Kanin

As soon as I was sure Dane was gone, I rushed to the hallway. In the darkness, I could make out a figure slumped against the wall. I dropped down on my knees beside him, “Cade?” I reached out towards him and placed my hand on his face. He didn’t move. ”Please, Cade.”

Suddenly, he coughed. I sighed and threw myself around him. He protested in pain. “Oh, I’m sorry!” I instantly let him go. I could barely see him in the darkness, but his face looked ashen and he was gripping his side tightly. “You’re alive!”

He nods, “Don’t ask me why, but I am. Where’s Dane?”

“He left.” I said, moving away from him. I rested my back against the wall on the other side of the hallway and brought my knees to my chest.

“He just left?” Cade sounded just as confused as I felt.

“Yeah.” I said weakly.

“Why?” The weak werewolf questioned.

I shrugged, but said nothing.

“Did he say anything to you?”

“He said a lot of things.” Like how he killed my mother and wanted to kill me.

We both fell silent, to which I was grateful. I rested my forehead against my knees and let out a shaky breath. Tears fell silently from my eyes. Here, I thought Keera wanting me dead was the worst thing I had to deal with right now.

I wondered how Jax and the pack was doing. I could be sitting here thinking about them, but they could already be dead. I wanted to get up and go find them, but I couldn’t get my body to obey. I was empty.

I wasn’t sure how long I sat there, silent and cold. Cade didn’t move either, but I kept tabs on his heart beat to make sure he was still okay. He was resting, which I knew he needed plenty of. I wasn’t sure what else to do. Would I just wait here for the pack to hopefully return?

Suddenly, I heard rushing footsteps outside. I pushed my back against the wall. Dane was back to finish the job. My heart kicked wildly in my chest. Cade didn’t move. My eyes snapped to him for a moment. If it came down to it, I’d protect him with my life.

“Kanin!”

It wasn’t Dane.

“Kanin, where are you?”

It was Jax. He came rushing through the front door, frantic. His eyes were bright red and searching. He yelled for me once more. His hands pulled nervously at his hair. That’s when he found me. He dropped to the ground in front of me, completely disregarding Cade behind him. His hands searched me frantically, running quickly over my skin.

“Oh, Kanin.” He let out an unsteady breath.

“You told me he was dead.” My voice was weak and I couldn’t bring myself to touch him.

“What?” Jax questioned, leaning back from me some.

“You told me your father was dead!” I screamed, pushing him away from me.

He stumbled back from me. His eyes instantly going to Cade, who looked like he was sleeping. “He was here?” He didn’t sound all that surprised.

“Yes, Jax, your very much alive father paid me a little visit!” That’s when my body started to obey me. I jumped to my feet and steadied myself back against the wall.

“And you’re alive?”

“Barely.” I breathed.

“What did he say?” Jax still sat on the ground, unmoving and looking very scared.

“A lot of things.” I crossed my arms over my chest. “One being that he wanted to kill me.”

He nodded.

“Which you already knew.” I scoffed. ”Unbelievable.”

“I don’t understand why he left you alive.” His eyes traveled to his fallen friend again. “Or Cade.”

“You told me your father was dead!” I screamed once again.

“He did! He died that night with Jamison. That man that was here was just a shell, he isn’t my father anymore!” He protested.

“Okay, Jax, that’s not the same thing as being actually dead though!” I shrieked, flailing my arms around.

Jax pulls himself off the ground, “Are you okay?”

He steps towards me, trying to comfort me. I’m quick to pull away. “No! I’m not okay!”

He nods and returns to Cade instead. He leans over his friend, shaking his shoulder. Cade groaned and then peeled his eyes open. “Jax.” Cade’s voice was quiet and weak. “Dane was-”

“I know, Cade.” Jax shushed his friend. “Can you walk?”

Cade nodded, taking his alpha’s hand and pushing to his feet. He swayed a little, his hand clutching his side. Jax swung his friend’s arm over his shoulder and started leading him to the living room. I watched him settle Cade on the couch and cover him with a throw blanket. He whispered something to him and then patted his shoulder.

He moved towards me, taking my elbow and pulling me up the stairs. We moved into his office, where I pulled away from him. He looked hurt, but didn’t protest. I watched him settle behind his desk, but he didn’t sit down.

“Did you know Dane killed my mother?” I asked, arms crossed over my chest.

Jax ran his hands over his face and then leaned against his desk. “I had an idea, yes.”

I shook my head, tears coming to my eyes again, “How could you not tell me about all this?”

“I wanted to protect you.” He tried to explain himself.

“Really? Protect me from your father who wants to kill me by telling me he was dead?” I yelled at him. “Help me understand this, Jax.”

