32. Chapter 32

Chapter 32

L ayla held the silver chain with both hands and then looked up at Jackson. Jax, as Dylan kept calling him. It felt weird on her tongue because calling him by that name suggested they were closer than they were.

"Nothing? No tingles?" Jax asked.

"Nothing."

Jax's body relaxed as if he had been expecting the worst.

"This is one of the ways the Hunters like to torture us," he explained as he took the chain from her with his bare hands.

She frowned at his words as she watched him place the chain back in the box he had brought up to the bedroom after her breakfast.

"How?"

"Silver poisons us. They use it as a test when they suspect someone is a werewolf," Jackson answered. "It's debilitating. It burns and goes into our systems. If we're exposed to it for too long, it poisons our whole system, and our organs shut down. It's a terrible way to die."

Jackson said it casually, as if he were explaining how to bake a cake. She had to keep reminding herself that this was real; this was the life Jax had been born into. And her child would be born into it.

"You seem perfectly fine to me," she stated.

"I'm different."

"So our child...?"

"Will be the same as me. He'll be safe."

"It's a girl," she mumbled.

"Girls don't grow that big that quickly. It's a boy, and he's already displaying my perfect genes."

She rolled her eyes and watched him pick something else from the box and bring it to the bed. A little bottle with a red label on it.

"I'm not going to try this one yet, just in case," Jackson said. "It's wolfsbane—another poison. In big doses, it can kill us, too. A small amount would make us violently ill for a long time, and we never get ill."

"But you got that infection. You got really sick."

Jackson met her gaze briefly before he looked down at the bottle again.

"That was dark magic," he said.

His voice was low as he turned away, so she was sure she didn't hear him correctly.

"I'm sorry, can you repeat that? It sounded like you said it was dark magic."

Jackson sighed and came back to sit on the edge of the bed.

"Yes. The world is bigger than you imagine. You'll have to protect yourself from everything, and that includes witches."

What the...?

She'd just got her head around werewolves, but now he was saying there was more out there?

"It was easy for you to accept werewolves, but you can't accept anything else?" Jackson chuckled.

"No, it's not that, it's just that..."

She put a hand over her growing bump. She was learning how scary the world was and was supposed to leave her child to face it alone.

"My son will be more protected than everyone else here," Jackson said. "I can withstand a lot more of it than other wolves. That bite would have killed me if it wasn't for my blood, and... Well, it would have killed me. Don't worry about the baby, Layla. He'll be taken care of and will learn everything he needs to know as soon as he can understand it."

But did she have to? What if her child could live her life far away from all of this? Unburdened by whatever duty Jax felt for his people?

"I'm going to put away all of this stuff and make sure it's safe outside. I think we can have lunch in the gardens today."

Her eyes widened, and a broad smile formed on her lips. Those words washed away all her worries for her unborn child. It had been two months since she'd been stuck in the bedroom and had gone beyond stir-crazy.

"Only for lunch," Jax added as he picked up the box. "There is still so much I have to teach you. I haven't talked about the Circle, and they're the ones who'll be watching you the most. They're worse than Hunters, but whatever crimes they commit against us are lawful."

Jax hesitated at the door.

The smile disappeared from her lips. It had been like that lately. Every time he went out of the room, she felt it. Like something was being wrenched from her body. And every time, she just about stopped herself from begging him to come back, to stay by her side and hold her.

To make love to her.

To bite her.

The voice in her head was so loud, so demanding, that she had to grip the bedding to stop herself from acting out.

"I won't be far," Jax whispered.

But he still waited at the door.

The thing in her willed him to come back. Sometimes she felt like there was some string between them, and all she had to do was pull it to bring him closer to her. To make him do what she wanted, despite his cold attitude.

Even though it was the baby he wanted, not her.

Jax groaned, and the sound set fire to her body. He hadn't touched her in months, even though he had been by her side the whole time. When she wasn't annoyed with him, her body often reminded her of how explosive their chemistry was.

"I have to go," Jax growled.

And then he opened the door and rushed out as if she had said anything to stop him. But she felt every step he took away from her. Desperation and need coursed through her body as she lay back on the bed and tried to fight it. Jackson had ravished her just before the scare with the baby but had immediately warned her that nothing had changed between them.

She had to listen. She had to become detached like he was. She couldn't let her body and the stupid voice in her head decide what she had to do because allowing that would lead to more heartbreak.

But was it just the thing in her head that felt like that? The wolf part of her? She wasn't sure anymore. Her head was often silent, but she still craved Jackson with the same intensity. She still wanted him back in bed, pretending to play happy families as he had before.

"He won't be long," she whispered to herself.

She waited a minute. And then another. Her ears were already open, waiting to hear his footsteps as he returned to her. How pathetic she had become to wait on a man as if he was the air she breathed.

But that was what it felt like when Jackson left her sight for too long. She could already hear her heart beating louder in her ears. She could feel her desperation growing.

Two minutes turned to three.

She knew that lunch was ready because she could smell it. And she knew Jackson didn't have to go far to know if there was any danger around them. What was he doing?

Three minutes turned to four.

She groaned as she slid off the bed and walked towards the door. Lately, Jackson had been allowing her to walk to the bathroom or the sofa herself but walking down the stairs was another thing.

Still, she couldn't bear it. She would wait for him at the bottom of the stairs.

She didn't bother with shoes as she started to walk down the hall. That string she felt she could pull to bring him closer also somehow told her where to go to find him. It was odd. Jackson said her wolf senses were stronger and she would likely have them for the rest of her life. Would she always have to suffer like this?

How would she leave him when it was time for her to go?

There was no one downstairs when she got to the lobby. The place was a little dusty because there had been no one around to clean every room like they used to. She trod lightly towards the entrance where the string was pulling her. There were voices in one of the rooms—Diedre and Micah's wife, but she ignored them and walked out.

She would wait at the front. Jackson wasn't far from her; she could sense him, which meant he already knew she had come out.

"Where the hell have you been?" Jax growled.

Her ears picked his voice up easily, and she also picked up his agitation. Who was he talking to?

She kept her steps light, something Jax had been teaching her to do, and walked down the front steps.

"She needed you, and you just disappeared," Jax continued.

"You've called too much attention to this pack. I had to stay hidden."

She froze in her tracks just before she went around the corner of the house.

That voice...

Her heart started to hammer loudly. Emotions she thought she had long buried started to burrow their way back to the top.

"I told you last time to just tell her the truth. She's stronger than you think she is."

She forced her feet to start moving again. It couldn't be right. She was hearing things. But when she rounded the corner, she had to stop again.

All the strength left her body, forcing her to lean against the wall.

Right in front of Jackson, and stark naked, was Rebecca Carlisle.

Her mother.