CHAPTER SEVEN

JESSICA’S POV

I immediately realized, this power wasn't mine to use yet. It was a guest in a house that wasn't strong enough to hold it.

"Kai..." I gasped, the goddess-voice vanishing, leaving behind the whimper of a terrified girl. "It's going... Kai, I'm falling..."

The giant black beast spun, abandoning the fight to catch me as I collapsed into the freezing mud.

Jax was there a second later, having shifted back to his human form in his haste. His hands were rough as they reached to steady me, his touch lingering on my waist with a possessive, heavy heat that made me shiver even as I died of cold inside.

Kai let out a warning ruff, his teeth baring at Jax, but Jax didn't pull away. The rivalry was already starting, even in the middle of a massacre.

"The mark is too much for her," Jax grunted, his eyes darting to the woods where the sounds of the Fifty were growing louder. "She’s burning out. Her heart is skipping beats, Kai. If she stays here, the feedback will kill her before Thorne does."

"Jax, get her to the tunnel! Take the underground path to the Black River!" Kai’s voice roared through the mind-link, echoing in my head. "Ryder and I will buy the time. We’ll drop the cave entrance if we have to."

"No," I whispered, my fingers knotting into Kai’s thick, wet fur as the darkness at the edges of my vision began to swallow the trees. "Don't leave me... Thorne... he’ll kill you..."

"Run, Jessica," Kai growled, his silver eyes softening for a fraction of a second as he looked at my pale face. "We are rogues. We’ve been fighting since the day we left our packs. We'll find you at the river. I promise."

Jax scooped me up into his arms, his heart thudding a frantic, heavy rhythm against my ear. He was warm—so warm compared to the ice in my chest. He turned and ran into the depths of the cave, toward the narrow, hidden road that led to the tunnels.

His arms were iron bands around me, one hand splayed possessively across my lower back—right over the mark that still smoldered like embers.

Every thud of his heart against my cheek felt like a demand: “Stay alive for me.”

I hated how my body responded, melting into that heat even as ice clawed my lungs.

Jax wasn’t Kai, wasn’t my mate, yet his scent smoke, leather, and something darker wrapped around me like a claim I hadn’t asked for. If I died here, would he mourn me… or just curse the burden I’d become?

The last thing I saw before the darkness took me completely was the black wolf leaping into the storm, a silhouette of fury against a sea of yellow eyes.

I had been sold for coins and branded by a myth. And as the world went black, I knew the battle for my life was only just beginning—and the battle between the men who wanted to own me was right behind it.

My father thought he had sold a broken girl. Thorne thought he had bought a broodmare. But as I slipped into unconsciousness in the arms of a scarred rogue.

——-

I awoke to the sound of Jax slamming his boot hard on the wet jagged limestone of the tunnel, the vibration thrashing all the way up through my spine where i was lying against his great warm chest.

I laid across his arms like a broken doll, the shredded remains of my silk wedding gown floating in the muck behind us. The tunnel was a throat of ancient rot, smelling of damp salt, iron-rich mud, and the sharp, metallic tang of the blood dripping from Jax’s shoulder.

He pressed me against his chest tightly like he was worried I might fall off. His heart slammed against my ribs, skin hot through leather. The tunnel stank of wet stone and blood. Each step jarred pain through my spine — right where the mark burned.

We were deep beneath the earth now, where the sun never reached and the rules of the surface packs didn't apply.

"Put me down," I rasped. My voice sounded like it had been scraped, barely a whisper in the echoing dark.

I no longer had the violet fire that had burned my veins back in the cave. It had left me hollow, a shell of a girl filled with a freezing, soul-deep ache that made my teeth chatter so hard I thought they might shatter. I wasn't a moon goddess anymore.

I was just Jessica—the girl who had been sold for gambling debts, now covered in the mud of a world that wanted to consume her.

Jax didn't stop.

He didn't even look down at me. His grip on my thighs and back tightened until it was borderline painful, his leather bracers biting into my skin. "Thorne’s trackers have ears like bats, Jessica. Every word you speak is a beacon. You talk, we die. And I don't plan on dying in a hole because you’re feeling stubborn."

My head lolled against his shoulder as another wave of cold hit. The violet fire was gone, but the mark pulsed like a second heartbeat—angry, hungry, wrong.

It wanted more than I could give. If it kept draining me like this, I’d be empty before we reached the river… and Thorne’s wolves would finish what the power started.

His pace quickened, cowering to the ground, as the roof of this tunnel was coming down, his head was almost caught in a bunch of razor-sharp spike.

A sharp bit of rock caught the silk of my gown, and ripped a long agonizing strip off it with something like a scream. However, I was not so concerned with the dress.

My eyes was fixed on the scar which I just noticed on the side of the neck of Jax. It was a shallow cut, jagged, burnt by the silver, which made it look as though it had been cut with a blunt knife.

It ached with each heartbeat of his. What was he like before he turned into the silent shadow of Kai? And why had he been looking at me as though I were one of the burdens he would keep and have as a secret?

Suddenly, a sharp blazing pain slammed into the side of my back.

I let out a choked gasp, my spine arching in Jax’s arms. It didn't feel like a muscle cramp or an injury from the flight. It felt like a hot steaming iron was being pressed into my marrow.

"J…axx... stopp... please... my back is on fire..."

The words tore out as agony ripped deeper, like claws dragging through my spine. The mark wasn’t just burning, it was awakening something crazy inside me.

If it consumed me now, would Jax drop my body and run… or would he fight to keep what little life remained? All I could think was: I can’t die here. Not before I know who I truly am.