Jaxson (River Pack Wolves 1) - New Adult Paranormal Romance (14 page)

Jaxson pushed away from his desk where he’d been hunched for an hour. He ran two hands through his hair, took a deep breath, and stretched the aches from his back. It was past noon, and Olivia still wasn’t returning his calls. Which meant she was
definitely
ignoring him. He considered a stale sandwich from the vending machines downstairs, but opted to just slam back the half cup of cold coffee he had at the desk. He’d tracked down every facet of Olivia’s life that could be gleaned from the public, and less public, databases, and he still had only the barest sketch of her days on the planet.

Foster care. Odd jobs. Tax forms filed, but income too low to pay much in the way of taxes. In fact, he was amazed at how little she got by on. No wonder she was so concerned about the rent. He logged on to Riverwise’s account and authorized an advance on her next three paychecks to be direct deposited to her bank today. No matter what happened between them, he wanted to make sure she had some cushion going forward.

The idea that some asshole was bedding her but leaving her vulnerable to being kicked out of her apartment… Jaxson had to shove away from the computer again and pace his office a while to get his rage under control. How could anyone spend more than two minutes with Olivia and not understand how special she was? He would give anything to have the chance to take care of her, and this guy was just…

He stopped his pacing, closed his eyes, and rubbed his temples.
Focus, Jaxson.

He stalked back to the computer and dove into his research again.

Maybe he didn’t go back far enough. Maybe there was some connection in her childhood, before foster care, to this creep. Jaxson had access to even the most confidential files, but it only took a simple search of the newspapers around the time of her placement in foster care to pull up what happened to her parents.

She had told him they were dead. He didn’t know they had died in an apartment fire that almost took Olivia’s life as well. The official report said the cause of the fire was unknown, but maybe there was something there… some connection that the asshole was holding over her… Jaxson searched the gossip rags and underground newspapers and e-zines. He focused on her parents. Sometimes the most tenuous connections would be whispered in the digital shadows…

Olivia’s mother was a witch.

Jaxson’s hand froze on the mouse. He’d stumbled into a darknet forum thread titled,
Hunters, Witches, and Other Black Arts.
His search had pinged Rowan Lilyfield in that thread, and it was clear that someone thought Olivia’s mother was a witch. There was a whole thread on her: suspected dark art spells performed, a description that matched the other online images he had found of her, and most telling of all… she was raised in a well-known coven on the south side of Seattle. She was a full-blooded witch, although apparently she had married a research professor of some kind rather than taking a male witch for a husband. Then again, male witches were almost as rare as female shifters.

Jaxson slowly lifted his hand from the mouse and leaned back. If Olivia’s mother was a witch, then Olivia was at least half witch. But her mother died when Olivia was only twelve… maybe she was never introduced to the dark arts. Either way, the agitation made him rise up from his chair and pace the room.

Did she know? 
Was she one of them? His mind was a hurricane of confusion and torment. He couldn’t square the Olivia he knew—smart and kind, gentle with nervous job applicants, steady head in a crisis—with what he knew to be true about witches. They toyed with shifters like cats with mice. If one of them had gotten inside Riverwise… Olivia now knew all the members of his pack. Could identify them in public.
And
he’d given her detailed information about three
other
packs as well. If she was infiltrating them, secretly working for her mother’s coven…

Jaxson stopped dead in his frenetic pacing. An icy dread trickled into his stomach.

What if he was all wrong about Olivia from the start?

He stared out his window at the Seattle skyline and just shook his head slowly. Olivia as an undercover witch invading his pack? That just didn’t fit with the tremulous girl he’d made love to last night. Witches were nothing if not sexually experienced—and that’s not something a person can easily hide. Either Olivia was an academy award-winning actress or last night was the first time someone had properly made love to her. Besides, witches used the dark arts to gain advantages in
all
spheres of their lives, including the marketplace.
None
of them worried about the rent.

Jaxson’s shoulders relaxed.

The most likely explanation was the simplest. Olivia was exactly what her digital life portrayed—an orphan who scrabbled her way out of foster care and through a series of deadbeat jobs, looking for some kind of meaning in her life. What had she said, that first time, in the library?
My work is important to me.
At the time, he didn’t really understand, given she’d just left her job at the paper. But now he could see it—she’d been trying to make something of herself, doing something that
mattered.
That’s why she tried to rescue him in the alleyway. And how he’d enticed her to Riverwise in the first place—another chance to help him out of a sticky situation. She’d leapt into that with both feet and stolen his heart in the process.

That
 was the person Jaxson knew. And loved.

Whatever Olivia’s parents had been, they were long dead. She had been surviving on her own ever since, and she deserved better than this mysterious asshole boyfriend who obviously didn’t treat her right.

And Jaxson very much wanted to be that better man.

He glanced at his phone—a quarter past one. He’d give her one more call, but if she didn’t pick up, he was going to her apartment and banging on the door until she let him in. This time, the phone didn’t even ring… it just went straight to message. Which meant she had turned it off.

Dammit.

That’s it—he was going over there to talk to her. He grabbed his keys and headed toward the door of his office, only to see Jace dashing around the common room and peering into the offices.

“Jace?” Jaxson stopped at the threshold of his office. He hadn’t seen his brother since he had cleared out the Wilding pack, hopefully taking them to the safehouse outside the city. “What’s up?”

“Hey,” Jace said, a little breathless as he jogged up to Jaxson. “Have you seen Jared?”

“Nope. Just me in the office this morning.”

Jace gave him a cockeyed look. “Why are you even here, bro? I thought you’d be spending the weekend in bed with a certain hot office assistant.”

