Jaxson (River Pack Wolves 1) - New Adult Paranormal Romance (13 page)

“Right.” He gave her a soft smile. “And as soon as they know, the Riverwise pack is going to fall apart. I might be able to hold them together for a little while, but it will be a terrible blow. And with the disappearances happening, we can’t afford that. Plus we need to keep our alliances with the other packs strong so we can stop whoever is taking the shifters. Especially now that they’re targeting our packs directly.”

She nodded. “You need to keep this under wraps. Until that can be handled, at least.”

His smile brightened. “Exactly.” He ran a finger along her lips. “And once that’s settled, once we’ve figured out who’s threatening us and dispensed with them, then the danger will be past. And I’ll be free to tell the truth.” He paused, then took the leap. “I’ll be free to be with you.”

Her eyes went wide. “But I’m human.”

He moved his finger to tracing a line along her cheek, up to tuck a stray piece of hair, set loose by their love-making, behind her ear. “That doesn’t matter to me. I want to be with
you,
Olivia.”

But instead of embracing him or at least smiling, her frown came back, and she scrambled out of his lap. “You’re an amazing, wonderful man, Jaxson,” she said, trembling as she stood before him, naked and standing tall. “But I can’t be with you. Not like that.”

He frowned and a stabbing pain ran through his chest. He quickly rose up from the chair to stand with her. “I don’t understand. I thought…” He glanced at the desk. Hadn’t they just made love? Was he imagining the beautiful connection between them with every touch? “I thought you
wanted
this.”

Her face scrunched up and tears glassed her eyes. “I… I…” She was grasping for words, and he couldn’t help—he was completely confused.

He took her trembling shoulders in his hands. “What is it? What’s wrong?” He searched her face, but all he saw was fear and pain and… grief. He didn’t understand it at all.

She sucked in a deep breath and pulled out of his grasp. She was still trembling. “This was… having sex with you was… very nice. But I can’t be with you, Jaxson. I’m in love with someone else.”

“What?” 
His mouth hung open.

She just ducked her head and scrambled to gather up her clothes. Some of them were in tatters, but she managed to shove on her skirt and pull her blouse closed with a button or two.

He gaped at her. This was all unraveling, and he didn’t understand any of it.
“Who
are you in love with?” he managed to get out. He was still standing naked in the middle of her office and watching her hurry around to pick up her things.

“It’s no one you know.” Then she looked like she was going to run straight out the door.

He rushed over to beat her to it, holding it closed.
“Olivia…
what are you talking about? I thought… I didn’t think there was anyone else in your life.”

Tears were running down her face, but her face twisted in anger. Anger that she threw at
him.
“There’s
not.
Not really. And there never will be for me, just like with you. Only my problem isn’t magical at all, just stupid, stupid human love. I fell for a man who can never be mine.”

“I don’t understand.” Truer words had never been spoken. Jaxson’s entire body deflated with the misery of this.

“He’s
married,
okay?” she shouted. “He’s a millionaire with the perfect life and a wife he’ll never give up for me. I’ll never be more than an occasional fling for him, but I can’t help loving him anyway.
There!
Are you happy? You know my secret. Now let me go!” She gestured angrily at the door, tears gushing down her cheeks as she demanded that he let her run away half-dressed and bawling.

He stepped aside, mouth still hanging open.

She tore open the door and fled the office.

He just stood and watched her go.

Her bare feet pounded the carpet as she ran... and his heart shattered more with each step.

Lies.
All of it complete lies.

Olivia had no idea where she conjured this whopper about being in love with a married man—it just spilled from her mouth as her mind was spinning with all the truths Jaxson was telling her. He was
cursed.
By a
witch.
Some vile vixen wanted his body and cursed his heart when she couldn’t have it.

If Jaxson discovered Olivia was part witch, he wouldn’t simply gape at her, bewildered, like when she left him in her office less than a minute ago.
He would hate her.
And rightly so… because her kind had ruined his life. And the curse of one witch might take down all of Riverwise, too. Not to mention endanger all the shifters who were being kidnapped. Who would rescue them, if Jaxson’s pack was crippled? They needed a leader they could believe in, not one who was weakened by the fact that he couldn’t take a mate.

Or that he’d had sex with a witch on the office furniture.

She balled up her fist and pounded it against the wall of the elevator, again and again. It wasn’t fair. Not to Jaxson, and not even fair to her. She knew she could never get close to someone, not the way Jaxson wanted, but she’d never had anyone come into her life and make her want that
so badly.

She stomped her way across the ground floor. It was dark outside. The drama of the rescue had carried into the night, and then her heart-stopping love-making with Jaxson kept them even later. It had to be past midnight. Her body still thrummed with the pleasure he’d given her, but her face was a sopping mess of tears over having to leave him. But she
had
to… it was better to walk away now before it got any worse. Any more heart-breaking.

She managed to hail a cab even though she could barely see through the tears.

When she got home, she tore off her clothes—they reminded her too much of Jaxson—and crawled into an oversized sweatshirt. Then she curled up in a ball in her bedroom and sobbed until her head ached more than the broken-hearted pain in her chest.

