46. Anna

46

Anna

Alone in the bedroom, with the waxing crescent moon visible in the window, I took a deep breath and focused on my wolf. All day I'd been distracted by her. My normally small and quiet other half of me shimmered with magic. I could feel her happy and wolfy playful smile as she rose within me. Naked, I closed my eyes and called to her.

She came without hesitation. It was almost enough to make me cry during the change. When she refused me, I feared that she'd always refuse me, that she'd concede to my magic from here on out.

On all fours, I stretched and shook as if I could get rid of the excess energy inside of me. Then I headed over to the mirror. She looked mostly normal. Still small and scarred, but her coat looked a little thicker and healthier.

At least I wasn't shimmering in magic.

"Anna?" Jax said quietly as he opened the door. "I can feel your anxiety. Are you…oh, hello beautiful."

My wolf loped happily over to him and immediately leaned against his legs. With a chuckle, he bent down and rubbed her head. I paused and waited for a reaction.

It wasn't my imagination. He frowned as he ran his fingers through my coat, and then he reached for my scars. There was no disappointment when he felt them, and he investigated my coat again. "You look amazing, sweetheart."

My wolf preened, and I rolled my eyes inwardly. Secretly, I was pleased. She rarely got a chance to show-off, and she never got the chance to impress. When she licked his face, he chuckled softly. "Do you want to go for a run?"

Neither of us had the energy, and when I rose up to the surface, she receded without question. After the shift, I looked inward again.

There she was, shimmering in magic.

"Everything all right?" Jax asked as he reached down and helped me up from the floor. "You seemed upset before."

"Not upset. I just…she feels different. I wasn't sure what it meant. She didn't come when I called for her in the mountains, and I was worried that she wasn't ever going to come again."

"Did she resist?"

Crawling into the bed, I shimmied under the cover to get warm. "No. I think the magic inside me is healing her. Every time I check in on her, she's drenched in it, and you felt her coat."

"I did." Stripping down, he joined me and pulled me against him. Immediately, his warmth started to surround me, and I wiggled happily against him. "She likes the magic, doesn't she?" he asked.

"This is going to sound strange, but I think she always knew that it was there. She just couldn't find a way to tell me."

My thoughts were racing. The ternary. The sheer number of witches on the property. Magic lessons.

"I haven't even seen The Fanged Smile yet," I whispered as my heart broke just a little.

"Tomorrow morning, we'll go see it," he promised. "The kitchen is finished. We'll have breakfast there. And when you're ready, you can open it for business."

I snorted. As if there was ever going to be time to run the bar. "The first night that I was here, I bit Parker."

"What?"

"Yeah. He reached over to open the door behind me, but I thought he was reaching for me. I bit him so hard that he started to bleed. He called me feral."

Behind me, Jax's chest rumbled with laughter, and I turned around and glared at him. "It's not funny!"

"You were definitely feral then. You still are a little." With a relaxed smile, he reached up and touched my face. "I know you think you've changed Anna, and in some ways, you have. You've opened your heart, but you, at your core, are still the same. You're amazing. The things you've done to survive and to help where you can. Having magic doesn't change that."

"You don't know that. You don't know what will happen when I get comfortable with it. What I'll do with it. Fears aren't born of nothing, Jax."

"No, the fears were born of unsubstantiated myth and the fear of what they can't understand. I know you, Anna. Believe me when I tell you that you are still you." Gently cradling my head, he pulled me close for a kiss.

I wasn't convinced, but I did let him distract me until my body relaxed against him. Breaking the kiss, I buried my face in his chest and listened to the sound of his heartbeat.

Tomorrow was another leg of a journey that I could not have seen coming, but Jax was here, and maybe that would be enough.

Sleep claimed me.

