4- Jax

Meg

Nose twitching, my wolf frowns, her head inclining to the side, her emotion rising with my familiarity, while my eyes squint. I would recognise that deep voice anywhere even if it sounds a bit different from what I remembered. This is how our wolf instinct aids us when we become one. See, Red might never have met him but she sure recognised him based on my recollection of him.

Quickly, I spin around when I hear heavy quick footsteps behind me, my nose still at work with my keen eyes joining in. The ridges on the back of my neck, stand erect while I am turning, my leg jutting out in a power-packed kick straight into the chest of my best friend, Jax.

Stomp.

Excitement builds inside me with his familiar scent. 

<What?> Red is shocked by my action but grins within two seconds when she senses my jest.

“Oof,” the walking magazine gasps as he falls flat on his back. Grinning, I gaze down at him, waiting for him to gather his breath then extended my hand down to him, nearly ten seconds later when his pained expression eased.

The tall lean man, dressed in fitted jeans, deep brown boots, and a flannel red long-sleeved shirt, grunts as he gets to his feet, towering over me.

“Look who got gorgeous,” I greet him, before jumping up and wrapping my legs around his waist, pressing my lips fully against his mouth in a chaste kiss. I hadn't seen him since he was seventeen when his mother remarried, and they moved to the city. Jax had gotten his wolf a few months before they moved and had left when his hardcore training was done.

A human was Jax‘s stepdad, so the link he and his mum had, would have remained with the pack and it reconnected upon their return as they had not left the pack. Like Wi-Fi, if you will. At least it’s what I heard anyway. I can’t confirm it as well, I have never left the pack.

I have no family to visit or any sort of money that would take me places...

Red, makes happy whining noises inside my head and I concentrate hard to allow her this joyous moment. <Hello Blue, I’m Red>

Uh, WHAT?

My wolf did a sort of sheen thing where I could feel her surfacing but then she didn’t overtake my body. In her excitement of the situation of conversing with another actual wolf, she radiated her wolf power. Only she is too weak to overpower me.

Note that I do not think she was trying to intentionally take over my body as wolves tend to do sometimes in moments of heightened aggression.

My enthusiasm does not display across my face- possibly because I have grown so accustomed to masking myself from the horrid remarks, I have had to put up with from pack members.

Blue is the reason behind my wolf's name being a colour as well- I’d chosen it, thinking of Jax. He’d told me he would be naming his wolf that and I did talk to my wolf about my one and only friend before I met her. Hence Red knowing Blue, even without ever meeting him.

“You got your wolf,” Jax grins, his muscled biceps coming around and squeezing me a bit too much and my grunt has his hold slackening at the same time I hear < Hi Juliet’s wolf>

Red beams.

<Red, nice to finally meet you> Jax's wolf smiles-er, wolfishly. <Blue> They spoke inside our heads via the mind link.

Red’s aura inside me is lit up. Wow, I never felt this from her before. Weird. It’s also weird that she is speaking to another wolf, so out goes my theory that I am a member of another pack. Jax is a valid member of the Mount White Stone Pack, making me one as I can communicate with him.

Meanwhile, while the wolves got acquainted, I closed my eyes, diving into the smell of him. His neck is so- delicious. So masculine.

<Behave yourself> Red scolds me when I get the urge to lick Jax’s neck and my eyes open in disbelief. 

Red entire being is flushed and my cheeks go crimson. 

What had I been about to do? Am I crazy? What...it dawns on me then that Jax, Blue and Red, all know my dirty thoughts but at the same time Red assure me that the other two don’t and that she spoke to me, without Blue hearing.

Another ability I did not know we possessed. A separate frequency. Hmm.

“I did,” I beamed for I got my wolf two years after he left. I could have done with his friendly face throughout my week of fever and delusions. Not to mention the following months when I was supposed to have my wolf emerge fully, but I couldn’t complete it. 

Not even once.

See when we hit puberty, like regular humans who undergo the transition to becoming adults, we get those along with the heightened senses of wolves. And us half-humans, we are in training from then. But within our pack, to control our inner wild beasts- remember the kill-kill-kill? We get those feral instincts from then. So, it is just a matter of understanding your body that’s now extremely powerful, when the wolf makes their arrival. 

