The Claiming by Cooper novel Chapter 228

The Claiming by Cooper Book 4

The Contest by Cooper (Jaxon & Evangeline)

Chapter 28 (Jaxon)

I hold Eve, not caring who is standing around watching. I hold her until both of us start to breath more easily.

“Alpha Jaxon,” Alpha Jonas says. I look at him and he tosses me some shorts. “We prefer our guests wear clothes.”

I smile, grabbing the shorts out of the air and pulling them on quickly.

“I’m sorry to barge onto your pack lands like this, I just needed to know that Eve was okay.”

“You’re leaving?” Eve asks and I hear the desperation in her, the same one I feel, needing to be near her.

“No,” I say before turning to Alpha Jonas. “I’d like to stay if that’s okay with you, Alpha.”

This is his pack. I need to respect him as its leader.

“I’ll call your sister, let her know you’re here,” he says.

“That’s not necessary,” I tell him.

“Our packs almost went to war several months ago, believe me, it’s necessary,” he says.

Both Eve and I look at him. “What?”

“Jaxon, it’s good to see you,” Melinda says coming over to us.

“What did he mean by that Melinda?” I ask her, forgetting myself. “Sorry, I mean, Luna.”

She frowns at me. “Don’t you know the story?”

“I guess not.”

“Come sit, I’ll fill you in and we can all hope that history won’t repeat itself with you two.”

She takes Molly from Isabella who goes to watch Ryder and we sit down to talk. There’ s a two-person glider and I sit Eve there and sit beside her.

“You both know the story of me recognizing Jonas as my mate before I turned 18?”

“Yes,” we both say. I reach out and take Eve’ s hand.

“And do you both know that my mother refused to allow me to take Jonas as my mate?” she asks.

“Yes, but you fought that,” I say.

“Of course, I did. He’s my mate. Nothing and no one was going to keep me from being with him. Only, it didn’t work out the way I had planned.”

She looks at Eve. “Unlike you, my father isn’t an Alpha, so I couldn’t threaten to reject him and the pack. Not only that, but it was my mother who was the issue, not my father. Once I became an adult, I was ready to leave Alpha Mason’s pack and join this pack, but Jonas wanted to try and work things out with my mother, he wanted her approval.”

She sighs, rocking Molly who has started to fall asleep. “So, rather than run off to my grandmother’s pack like you did, I seduced my mate and made sure I got pregnant,” she says, smiling at Ryder.

“And that should have been the end of it, but it wasn’t. My mother was furious, but she couldn’t keep me from Jonas and now he had a stronger reason to push her to agree to our marking.

“Ryder was born here, Jonas at my side. After a month, I left to go home to get my things and bring them back here. Jonas had a trip he needed to take, and I told him that I would be able to get my things and bring them back on my own.”

Tears fill her eyes and I see Jonas’s head pop up from inside, looking at his mate. He can feel her emotions. He ends the call and comes striding outside, putting his hands on Melinda’s shoulders. She looks up at him and gives him a teary smile.

“I didn’t see you again for six months,” she says to him, and a tear slides down her face.