Six years ago…
I walked up the steep path that led to my mother’s town house.
The house was built on the edge of a jagged white glacier and overlooked the raging sea.
Far below, frothy white-capped waves slammed against the ancient ice.
The shifter realm was always frigid, but the air along the sea had a salty bite.
The salt burned my eyes as I trekked up the steps carved into the glacier. The perilous path led to the only home I’d ever known.
The pain in my eyes was nostalgic.
I pushed my long braids out of my face. My golden chains tinkled as they whipped across my cheeks in an angry frenzy.
This home was a two-hour horse ride from portal three, where I had just been reassigned to work with a new alpha.
His name was Cobra, and so far it had been going well. He was quiet and said little, but seemed to be a competent general.
Plus, it didn’t hurt that he was the most gorgeous man I’d ever seen in my life.
Emeralds and diamonds were embedded all over his skin, and I was constantly fighting the irrational urge to run my tongue along them.
I exhaled loudly into the icy wind as I approached the house and reminded myself that it was not productive to obsess over my fellow alpha. All that mattered was protecting the portals.
I didn’t even know if he liked men.
Still, I couldn’t quell the small bubble of excitement that burst in my gut whenever I thought about him.
I’d been training and fighting for so many decades that ennui was setting in.
At least, it had been.
I wasn’t bored anymore. Mostly because of Cobra, but also because of who waited at home with my mother.
A little over a decade ago, my elderly null mother had adopted a little baby named Jess. Over the years, I’d always visited my mother whenever I could, but now I came home every free moment I had.
I had a little sister to take care of.
It didn’t matter that Jess was turning fourteen years old, and I was about a hundred and twelve years old. She was my everything.
All children in the realm were required to attend boarding school from twelve to eighteen years old. They had a few breaks throughout the school year, but most students stayed because it was expensive to send horses and pay for lodging.
Jess always came home.
I ensured it.
After being alone for so many years, having a sister to dote on filled the hole in my heart.
Now my heart swelled as I climbed the last step to the thick wood front door.
Rare electric-blue frost flowers covered the brick facade of our home, a testament to my mother’s long career as a florist.
I tried to act composed, but my cheeks hurt from the strain of a wide smile.
I was home.
Without delay, I pushed open the door, ducked my head, and shuffled to the side to fit my large, seven-foot-tall, muscled body through.
A wall of warmth from the living room hearth kissed me in the face as soon as I entered.
The heat was divine after hours in the cold.
However, as I looked around the cozy living room, my smile fell. My jaw dropped open as I gaped at the inhabitants.
It was hard to shock me.
I was a seasoned alpha general in the bloody war against the fae queen. Time and time again, fellow immortal alphas got their heads ripped off and all the blood drained from their bodies in front of my eyes.
I’d seen betas disemboweled by gruesome creatures so horrific they were beyond a person’s imagination.
But right now, I was dumbfounded.
I stared at the well-worn couch next to the fire.
“Uh, what in the sun god is going on?” I asked softly. This was not what I had been expecting.
My elderly null mother stood up from her chair next to it and hobbled over to greet me.
I forgot about my shock on the couch as I took in her feeble form.
Ever so gently, I knelt to embrace her. Her dark skin sagged and showed off her century of existence in a way that mine never would.
“My boy,” she whispered breathily as she tucked her frail body against mine, and I held her.
My chest hurt.
She’d lost weight since I’d last seen her and could barely shuffle even with the help of her cane.
“I love you, Ma,” I whispered against her long braids. In this very room, she’d patiently taught me how to braid my hair. Now I always kept it long as a tribute to her.
It didn’t matter that I was adopted. She was my mother in every way that mattered.
I would die for her—if only I could.
As my once tall and hearty mother quivered in my arms, I wanted to fall apart.
More often than not, immortality felt like a curse rather than a blessing. What was the point of living forever if you couldn’t be with the ones you loved the most?
“Jax!” Jess squealed, and my sister chucked her little body against my side like a battering ram.
I caught her with one arm and shielded my frail mother from her flailing elbows.
At fourteen, Jess was all gangly limbs and spirit. She was also extremely outgoing and prone to exuberant outbursts.
The stuck-up shifters in the local town shook their heads at her and called her a troublemaker.
They could go fuck themselves.
I smiled down at my sister and basked in her energetic presence.
Her brown skin was flushed with a rosy glow of health, and her striking black hair had natural electric-green streaks that matched her emerald eyes.
Eyes large on her face, it wouldn’t be long before she was a beautiful young woman. It also wouldn’t be long before I killed any man that dared to touch her.
My gut pinched with anxiety.
The shifter realm was a cruel place with violent citizens. I didn’t like that Jess had to grow up in such a rough world.
She deserved better.
Instead of spiraling with worry over the women in my life, I gently helped my elderly mother back into her chair.
