Chapter 189 I Can't Wake Them Up
Jax didn’t even bother to turn off the ignition. The SUV sat idling, its headlights cutting through the mist like twin predatory eyes focused on the gaping maw of the front door. The silence of the house was wrong—it wasn't the peaceful quiet of a sleeping home, but the heavy, suffocating stillness of a tomb.
He stepped onto the porch, his boots making no sound on the wood. He moved with the lethal fluidity of the pack's shadow, his heart a cold stone in his chest. As he crossed the threshold, the scent hit him: cloying, bittersweet, and thick enough to coat the back of his throat. It was the smell of Magda’s herbs, but twisted—amplified by something dark and ancient.
Then, he heard it. A low, rhythmic chanting that seemed to vibrate out of the floorboards.
He followed the sound to the entrance of the Great Room. There, framed by the flickering light of the hearth and the haze of blue-grey smoke, stood Magda. The elderly woman, who had been a fixture of the Blackwood for decades, was hunched over a brass censer. She was tossing dried bundles into the flame, her voice a sandpaper rasp as she muttered words in a tongue that tasted like copper.
Jax’s gaze swept past her, and his blood turned to ice.
Leela, Elana, and his own Ginny were draped across the sofas. They weren't just sleeping; they were unnaturally still, their faces pale and their breathing shallow. A shimmering, oily veil of smoke hung over them, pulsing in time with Magda’s chant. This was the "veil"—the reason Fennigan couldn't feel his mate. Magda wasn't just hiding them; she was tethering their spirits to a place far away from their bodies.
Magda reached for another bundle, her eyes clouded with a milky, fanatical film. "For the lineage," she hissed under her breath. "For the purity of the blood. The old ways must return..."
Jax didn't roar. He didn't shift. He simply stepped into the light behind her, his shadow stretching across the wall until it loomed over her like a giant.
"The old ways died the second you touched my wife, Magda," Jax said, his voice a low, lethal vibration that cut through the chanting like a blade.
Magda froze. She didn't turn around, but her grip tightened on the herbs. "You were supposed to be in the Neutral Territory, Beta. You weren't supposed to see the transition. Damon promised... he promised it would be quick."
"Damon is dead," Jax lied—or spoke a truth he hoped for—his eyes glowing a fierce, terrifying gold. "And if you don't break this spell in the next three seconds, you’re going to find out exactly what I do to people who threaten my wife and my son."
The moment Jax spoke, Magda’s hunched frame didn't tremble; it stiffened with a fanatical, jagged energy. With a hissed curse in that ancient tongue, she didn't turn to face him. Instead, she swung the heavy brass censer like a flail, catching the edge of the stone hearth and upending the glowing, white-hot coals directly onto the rug.
The reaction was instantaneous. The dry herbs flared into a wall of oily, violet flame that roared toward the ceiling. The smoke thickened into a dense, choking fog that stung Jax's eyes and scorched his lungs. By the time he lunged through the haze to grab her, the space where the old woman had been standing was empty—save for a lingering scent of sulfur and a window at the far end of the hall that was now swinging violently in the wind.
"Coward!" Jax coughed, the smoke clawing at his throat.
He didn't have time to hunt her. The fire was spreading across the wool rug, licking at the legs of the sofa where Ginny lay unconscious. Jax ripped off his tactical vest, using the heavy Kevlar plates to beat back the flames, stomping with his heavy boots until the fire died down into a smoldering, acrid mess.
The air in the Great Room was a poison soup. Jax pulled the hem of his shirt over his nose, his eyes watering. He tried to reach the windows to vent the room, but the "veil" Magda had cast made the smoke heavy, like it was trying to push him back. His lungs burned, and his vision began to swim. He realized he couldn't clear the room fast enough—he had to get them out.
Jax acted on pure, Beta-driven instinct. He scooped Ginny up first, her pregnant belly a heavy reminder of everything he stood to lose. He carried her out to the porch, laying her gently on the cool wood. He didn't stop to check her pulse; he turned back into the darkness.
Next was Leela. She felt unnaturally cold, her skin clammy as he hauled her over his shoulder. He could feel the raw, dormant power of the Elemental Lineage humming beneath her skin, suppressed by Magda's toxins. He deposited her beside Ginny and dove back in for a third time.
The smoke was at head-height now. Jax dropped to his knees, crawling across the floor to find Elana. His mother was dead weight, her breathing so shallow it was almost non-existent. With a final, desperate burst of strength, he dragged her out onto the porch just as the first sirens began to wail in the distance and the headlights of the SUV swung back into the driveway.
Fennigan leaped from the vehicle before it even stopped, the twins clutched in his arms. He saw the smoke, saw the three women lined up on the porch, and for a second, the world went silent.
"Jax!" Fennigan roared, dropping to his knees beside Leela, his hands hovering over her face. "What did she do?"
"Magda," Jax rasped, collapsing against the porch railing and gasping for the night air. "She drugged them... a veil. I can't wake them up, Fenn. I can't wake them up!"
Fennigan’s knees hit the porch boards with a heavy thud that rattled the wood.