Taming Jax (First Wave Book 5) (23 page)

“For once, I have to agree with Baldy. I want to try it myself. We need to remove the weapons she already used though, so we can’t cheat.” Niklosi said excitedly, challenging Balduen to do it with him.

“Oh, you’re so on! Wait! Melina, you’ll come in behind us and pick who was best right?” Balduen asked, not wanting Niklosi to be able to cheat.

Melina nodded with a shy smile while the two warriors ran to pull the weapons out of the dummies and reset the simulation.

Chapter Thirteen

Jax sighed and put her aching feet on the coffee table. She felt like she had spent the last fourteen hours training when, in reality, she’d done nothing but spend the day with the kids. How the hell can I be so tired? Jax wondered as she smothered another yawn.   

“Here.” Reven said as he handed her a short glass.

Jax sniffed it and quickly gulped down the burning liquid before handing him back the glass. “More.” She croaked as he grinned and went back into the kitchen to grab the bottle of whiskey and another glass.  

Jax put her feet down and leaned forward when Reven sat across from her. She watched as he filled both glasses before putting the bottle on the coffee table. He handed her one glass and lifted the other to his lips and swallowed it as quickly as Jax had.

The part of her that just refused this whole mate business, took it as a challenge. She grabbed the glass from him and downed it before refilling it. As if staying a drink ahead of Reven was the most important thing for her to think about right now.

Reven narrowed his eyes and refilled his own glass. He knew it was stupid, and he knew it was only a way for Jax to escape her worries and fears for Melina. However, right now, doing something they were both familiar with, even if it was childish, seemed to feel more comforting. For both of them, he thought before he swallowed another shot.   

He knew it would take more than this one bottle of whiskey to get them drunk. Even though the hybrid’s metabolisms weren’t as fast as theirs, it was still fast enough to prevent Jax from getting drunk.  

Even so, the slight buzz they would feel wouldn’t be a bad thing, Reven thought as he refilled their glasses before he leaned back against the chair cushions.

“How can I feel this tired when I didn’t do anything today? I don’t understand it.” Jax complained as she fluffed the pillows behind her before leaning back with a sigh.

Reven chuckled. “You were a parent today.”

“Yes, that doesn’t explain why I’m so tired when I didn’t do anything.” Jax argued as she drank another shot.

Reven chuckled again. “You’re looking at it wrong. How many times did you lift and carry Bayla today? How much does she weigh? Multiply it. How many times did you squat down? Pick up a dropped toy? Change a diaper? Just the day to day care of a child is a workout. Just not the kind you’re used to thinking of.”

Jax thought about it and even multiplied her guess of how many times she lifted Bayla that day and was pretty surprised. If she added in all the squats and other activities, she could now understand why most mothers looked haggard and worn out. Her respect for those women grew.

“Yeah, you have a point.” Jax admitted grudgingly.

Reven smiled and nodded at Jax, surprised that she admitted he was right about something. Keeping his mouth shut so as not to disrupt the hesitant peace between them, he refilled their glasses and leaned back.

“She was so amazing today. I spent the entire time making dinner, looking at the salad tongs and other utensils in a whole new light.” Jax said, suppressing her shudder at the thought of what she could do with salad tongs now that she’d thought of it. A part of her wished she’d never considered things differently, while the protector in her was glad for the new perspective.

What worried her the most was how those thoughts were impacting Melina. How could the child think of so many different ways to kill in a split second, with ordinary objects, if it wasn’t something, she constantly thought of?   

Reven stood when he heard the greeting through the Shengari’. He went into Jax’s cabinet and grabbed another bottle and two more glasses before he headed outside to the back porch. Jax followed when she saw who was there.

Grai and Traze accepted the filled glasses that Reven handed them with a nod. Neither one of them waited long and quickly swallowed the shots of vodka. Reven and Jax didn’t miss the slight tremor in Traze’s hand. Feeling sorry for the boy, Jax refilled their glasses with vodka before doing her and Reven’s with whiskey.

“We watched the recording at least a dozen times. She uses her camouflage to hide where she is. Before you even know she’s there, you’re dead. With a bottle opener or a remote control for fuck’s sake.” Traze said shakily before swallowing his next shot.

“Stay the hell away from her if it scares you boy.” Reven said angrily, misunderstanding Traze.

“Are you kidding? It’s fucking hot!” Traze said before he got the tell-tale slap that told him David had arrived.

“Watch your mouth boy. You better show more respect for your mate and her parents than that.” David said as he walked past the idiot and into the kitchen for a glass and a bottle of gin.

Reven looked at David with irritation when he automatically knew where Jax kept her alcohol and glasses. Granted, even he had heard about her well stocked liquor cabinet above her sink, and it was common sense that the glasses would be in the cabinet beside the sink. However, it still irritated the hell out of him that he was probably the last person to actually be in her home.

He refilled their glasses with the now empty bottle and went inside to throw it out and get another one when Traze called out to him.

“Hey! Can you grab the bag of cookies and the BBQ chips while you’re in there?”