“I don’t know how to.” He’s standing there letting me yell at him. He’s taking it without a fight, because he knows I’m justified.

We’re both silent for a moment. I don’t have it in me to yell at him anymore. I rest back against the wall and close my eyes. I just want to go to bed. I push up from the wall and step towards him. “Where’s the rest of the pack?”

His eyes snap to me and he stays quiet.

“How many were killed tonight?” I gulp, anger seeping through my veins again.

“None, Kanin.” He told me.

"None?” My eyes widen and a shred of happiness pours into me. “That’s good!”

He nods, but he doesn’t look happy.

“That’s good, right?” I ask, suddenly worried. “And Keera’s dead?”

“Yeah, she’s dead.” He tells me, but still he doesn’t look at me.

“Then what is it? What’s wrong?”

“Dane killed Keera.” Jax explains, his eyes finally snapping to me.

“Okay? At least he was good for something.”

“You don’t understand, Kanin.” He shakes his head and grips the desk tighter.

“What don’t I understand?”

“Dane killed an alpha.”

“Okay?” My veins turn ice cold.

“Dane killed Keera, an alpha. So, now he’s an alpha again.” He explains.

Now, I know why he looks so terrified. I shake my head, not wanting it to be true. But as much as I don’t want it to be, it will now be our reality. Dane wasn’t just a lone wolf anymore. Now, he was an alpha of a very ruthless pack. He was the alpha of Ean and Bevin.

My knees give out and I fall into the chair by the door, “This cannot be happening.”

He says nothing.

“Just when I thought Keera was the worst thing we were dealing with, and now this.”

“I’m sorry, Kanin.” He says.

“I can’t deal with this right now.” I shake my head and stand to my feet. “I need to sleep.”

“Okay.” He says to me as he watches me move towards the door. He doesn’t budge from his spot behind his desk. Apart of me knows he want be coming to me room tonight. And this is the first night I don’t want him to.

I shut him away in his office and make my way to my room. I close the door behind me and shed the dress. It was such a waste. I leave it in a ball on the floor and pull a t-shirt from the dresser. Once it falls on my shoulders, I instantly know it belongs to Jax. I bring it to my face in breath in his scent. A sudden wave of anger washes over me. Jax lied to me about so much. Everyone always lied to me.

I fall into my bed, burying my face in my pillow and crying myself to sleep.

When I wake the next morning, I know instantly that something is different. It’s not the fact that I was right about Jax not coming last night. It’s not the fact that I now know that Dane is very much alive. It’s something that causes a pit in my stomach.

I pull myself slowly from my bed. I stand there a moment and try to listen for heart beats, but I can’t place any. I shake my head and move into the bathroom. I take a quick shower and then pull on a pair of jeans and a shirt. I braid my hair as I descend the stair.

I haven’t made it off the landing when I stop dead in my tracks. There’s three heart beats and the third one isn’t Trent’s. It’s one I can’t place. I don’t move. I look around the room and try to find Jax or Cade, but I’m alone in the house.

“Jax?” I call as I finally step into the kitchen. My eyes travel around the room and stop out the front window. There’s a truck out front. My breath leaves my lungs and my heart stops beating.

I know the truck very well.

I used to see it every day.

I can’t get my body to move from the house. I can’t get my eyes to stop staring at the black pickup truck that I know like the back of my hand. My eyes search for signs that it isn’t the one I know it to be. It has the small dent in the passenger’s side. It has the sticker from my high school on the back window.

It’s my father’s truck.

No doubt in my mind.

My fathers found me.

Worse: he was here, in Jax’s mansion.

I’m moving before I realize I’m doing so. I rush to where I know I keep my daggers. I don’t know who I plan to use them on, but I know I’ll need them. I can’t let Jax kill my father. And I certainly can’t let my father kill another wolf from this pack.

I pull the daggers out of their sheath’s and move slowly to the front door. I turn the knob and step out onto the porch. Still, I see no one. I stop moving for a moment, and my heart picks out the three heart beats.

That’s when my eyes land on the three men standing in the front yard. My father is among them and suddenly he’s all I can focus on. He looks like an absolute mess. His dark hair is sticking up in all directions and his dark eyes are blood shot. His normally ironed clothes are wrinkled. He looks like he’s falling apart.

Then, he knows I’m standing there. His eyes snap to mine and he’s instantly crying. I’ve only ever seen my father cry once at my mother’s funeral. He was a proud man and sometimes I thought he wanted to hide his emotions because he thought they were weaknesses: like Jax. But here he was crying in front of two werewolves.