Then, with a whoop of excitement, I threw Jess up into the air like she was still a baby.
Jess screamed with delight as I tossed her easily, and I found my heart swelling with gratitude for my unnatural strength and colossal size.
It was times like this that made me glad I was built freakishly strong.
Then we got into a mock wrestling match where I proceeded to easily toss her onto the ground ten different times.
Jess kept standing up and throwing herself at me like she stood a chance.
After a few minutes, she was covered in sweat and gasping on the fur rug. Personally, I hadn’t broken a sweat, but I lay down beside her in solidarity.
She proceeded to fill me in on all the town gossip. At one point she said something about a squirrel biting her and her biting the squirrel back?
Truthfully, I didn’t think too deeply about it. I was just blessed to be back with my family.
I was happy she was happy.
“I always wear the chain you got me.” Jess showed off the gold jewelry she’d threaded through the single electric-green braid on her head.
It was a long gold chain that had a flower at the end.
“Same.” I held up the matching chain threaded through one of my many braids, and we grinned at each other.
Jess ran her hand softly over my matching jewelry, then waved her hand toward the full couch.
Somehow, I had forgotten about it.
She chewed on her fingernail. “Also, I wanted to tell you. A man with a cloak and crazy-bright-blue eyes came and talked to Mom. He convinced her to…ya know.”
We both clamored to our feet.
“No, I don’t know, Jess,” I said softly and leveled her with my alpha glare, the one that made beta men quake before me.
Jess pursed her lips but didn’t break my gaze.
She opened and closed her mouth, but said nothing.
I asked the critical question. “Why are there four little girls sitting on our couch?”
Jess giggled behind her hand.
“We aren’t little girls,” two of the little girls on the couch said in unison. They were twins with matching flame-red hair, blue eyes, and tanned skin.
I pursed my lips and debated the merits of getting into a fight with ten-year-olds.
A smaller child next to them piped up, “Yeah, I’m not little either!”
She had bright-pink hair, matching pink eyes, and dark skin. I estimated she was four feet tall and younger than the twins. Definitely little.
The smallest girl, on the edge of the couch, rolled her eyes and raised her hand.
Unlike the other girls, she didn’t have bright coloring. She had dark hair that in the firelight shone with a mix of black and navy-blue strands.
Large dark eyes glared at me and were shocking against her pale skin.
All the girls were unique-looking, but there was something unsettling about her coloring.
I stared at her raised hand in confusion until she arched her eyebrow expectantly, and I realized she wanted to be called on.
“Uh, yes?” I pointed at her.
She nodded and sighed with relief. “‘Little’ is subjective. It all depends on comparison, and frankly, it’s quite rude that you would identify us as such.”
My jaw dropped, and I just stared back at her in silence.
I—the seasoned alpha that was seven feet tall, covered in hundreds of pounds of muscles, and shifted into a ferocious bear—had just been patronized by a child.
I was over a century old, for sun god’s sake, and the little girl was glaring me down with such intensity that I wanted to look away.
“Um.” I struggled to respond as the four girls on the couch glared at me.
Jess grinned at my side and looked among us like it was good fun.
Finally, after a long, awkward pause, Jess clapped her hands loudly and startled us all out of the weird staring contest for dominance that I was seconds away from losing.
“These are our new sisters!”
My knees went weak.
“What?” I finally sputtered out as I turned to look at my mother.
She was asleep in her chair, snoring softly; age was taking its toll.
I glared down at Jess and searched for inner peace. “I just visited last month; how did you acquire four new sisters in that period of time?”
The shifter realm was a cold, brutal place, and orphans were not common. Children often died.
It was awful, but it was the reality of the realm.
Wanted children didn’t always survive the freezing cold, let alone unwanted ones.
Anxiety skyrocketed inside me as the implication of Jess’s statements shook through me.
I was usually calm and controlled.
I wasn’t now.
My mother was practically on her deathbed, and now five little girls were staring at me expectantly.
I turned to Jess and narrowed my eyes at her.
This was serious.
“Don’t look at me!” Jess threw up her hands. “A man in a cloak just entered the house one day with the four girls and told Mother she needed to adopt them.”
She looked fondly at our sleeping mother. “You know how she is with her age. She just accepted what the man said, and he left. That was that. Now, I have four sisters. Isn’t that so cool?”
My heart stuttered with a palpitation.
I turned to the four girls sitting expectantly on the worn couch. “Do you remember where you came from or who your parents are?”
The dark-haired smallest child rolled her eyes. “Nothing. My theory is that the cloaked man used some enchantment to wipe our memories. Although, from our threadbare clothes and emaciated forms, I suspect we’re not forgetting much.”
She gestured to her tiny frame and shook her head at me like my question was dumb.
“So you’re now my sisters? All four of you?” I asked, befuddled.
