Winters Rising Read online

  Brea’s insides snickered at Jax’s reaction upon her return home to find the birthmark he craved to touch no longer matched to his own.

  She pulled the silver keys she’d “borrowed” from her new husband out of her pocket and found his big, bad machine waiting for her in the garage.

  One bonus to being married to Jax Winters, the first born Winters Gatekeeper, was that he liked danger. After a life of reservation and obeying rules, Brea was in need of some excitement.

  Chapter Two

  JAX FINISHED HIS second glass of his regular morning routine: Chocolate flavored protein shake with soy milk. It was the perfect combination of what every meal should be: sweet with a dash of healthy. Plus, it was great for his workouts.

  “Throw that rubbish in the trash,” his mother, Annalieese, said, slapping the back of his head as she walked by. She looked beautiful as ever for such an early hour, in her pressed beige suit and her hair styled in a sleek bob below her ears. “Millie has prepared us a breakfast buffet of eggs, fresh bread and fruit and you sneak off into the kitchen to eat...” She made a disgusted look that didn’t enhance the young features of her smooth face. “...rubbish.”

  Jax chuckled, planning to follow his protein drinks with a hearty egg breakfast. “Mother, it’s extra protein–”

  Annalieese held up her hand to stop him from continuing. “I don’t want to hear the healthy benefits of processed garbage.” She slanted him a curious look. “I don’t understand how you continually sneak these containers of powder inside this house.”

  Jax simply grinned at her, sending her the charming look he’d used as a child to get out of trouble, not daring to tell her that Millie, their maid, smuggled him a new container each time Annalieese threw his into the garbage.

  “My lips are sealed,” Jax said, instead.

  “That’s the only thing you’ve got sealed,” Victor Winters grumbled, making his way into the room.

  Jax stiffened, suddenly losing his appetite. He wished he’d sat with the family in the formal dining room to avoid the criticism he knew would follow here in the kitchen.

  Victor stood next to Annalieese. Like all the Winters men, his chest spanned a wide breadth, twice the size of that of his slim wife’s. A formidable figure, except around his wife. Victor’s rigid body softened now as he leaned in to kiss his wife’s cheek. He whispered something in her ear that made her giggle and turn a light hue of pink.

  Jax wanted that with his wife. He looked forward to the special moments between only him and Brea. However, if they kept up the way they were going, they would grow old beating each other over the head with their canes.

  He felt an inner grin grow, picturing Brea tackling him with her cane. But the grin was short lived, with Victor’s implications of Jax’s inability to complete his bonding with Brea sitting fresh on the surface.

  All Gatekeepers had their wives bonded after their vows, a ceremony similar to a wedding. But Brea wasn’t like most marked women and when they’d finally been alone for the first time, she’d rejected his advances to bond, sending Jax into a world of confusion.

  Bonding was a two-step ritual in the Gatekeeper society. Jax and Brea had completed the first step when they’d said their vows during the ceremony days ago. To finish bonding, Jax and Brea needed to connect their birthmarks by simultaneously touching the others to unite their half souls into one, completing them.

  Brea however, wasn’t ready to accept her destiny with Jax. A warning that his future wife wasn’t interested in becoming the wife of a Gatekeeper would have been helpful to prepare him for her cold shoulder and the space she required to adapt. Her lack of enthusiasm also explained why there had been a delay in their meeting. Marked couples usually met in advance. Jax didn’t know another couple who had stayed apart until the day of the vows. Of course, bonding and intimacy before their vows wasn’t permitted. He didn’t plan on doing any such thing. He longed to take her out to dinner, maybe a movie instead.

  Jax had certainly never heard of a couple not bonding the night of the vow ceremony. He was making history with Brea. He wouldn’t be surprised if her rebellion to marry a Gatekeeper stemmed from the excuses her family had used to prevent their meeting.

  Brea’s attitude, as strong and independent as it was, and as much as Jax respected her for it, was also considered disrespectful, and in turn, could shame her family.

