Page 32 of Witchwolf

She marched into my office then, her green eyes boring into my soul as she held out her hand to shake.

I stood and shook her hand, and for a second, had the same feeling I had when I’d shaken hands with the head of Igarashi, like she was going to leap at me. It wasn’t as bad, but it was still disconcerting.

She blinked at me a moment, cocking her head, then her red lips split in a grin. “Oh, you’re just brand new, aren’t you? Barely even Awakened.”

Jax cleared his throat, but his eyes were trained entirely on the floor.

She turned back to him, rolling her eyes. “Oh stop it with the kicked puppy act, kiddo. You did fine. This is unheard of because it’s unheard of, not because you’ve done something hideously wrong.” She turned back to me, shaking her head. “When a magical child is orphaned, we always arrange for our own to adopt them. Always.”

“Because otherwise someone becomes magical without knowing magic exists?” I asked.

Her smile in return was oddly sad, and she shook her head. “No, sweetheart. I’d love to say yes, but it’s nothing so kind or well-intentioned. It’s because you represent power. You’re a baby, and with the right training, you could become anything. Everything. Letting you be adopted by random mundane humans is like seeing a million dollars sitting on the sidewalk and just walking off and leaving it there.”

Maia squinted at her, then looked at me. “Adopted by random mundane humans? That’s... that’s crazy. How did they deal with your Awakening?”

I flushed bright red, realizing that every person who ever found out about me in the future was going to know exactly when I first had sex. That was messed up. “They, um, they didn’t,” was all I managed to choke out.

“That’s my job now,” the woman agreed. “I’m Prudence, by the way. Prudence McCallan. And I may have plenty of money, but I’ve never been one to leave a million dollars sitting on the sidewalk. I always wanted an apprentice. Come on, little sparrow. Lunch time. Jax is buying, and you have a lot to learn.”

14

Jax

Moon above, it was disgraceful how relieved I was to hand Dakota over to Prudence’s care, but I was glad someone was there who knew what the hell they were doing. No, we hadn’t arranged in Dakota’s training time to also learnmagic, but this whole situation was my responsibility now.

I’d caused his Awakening, so I couldn’t leave him alone to figure out his new power.

And wasn’t working through this while he was on the clock better than him having to figure everything out on his own? Hell, if he’d come across the wrong group of mages, they might’ve used his inexperience to manipulate him.

Maybe I was just trying to make myself feel better, but I needed to not see myself as the villain in all of this. Of course, that my concern wasn’t first and foremost the well-being of a man we’d hired to work with us, and was instead that he continued to like me, probably meant that I was.

But damn it, I wanted him to like me still. Even if we couldn’t?—

Well, I just wanted to be a bright spot in his memory and someone that he could continue to rely on. Thinking I’d taken advantage of him reminded me too much of the asshole alpha Jillian and I had escaped. I rubbed my hand beneath my collarbone—where my shirt covered the perfectly unblemished skin beneath. My wounds had been terrible—deadly, if I were human—but because I was a wolf, every mark that bastard had put on me had healed. We wolves didn’t often scar, and even our fight hadn’t been vicious enough to leave its marks except on my psyche.

I could still see Jillian’s white, terrified face. We’d been eighteen, and she’d been convinced I was going to lose the eye.

Maybe I would’ve, if I hadn’t been a werewolf. Fuck if I knew. But even one eye down, I’d fought for my life—for all our lives. I’d taken him down, and we left Idaho forever.

I’d sworn to myself that I’d never be anything like him, and by my pack, at least, I thought I’d done all right. By Dakota? I wasn’t so convinced.

So while I normally spent my days walking the halls of Crescent, too impatient to stay stuck behind my desk when I could keep an eye on my people and the day-to-day operations of the company, I hid out, sunk deep in my office chair, for the rest of the day. Nobody even bothered me for long, so I must’ve been putting off some “fuck the hell off” vibes without meaning to.

But Dakota? He wasn’t as sensitive to scents and the subtle body language that shifters relied on as most Crescent employees—who, by and large, were shifters too, even if they weren’t wolves.

Toward the end of the day, he showed up in my office doorway and knocked. “You busy?”

I stared at him, wide eyed and dull after—what had I been doing? Our contract with Prudence was open on my desk. We hadn’t touched it in years, but I’d had the thought of possibly amending it to limit her risk in this deal. She’d signed with us, not Igarashi, and I couldn’t have any growth in Crescent negatively impacting our partners. If we were moving forward, the risk had to be on my shoulders.

Honestly, though? I’d spent most of the afternoon glancing out the window, wondering what Prudence was telling him. She had always been open to working with us, treated us more than decently—more personally and professionally than other mages, but—well, there was a difference between that and knowing that I’d Awakened a mage, wasn’t there?

I was bracing for Dakota to withdraw, to return to the office and look at me with mistrust next time our paths crossed.

Instead, when I stared at him, he smiled. Yeah, he looked a little uncomfortable, but I probably looked wild-eyed and fucking crazy, so that... might not have anything to do with mistrusting me now.

That didn’t make answering him any easier. “Um?—”

I wasn’t busy, actually. Or, if I should have been, I wasn’t managing it.

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