“That’s… got some complications.” Jaxson grimaced. “I’m on my way to see her now, actually.”

Jace shook his head. “Man, why are you even messing around with her? I mean, I did what you said and stashed Terra at the safehouse, but she is
so ready
for a mate. It was all I could do to keep her from climbing into my bed last night.”

“At the
safehouse?”
Jaxson’s eyebrows hiked up. The safehouse was their family estate in the mountains outside Seattle, and their
mother
was the caretaker.

“I know, right?” Jace looked disgusted. “Mom would’ve stirred up a shitstorm if she knew. Now, if it was
you
bedding Terra, I think Mom would have made you two breakfast and started planning the wedding.” He smirked.

Jaxson rolled his eyes. Their mother wasn’t just on the bandwagon to find him a mate—she was driving the wagon train. The estate had been a halfway house for all kinds of shifters ever since Dad died, so she was probably used to a few bed-shakings in the middle of the night. It wasn’t like his mother didn’t know the passionate nature of wolves and other shifters. But only a Wilding would try to seduce one of her sons while under her roof.

“Thanks for running interference on that for me,” Jaxson said, still grimacing. “So what’s up with Jared? I thought he’d already taken off for the mountains for the weekend.”

Jace frowned. “I thought he had—but he must have found reception last night because he eventually returned my call about the mission to rescue Cassie. I told him all about it and the warehouse and everything. He was
pissed
that he’d missed out.” Jace huffed a small laugh and shook his head.

“I’ll bet.” Of the three of them, Jared was the most intent on direct assaults from the beginning. Only problem being that they didn’t know where to point the assault team. “So is he coming in?” Jaxson asked, glancing around at the darkened offices.

“That’s just it. I thought he was coming to the safehouse. We were all tired, so we crashed pretty much right away. When I woke up, he still hadn’t showed. I’ve been calling, but he hasn’t been picking up. I thought maybe he’d come here…” Jace’s voice drifted off as his eyes went wide.

Jaxson figured it out at the same time. “He went after the warehouse.”

“Shit.” 
Jace grimaced. “Oh
man,
I shouldn’t have told him.”

“It’s not your fault, Jace.” Jaxson rubbed his hand across the stubble on his face. “But if he’s not answering his phone…”

“Shit, shit,
shit.
He’s in there, isn’t he? They got him.” Jace took his frustration out on the door frame, leaving a small dent.

“Hey!” Jaxson gave him a glare. “It’s all right. We’ll get him out.”

“What if they move him? What if he’s not even there?” Jace was running a rough hand through his hair. “If I’d been infiltrated, I’d decamp right away.”

“Right. Which is why Jared went after them, I’m sure. Because he didn’t want them slithering off into the night.” Damn, this was a mess. “All right, did Murphy go to the safehouse last night or did he go home?”

“I just took the Wildings to the safehouse. Everyone else went home.”

“Murphy lives closest to the edge of town where the warehouse is,” Jaxson said. “We need eyes on that immediately. Get that in place, then round up a team. Maybe ten. If we’ve got surveillance, they can’t decamp without us knowing. And if they’re still inside, we might have to wait until dark to move in.”

“Understood.” Jace already had his phone out, dialing Murphy.

“I need to make a stop at Olivia’s,” Jaxson said. “I’ll meet you there.”

Jace held up his hands in a questioning way, but Murphy must have picked up because he turned away and took the call. Jaxson left his unspoken question unanswered and jogged out of the office, heading for his car. He needed to make sure Olivia was all right before he dove into a mission he knew he might not come back from.

He had to pound on Olivia’s door ten times before she finally opened.

“Jaxson, for God’s sake—” she said, but he just brushed past her and stepped into the apartment.

He peered around before saying anything. If
asshole boyfriend
was here, he would take care of that first. But the place was clear.

“Sure, come on in,” she said with heavy sarcasm. But she closed the door behind her. “Please, barge into my apartment, even though I distinctly told you to stay the hell away.”

He cocked his head. “You did
not
tell me stay away. You merely said you had an asshole for a boyfriend.”

She folded her arms. “I did
not
say he was an asshole.”

He shrugged one shoulder. “Details.”

She shook her head, like she couldn’t believe his audacity, but he could tell she’d been crying.
A lot.
Before he even thought about what he was doing, he had her backed up against the door, hands on either side of her head. He wasn’t actually touching her, but he was ready to kiss those tears away.

Her eyes were wide.

“Any man who doesn’t see how wonderful you are is a complete idiot,” he said softly. He wasn’t going to trot out his strong suspicion that this millionaire boyfriend didn’t even exist… not until he knew the real reason why she was pushing him away.

“Yeah, well, maybe I’m one of those girls who likes unavailable men.” She was saying it defiantly, straight into his face, but she wasn’t trying to push him back or move away. Her words were shoving him away, but her trembling lips and heaving chest were saying something entirely different.

“What’s his name, Olivia?” he said with a little more edge in his voice. “I’d like to have a word with him.”

Her eyes were glassing over again. “Jaxson,
please.
Just leave it alone!”

He frowned. That plea was real—he could feel it. She was truly afraid of something.

“I don’t know what hold this man has over you, but I’m not giving up without a fight.” Then he leaned in, almost close enough to kiss, but stopping short of actually touching his lips to hers. “You’re worth fighting for,” he whispered against her lips. Then he did kiss her, pressing her luscious body up against the door as he tasted her sweet mouth. She responded to him, just as she had last night, allowing him into her mouth even as her hands gripped his shoulders hard. She seemed unable to decide whether to pull him closer or push him away.

He broke the kiss, but her electric touch brought back every rush of pleasure from the night before. His body ached for more, but he couldn’t stay.