Chapter 85 I Had Too
As the last black SUV disappeared around the bend, leaving a cloud of dust hanging in the silent air, Fennigan didn't relax. He turned sharply to the perimeter guards who had emerged from the tree line, their weapons drawn but useless now.
"Lock the gates!" Fennigan yelled, his voice cracking with the sheer force of the adrenaline dump. "Double the patrol. And do not—I repeat, do not—let anyone in. If a squirrel crosses that line, I want to know about it!"
The guards nodded, scrambling to secure the heavy iron gates.
Fennigan didn't wait to see it done. He looked at Jax. There were no words needed between the brothers. They stripped off their shirts in unison, the fabric tearing in their haste. Bones cracked and reshaped, fur sprouted, and in seconds, two massive wolves—one a midnight black, the other a russet brown—were tearing across the lawn.
They didn't take the path. They cut straight through the dense underbrush, their paws thundering against the earth, driven by a singular, desperate need to see their mates.
When they burst into the clearing of the Grove, the air was still thick with the scent of anxiety and fear.
They shifted back mid-stride, stumbling slightly as human legs replaced paws. They didn't care about dignity. They just needed to touch.
Fennigan hit the door of the cabin first, throwing it open.
Leela was standing there, Briar still clinging to her, her face pale and streaked with tears. When she saw him—sweaty, dirt-streaked, but alive—she let out a sob that broke the room in half.
Fennigan crossed the distance in two strides. He wrapped his arms around her and the baby, burying his face in the crook of her neck, inhaling the scent of rain and milk and safety.
"You shut me out," Leela whispered into his chest, her hands gripping his bare shoulders hard enough to leave marks. "Fenn, I couldn't feel you. It was like you were dead. It was just... ice."
Fennigan pulled back, framing her face with his large, trembling hands. He looked into her eyes, letting her see the raw, terrifying vulnerability he had hidden from Vane.
"I had to," Fennigan choked out. "Leela, if I hadn't... if I had let myself feel the fear of losing you? If I had let myself feel the panic of them taking Briar and Caspian?"
He shook his head, a tear finally cutting a track through the dust on his cheek.
"I would have killed every single one of those men," Fennigan confessed, his voice rough. "I wouldn't have just threatened them. I would have torn them apart on the front lawn. And then we would be fugitives. We would be running for the rest of our lives."
He pressed his forehead against hers, closing his eyes.
"I had to be cold," he whispered. "Because if I got hot... I would have burned the world down. And I couldn't do that to you. I couldn't make us runners."
Leela let out a shuddering breath, finally understanding the "ice." It wasn't indifference. It was a dam holding back a tidal wave of violence.
"You saved us," she whispered, kissing him. "You didn't run. You stood."
Across the room, the scene was quieter but no less desperate
.
Ginny was still sitting on the velvet sofa, Caspian finally awake and playing with a loose thread on her shirt.
Jax hadn't said a word. He had walked over, collapsed onto the rug at her feet, and simply slumped forward.
He sat there, his back bowed, his breathing ragged. He rested his head gently against the curve of Ginny’s baby bump, his ear pressed right against the life growing inside her. His hands came up to hold her waist, anchoring himself to the earth.
Ginny didn't ask what happened. She just ran her fingers through his messy hair, scratching his scalp, letting him listen to the heartbeat of his unborn child—the proof that, for now, they were still safe.
"We're here, Jax," Ginny murmured softly. "We're all here."
Jax nodded against her stomach, unable to speak, just breathing in the rhythm of the family he had almost gone to war to protect.