Page 35 of Mantle

Kai’s hand landed on my shoulder. “Sounds like a great idea to me.”

Jaxon looked between us, clearly trying to figure out what the deal was with the whole thing of Kai being in the bathroom fully dressed and me in a towel and dripping wet.

He didn’t speak to it, though.

And then Kai squeezed my shoulder, harder than necessary. “Don’t you think, V?”

No.Being around Ariana’s dad andJaxon, out of all three of them,didn’tseem like the best idea from one major aspect, when he already hadn’t taken well to knowing that his daughter was with three men, and two of those being men like Kai and me, just to make it all the fucking worse for him. He was somebody I needed to be at the top of my game with, not how I was feeling now. Strained, emotionally volatile, and hell knew what else.

Butshifting into dragon form and doing something physical would actually help.

“It does, yeah,” I found myself answering.

Kai clearly wanted me to get some shit out of my system, the reason he was pushing this to happen.

“Good,” Jaxon said. “Meet me in the gardens in three minutes.”

Threeminutes? That was really precise and military discipline like.

I guess it was his Alpha wolf mentality rising to the surface and the fact that he’d spent years commanding the largest wolf pack in the world back in the day.

He’d had to keep people in line and he would have needed to have been exceptionally good at it.

I just hoped thatkeeping me in linewasn’t his intent here.

Because that really wouldn’t bode well.

Especially not with how I was currently feeling.

I overshotthe proverbial finish line.

I’d come in too hot in dragon form, swept down too fast and aggressively.

Needing to double back gave Jaxon in full wolf form the advantage he needed to blow past me on the ground below, then leap the rest of the way to the edge of the tree line and come to an agile stop right before the rockery and the patio furniture—where we’d designated the end of our run to be.

A snarl of frustration escaped me before I could reel it in.

Surprise. Surprise. I didn’t like losing.

I pivoted around, dropped low, then shifted back as I touched the grass, fixing a white henley and a pair of crimson leather pants into place with a brief flare of my magic.

As I approached Jaxon about twenty feet away, he’d already done the same—shifted back, then used his magic that was thesame color as mine to dress himself in a pair of blue designer jeans and a black button down shirt this time.

“You had that,” he told me as I reached him. “You allowed something to override your instincts, which I’ve observed as being impressively solid for the most part, and it cost you that win.”

“Yeah,” I murmured. “I lost concentration, I guess.”

“It was more than that. With beings like us who possess an animal side, it’s always more.”

My gaze snapped to his at those words.

Heavy words.

Knowing words.

But, strangely, given my previous interactions with him, not reproachful words.

I cocked my head to the side, not sure what to make of it.

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