Jinx’s Mate(46)

Robin had told her to keep asking Claire questions as if she’d answer. It would provoke her, but not getting an answer every time was hard. What if Claire never spoke at all?

* * *

Papers where piled up in front of Jinx, each of them needing his attention. Attention he didn’t have—he couldn’t seem to focus. Summer and Claire had been gone over an hour at their play date.

Everything in him wanted to go to them, to see how things were going. The only thing that kept him rooted to his seat was he didn’t want to disturb them if they were making progress. Claire’s future mattered more to him than his curiosity. With a groan, he forced himself back to the paperwork.

“Jinx?” Lukas called.

He was so lost in his thoughts, he hadn’t even heard the elevator. “In here.” He pushed back his chair, thankful for the break.

“I saw Jackson on my way up, he’s done with the guards. He’s going to relieve Carson so he can pack and take over guard duties.” Lukas sat down on the chair across from him. “The border is marked. Eric is nervous, but ready, so we’ll be ready to go first thing in the morning. Any changes with Claire?”

“Not yet. She’s still not speaking, but being here has seemed to relax her some. Hopefully going to Alaska won’t disturb that.”

“You could always leave them here and I can stay behind with them.”

He shook his head. “Thank you, but no. We need to at least try with Robin. If she can’t help, she may have some suggestions on what we can do.”

“While we’re on the subject of Claire…I really don’t know how to say this.”

“You don’t feel the connection.” He knew what Lukas was thinking.

“Yes. Why?”

“There’s no blood relation between us, so we don’t have the normal connection that is passed to the children of the clan members, and she’s not old enough to commit to the clan. We’re going to be blind to her for the next several years.” Since Summer voiced her fears they’d been lurking in his mind. Claire was an unknown to them. Everything she witnessed might have sent her down a path she couldn’t return from.

“What about Tex? Does he feel her? The connection from her parents should have passed down to him once he took over as Alpha, shouldn’t it?”

“He’s blind to her. Meaning one of two things, either the parents were never committed to Avery and he only had them under him because of force. Or…” Jinx couldn’t bring himself to continue.

“Or she’s already headed down a path we can’t bring her back from. One where she’ll become an enemy to us, and our kind.” Lukas finished for him.

“Yes.” The single word came out more like a whisper. “There’s no way for us to tell until she starts showing signs.”

“Then what?”

“Summer asked me the same thing last night.” He leaned forward, gripping the pen in his hand until it shattered. “I’d have no choice. Summer believes I’d force her to leave the clan, but it’s so much more than that.”

“If she’s a true enemy to us…”

He cut off Lukas before he could finish. “She’d have to be eliminated.”

He had come to love the little lass, and thinking of what the future might bring terrified him and made him sick. Avery had done so much damage, but the one who might have suffered the most was Claire.

“I’m sorry.”

“Me too. Claire deserves a chance, and we’ll give it to her, but now that we know this it will always be in the back of our minds. We will always wonder if one day we’ll wake up and she’d be against us.” He dropped the destroyed pen in the trash bin and looked back at Lukas. “How do you stop something like that from happening? How do you get a child to put everything she witnessed behind her and embrace the good of our kind?”

“I don’t have the answer. You know I’ll do whatever I can to keep her from going down that path.”

“It’s more of an option for her because of everything she’s seen. At that age, their brains are developing, they’re impressionable. From the nightmares she’s having I believe Avery tortured her mother while she watched. That could haunt a person for life.” Part of him wished they had made Avery suffer as he made others suffer. But that would’ve only brought him and the others down to Avery’s level; they were better than that.

“But now she’s surrounded by love and a clan that cares. Don’t give up hope, it’s not too late.” Lukas took a sip from the bottle of water he had. “Once we start giving up on her, then and only then is it too late for her.”