I set Sal against the deck railing. “Neither of you will be applying for scholarships until you’re seniors,” I said. Not that either of them would need scholarships to pay for school. Having an immortal family helps a lot with wealth accumulation.
Jax rolled his eyes. “We know.”
“Then what’s the problem?” I asked.
“He wants me to act dumb so Ms. Saunders will tell the fourth-grade teachers to keep me in the same class with him.” Akeyla’s magic flared again.
“That’s not a nice thing to ask someone to do, Jax,” Maura said.
Jax’s scowl deepened. “But I’m alpha and she’s my mate.”
Akeyla shoved Jax. “They’re your games! Not mine!”
“Hey, hey, honey.” Maura pulled Akeyla away from Jax. “Let’s all go in and eat dinner.” She pointed at the takeout on the table. “We’ll talk about this calmly.”
If anything, Maura’s suggestion made Jax dig in his heels even more. And being the young alpha that he was, nothing about his body relaxed. He continued to square his shoulders to the women and stand with his feet apart and his arms crossed over his chest.
Dominance posture on a nine-year-old werewolf isn’t cute. If anything, it’s frightening, because a nine-year-old doesn’t understand what he’s doing. An angry nine-year-old, even a born wolf—even Jax—was only marginally better at controlling his wolf than the newly turned.
And one-on-one, not much was more dangerous than a raging werewolf.
“Perhaps you need to go home and think about what you said to Akeyla,” Maura said. “Whether or not she skips a grade is up to her, not you. Apologize.”
Jax snorted.
Tears burst from Akeyla. She wailed and hugged her mother. “I don’t like him anymore,” she said against her mother’s shoulder.
Jax’s magic growled. He didn’t, thank goodness, but his wolf looked at Maura, then me, and released an angry vibration.
“Jaxson!” Maura snapped.
“You are hurting Akeyla. Stop,” I said. Jaxson Geroux was firmly entrenched inside his little nine-year-old alpha ditch and utterly unable to see that his hole wasn’t a hill.
Jaxson looked away. Maura’s eyes widened for a split second, and Akeyla continued to bury her face in her mother’s shoulder.
Maura stood and pulled Akeyla to her hip. “You’re going home, young man. Your behavior is unacceptable.” She turned Akeyla toward the door.
My little fire elf niece ran up the deck to the door sniffling and trailing a bright tail of blue and red magic.
Maura stopped next to the table and glanced at me. I nodded, and she picked up dinner and the other items, then followed her daughter inside.
Jax continued to frown, but had turned away and stared up at the moon. His wolf magic shimmered in the moonglow as a silver-violet bubble with paws and a snout.
Hierarchy and dominance didn’t blend well with the whole fated-mate business. The hierarchy part of the package wasn’t canine. I’d lived too long with dogs and the Alfheim Pack to have any doubts about what was wolf and what was human.
I walked to the edge of the deck, stopped, and consciously mimicked Jax’s alpha stance.
He looked me up and down, and returned to staring at the moon.
“You may have already chosen her, but that doesn’t mean she will choose you when the time comes,” I said.
He frowned. “We’re fated.”
I rubbed my cheek. “No,” I said. “You’re compatible. You’re friends.” I waved at the house. “Or you used to be friends. You’ve got some hefty repair work ahead of you.”
He glanced at the house and somehow managed to deepen his already subterranean frown.
Jax was a good kid with a good head on his shoulders, and generally mature for his nine years. But it was clear that his cooperation was never because of social pressure. He cooperated because he believed it was the best way to secure the pack.
And in his head, “securing the pack” meant maintaining his alpha-ness at peak efficiency. Everyone in the pack must agree. If they didn’t, they weren’t pack. Nor was he alpha.
He was having trouble seeing around his circular young-man thinking.
“What did you think of the wedding today?” I asked. I wasn’t the most qualified to talk to anyone about mates and marriage. My past with women was complicated. But I was outside the pack and elf hierarchy, so perhaps I could offer guidance that Jax might otherwise ignore.
He rubbed his cheek as if mimicking me. “We’re both going to college,” he said, as if he’d rehearsed this moment many times and wanted to cut through the small talk. Or perhaps he’d already had a similar talk with his father and uncle. “If Akeyla skips a year we won’t graduate at the same time.”
“This worries you?”
He looked up at me the same way Akeyla looked up at her dumb Uncle Frank.
I held back a sigh. “Her schooling is hers. What she does is not your decision.” Not now. Not in the future, either. “She will ask for your opinion, Jax. If you are fated, she will treasure your advice and your help. That’s not the same thing as you telling her what to do.”
And what about me? Ellie had pretty much told me to stop my attempts to find my way inside her enchantments. I would fix her bike. I’d picked up her new phone. But I wasn’t to do anything more.
I frowned as much as Jax did.
He shrugged. Was I surprised by his bullheadedness? He was a Geroux, and a proto-alpha. But he was in for a rude awakening if he thought everyone needed to bow to his wishes.
“So you two have already planned your graduations?” Of course they had, but in a third grade, best friends way.
“If Akeyla comes with me, I can play out-of-state games.”
And if I find a way into Ellie’s enchantments, I could help her find a way out.
Or so I believed.
“Well, yes,” I said. “Maybe. It won’t be that simple.” How much was Akeyla willing to sacrifice for Jax? What was he asking her to do? I looked out over the lake, at the moon streaking across the water and the faster-than-expected rebuilding