  Jax could picture Brea causing an uproar with her family. She did just that each night she denied him access to her birthmark.

  A smile crept to his lips.

  “What are you grinning about?” his father growled. “You can’t even acquire enough control to compel her to have breakfast with us. Hiding away in your wing...” He shook his head. “Disrespectful. Almost as much as living under my roof without bonding. Did you bond last night?”

  Jax’s jaw tightened as he said, “No.”

  A string of curses and threats, Jax didn’t take to heart, followed. Victor’s disposition was obvious, but it wasn’t of a cruel nature but rather his parental duty. Jax understood his father’s quick-temper and respected the scoldings in regards to their time travel rips. Gatekeepers could never know enough, but when it came to Brea, Jax wasn’t as understanding of his dad making their relationship his business.

  Brea missing breakfast pulled Jax from his thoughts. “Brea’s not in the sunroom? I thought she was eating breakfast.”

  His father shook his head, with another round of dissatisfied grumblings.

  “You lost her?” His father’s face reddened further. The more this conversation developed, the angrier Victor became.

  “I didn’t lose her,” Jax snapped.

  He simply didn’t know her current whereabouts. And since when did vows transform him into a control freak, who needed to keep tabs on his wife’s every movement? Brea was her own person. If she wanted to skip out on breakfast, he wasn’t about to drag her downstairs kicking and screaming.

  The thought amused him, but he didn’t dare crack another smile in front of his dad. Besides...where was Brea?

  His father continued ranting, shaking his head as he made his way out the door, grumbling more about this lazy, ignorant generation of disrespectful Gatekeepers.

  Jax would have loved to see what his dad had been like at Jax’s age. He couldn’t envision Victor ever trying to control Annalieese or force her into anything she didn’t want to do. He also couldn’t see his mother forcing Victor into the difficult predicament Brea was in with Jax.

  “Jax’s quiet bedroom ticked off Papa Bear,” Gabrielle said, walking into the kitchen. She also held the wick of a firecracker, but in a different way. His sister would never go against the rules of their society, but she wasn’t afraid to voice her opinion.

  Gabrielle stopped between Jax and their mother, a mischievous smile appearing across her red painted lips. “I love that our family has suddenly gone from ‘don’t you dare get intimate’ to wanting us to score.”

  Annalieese frowned at her daughter. “Bonding has nothing to do with scoring. It is a sacred moment between two souls as they come together as one. I don’t appreciate you degrading it.”

  “Don’t you want grandbabies?” Gabrielle asked, unfazed by their mother’s disapproval. “I know you do. Jax’s kids are the future Winters Gatekeepers and if he doesn’t get bonded first, he might end up with an Unborn.”

  “Gabrielle,” Annalieese scolded, in an outraged tone. “That’s enough from you.” She spoke to Gabrielle, but her eyes pursued Jax’s eyes, searching for whether Brea and he had been intimate before bonding.

  Jax could’ve wrung his sister’s neck for putting the fear and panic into in his mother’s eyes. “No,” Jax said softly to Annalieese. “Brea and I haven’t had sex yet.” Annalieese sighed in relief, closing her eyes and taking a deep breath.

  Jax understood Annalieese’s fear and he knew Gabrielle did too, but he wasn’t sure why she would bring up Unborns, and even more, suggest the possibility of him impregnating Brea
with an Unborn.

  The risks of giving birth to an Unborn had been instilled into the heads of the Lexcon children throughout their school years in order to prevent babies conceived between an unbonded couple. No Unborn babies survived conception, which was why they were given the title “Unborn”. However, it wasn’t the fear they drove into the young hormonal kids, but rather the possibility of death for the mother if she tried to go to term with an Unborn.

  In Jax’s life he’d never heard of an Unborn in their division of the Lexcon community and he sure wasn’t going to man known for producing one.

  After a long, silent glare at Gabrielle, Annalieese said nothing more and left the kitchen, taking Jax’s protein shake in the process and tossing the entire contents, thermos and all, in the trash can.

