Alpha Jaxon in Pursuing My Rejected Luna: Redeemed?

Alpha Jaxon in Pursuing My Rejected Luna starts as the reason Skye leaves and ends as part of the family she builds. Here is how Cara Anderson gets him there, and whether it works. Spoilers for the whole book.

The man in chapter one

Jaxon Vale is Alpha of Ironwood, raised by his grandmother Rose after his parents nearly ruined the pack. He is competent, controlling and cold. He doesn't tell Skye that her sister is back. He names Cassandra's son his heir the same night. He scolds Skye for being sick on a trip she didn't want to take, and in chapter 12 he drives away from her and a broken-down car with a blizzard coming, promising help in two hours that never arrives.

At home he tells her she used to be patient and accommodating, and asks what happened to her. The book's answer is him.

Why he did it

Chapter 62 explains the root. At Skye's Shifting Party, the bond snapped into place and his wolf took over. He woke the next morning groggy, with flashes of memory, sure he had been manipulated. He accused her of slipping him something; she denied it, and he never listened. For three years he punished her for his own loss of control. His belief that he is never wrong did the rest.

The confession in chapter 63 does not excuse him, and Skye doesn't let it. It does make him understandable: a man whose identity was built on control, terrified of the one thing he couldn't control.

Losing her

His first attempts at repair are gifts that prove he doesn't know her: a bracelet, roses whose scent makes her sick. At the summit he accuses her of an affair, and she asks for the divorce in earnest. The council rules that the bond was damaged by his bad faith. In chapter 79 he admits he loves her and that it is too late, and cries for the first time.

The turn

Jaxon's redemption begins when he stops trying to win and starts showing up. Key steps:

• He lets her go. When she is attacked, he admits he cannot protect her from organised crime and asks Nicolai to take care of her.
• He doesn't contest her wish to make Nicolai a guardian for the baby.
• He breaks Cassandra into a full confession, even though it exposes how badly he was fooled.
• He shows up for Benji, holding her hand at the birth and then moving into the west wing under rules he keeps.
• He cuts the bond himself in chapter 153, because she deserves to be free.

That last choice is the hinge. For three years the bond was something he resented. Giving it up for her is the first time he acts on love rather than control.

The second bond

The new bond at the mating reception is the book's biggest gamble. Jaxon handles it carefully, refusing to say what he wants until he can separate the bond from himself. When he finally tells Skye he wants her with everything that comes with her, it lands because he has spent a hundred chapters proving it. Then he gives up Ironwood to Noah and arranges a back-up exit that saves the rescue.

Consort Alpha

Jaxon ends the book without a pack of his own and finds he doesn't miss it. As Consort Alpha he runs the Woolf Family's eastern intelligence network, consults on security and has legal standing as Benji's father. He says Ironwood was what he had, and this is what he wants. His line after marking Skye, that irrevocability isn't a trap but the point, is the opposite of the man in chapter one.

Is it too easy?

Some readers will feel he gets more than he deserves. The book's defence is that he earns his place slowly, and that Skye never pretends the past didn't happen. Diana confronts him late in the book about Dalton and the three years; he doesn't make it smaller, and says he is trying to build something for the next thirty years rather than rewrite the last three. Whether that is enough is up to the reader. It is, at least, honest.

Read more: Skye, Nicolai Woolf and Recap Part 4: Benji.