The Alpha and his Mate
Chapter 25

Annabelle’s POV

I woke up in a cold sweat with beads of perspiration running down my forehead and into my hairline. I looked around and found myself laying on a comfy bed, with my shoes missing and the duvet pulled up over my body and around my shoulders. I kicked the duvet off of me in the hopes that it would cool my adrenaline filled body down and sat up to take in my surroundings.

It was difficult as the room was dark due to the blackout blind being drawn shut but as far as I could tell no one was in the room with me. How did I end up here anyway, I don’t remember going for a nap. The last thing I remembered was walking through the front door to Jax’s family home to find multiple pairs of eyes staring at me.

I slowly sat up and took everything in, I had no idea where I was but for some reason, I didn’t feel panicked. Surely a normal person would feel some form of fear when waking up in an unknown room and having no knowledge of even getting there.

It was familiar somehow, well maybe not familiar in the sense that I knew where I was, but more in the sense that it smelled like Jax, it smelt of home.

The voice in my head made this weird purring sound when I mentioned the word home and it wasn’t till after I thought my words through that I realised what I had just thought. I had a home. For the first time in twelve years I felt like I belonged somewhere.

This was definitely a teenage boys bedroom, that was for sure. There were posters of cars and bands blue tacked and scattered across the four walls. An old TV sat in the corner of the room on a glass stand with piles of action movies and video games stacked neatly underneath with some form of games console standing next to them.

The walls were a dark blue colour, not unlike the colour on Jax’s walls at the moment, with the floor covered in a fluffy cream carpet that had definitely seen better days. I twitched as I felt the urge to go and get the hoover to try and make the fabric fluffy again but stopped myself when I reminded myself of where I was, or more accurately where I wasn’t.

I may not be living in that house anymore and made to do all the housework and cook all the meals but old habits die hard, especially habits that had been drilled into you since you were seven years old. I had found myself on multiple occasions resorting back to my old ways, getting up early and cleaning the place before Jax had even woken up before getting on with cooking breakfast for him.

He had told me over and over again that I didn’t need to do any of that if I didn’t want to, that it wasn’t my job to do everything in the house. He said that I was now a Luna and if I didn’t feel like cooking or cleaning that day he could always do it himself or we could order some food in. If I was being honest though sometimes I kind of liked doing it. It wasn’t so much the task itself that I missed, I don’t think anyone could miss cooking and cleaning after someone else, but it was more the routine and sense of purpose I’d feel after the job was done. It was a sense of normality in my life as everything else around me seemed to change at the drop of a hat. It soothed my anxiety and helped to ground me when my head wouldn’t stop thinking.

Even though the whole room was clean and organised I could tell that it hadn’t been lived in here in a long time, something about the air. It smelled to dusty and clean to have someone regularly using the space.

I quickly shook my head as I’d realised I had gotten distracted and rubbed my eyes with the heel of my hand, I needed to tell Jax what I’d seen.

I stuffed my feet into some slippers which were sitting by the side of the bed and slowly pulled the door open, cautious of what I was going to find.

As I pulled the door open my view of the corridor was blocked by the back of a guy about the same build as Jax but a few inches shorter. I shrunk back slightly at the close proximity of the stranger and started to shield myself with the door slightly, just in case he wasn’t the friendly type.

“Are you okay Luna?” I startled at the sound of his deep voice breaking the silence and looked up at him in confusion. For a second I didn’t know who he was talking to, I even had half a mind to look behind me to see if someone was there, before my brain finally caught up with me and I realised that he was actually talking to me. I was the Luna of this pack now.

I nodded slowly, as I tried to brush back the flyaways that had stuck to my forehead slightly due to the perspiration. The stranger had kind blue eyes as they looked down at me, not in a menacing way but with a look of respect. This small bit of information gave me the confidence I needed to nod and look up at him. It may not have been in the eye but any form of communication involving me not looking down at my feet was an improvement in my eyes.

“May you please take me to J-Jax please?” I stuttered, internally rolling my eyes at my over use of the word please.

“Of course Luna” he nodded with a swift business like nod before turning around and leading me down the hallway. The floors were covered in red floral rugs fringed with beige tassels and the walls were painted a calming off white colour with photo frames littering the surface. Some held drawings done by toddlers, their bright colours standing out against the plain background of the wall, whilst others framed faces of happy smiley people as they stared into the lens of the camera. Some faces I kind of recognised, child versions of Hannah with a bunch of other people surrounding her. I didn’t have time to study them though because the stranger in front was walking at too fast a pace for me to pause and I didn’t want to stop in fear of looking nosey.

The hallway ended at a set of stairs which lead down and into the ground floor of the property. I could hear multiple voices not to far from me and I froze at the prospect of being in a busy room full of people I didn’t know. What if, for some reason, they didn’t know who I was and thought that I was trespassing? I’d already learnt from Xavier that trespassing on pack land without permission was punishable by death, what if these people killed me thinking that I was some kind of threat?

My brain spun out of control with scenarios on what could happen to me if I walked down there, each one more bizarre than the last. The logical side of me know that no one here would hurt me, Jax had told me that himself, but the other part of me, the part ruled by fear and anxiety, couldn’t help but spit out paranoid thoughts as I stood frozen on the top step.

The stranger looked back at me, confused as to why I had paused, but when he got a look at my fearful expression his eyes softened. “It’s alright Luna, no one will harm you here” he reassured me, his voice low and soft so as not to draw attention to us.

I nodded my head slowly, pushing down the bubble of anxiety that was brewing in the pit of my stomach, and slowly made my way down the steps, one hand tightly gripped onto the banister and the other clenched at my side.

