Sapphire Bones

Abandoned

Updated: March 24, 2019

*Just a heads up, I fixed Lena's name in this chapter. It was accidentally spelled "Lina", and that may have confused a few people, but it is Lena.*

-Corvo-

I spent my days either cooped up in the office or out on patrol runs with Jax. Anything to keep my mind off the inevitability of me going to the Council in April to see my mate killed for a crime she didn't commit. The thought brought tears to the surface of my eyes, but these tears weren't from the images of L beheaded, but for what I would do to Jeffries for allowing something like this to happen. L slipped through the cracks and the Council endorsed it without a glance of remorse. They allowed mercenaries to have their way with her from a young age. The idea of her hurt again – my muscles tensed and contracted while my hidden fangs emerged from their caves inside my gums.

The door to the office swung open and Jax stepped in, his jacket slung over his right shoulder, ready to pull on when necessary. I watched him through the giant window looking over the backyard and surrounding mountains. There wasn't a view in the world in comparison to the one around Emerald, but I couldn't enjoy it anymore. I didn't have the familial support I needed, and my mate was hundreds of miles away locked away in some dungeon awaiting a trial she had zero chance of emerging from alive. There wasn't a thing I could do to stop it, and knowing that wrenched my insides until they were a piece of twisted twine at its breaking point.

"Corvo, you called," Jax said from the entry. He kept the door from closing with his foot. I shifted slightly in my seat on the bay window and addressed the blonde man I'd since formally named my Beta. He was my father's Beta, but Jax always respected me a little more than him. While we hid the unbridled loyalty the two of us shared for one another until the day my father died, Alej never questioned. He assumed Jax would take his loyalty to him to the grave. And in a way, he did, just not his own plot.

I cleared my throat and stood, "we're going into the city."

"To Manhattan?" Jax pushed his brows together and threw on his coat. He and I both needed time away from the pack, even just for an afternoon. The mountain, minty air suffocated us in our sleep, demanding our lungs to push harder the long we stayed up on our little hill. I needed time away from my family, and Jax? He had so much on his mind I was sure I could see the problems spilling over from his ears but when I blinked they were gone. My imagination held my sanity in its hands, sure to crush it one of these days.

"Yes," I grabbed my jacket from the stand by the door and pushed between the large man in the middle of the doorway and the edge of the door. He followed me down the steps and out the front door, our presence undetectable from our muffled steps. I didn't have the time to stop and chat with anyone between the house and my car.

At the edge of the porch I froze, Jax nearly sending me down head first, but he halted inches before contact. I felt a slight push of wind at my back. He shuffled to the side to get a better view only to sigh at my younger sister who had her camera to her eye. She lowered it carefully, eyes narrowed as she approached us. Our relationship wasn't anywhere near being what it used to be, and her suspicions grew every day to find out the secrets I hid in my head. She had every right to know. But I couldn't bring myself to end her adolescence with the truth of what happened in the last year. She wasn't ready to take on that responsibility. Ethel didn't deserve the kind of responsibility I carried on my back. It strained me, and while unloading some of it on here would most definitely benefit me, I couldn't do that to her.

"You two going out?" She asked as if I needed her permission. Ethel grinned and let the camera fall to the middle of her chest where it dangled by the strap around her neck. She fooled with the fabric of her coat and waited, unmoving. I knew she wasn't going to let me pass without an answer. She tapped the metal toe of her shoe on the concrete, the clicks a rhythm I couldn't help but find myself replicating with my fingers on the fabric of my jeans.