about it in a good way, that’s for sure.”

Rolling my eyes, I indulge, knowing that even if he is a smart-ass, he has known Aurora all her life. Maybe he could be of some assistance. “So, tell me then, what do I need to change?”

He pauses, eyes wide at my question.

“She obviously cares for you, so tell me, what is it going to take?”

Shaking his head, he watches Michael take to wrapping up his forearm, cut and bruised with marks that look like teeth bites. “Not a gala, that’s for sure. She just wants to be around people that love her.”

“I love her,” I say quickly in response.

“You hardly know her,” he says without much care of repercussions. So damn cocky. “Change that, and it will help her come around to being with you.”

It’s not the worst piece of advice, but it’s also all I have to start with.