92. Jax

92

Jax

"No!" My roar of agony thundered louder than the storm as I fell to my feet "Anna!"

"Bet you didn't see this coming."

Whipping my head around, I watched as Dirk's dead wolf shifted, and a man grinned at me. His wounds were still there, crusting over because the dead didn't bleed.

"You are not a part of this," I snarled and turned back to Anna. Everyone else had disappeared.

"Oh, you and I are more alike than you think. I killed my mate to save my child. You killed your mate…" he looked down and frowned. "Why did you kill your mate? To save the mountain? To save yourself the heartache? To save her the heartache?"

"This isn't real. This isn't how it happened. This crystal was supposed to allow me to speak to her!" Was it just some cruel trick? Was Lunessa trying to punish me?

I glanced at the sky. The rain had stopped, and black tendrils of smoke were starting to waft off everything, like it was all on fire.

"The bonds," I muttered. "This is Anna's magic."

"Smarter than you look," Dirk muttered and crouched down in front of her. When he reached out to touch her, I hauled him to his feet and tossed him away.

"After what you did to her, you don't get to touch her."

With a laugh, Dirk lifted to his feet in one impossible fluid motion. "I lost my mind for a little bit," he admitted. "She looks like her mother, you know. I struggled with that, but deep down, everything I did was to save her. My killing crusade was to make Emerson think I was still searching for the null, and when I couldn't hide her any longer, I fed her to his obsession. Emerson would have given up his pack to have her."

Disgust filled me. "He was insane."

"Well, so was I. If I'd known she'd find a good man who would mate with her, maybe I could have fought the insanity a little better. Of course, you locked her away for three years, so maybe you weren't such a great choice either."

Swallowing hard, I knelt by her side and ran my fingers over her face. This was just some sick vision. She wasn't really dead. I just needed to fight through it. "Wake up, baby. Tell me what you've done to the bonds so I can fix it."

"Just like a man to think that everything can be fixed."

At the new voice, I looked over, and Evalina was perched on the roof of the hut. She sneered down at me.

"What are you doing here, bitch?" Dirk spat.

"Watch your tone!"

"Or what?" He countered. "You'll hex me? You're dead, witch. We both are. Even playing field."

With a huff, she jumped from the room and floated down. "I'm here because he called me. Magic is what I do, dead or alive."

Dirk sighed. "Any other dead ghosts you want to call up? We could have a real party."

I tried to ignore them, but suddenly, the field was filled with ghosts. Emerson. Bridget. Marsh. Wolves. Witches. Not all of them dead by my hand, but their deaths were connected to me.

And Anna was next.

"It's guilt." Parker sat next to me and stared down at her. "Her whole life, the guilt has weighed her down. Her father blamed her for her mother's death. She blamed herself for her father's kills. Now, she's blaming herself for all of these deaths. Everything is connected to her."

I stared up at his grizzled face. "It's not really you. Ghosts aren't real."

"It's your mind and Anna's spell," he shrugged. "Between the two of you, it's probably more real than if I were here."

That was true. The real Parker was almost never this candid. "She's using guilt to power the spell."

"And if you can break through it, you can reach her." Glancing around, he sighed when his eyes landed on his son. "We're all dead because we made mistakes. I loved my son, and I tried to protect him even though he was betraying me. Bridget betrayed you. Katherine and Dirk betrayed Anna. Evalina betrayed Anna. Emerson and Marsh were twisted by their obsession. We're all connected, but we're all dead for very different reasons."

I swallowed hard. "How do I break through her guilt if I can't reach her?"

"I never said it was her guilt," Parker said softly. "I said she was familiar with guilt, but this is your side of the bond."

"Bullshit. I have no guilt about killing Dirk and I sure as shit don't feel guilty that Emerson and Marsh are dead."

"Still a fool." Parker looked up as Evalina joined us. "You even look like a Crone."

"And you look like a grizzled werewolf who drinks too damn much," she snapped. "But he's right. Jax, you are a fool. When you close your eyes at night, these are the faces that you see. So many deaths in such a short amount of time, and all of them dead so you could protect Anna. And for what? Soon, everyone will probably be dead."

"No," I snarled. "She can fight this. She is more powerful than Maeve!" Worried that someone was going to do something to her, I collected her body and held her close. She was so warm despite the freezing clothes plastered to her skin.

"Is she? She couldn't even cloak her mating bond properly. Honestly, I'm a little disappointed."

"Shut your mouth," Dirk snapped as he joined us. "You never could see her potential. What her magic could do before her mother locked it away. All she had to do was smile, and the flowers would just open for her. She gifted her magic to everything like it might save the world."

She was still like that. Maybe not with her magic, but just by being. For all her darkness and thorniness, she was joy. She believed in joy, and she brought joy to so many people. With one healing touch, she'd taken a pack who wanted her dead and opened them up to love her.

And what had I done?

"Saved her," Dirk said in a low voice. "You saved her. You made her believe in love again. You helped her trust. I scarred that girl so badly, and you brought out the joy."

He disappeared.

Parker touched my shoulder. "You loved her. Even when you wanted to hate her, you loved her, and it had nothing to do with your wolf. You saw the fight in her, saw the strength, and you loved her for it."

He faded away.

"Protected her," Evalina sighed. "I knew you were important. The moment my sight settled on you, I knew that in saving her, you would save us all. You've protected her."

She filled with light and twinkled out of existence.

Slowly, the crowd of the dead started to disappear too, until it was just me and Anna.

But she was still dead.

"Do you trust her?"

I stiffened as Katherine appeared and glared at me. "Your death had nothing to fucking do with me. Go away."

"No," she said simply and stared down at her daughter. "I wanted so badly for her to live that I might as well have cut out a piece of her. Now, when she needs her magic the most, she has no idea how to use it."

"So I can blame you?"

Katherine chuckled. "You want to, but you don't. Everyone has done Anna wrong, and now so are you. That's why you're stuck here instead of talking to her."

"And you're going to help me?"

"When my mate killed me, I saw it happen. There was always this lurking fear that our bond wasn't meant to be, but in the end, I was the one who turned on him. I snapped him in half without a second thought. Of course, seeing as my how my daughter has a broken neck, I guess you know how that feels."

"Shut up." My voice shook with rage. "Just shut up."

"You froze her out and chased her away. This is your fault."

"I said shut the fuck up," I bellowed. "I am nothing like you! You took Anna apart because you didn't trust her, and I know that Anna is enough. I believe in her. She is so much more powerful than Maeve. She can win!"

A dam broke open inside of me, and I sobbed as I bent down and picked Anna up. Katherine's eyes widened, and she smiled. "Maybe you're not such an idiot after all," she said before she faded away.

The darkness started to cede, and I stared down at Anna. She was facing me and her eyes were focused on me, but she didn't say anything. Just stared. "They're right. All this guilt is mine. I feel like I've failed you every step of the way just like they have, but I do trust you, Anna. I believe in you. I've never lost sight of that, and I need you to believe in yourself. Help me reach you so I can bring you home."

She smiled and faded from my arms, and the world grew white.