My eyes shift to Cade and Jax. Cade is beside my father. I expect him to be in half-shift, instead he looks calm. He doesn’t meet my stare directly though. Jax is standing before them both, hands shoved into his pockets. He doesn’t look at me either.

“Dad?” I finally find my voice, but I don’t move from my spot and neither does any of them. “What are you doing here? What’s going on?” I keep a tight hold on my daggers, just in case I must jump into action.

“Kanin.” It’s nice to hear his accent again and I realize how different it is from Jax’s. Which is yet another thing I don’t know about the alpha. “Baby-” My father struggles to find the worlds to say.

Jax steps towards me, but doesn’t get too close.

“Why is my father here?” I direct my question to the alpha.

“Because you’re going home, Kanin.”

Home. We’d once agreed that I didn’t have a home. Now, he was saying that home was back with my father, a human. The very human that killed his older brother, Jamison.

“What?” I didn’t understand.

“You’re going back with Thomas.” He said once more, stronger this time.

I searched his eyes and was surprised to see how cold they looked. I shook my head, forgetting about my father for a second. “No, I’m not.”

Jax takes another step towards me, “Yes, you are.”

“What are you doing, Jax?” I asked quietly, still unable to move from my spot.

“I need you to go home, Kanin.” He said again, nervously shifting from one foot to the other.

“You want me to go?” I questioned. My heart stops beating all together.

He pauses for a moment, his jaw clenching. For a moment, I think I see pain in his eyes, but it’s gone quickly. This isn’t the Jax I know standing in front of me. This is the ruthless alpha that I’d met when I first was kidnapped. This is the heartless monster that he’d portrayed himself to be and I wanted to know why he’d let me see it again.

“I want you to go.” He told me, his voice flat.

“What are you doing, Jax? This isn’t you”

“You don’t know me, Kanin. Never really did.” He snaps at me. “Just go back home with your dad before you hurt yourself again.”

My heart constricts and tears stream down my cheeks. “Don’t do this, Jax.”

“I’m doing what I should’ve done awhile I ago. You’ve done nothing but bring trouble to my pack and me. You don’t belong here.” His voice drives nails right into my heart.

I stumble back a step and I hear my daggers clatter to the stone porch at my feet. “Jax, stop.” I plead, but I know I can’t change it. Whether he means what he’s saying or not, his words are true.

“I don’t want you here anymore, Kanin. You need to leave. I regret ever bringing you here.” He drives it home, delivering one last knife to my heart.

“That’s enough!” My father growls at the alpha, taking a step between him and me. He doesn’t need to though. Jax knows that his words are worse than any physical blow he could’ve possibly given me.

My father finally crosses the space between us. He puts an arm around my shoulder, “Kanin, let’s go.”

I don’t move. I stare at Jax as he refuses to meet my stare. His eyes flash between their storm color and the color of his beast. I used to think that his red eyes were the color of his inner beast, but maybe I’d been looking at the real beast all along.

There are some things in life that I know I can’t have. I used to fear one of them might’ve been Jax. I don’t fear that anymore, because now I know I don’t anything to do with him.

Jax stands there a second longer, before he makes his way to the front door. I turn towards him one last time. “Congratulations, Jax, you did it.”

“Did what?” He says in a flat tone as he stares straight at the door.

“You killed me.”

I swear I see him flinch before he pulls open the door and disappears. Cade is quick to follow, he gives me a sad look, but says nothing. I hear the lock click into place as the door slams shut. That’s the final nail in my heart.

“Kanin.” My father pulls me against his side and ushers me towards his truck. I don’t protest. I let him help me into the passenger’s seat and strap the buckle over my chest. I stare up at the mansion and know it’s the last time I’ll ever see it.

I’m barely aware of the truck pulling away. I don’t allow myself to break down until the mansion is only a speck in the distance. My father lets me sob, he lets me scream. He doesn’t make a move to comfort me or speak to me. He lets me kick and scream until my lungs ache and my voice is gone.

Jax had set out to kill me. He’d kidnapped me that night on the road with the idea in mind that he would end my life. As time went on, I’d thought he wanted that less and less. Little did he know, he’d achieve that goal.

Jaxson Wylder killed Kanin Abbott.

He killed the innocent human girl. He killed the girl that knew nothing about the dark and dangerous world. He killed the girl that hadn’t seen the real cruelty that lived inside people.

That girl didn’t exist anymore.

She was replaced with a stronger version. One that had her eyes open to the world and knew what darkness lied within it. One that knew what real betrayal felt like. One that no longer trusted anyone. One that knew that true love was a weakness that destroyed people.

The almighty, heartless Jax killed the human girl, Kanin Abbott.

I wasn’t sure who I was any more.

But I wasn’t her.