The next morning, we went to the dining hall. As much as I wanted to pile eggs, pancakes, and sausage on my plate, I stuck with a bowl of oatmeal. It wasn't the first time I ate in the dining hall. Jax had forced me to eat here before, when we were trying to make everyone believe we were a happily mated couple. The pack either ignored me or shot me dirty looks when they thought Jax wasn't looking. A few had even been bold enough to spit in my direction when he left the table.

Today, it was completely different. Jax had already told me things were different. Starting from when I'd risked my life to save Irene's. Suddenly, I wasn't a serial killer's daughter. I was the alpha's mate. I'd earned the title.

And when I'd borrowed pack magic to save Jax, Saul, and Finn, I'd flooded the bonds with love. The shifters actually bowed their heads when I walked by.

It didn't exactly fill me with relief.

"Breathe," Jax said lowly in my ear when he retrieved my oatmeal and put it on my tray. "No one is going to hurt you here."

"I'd almost prefer if they did. This is weird," I muttered. He put a reassuring hand on my back and led me to the table.

"Weirder than us admitted that we're meant to be together? Times change, Anna. This is a good change."

Sure. Jax could say that. He'd been beloved his whole life. I'd been hated my whole life. Sometimes when I looked at Jax, I wondered if this was all some kind of cruel joke. Like, he might wait until I was at my happiest moment and then sever the pack and mating bond and leave me stranded in the cold.

Except that he wouldn't do that. I knew in my bones that he wouldn't. That fear was just me, always waiting for the next bad thing to happen. And that was exactly what I was feeling now.

"I guess there's no need to ask if they know what I am. They would have felt it," I muttered as I glanced around at everyone who was smiling at me.

"You're powerful. They like that," Jax said softly.

An older woman slowly approached us with a woman my age at her side. Both looked incredibly nervous. They glanced at Jax, who nodded, and then walked over to our table. "Alpha. Alpha mate. We do not mean to interrupt, but my daughter and I have something we'd like to say."

Dread filled me, and the younger woman bowed her head. "I don't even know if you remember me, but I used to work for The Fanged Smile when Danny was the manager. We…I wasn't very nice to you, and I knew what Danny was going to do and didn't try to stop it. I'm so sorry."

"It wasn't all her doing," the Mother rushed on say. "We encouraged her to be cruel to you. I will never forgive myself, but I want you to know that we will do nothing but support you from here on out. We pledge ourselves to you."

Hell, I didn't even recognize my old co-worker, if you could even call her that, who looked like she could burst into tears any minute.

The table next to us stood so fast that their chairs fell over. "We also were horrible to you. We helped defile The Fanged Smile when you were gone. We beg forgiveness and pledge ourselves to you."

Suddenly, the whole damn dining room was full of people confessing their sins and asking for forgiveness and kneeling before me. I turned to Jax, hoping he would make it stop, but he just looked at me.

He knew this would happen. He'd said the same thing, but I hadn't believed it would happen on this grand of a scale.

Clearing my throat, I slowly stood. "All right. I'm only going to say this once, so spread the word because I don't want to see anyone else doing this. My father wronged your pack, and with him, I did things that I was not proud of. I hated myself just as much as you hated me. Some of the things that you've done to me or wanted to do to me are not forgivable, but neither were the things that my father did to this community. I am not here to punish anyone. That's not my role. I'm here to try and protect this community alongside your alpha. From here on out, we are all a unit. Our pasts are behind us, and we plan for the future. The threats that face us are hoping that we'll tear each other apart, but we're not going to do that. You pledge yourself to me as you did Jax, and I pledge myself to this pack as he did. No more begging for forgiveness. No more confessing. No more stressing about what happened. And please stop kneeling. I'm not a queen."

"Your alpha mate has spoken," Jax roared, and the werewolves howled with him. I almost winced at the noise that echoed off the walls. Instead, I slowly returned to my seat and looked at my oatmeal.

"Think I can have eggs now?" I asked hopefully.

Jax grinned. "Sorry. We all answer to our healer. Eat your oatmeal and prep for today. Your wolf is welcome here. Now it's time to welcome your magic."