SIXTY-FOUR

Xander

"ALEXANDER," MY MOTHER calls out from behind me.

"Here, Luna," I answer without turning, my attention on the stream of power I'm using to keep Amber's wolf down.

"Please take over for Alpha Knight so he can focus his energies on his pack-mate," my mother orders to the officer she's brought with her. The officer comes up and places a hand on my shoulder. That one touch downloads a wealth of information into me. Officer Daniel Dawson: pack member, skin the color of coffee with one cream, several inches shorter than me, tight curly dark hair cut very short, a full mustache, middle-aged, his wolf a low-level beta. He is one of mine.

I send a ripple of power through to him in acknowledgment, and without looking, I know he's dipped his chin in deference. Maintaining my energetic hold on Amber, I turn and face him. "Officer Dawson, thank you for coming and for offering your help in this situation."

"Here to protect and serve, Alpha," he replies, his voice rough and dry. He tips his chin in Amber's direction. "I can keep her under watch for you, Alpha." I dip my chin and release my hold on Amber while stepping past him toward Jax.

My mother, Bruce, and Ethan are all standing on the other side of Jax and Billie. He's still under the drugs' influence, and Wilhelmina, who's covered in blood, hasn't moved from his chest, nuzzling, and humming and chanting, "Mine, mine, mine, protect, protect, protect."

I'm about to bend down to help Jax when Bruce holds his hand up. "Alpha, please wait," he suggests while setting down some sort of evidence kit. Rolling the sleeves of his red-and-black flannel shirt up, he opens the kit and takes out a pair of nitrile gloves. He jerks his chin to an area near Jax's leg closest to him. There I see a syringe. My teeth grind. I can't believe she drugged him. He explains, "We need to collect evidence, and if you're able to draw the drugs out, I need take a blood sample first, Alpha."

"I understand," I reluctantly agree and arch a brow. "But I don't want to wait too long. I don't know what she injected him with. I don't know if it will get worse for him."

Bruce nods his head. Using a camera from the kit, he takes a picture of the syringe and the location before placing the syringe inside a Ziplock bag labeled Evidence. Ethan steps around Bruce near Jax's feet, where another syringe lies on the ground. He squats down and reaches a hand out to Bruce. "Give me a pair of gloves, and I can help collect evidence while you draw blood for the sample. I assume you'll also take a sample from Amber too?"

Bruce hesitates for a second, his eyes quickly flicking to Jax's face. Jax's face is blank, with mouth gaping and his unblinking eyes staring into emptiness. My arms wrap around my tightening chest. Fuck, Jax . I watch Bruce's face crumple and pinch in pain before heavily nodding his head in response to Ethan's request. He produces another pair of gloves, a pen light, a thin Sharpie, and a few more Ziplock bags. "Take pictures of the placement first," he states, passing the camera to Ethan as well. Then he digs into his kit and pulls out an individually wrapped syringe, another pen light, and a strap of rubber tubing.

Dawson lets out a low whistle from behind me, and I half turn to him. No longer held under my power, Amber has lifted her head from her position of submission to stare up at Dawson with uncertain eyes. Dawson keeps his attention on Amber while grunting a short laugh. "Looks like you bit off more than you could chew, huh?" he says with a slight shake of his head.

"He's mine!" Amber screeches, then cries in pain, cupping a hand over the bloody wound on the side of her head.

"Silence, Amber," I growl low, sending a wave of my alpha power into her. I don't need to see her to know she's snapped her jaw shut. I heard it.

My mother, meanwhile, manages to maintain an aura of regality in jeans and a black peacoat and confidently steps over to me in her hiking boots. Her eyes flit between Amber and me. "Alpha, would you mind if I talked with Amber? Alpha."

"I've got the blood sample," Bruce mumbles before I can answer. I turn to him, his dark eyes peering up at me while he keeps his head down, the pen light held in the crook of his mouth.

One resounding thump of my heart echoes in my chest, nearly lurching me forward to Jax. I can finally help my pack-mate. With swift, careful steps, I come around to where Bruce is untying the rubber tube from Jax's arm. He's about to put a cotton ball over the dot of blood when I reach my hand out, stopping him. "No, don't. If there's any chance of me removing the poison I'll need access to his blood." Bruce nods, stands up, and begins labeling and storing the samples.

I come down to kneeling where Bruce had just been, the thin material of my tights offering no insulation from the cool, damp forest floor. I tenderly take hold of Jax's stiff limb. Whatever drugs she pumped into him has made his flesh hot to the touch, and his muscles are as close to rigor mortis as I ever want Jax to experience. Placing my thumbs on either side of the pinprick hole, I press down, pushing some of Jax's blood out so it gathers around my thumbs.

