Page 38 of Broken Bonds
At all.
But after a restless night, I find myself wide awake at 4:26 in the morning and give up trying to sleep. I start a pot of coffee and retrieve clean clothes from the dryer, which I fortunately forgot about last night, meaning no risk of waking Jax.
Then I quietly let myself out of the house, get in my car, and start driving.
No, I don’t leave Jax a note. I’m in too petty, too snarky a mood right now.
Yes, we need to talk this through.
Calmly.
When I can do it from a place of love and without calling him a fucking asshole every other breath. Not now, not when my nerves are raw and my soul aches in a way I haven’t felt since I was a kid when I realized my family and birth pack didn’t want me.
Worse, would have killed me if I hadn’t left.
I’m going for a run. If Jax doesn’t like it, he can kiss my ass.
See? More proof I need time to calm down. Not only am I upset, I get bitchy when I don’t get enough sleep.
This situation triggered a lot of old emotional wounds. Of feeling not good enough. Yeah, I have abandonment issues, I get it. That’s not Jax’s fault but feelings just are, and it’s something I need to work through.
One hurting and bitchy coyote plus a buttload of pain means bumping against Jax’s Alpha will lead to explosive fireworks, and I don’t want that.
Normally, I have no complaints about Jax as my husband. Even if he doesn’t think so, I know he’ll be a fantastic father. I’ve watched him interact with kids in the pack, and he’s the fun adopted uncle, the protective big brother, the calm mentor.
The kind of father I wish I’d had growing up.
He’s patient answering questions, lets kids help with pack projects, teaches them, guides them.
I don’t understand why he’s the only one who can’t see that about himself. People frequently ask me when we’ll start a family, as if I’m the one slacking.
And when it comes to running our pack, Jax is firm but fair, protective, reasonable. He gives people a chance when no one else has. He’s gifted at motivating people in positive ways. He’s not strict except when it comes to the safety of the pack, and doubly so the safety of kids and human mates.
I love Jax with every cell in my body and I have since the literal second we met. Before I stumbled across the Ocala Pack, I didn’t believe I’d ever find a forever pack, much less a mate. I spent decades alone, afraid to stay too long in any one place, no more than a few months at a time. Worked day labor and cash-only jobs to stay under the radar.
I didn’t register as a shifter back then, either. It wasn’t a required declaration in my case, because of my age and situation. I also wasn’t certain if my family could find me if I did, and I didn’t want trouble following me wherever I went.
In that way, I very much empathize with Mal.
It’s still dark when I reach the pack-owned private nature preserve. Five hundred acres of heavily wooded and undeveloped land in the heart of the pack compound.
I love it here. Next to our home, this is my favorite place on the planet. It’s where we hold initiation ceremonies and pack runs.
This is where I first set eyes on Jax because that was before we owned the other property where Davis brought Mal to meet us yesterday.
This is where I pledged myself to the pack. Where Jax claimed me.
Where my initiation took place.
This is the place where I started my new life, this life, a damned good life.
A charmed life.
I park and shut the car off. When I step out, it’s dark and damp and slightly cool in the pre-dawn air. It smells fresh and clean and real, raw—nature in its purest form.
I feel connected to it in a way I feel connected to nothing and no one else except Jax and our pack.
I never felt like this growing up, or at the countless temporary way stations in the years between leaving home and finding my way to this place.