She didn’t remember falling asleep.

The next morning flooded her room with light. Every muscle ached, so she dragged herself to the shower and tried to wash away all the salty tears and lovemaking that still clung to her. All traces of Jaxson swirled down the drain.

Her phone buzzed all morning, which she spent eating ice cream and watching whatever was on the free TV channels. And trying to not think about Jaxson and everything she would never have with him. When she finally checked her phone midday, there were a dozen messages from him. She deleted them unread and turned off her phone.

She’d told him she was in love with a man she could never have… and that was true. Only the man was Jaxson. She could never be his mate, and Jaxson
deserved
to have a mate—someone to share that magical bond with and lead his pack with and raise pups with.
Shifter pups.
She couldn’t give him that either. Only some kind of half-breed, like she was.

She didn’t know how that worked for shifters, but it was dangerous enough with witches. She couldn’t even imagine what crossing a half-witch with a full-blooded-shifter would produce. Something unstable for sure. Her half-witch powers certainly were. Unstable. Uncontrollable. Better left stuffed away and unused.

Her mother was a witch; her father was a human; now they were both dead because of her. She couldn’t think of any better reason not to mess with the laws of nature than that.

Maybe she should quit Riverwise.

The idea churned her stomach even harder, so she pushed it away.

This was why she never got close to anyone—never
allowed
herself to get too close. She hated to admit it, but she had picked all those loser guys
intentionally.
They were the kind who would cheat on her eventually and give her an easy out. A reason to leave. A reason never to get serious. Because she couldn’t afford to love anyone.

Then Jaxson dropped into her life, as unexpected as a thunderstorm on a sunny day. Only she had a dangerous power deep inside her, like a lightning bolt waiting to strike. It had already struck her parents out of the blue, for no reason at all.

Except even that wasn’t true.

She had been
angry
with them. She couldn’t remember what she had been upset about, but her twelve-year-old self had been really, really
pissed
over something that was probably nothing. 

Her mother made no secret about being a witch, and Olivia had tried to please her by learning to conjure spells. She could do the simple things—glamours and spells that curdled milk or rattled cabinets. But anything real—anything powerful—and Olivia had been one big disappointment after another.

Until one day when something…
switched on.

It was like a lifetime of static buildup discharging all at once. She had turned her parents to ash. Both of them, gone in an instant.

Olivia had huddled over the tiny pile of gray dust that, a moment before, had been the two people she loved most in the world. Aghast. Horrified. Unbelieving that she had done this horrible, terrible thing. If the spell she had unleashed hadn’t caught their apartment on fire, Olivia probably would have stayed there, frozen, until she died of hunger or thirst. Or a broken heart. But the fire department came, and the firefighters pulled her from the building.

She didn’t remember that part, but people told her about it later. She just woke up in the ambulance, sucking in oxygen through a mask and remembering… remembering that she had killed her parents.

With a power she didn’t understand and couldn’t control.

So she’d locked it away.

And away it had stayed. Successfully. But there was no way she could afford to get close to someone like that again. And
no way in hell
she was risking the life of someone as brave and good and decent as Jaxson River. She had spent her entire life trying to keep people like from orbiting into her life… and trying to find a way to make her life count for something. To make up for the past by doing something good with the future.

She thought Riverwise was a place she could do that, but now…

Now she was certain she would have to leave. The sooner the better. Staying would only hurt Jaxson. The sooner she was gone, the sooner he could go back to holding things together and taking care of people and rescuing shifters.

The only problem was that leaving felt like ripping out her heart and stomping on it.

Olivia flicked off the TV and curled tighter on the couch. She let her head fall against the edge of the sofa and closed her eyes. A torrent of emotions swam behind her eyelids. She would need all her resolve to march into Riverwise and quit.

Today was Saturday.

It could wait until Monday.

By then, she would have cried out all her tears.

Jaxson searched yet another restricted access-only database but still came up empty.

Olivia’s digital footprint was incredibly light.

He’d wandered home in a daze after she stormed out of the office, crying and claiming to love another man. His wolf howled at that, jealous and heartbroken, but Jaxson couldn’t believe it. He knew she had been hiding something, some dark well of sadness that would bubble up at the strangest of times, but he never figured her for the kind of woman willing to be just something on the side. A fling for some asshole who just wanted her for the hot sex.

His wolf’s howl turned to a growl that wanted to tear something limb from limb.

Preferably the asshole.

Jaxson shook his head and focused. He’d only gotten a few hours of sleep, tossing and turning, before he was back in the office, using Riverwise’s considerable investigative resources to figure out who the hell Olivia was seeing. He wasn’t going to storm up to the guy’s house and take him out… probably… but he definitely needed to know what the competition looked like.

And why Olivia was drawn to him.

He’d spent half the morning searching everything he could find on her, but her story just wasn’t holding up. Either she was lying or the asshole had supernatural security protocols in place such that he never left a fingerprint on her life. Possible, but everyone slipped up.

And assholes weren’t usually that careful.