This transition process could take up almost the better part of a day and up to a week to several months before the human body accepts the change and moulds into it completely.

Literally, your body has to break every piece of bone in your body. Slowly. Then restructured and reformed.

You would feel bone shifting and muscles expanding. Limbs, torso, nails and teeth will elongate as well as your jaw and nose to form the snout and did I mention you feel this happening? Even your eyes change and I have heard some gain different eye colours sometimes after transitioning.

This is why I am partly to blame for Red being such a coward. She has no drive and I have no will, to encourage us along. I had only gotten as far as the dislocation of my jaw but the feeling of my face being smashed and yanked at the same time was too much for me to handle and I opted out. Hence my wolf is weak. We both know she will eventually be too weak to even have a conversation in a matter of a few years if the bond isn't completed and I might end up wolfless, as well.

We are both candy-asses.

“But you got jacked. My mans be packing under here,” I mouth off only realising what I said when I hear it myself. That was sort of awkward to say I suppose when Red frowns, stepping back and sitting down, inside my head. After all, my inner thighs were what was feeling the ‘jacked muscles’ of his rock-hard abs because they were wrapped around his waist still.

In Red’s way of thinking, she is uncomfortable because of the ‘what if’ the alpha was not fibbing and he really is my mate, after all. Moreover, she also feels that even though that might be a lie, he is still our alpha. And this would be considered a ‘disobedience’ if anyone sees me disrespecting the alpha in this way.

Suddenly self-conscious, I gulp when I remember my legs wrapped around the alpha's body the same way. Jax is my bestie! How could I be so- cringe? I wish to make it clear that I am in no way afraid of the alpha’s punishment which might involve me being kicked out into the curb. Homeless and vulnerable to the outside world.

“Speak for yourself, Juliet,” Jax reverts to the nickname he gave me after I went through a phase in junior high when I empathized with Romeo and Juliet. I even cried when I played the part in the play- my ‘acting’ was highly praised by the performance and art instructor who loved the whole ‘artistic tears’ as he called it.

He sets me on my feet effortlessly and cups my face with his hands, gazing at me with his honey-brown eyes. Jax had always been good looking I guess, but he was drop-dead handsome now. With his small, neat Ben Affleck nose, and eyebrows that were jet-black and too thick but attractive somehow. His ridiculously chiselled jawline and pillowy lips would have made any girl’s lower jaw hang, but I do know him so- okay yeah. It’s hanging mentally- er, I place the blame on Red.

To set off his perfect outer appearance, his black hair is in the trendy messy bun and perfect square-like chin. 

We spend the next five minutes exchanging the normal well wishes and questions that friends shoot at each other after years of separation without even a phone call or letter.

“I’m glad you got that girlish squeak sorted out,” I giggle when he kisses the tip of my nose and then takes my hand in the crook of his own. Puberty had been difficult for him with his voice dipping and rising in only embarrassing situations that involved the opposite sex for him.

He grins and Red is silent which means she is already exhausted by the simple conversation and the thought of the alpha finding out I hugged my friend. That is how weak an omega is.

“Where you headed?” Jax queries, setting off in the direction I had been going in, but I stop moving, his steps also cease. “Packhouse? I heard there is something up with rogues that invaded the Wet Valley pack.”

Well, I sure hadn’t heard that as I was not welcomed to meetings. Nor was I invited to gatherings unless I had to clean. I didn’t say this, although I suspect he knows because he knows where I grew up. In the house for the pack rejects- not that that ever bothered him. “Nah, was just going to check on something,” I twisted the truth a bit and he smiled widely, showing his jubilance in having my company.

“Well, if it’s not important, let's go get lunch, I am starving, and mum is busy gossiping, to worry about cooking for her starving son. Truthfully, I was heading over to the alpha house to eat. But I’m glad I ran into you instead. We can catch up.”

“Come on,” he playfully jams me with his shoulder. “I can make a pretty neat sandwich,” he adds when my stomach chooses then to embarrass me with an unrealistic sound. I don’t know if that’s because of my secret inside or if it’s actually because I am hungry. Lately, I have had no appetite to eat.

Seeing a great reason to not go to the pack house, I take up Jax on his invitation to go back to his house. It’s been so long since I have seen my aunt, I tell Red, who isn’t really buying it but is still too weak to respond, remaining with her head low as she laid down.