I close my eyes and let all of my focus go inward, into me and my wolf. My alpha healing power unfurls from my chest and streams like warm water trickle down my arms. My wolf abruptly stops it from entering my hands, my thumbs pressed against Jax's flesh and coated in his blood. I wait. I feel my wolf push more energy downward, making it thicker and hotter, as if bringing a pot of warm water to a boil and adding sugar to it, making it more of a sticky syrup. I bob my head once in understanding. We're not healing—we're extracting. We're pulling out the sickness instead of mending what is broken.

With that new understanding, I let the adjusted energy slip into my thumbs, and as soon as the energy ripples over Jax's blood, I feel Blondie there trying to pull on it, guiding it into his bloodstream. My syrupy energy stretches and flows through the needle hole into Jax's vein and immediately begins searching and slithering through his blood like a microscopic snake, deciphering and analyzing as it goes, determining what is Jax and what is foreign.

The process is all-consuming. All of my focus, all of my energy, all of my wolf, all of me shrinks down until it is like I am moving through Jax's veins. My body feels as if it is surrounded by the warmth of his blood, and the slow beat of his heart thrums around me like a physical presence. It's comforting and familiar, as if I'm wrapped up in a sleeping bag made of Jax. And that's how I know I've hit my first drop of poison. It's jarring, like when you're camping and you roll over onto a sharp rock that stabs you in the back.

My sticky energy latches onto it, pulls it down the line of syrup toward my thumbs. I want to open my eyes but think better of it, not confident in my ability to maintain the level of concentration needed. Once I've been able to identify the feeling of that sharp rock, so to speak, I'm able to call the poison forward, pull the drops to me like a line of tiny marching ants to sugar water. I've never done this before, but instinctually I sense what to do. I feel liquid against my tacky thumbs as it seeps out of him like sap tapped from a maple tree.

He starts gasping for air as more and more poison exits his system. The tears he's been crying in his mind and in the link start pouring down his face. My chest clenches, and my face heats with the sound of the agony and shame of the violation and the relief of his own control coming back to him. The relief in finally being able to truly cry out, have a voice, and shed his tears. When the last drop drips out, I release his arm and sag in exhaustion. My eyes open, seeing the liquid tinged pink with his blood glistening on his skin.

Jax lets out a guttural sob, curling up in a ball around our mate, arms banding around her waist, his legs bent around her backside, his head in her lap. Erratic shakes and convulsions run through his body as it finally responds to his commands. Billie's there bent over his head, arms wrapped around his upper body, lips kissing his tears away while her own drip down her face. I push up to standing.

"Get away from him!" Amber shrieks, her tear-streaked, blood-coated face twisted in anger and outrage. "His gums swelled! His dick hardened! His mother told me the drugs would only work if we're meant to be!" My stomach heaves like I just got gut punched. His mother, fucking Veronica, helped Amber try to rape Jax, her son.

Not able to stand Amber's presence for another second, I throw an arm out and I feel my alpha power thrum through me as I sneer, "Stand down and shut your mouth." Amber slams herself back into the tree and clamps her lips together. "Luna, Dawson, remove that stolen sweatshirt and escort her to one of the holding cells on pack lands." I turn to my mother. "I want yeast rubbed into the spot her ear used to be."

My mother's brows crease in confusion, and she steps over to where Dawson and I are. "Dawson, please cast your flashlight on Amber's head so I can see her wounds," she orders. Dawson drags Amber up to standing and draws his Maglite from his belt, shining the light on Amber. The bright spotlight magnifies not only the amount of damage my mate inflicted but also the unstable and almost fanatical state of Amber, her wide eyes spinning around pupils the size of pinpricks, the twitchiness in her body and face, both covered in blood. "Amber, open your mouth and crane your head back," my mother softly demands.

"To confirm that we're meant to be! To see the mating sacs filled!" Amber assumes, pure glee and joyousness in her voice that holds a little lisp, her pale skin seeming to glow under the smears of drying blood. My mother doesn't answer, but she doesn't need to. Amber eagerly does as she asks. My mother grips Amber's chin in her hand, and Dawson angles his Maglite to better show the upper palate of Amber's mouth. I force myself to keep my face blank and not react to what I'm seeing, to not smile at the damage done by my mate. She's just as vicious as Little Fox. "Bruce, please come over and take some pictures," my mother says.

"I can do it," Ethan answers, coming over with the camera. Ethan, stoic as ever, takes several pictures of Amber's ruptured mating saliva sacs, her canines pushed back and up into her gums with enough force that it busted the sacs which are still leaking fluid. "Got them," Ethan says with a slight pitch to his voice that sounds like he's smirking.

My mother turns Amber's face to the side, and Dawson lights up the bloody mess on the side of Amber's head.

"Holy mother of wolves," Dawson mutters, showing the whites of his eyes.

Ethan continues to take pictures without being asked. My mother tilts her face to me and arches a brow. "You want to put yeast on this wound?" she repeats my order from earlier in a flat voice, giving nothing away.

