Page 26 of Glass
He releases me, jerking me by the elbow so I spin to face him. His face is hard like stone, his mouth pressed in a firm line as he works his jaw back-and-forth. Anger wafts off him, but I have enough anger of my own to meet it head-on.
“Your brother’s mate is a Jarreau?” he manages to grind out.
I give a curt nod. He doesn’t deserve more than that.
The Jarreaus have the kind of infamy that has apparently not escaped notice of The Lost, despite their off-the-grid lifestyle separated from normal shifters. The Jarreau family includes the Luna Sovereign, judge and jury of shifter law, as well as the Luna of the Anchorage Lake Pack, one of the strongest of our kind.
I might be alone here in Felix’s territory, but I have powerful allies only a call away. And the Jarreaus have already proven they’ll do anything for family.
“You should let me take the kids and go. It’s obvious you have… A whole life for yourself here.” I gesture the way we came. “You should get back to it.” Sourness has infiltrated every molecule of my being. It leaks wholly into my voice, making me sound jealous and petty.
Felix covers his face with his hand and scrubs at his eyes. “Alexandria has been good to your siblings. I owed her a conversation about what’s going on after all she’s done to help them.”
“She’s beengoodto them?” The pitch of my voice rises uncontrollably. “Being nice to a group of kids shouldn’t be a hardship, Felix. And to be honest, I don’t care if she’s the Mother Theresa of shifter orphans, she’s no one to me. You go ahead back to her, though. I don’t need you.” My skin burns with equal parts anger and embarrassment. I’m making a scene, and I can feel eyes watching us from somewhere behind me. No doubt the volume of my high-pitched voice is drawing a crowd.
Felix takes a step closer, and I squeeze my fists tightly as I hold my ground. I expect him to speak quietly now that we have an audience, but that’s apparently not his intention.
He grabs a fistful of the t-shirt I’m wearing and drags me against him, his breathing ragged and pupils dilated. “You’re fighting just for the sake of fighting,” he growls out, plenty loud enough for whoever is listening to hear.
“I’m fighting because I’m mad.”
“There’s nothing to be mad about, Poppy. Alexandria is a member of my pack, and I have no illusions about her interest in me, but I’ve never laid a hand on her. Not in the way you’re thinking. There’s no one here with The Lost, or anywhere else, that has any claim to me except you.” His grip tightens imperceptibly, the cotton of his shirt tightening at my midsection.
I turn my head, leaving him staring at the side of my face. I can see the frustrated knit of his eyebrows from the corner of my eye as I stare at someone’s abandoned firewood next to an ash-filled fire pit.
“You’re stubborn; I happen to like that about you.” Felix’s voice calms, his grip on me relaxing. He moves his hand to lie flat against my hip in a move that’s more calming than I would ever admit out loud.It’s only instinct, I tell myself. He rubs his thumb in soothing circles near my hip bone, and his sudden change in demeanor seems to instantly deflate my own anger. “Do you know what we’re going to do?”
“What?” I snap half-heartedly, even though most of my steam is gone now. I suddenly feel too tired to keep fighting him. Picking a fight with him hasn’t gotten me anywhere.
Felix leans in and kisses me on the corner of my mouth even as I keep my gaze averted. “We’re going to Brooklyn–we keep an apartment there for business, and I think you could use the time with your siblings away from all of this.”