  Gabrielle made a face. “She’s sensitive today.”

  Jax stood and said, “A little.”

  Why was everyone so tense? It had only been three days. They had their whole lives ahead of them to bond, get to know each other, and to fall in love.

  “Have you seen Brea today?” Jax asked.

  The look on Gabrielle’s face said she had seen his wife and screamed there was more that he didn’t want to know.

  “Where is she?” he asked.

  Gabrielle tilted her head and her long black hair fell across one shoulder. “Do you notice how Brea is always running her hands across her birthmark with that little flicker of annoyance?” she asked.

  He hadn’t seen Brea enough to take that notion into consideration.

  “And then, take note, she likes ink...”

  He hadn’t missed Brea’s tattoos, the ones he could see anyway. And his mind had toyed with the possibility of covered ones he had yet to see.

  Gabrielle let the words play out in Jax’s mind. When he finally stopped thinking about Brea naked, he realized the implication of his sister’s words.

  Brea was going to tattoo over her birthmark. Great. Just bloody great.

  “I caught her sneaking out this morning,” Gabrielle continued, and not a second too soon.

  “And you didn’t bother to stop her or tell me earlier than this moment?” he snarled.

  Gabrielle shrugged. “Actually, I told her how to find the front door.”

  “Gabby!”

  “What? This place is a horrible maze and she was lost.”

  “In the future, leave her lost. On the premises.”

  Gabrielle bit her lower lip but Jax didn’t want to hear the rest.

  “Then I heard your bike come to life...”

  Jax grimaced.

  “Son of a...” He inhaled deeply. “Get your keys because you’re driving me into town.”

  Chapter Three

  BREA TOOK LONGER than she’d planned to decide on the final design for her tattoo since it was a spur of the moment decision, unlike her other ink, which she’d planned and designed with sentiment.

  The anchor on her ankle, symbolized the moments when she felt life dragging her down. The feathers on the inside of her arm, reminded her no matter how deep she sunk, there was always hope to lift her back up...although she was beginning to doubt that tattoo’s promise.

  Right now, working around her birthmark, and without prior consideration, challenged her. The extraordinarily ornate, gold compass woven through a skeleton key with a script “W” for Winters on the west side of the compass didn’t leave much room for anything else. She couldn’t ink over the initial. She was brave, but she wasn’t foolish enough to break that Lexcon law. Finally, she’d decided, and was ready to show Jax that he didn’t own her. To show all those blasted Winters.

  Sitting in the chair, she exposed her birthmark to the artist, knowing it was too detailed and too flawless for anyone who wasn’t part of the Lexcon community to believe she was born with it.

  The stool squeaked as he sat down beside her. His fingers ran along her skin, and the outer part of her tattoo. Even if he touched it, there would be no sparks, no reaction, not like when Jax would touch it. She feared that moment. What would become of her after they were bonded? Would he be finished with her quicker than the time it took to bond?

  “This is incredible,” he said. “Who’s the artist?”

  Fate. Destiny.

  “You wouldn’t know him,” she said instead.

  If she knew him, she would rip off his fingers for sentencing her to a life of misfortune.

  “I would love to. His technique is incredible.”

  Stop the chit-chat, turn that machine on and needle away the reminder of my fate.

  “Are you sure you want to change the look of it? We could do everything and keep the key intact,” he suggested.

  Yes, she was positive. This was the best idea she’d had all week.

  As she opened her mouth to answer a shadow fell over her. “I like the key just where it is,” Jax said. “I’d also like your fingers not on my wife’s neck.”

  Brea rolled her eyes and groaned.

  She’d finally gotten out of the house and he’d tracked her so easily? Barbaric.

  “I agree with the fellow...” Jax continued as if he hadn’t said enough already. “Why ruin a good thing?”

  Brea glanced up at her husband, who hovered above her with the menace of a protective monster. His casual, charming smirk, contradicted the threat he blasted silently toward the man holding the needle gun. He purposely slanted his neck to show off his matching birthmark.