I wonder if I'm being too harsh, being too ruthless and my eyes trail to our mate. Our mate who took a she-wolf to the ground without hesitation and absolutely pummeled her. I think about how many wolves share Amber's view of fox-shifters as prey for wolf-shifters and how wrong they are when it comes to our mate. I think about how Billie rarely shows what she's truly capable, how she'd rather go unnoticed than bring attention to herself. I think about how she deserves more respect than she's been given and how respect can be earned in wolf packs. I bring my gaze back to Amber, who at this time, is not one of my wolves. Her mouth is busted and swollen, the side of her head missing an ear.

She. Tore. Her. Ear. Off.

My heart blooms with pride, and desire swirls much lower. I inhale the scent of tangy copper, and my wolf licks his lips. My mouth kicks up the slightest bit on one side, and I jerk a single affirmative nod. "Yes."

"Where's the ear?" Dawson asks, flicking the flashlight around on the ground.

"It's my ear," Billie growls, lifting her head up from Jax. Her eyes glow bright, and she cuts a scathing glare at Amber. "I want yeast ground into the wound. She silenced his voice. She doesn't deserve to hear. Make sure you clean out that black hole of a cunt. She will not have any of my mate's seed." I hear the sharp inhale of Ethan sucking his lip ring into his mouth. He likes this side of her too.

I look to my mother, and the faintest of smiles slinks across her red-painted lips. Viciousness is respected in wolves. "You heard your alpha and his duchessa , Dawson," she says. "Remove the stolen sweatshirt and make sure she gets her pants on. Then handcuff her and escort her through the woods to your vehicle as discreetly as possible. Call ahead and have one of the healers ready to take blood samples, do a full gynecological exam, and properly administer the yeast. Then take her to the holding cells for the rest of her processing." He nods and proceeds to remove the hoodie from Amber, who's slowly coming out from being under the last throw of my power. Thankfully she has a bra on underneath, which is all she has on. My mother turns to Bruce and orders, "Help the officer remove Amber from here. Make it look official and ensure she covers her ear and her face. I will be right behind you." He nods.

"Bruce," I call out before he can leave.

He comes to stand before me, the evidence kit held like a tackle box in one hand at his side. He lifts his chin to meet my awaiting gaze and raises his brows. "Yes, Alpha?"

Keeping my arms relaxed at my sides I state, "I've been informed that Amber spent a significant amount of time with Veronica and Councilman Hogan this past week. And she just admitted Veronica has something to do with this, that she knew about what those drugs would do." I jerk my chin to the evidence kit. "Amber got those drugs from somewhere. Based on what we saw when we got here and"—I cant my head to the side and arch a knowing brow— "information about one of the companies my father was a board member on, I believe there are members in our pack who understand what you have in that evidence kit. That perhaps others who are overstaying their welcome do as well."

Bruce observes me for a few long seconds, thin clouds creep over the moon making it hard for me to read his facial expressions. I do, however, see him half turn around to look at Jax, who, with the help of Ethan, is finally able to pull his pants up. Bruce's head drops down, and he exhales a long sorrowful breath. "Yes, you are correct. We will include that in the investigation, Alpha."

I step up to him and my mother. "I know you both know more than what you're letting on. I want you both to collect all the information and evidence of the drugs used here tonight." I lean in close, towering over both of them, and let my anger rise as I hiss "I don't care what the intention was when everything started. We saw tonight where it can lead, how those drugs can be used as a weapon against our own wolves. What if she succeeded? What if Billie and Ethan didn't make it here in time? What if Cortney didn't call me to let me know her concerns? What would have happened to Jax?" I look to my pack-mates and then back to my mother and Bruce. "Be discreet if needed. I expect you both to have information and thoughts on how to proceed by tomorrow, and I expect that Veronica and Councilman Hogan will be around for questioning—or detained, if needed."

They share a look, and my mother nods before addressing me. "We've already been working on this quietly." She pauses, and I can see her fighting to keep herself from turning away. "Even for those who agreed to use other sources to help solidify bonds, have suffered. They made the choice, but they didn't understand the ramifications. There's no way to understand it until. . ." She inhales a quivering breath. "Until it's too late." Before I can respond, she changes the subject and says, "You did well, Alexander. You kept people away. You listened and evaluated a threat others may have questioned. You stayed calm and in control, you held her instead of being rash and taking things into your own hands. You can't stop every threat or attack. It's how you respond to them. Then. . ." She shakes her head and a small smile sweeps across her face. "Then you pulled poison from his blood as if it was nothing." Her wide brown eyes gleam in the pale moonlight "I've only seen other alphas attempt and fail at that. We will do as you've asked." She looks over her shoulder at my pack-mates before returning her gaze to me. "I assume you want to take care of your pack-mates, as you have been successfully doing so. Should we expect to see you tomorrow, Alpha?"

"Yes," I say. "We'll be on pack lands tomorrow to have Jax give his official statement and to see how everything is being processed. Thank you both for coming out here as fast as you did."