Reven turned to glare at the little idiot who would surely end up sick if he continued to drink and added cookies and chips to the mix. Feeling a little petty and mean, Reven grinned at the man-child.

“Sure.” Reven said before he turned back to the kitchen. He heard Grai ask Jax how she was doing when he’d disappeared from sight.

Even though Grai had made no attempt to lower his voice or ask her in secret, it only added to the irritation Reven was already feeling.

He stood in the kitchen and barely moved, trying not to make a sound that may prevent him from hearing Jax’s answer to Grai. Reven knew it shouldn’t matter that much to him yet. They’d only been together a few days, and it would take a lot longer for them to actually bond as a family. But it did matter to him. More than he wanted to admit. He held his breath when he heard her speak, her voice carried clearly to him through the open door.

“I think it’s going better than I thought it would. The kids are perfect. I’m not thrilled about the first education plan they tried to put her on, but I think we can find something we can agree on. What worries me is her abilities.” Jax said, feeling a little tired and numb from her exhaustion and the liquor.

“How so?” Grai asked, genuinely curious about what Jax was thinking.

Reven was stunned that Jax had not even spoken of the two of them and had only spoken of the children. He wasn’t sure if he should be happy that she considered their personal interactions a non-issue or offended.

He quickly gathered the items and went back outside-in time to hear Jax’s response. He hid his grin when Traze grabbed the chips and cookies and began shoveling cookies into his mouth. He thought he was clever about it until David grinned and raised his glass to Reven before pushing the bag of chips towards the boy.

Jax continued speaking, oblivious to Traze. “Think about it this way. How many times have we all been in that same simulation? I can think of several dozen times that Reven and I have been in there with our teams. Do you know that I never even knew there were windshield wipers in the store? Or that there was a remote or corkscrew in that apartment? Did any of you?” Jax asked around the table looking at each person to see if they had ever noticed.

When everyone shook their heads, a little stumped, Jax continued. “The first thing I did when we went in there after it was reset was look for the items she had used. How long did it take you to find them? By the time I did, I would have been dead if I didn’t have a gun. What about you guys?”

When everyone shook their heads, Jax moved on to her point. “It took her seconds to find the item and kill with it. Very creatively as well, I might add.” Jax said, unable to stop the proud grin from spreading across her face.

Grai had already figured out where Jax was going. “She either has to start looking for weapons and how to use them constantly or there is some innate ability that maybe leads her to them? What are your thoughts on what it is?” Grai asked curiously as he looked from Jax to Reven and poured himself another shot.

Reven looked to Jax, letting her know that he wanted her to speak first. He also wanted to hear her thoughts on it, since they hadn’t had a chance to discuss it themselves yet.

Jax was surprised at the courtesy but brushed it off. “I think her mind thinks of it all the time. But I think she does it so quickly that it doesn’t take her the time it takes us. You know, like some people are really fast readers or really quick with math. I think her mind is like that with weapons. And killing.” Jax couldn’t stop the pride and awe in her voice as she told them what she thought.

Reven agreed with her. “It makes sense if you think about how fast she went from the door of the diner to having Niklosi’s knife to his throat. It only took her seconds. The time it took me to turn around, and she was there. Her mind has to work at an incredible speed to have figured it out fast enough for her to implement it once she found the weapon.”

“My body moves towards the target first. While in motion, I find the weapon. Then I implement the action as I reach the target. That’s only in a situation I am not prepared for. Unlike this one.” Melina said from the doorway shocking them all.

They watched as she disappeared, the only sound was a crash before she reappeared behind Grai. With the broken neck of the empty vodka bottle at his jugular. She looked around the table at their startled faces before speaking again.

“In a situation like this one, where I’ve had plenty of time to survey the surroundings, I can kill much faster because I already know where the weapons are.”

Melina disappeared again, and the bottle neck crashed to the table as they heard a strange crinkle, and Traze grunted. There was Melina with the plastic cookie bag shoved into Traze’s mouth; her small hand poised to shove it down into his esophagus.

“Some things I remember from seeing them before, so I already know how to kill with them. Like bottles, wrappers, remote controls…” She disappeared again and everyone looked around for where she went or who she’d move to next.

Instead, she surprised them all by appearing beside Jax. “I don’t know how it started. I know that I could do that from my earliest memories. For the longest time, I thought everyone could do it.”  

Jax put a comforting hand on Melina’s shoulder, while Reven gave the little girl his chair and got another one from inside for himself.

“Does it bother you? Or interfere with the way you interact with others?” Grai asked, stunned at how deadly the child could be but concerned that it was too much for her young, developing mind to handle right now.  

Melina turned sad, pale eyes to Grai and bravely held his gaze while she spoke. “I don’t even think about it anymore. It just happens. I know how awful that sounds. I shouldn’t think about things that would hurt people. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry, it’s cool as hell!” Traze said as he tried to duck David’s hand unsuccessfully.

Grai sighed and shook his head at his brother. “What my brother was trying to say is that you shouldn’t be sorry. What you have is a gift, even if you don’t know it yet.”