“Well?” she finally asked, exasperation in her voice. “Did you breaking it off with me have something to do with what you are?”
“Will you sit down?” he asked, turning on the bed.
“I’m fine standing,” she snapped.
“Please, Piper,” he said softly.
She watched him before huffing a breath and sitting down. “There. Now answer the question.”
“It did,” he finally admitted. “I didn’t want to do it, Pippy. Please believe that. But I didn’t think I had a choice.”
“I’m gonna need more than that, St. James.”
“Fuck, Piper. There’s so much—”
“No bullshit excuses. Tell me the truth. I deserve to know,” she demanded, the stubborn look on her face warning him he wasn’t getting out of telling her everything.
“Okay, you’re right. You do.” He paused, and then spoke as she opened her mouth. “Just give me a second to get my thoughts in order.” She nodded, and he took a deep breath. “The truth is I’m a shifter. I share my body with an animal. Everything you noticed is true. I’m faster and stronger, and I heal quickly. I have better vision, and hearing as well. I don’t get sick, and I can hear lies.”
Violet eyes wide, she stared at him, running her fingers through her dyed tresses. “Okay. You’re a shifter. What kind of animal do you have?”
Lips quirking, he nodded to the tat on her thigh. “I’m an eagle.”
“Are you fucking serious?” she asked incredulously. “You mean to tell me I have two tattoos linked to you?”
Chuckling, Jax shook his head. “I think your eagle doesn’t have to count. You didn’t know what I was when you got it.”
“That’s true,” she replied with a small smile that faded quickly. “So how does that intertwine with breaking up with me?”
“My colony—that’s what we call our grouping of eagle shifters—has been around these parts for ages. In fact, we founded this town. That’s why it’s named Eagle Creek. Our numbers over the years have decreased drastically, from deaths or shifters moving away. And we’ve had no new members join, because eagle shifters are rare.
“Our colony is run by a committee that’s headed by a chancellor, who just happened to be my grandfather. He’s a strong-willed, powerful bastard, so the committee was more for show and tradition, than used to keep everything democratic, like it’s supposed to. My grandfather wanted me to mate another eagle shifter in town. He wanted to keep the bloodline pure.”
A scowl formed on Piper’s face. “Mate another eagle shifter? Who even talks like that? Who was it?”
Not yet ready to explain about mates, he said, ?
?Danica Martin.”
“Danica? That snooty, stuck up bitch? Who in their right mind would want to be with her? I mean, I guess she’s hot and all,” she said grudgingly, “but she has the personality of a rattlesnake.”
“Accurate description,” he said with a laugh that cut off as she glared at him. “The rattlesnake part. Not the part about her being hot. Cause she’s not, at all.”
“Liar,” Piper replied with a roll of her eyes. Frowning, she said, “So you broke up with me just because your grandfather ordered you to?”
“Of course not. I told him absolutely not. We argued about it for days, but then he changed tactics, and it changed everything,” Jax said, exhaling. “He threatened you. Told me he would send some of the eagle enforcers after you. I told him the committee would never allow that, but like I said, he had the committee in his pocket. What he said was law. And if he said you were a threat to us, to our way of life, they wouldn’t hesitate to back him up.”
Mouth open, Piper stared at him for a moment before speaking. “So you broke up with me to what? Protect me?”
“I couldn’t risk you, Piper,” he said earnestly. “I loved you more than I ever loved anything else. I couldn’t take the chance that you could get hurt, or even killed, because of what I am. Because of me.”
“So what’s changed now?” she asked suspiciously.
“I’m not the same scared twenty-year-old kid I was back then. I can protect you now, from anything. I’m a fighter, and I’m damned good at it. Besides, a lot of the eagles have left town since then.”
Pursing her lips, she nodded slowly before standing up. “I’m heading to bed. It’s late.”
Confusion filled him as she turned to leave the attic. “Piper, wait! Doesn’t this change anything for you?”