The Claiming by Cooper

The Claiming by Cooper Book 4

The Contest by Cooper (Jaxon & Evangeline)

Chapter 14 Jaxon

I wasn’t sure I’d see Evangeline again until tomorrow, but I was thrilled when she decided to come wait with my family for Raelyn to cross the finish line.

I really had planned to walk around the pack lands, just to see what they are like, but now that Eve has decided to join me, I think I’ll take my time and the waterfalls sound romantic.

We begin traipsing through the forest and I realize just how overgrown it is.

“Have your parents ever told you about their time in the claiming?” She asks as we walk.

I laugh. “My mother loves to tell the story of how she was seconds away from getting out unclaimed when my father tackled her. My father likes to say that she was so distracted by the other Alphas, your father included, by the way, that she didn’t even see him coming.”

I look at her. “How about your parents?”

She nods. “Somewhere out here there is a cliff where my mother hid for nearly the entire time she was in the claiming. I guess it made the males in her claim nuts. They couldn’t smell her, couldn’t find her trail except her initial one near this lake and waterfall. After that, she stayed in the trees until my father accidentally stumbled across where she’d been hiding and waited for her. He’s very proud that she wanted him, and he loves to tell the story of how she exposed her neck for him to mark her.”

I look at her. “Sounds romantic.” I say, not sure if that’s where she’s going with the storv;

“You know, in theory, it has always sounded romantic.” She says distractedly, stopping and doing a full circle, looking around. “But now that I’m here and I can see what it must have been like for all of them, the romance of the story is lost on me.”

Her eyes go unfocused as she gets lost in her thoughts. I wait, hoping she’ll keep talking.

“I mean. I’ll be turning 18 in a few months. Conceivably, I would be coming here soon after my birthday to be captured by some man, someone I might not even know. I mean, what if I didn’t like them. What if we weren’t compatible.”

Her eyes refocus on me.

“Back then, it didn’t matter. It’s barbaric.” She says.

seeing the area with different eyes, thinking of my mother racing from the battles she said

went feral during the claiming. And so many were killed. It’s crazy to think about it now. I’m 18, so I could have been in your claiming. I would not only have been hunting you down, which

on mine. “No chance in hell you’d have caught me, Alpha. I am my mother’s

father’s son.

prize to you,

think you’d be a prize to anyone lucky enough to claim you as their mate. But if I had to compete for you, fight

She says, but

that doesn’t make it any less true.” I tell her. “Come on, let’s

of us quiet as we take in

the forest is dense, a

and smelling the water. “How big is the lake?”

across it, but it’s large enough that if you were trying to get the person on the other

tip of the lake. “Oh

top? My mom said there’s a cave up there where most of the contestants stayed their

it

“Definitely.”

edge of the water. I lean down,

up at Eve, smiling. “It’s

leans down to touch it. “Oh, are you thinking what

go

“Oh yeah.”

swim first?” I ask

out the cave.”

enough that I can see how my mother was

climb to the top of the

view.” I say. From up here, you can see so much of

on.” Eve says, looking at a cliff off

It’s weird being here after all the years of hearing about how

their names to the wall in here the year she was in the

my mom said the same.”