I was definitely missing something.
She threw her hands into the air, dark eyes flashing. “Oh my sun god, is he dense? I never thought I would have a brother who was an ignoramus.”
She flipped her long black hair over her shoulder and flung herself back onto the couch dramatically.
Jess put her arm around my waist. At least, she tried to; I was so large she just patted me on the back. “Relax, Jinx. I swear he’s not usually so dumb.”
Inner peace.
I’d never been shown less respect.
“Jinx?” I asked. It was surprisingly close to my name, Jax.
Jess grinned. “Oh yeah, they all couldn’t remember anything, not even their names. So we decided because you’re Jax and I’m Jess that we should all have J names.”
I opened my mouth to point out that it was inane to all have similar names but swallowed down the words.
Jess was looking up at me with so much happiness.
Mother was old, and it had been stressing me out that Jess was going to be on her lonesome. There wasn’t room for little girls in a war camp, so I couldn’t have her live with me.
However, having four more little girls to worry about didn’t seem like a solution.
I raked my hand through my long braids. “Well, if you’re all going to be part of this family, what are your names?”
Jess squealed and grabbed my hands in hers. Her emerald eyes danced with excitement as she broke out into a very awkward dance that involved a lot of flailing.
“So you’re not going to kick us out?” one twin with bright-red hair asked in a monotone voice.
“Of course not.” I wasn’t a monster who turned away little girls into the frigid shifter realm.
There was no choice.
I made a mental note to figure out schooling for them so they could stay with Jess. In the meantime, I needed to chop more firewood to fill up our storage.
“How exciting,” the other twin said in a tone that sounded less than impressed.
They had a lot of sass for small children.
After dropping into a split and holding her hands up with excitement, Jess climbed to her feet and pointed to each girl.
“The twins are named Jen and Jan. They’re ten years old. Jala, the one with the awesome pink hair, is eight. Finally, Jinx is six, but she’s like the smartest person I’ve ever met.”
Mentally, I repeated in my brain, Jen, Jan, Jala, and Jinx. I was going to have to work to not mess up their names.
“Well, I’m Jax,” I said and tried to smile in a nonthreatening way now that introductions were out of the way.
Most grown adults were overwhelmed by my large size, and I didn’t want to come across as scary or mean.
“We literally know,” Jen or Jan said while rolling her eyes.
“Are you sure he isn’t dumb?” Jinx asked Jess with a serious expression.
I sighed heavily.
It didn’t appear I had to worry about them being intimidated by me.
Instead of arguing with a six-year-old that I wasn’t dumb, I focused on the important things and spoke with my no-nonsense general voice.
“Mother is old, which means if you’re all going to survive the shifter realm, I’m going to need to set some ground rules.
“First, no going outside alone.
“Second, I will try to acquire a cellphone. Sun god knows they are hard to get, so if I can’t, I’ll visit as often as possible.
“Third, always wear two coats when goin—”
I stopped speaking as Jen and Jan hopped off the couch and sauntered out of the room.
“Where are you going?” I asked in disbelief.
People listened to me.
“You’re boring us,” Jen, I think, called over her shoulder as they strolled away.
Jala followed them but ran over and threw her arms around my waist in a hug. “I’ve always wanted a brother.”
Her pink hair matched the blush on her cheeks as she smiled up at me, and my heart melted.
Before I could say anything, she released me and ran out of the room.
“This is going to be great,” Jess said with a thumbs-up, and then followed them out.
Suddenly, it was just me, my sleeping, elderly mother, and the small child who talked like an adult.
“Have you read Nietzsche or Plato?” Jinx stared up at me with massive, dark eyes.
“Um, no. Have you?”
She sighed heavily, like she was an overburdened adult and not a literal infant. “I can’t remember how or why, but I definitely remember reading it. If you did, you would realize that the primordial chaos of life, like the cold weather outside, is not what is important.”
She couldn’t weigh over eighty pounds and was barely four feet tall. The cold should 100 percent concern her.
I opened my mouth to say so.
“Shh.” She shook her head. “I realize you’re still chained to the cave Plato talked about. You will only be free when you’re turned toward the light, away from the darkness.”
Then she flipped her inky hair over her small shoulder and ran out of the room after her sisters.
With all five girls gone, the silence in the room was deafening.
The logs in the hearth crackled and popped.
I sighed heavily and sat down on the couch next to my mother. She snored softly, and I gathered her wrinkled hands in mine.
“What have you done, Ma?” I asked quietly.
Maybe I was just losing it, but I swore the corners of her mouth turned up into a secretive grin.
It had only been a few minutes since I’d arrived and already the void in my heart felt a lot smaller. It was filled mostly with anxiety for the five young sisters I now had to provide for.
But it was still full, and after a century of numb emptiness, it was nice.
Once again, a smile split my face.