  She narrowed her eyes to a glare as Jax finally had the decency to stop intimidating the tattoo artist and look at her. Smug, arrogant, jerk. Gatekeeper attitude, always thinking they’re better than everyone else.

  Yes, they could travel through time rips and they were born to fix time errors, but did they have to be such macho jerks about it?

  Brea heard the stool roll away and she inwardly groaned again. There went any chance of her tattoo now. The tattoo artist might have had tattoos from head to toe, including his bald head, and had bulging muscles under his torn t-shirt, but he didn’t even come close to matching Jax’s disposition. Jax worked out himself and appeared merciless.

  “Couples tattoos,” the guy said. What was his name again? Travis? Trent? What did it matter? Mr. T was never going anywhere near her again.

  He stood and said, “I’ll give you two some privacy.”

  Brea’s eyes fell on Jax.

  “What’s wrong with our birthmarks?” he asked, feigning innocence to everything else that had just occurred.

  Did he have to ask? The birthmarks bound them together, decided her life, and grounded her when she wanted to fly.

  “So, the only way to get the attention of my husband, is to step foot off the premises. Note taken.”

  “That, and letting another man touch my birthmark.”

  His birthmark. The one on her neck.

  Her anger would have bubbled over then if it had not been for his bemused smirk−so unlike the unusual Gatekeeper attitude.

  “Your birthmark?” she questioned.

  Jax firmly cupped the side of her face, and she swallowed hard at the first real private contact with him. His thumb traced her skin, instantly stirring everything inside of her and producing an adrenaline rush in her birthmark that told her she belonged to him.

  Damn him.

  He knew how to use their bond to entice her for his own selfish needs.

  Jax’s finger moved down the side of her throat...so close...so very close to the throbbing on the side of her neck. Her body longed to lean into his touch and she tightened her grip on her jeans to prevent her hands from reaching for his neck. It was a two-way street. He could touch her birthmark as much as he wanted, but without her touch, at the same moment, bonding wouldn’t occur.

  But he didn’t touch it. She cursed her disappointment, as he set her skin ablaze, tantalizingly outlining the area.

  “Why are you denying us this?” His husky whisper kissed the skin on her face.

  He was close now. How had she missed his lips getting closer
until they were only inches away from hers? Why did this mark induce more than she had been warned about? The warming desire to grab his neck to bond them, and then pull him onto this tattoo chair with her afterwards overwhelmed her. The intense, powerful feeling scared...no, terrified her. It made her question her morals and beliefs. The reality−her reality−slapped her senses back to normal...a little. She struggled to grab his hand and remove his fingers from her neck. Lord, he felt good.

  Her birthmark pounded harder, punishment for the distance she placed between them.

  Jax looked amused again, as if her presence had no affect on him, or as if his soul didn’t demand the same as hers.

  “You took my bike.” The soft-hearted man lapsed back into the hard Gatekeeper she knew. His teeth gritted out the words and the sharp ridges of his face tightened. She wanted to caress them back to softness. Not now.

  Taking off with his bike was one point for her, and she was pleased he finally felt something other than complete and utter control. If driving away on his bike had driven him crazy, she would plan a second trip. Maybe she would drive into the country, on back roads, where nature, and not the eyes of others, would watch her. She’d heard the cliffs that overlooked the water were the perfect place to have a picnic. Brea hadn’t ever had a picnic...what made her think she could have one now?

  “It rides like a dream,” she purred. Internally, she blamed Jax for her lack of a picnic, even if it wasn’t his fault.

  Jax shifted and his egotistical smirk came back. “Sweetness, my bike is off limits. But you can ride me anytime you’d like.”

  “Oh, enough.” She shoved his chest, hard, but he didn’t move until he was ready. Luckily, he only waited a few seconds.

  Brea climbed off the chair and stood on the opposite side, giving him a fierce look. She didn’t care he was a good foot plus taller than her, or that he was solid mountain of man that people watched with caution, like Mr T. She didn’t care one bit.