As we made our way down the staircase I could hear more and more voices, nearly all of which I didn’t recognise. One stood out amongst the rest though, a voice that made my heart rate calm down in a matter of seconds and my rising anxiety to temporarily subside. Jax.

The stranger lead me down the last few steps and it was then that I finally recognised where I was. I was still in Jax’s parents’ house and Jax was exactly where I last saw him, hunched over the dining room table and surrounded by people.

The man that lead me down here cleared his throat, trying to gain the attention of the loud people in the room. “Alpha, the Luna is awake and requested to see you”.

Jax’s head snapped up at the strangers words and upon seeing me quickly rounded the table and started to jog over to me, the others in the room getting out of his way so he could get to me quicker.

“What are you doing up! You should be back in bed and resting” he sighed as he took me into his arms. “You had me worried for a second there” he muttered as he kissed the top of my head, before bringing me into his chest.

My cheeks warmed at the audience we had but I quickly forgot about them as I thought about what I had originally come here to tell him. “Jax I had another one of those vision things” I muttered into his chest “it’s about your brother”.

Jax’s arms tensed around me for a second before he brought me out of his chest and held me at arm’s length so that he could get a proper look at me.

“What did you see?” He asked, his eyes burning with the need to know.

I cleared my throat and took a deep breath to steady myself before I looked up at him. “Well I only saw him, none of the other wolves who had been taken” I muttered as I played with my fingers in front of me, a nervous habit I couldn’t seem to kick. “He had been tied to a chair and beaten badly, I tried to- to help him in some way but... he was out cold and unresponsive.”

I looked down at my fingers and I continued to fidget, not able to hold Jax’s eyes anymore due to the look of pain I saw in them.

“What else did you see?” He asked, trying to keep his voice as level as he could so as not to scare me.

“Jax he...” I stuttered as I took in a shaky breath of air “I had been taken back to the cells where my Mother and Father are being kept. That’s where I was him” I explained “whoever kidnapped my parents all those years ago have now taken your brother and your friends” I whispered as the guilt I’d woken up with resurfaced. “I am so sorry Jax” I muttered “if it wasn’t for me being here none of this would have ever happened”.

“Little mate” he muttered as he lifted my chin up with his fingers so that I was looking into his eyes. “None of this is your fault okay? The only ones to blame are the sick people who did this, do you understand me?” His voice was firm but soft all at the same time, wanting to make sure his point was made but also not raising his voice enough so that it would startle me.

I slowly nodded my head to show that I understood him and sighed as I let my shoulders drop. Releasing guilt wasn’t easy, especially when I was so used to it being forced upon me when something hadn’t even been my fault, but Jax was going through a lot at the moment and the last thing he needed was to deal with me feeling sorry for myself.

“He was alive when I found him, I’m sure of it” I said as I tried to ease his worries about his little brother in pain. “I tried to go to him, to check to see if he was breathing, but before I could try and wake him up and get him out of his restraints someone had found me there and h-held me down” I stuttered. Goosebumps rose on my arms at the thought of that man sneaking up behind me and pinning my arms to my sides, his breath fanning across my neck as he breathed my scent in.

“What! Why didn’t you lead with that Annabelle, are you alright?” Jax yelled as he suddenly started checking my arms and face for any form of injury, freezing when he saw the finger shaped bruises that starting to appear on my upper arms. “I’m going to kill him” Jax roared as he started to pace in front of me. “I’ll rip him apart with my bare hands for harming you.”

I shivered at the tone of his voice and instinctively took a step back. I had never seen him so angry before and if I was being completely honest it was starting to frighten me.

The way he was yelling and the way he was pacing, it was similar to the way Damon used to react when he didn’t get his way with something. He was a spoilt only child who had never lifted a finger in his life thanks to me, that sort of upbringing had caused him to become impatient and entitled and when he didn’t get something that he wanted he’d need to find an outlet to release his frustrations. Unfortunately, I was usual the victim.

I looked at Jax as he continued to pace, watching his every move and making sure I was fully alert. He suddenly shifted his head towards me and took a step in my direction and I couldn’t help but flinch as I took a step back. It was purely instinctual, I knew that Jax would never mean to hurt me, but it didn’t change the fact that my body has certain reflexes I couldn’t control. The look in his eyes were so similar to Damon’s I couldn’t help but be transported back to a time when I was with them.

At the sight of my fear the colour immediately drained from Jax’s face, his eyes that were once glowing golden with the presence of his wolf had now faded back to their original colour. He was frozen on the spot, not knowing what to do or whether I’d freak out at his next move.

“A-Annabelle I... I’m sorry I didn’t mean to-”

“I know” I cut him off, not wanting him to feel like this. He had done so much for me and the last thing I wanted was to make him second guess himself around me. I had to get over my fear and the only way to do that was to suck it up and act brave. Fake it till you make it.

“I just lost it at the thought of someone hurting you I would never-“.

“I know” I interrupted again and focused on slowing my heart rate down, hoping that it would help, both him in feeling better and me in calming my fear down. “You would never hurt me” I finished the sentence I knew he was going to say before taking a few steady steps in his direction.

He just nodded his head in agreement but otherwise stayed still, not wanting to scare me again with any sudden movements.

I stood in front of him and smiled slightly, hoping I could get him to relax but, when he didn’t I sighed and wrapped my arms around his waist and drew him close.

It took a few seconds but thankfully his brain kicked into gear again and responded by wrapping his arms around me in a bone crushing hug.

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