The Claiming by Cooper novel Chapter 240

The Claiming by Cooper Book 4

The Contest by Cooper (Jaxon & Evangeline)

Chapter 40 (Jaxon)

It took me a couple of hours to recover from the morning training session, but by lunch time, I was mostly back to normal.

“Are you gonna make it, Super Hotty?” Eve teases me over lunch.

“If you had asked me a couple of hours ago, I’d have said no, but at least now I feel like I can walk.”

“That was brutal,” Alejandro says, having come to sit with us.

“If you think that was brutal, just wait. If he is anything like Ezekiel, we’ll all be barely standing by the end of the week,” Eve says.

“Yeah, it was about two days before we were all struggling to get through both classes each day and by the end of the week, none of us were able to hold our heads up to eat dinner.” I tell him, enjoying my lunch while my body still can.

“Was it really that brutal?” Magdalena asks.

“Yes,” both Eve and I say together.

After lunch, Eve looks at me. “I was going to spend some time with Maggie this afternoon.”

“Perfect, I wanted to speak to Rowen. She mentioned wanting to talk to me while I’ m here.”

Eve comes over, wrapping her arms around my neck and looking up at me. “See you for afternoon training?”

My arms rest perfectly around her waist, pulling her against my body. “I’ll see you there.”

Her lips start twitching and I raise my eyebrow.

“I’m sure it will get easier for you,” she says, a full-on smile spreading across her face.

“You,” I say, pecking her lips, “are lucky I love you.”

“Every minute of every day,” she says, before leaning in for a d*eeper k*iss. This one lingers until someone, presumably her father, loudly clears their throat. I pull away. No since kicking over the beehive.

Eve shoots a glare at her father before heading out with Maggie. I turn and go in search of Rowen. I follow her scent to her room, where I knock.

“Come in,” she says from inside her room. I open the door to see her sitting on her bed looking out the window.

“Oh, hey Jax.”

“Hey, Rowen,” I say, closing her door.

I move to one of the chairs in her room. By chair, I mean bean bag blob on the floor. I hate the things. Once I’m in, it feels practically impossible to get out of it. But I’m here to see my sister, who said she wanted to talk to me, so I flop down into the makeshift chair.

“What’s up, Rowe?”

Rowan looks outside, then at the quilt on her bed that she’s sitting on before taking a d*eep breath and looking up at me. “How do you know Evangeline is your mate? She’s not old enough yet to confirm it.”

I narrow my eyes at my sister. “Did you find your mate, Rowan?”

“I think so, but I’m not sure. He’s younger than I am, almost a whole year. But he’s in the competition.” She says, looking down before looking back up at me. “How do you know?”

“Well, first, there was her scent. I picked her scent out of every other one that first day of the contest. She was like nothing I’ve ever smelled before,” I say, smiling as I remember honing in on my mate. “And then she made eye contact with me, and it was like everyone else just fell away.

From that moment on, I knew she was mine. I knew I had to have her and that being away from her was going to be impossible.” She nods, looking down again.

“Maybe he’s too young to feel it,” she says.

“Did you talk to Teagan?”

She frowns, looking up at me. “No, why?”

“She and Eve’s brother Alejandro are pretty sure that they are mates.”

Her eyes go wide at that. “Teagan is going to be a Luna?”

“I guess so. But while Teagan is about to turn 18, Alejandro is still a year away.”

She looks down, frowning again. “If he can smell me, if he can sense the mate bond, then why didn’t he approach me?” she asks.

I think about Jace and how he hasn’t told Jordan that he knows that they are mates, because he thinks she deserves someone stronger. Although, it hasn’t escaped me that he hasn’t rejected her either, so maybe he’s still hoping for a chance.

“I don’t know, Rowe. Maybe your strength in the competition intimidated him.”

She snorts. “If that’s the case, then I deserve better. And I doubt it anyway, he’s an Alpha.”

“Who is it?” I ask her smiling.

She looks at me, debating if she should tell me.

“I won’t tell anyone. You know I can keep a secret.”