Forced Mate Bride (Silverrose Wolves #2)

Chapter 1 - Jasper

“You need to pull your elbows in a bit more,” Jasper said, adjusting the stance of one of the women in the room. “That way, you have a better angle to ram them into your attacker’s stomach. Like this.”

He demonstrated, shoving his elbow back behind him as if attacking an invisible assailant right behind him. He stood in front of a row of mirrors, and he could see his reflection copying himself. His sandy hair, a little shaggy and in need of a cut, obscured a little of his face.

Behind his reflection, he could see that of about twenty other women in a decent-sized room that was mostly empty, save for bags lining the wall and some gym equipment that had been pushed out of the way for the purpose of the meeting.

“If you think you need a bit more space to execute any of this, what I would suggest is driving your foot back and slamming your heel into their foot. That should startle them enough for them to loosen their grip enough that you can use this move. If they’re wearing boots or the foot doesn’t work for some other reason, try going for their shin instead. ”

He showed them what he was talking about, shifting his foot back and demonstrating as he spoke. The women filling the room watched with rapt attention. Some were studying the technique fastidiously. Others had their attention locked specifically on him.

“Does that make sense?” he said. “Right. In that case, get into pairs, and I want you to practice on one another.”

He watched as the women shuffled around as instructed. They began practicing the move, some with more skill than others, but all with the same enthusiasm and determination.

Walking around, watching the women practicing, he paused groups every so often, adjusting positioning and giving pointers, trying to explain what they needed to change and why.

So far, the self-defense program that Jasper had started was going well.

He had taught the women in the room a half-dozen different techniques that could help them with an assailant.

All the women in the room had been enslaved by the Ironbrand pack before Jasper and several other Silverrose wolves had killed the alpha and set them free.

After that, most of the women had joined the Silverrose pack and integrated into the new pack seamlessly.

The training program had been his idea. Ever since they had rescued these women from the Ironbrand pack a few months ago, Jasper had wanted to make sure they felt safe and secure, like they could defend themselves.

They were good learners, too. It had taken no convincing whatsoever to get the women to start attending.

While he watched, he let his mind drift to other things for a brief moment, thinking back on the changes since Camden, his leader when they had both been members of the black-ops team and now the Silverrose Alpha, had taken over.

Despite some of the more conservative members of the pack having issues with the program and some of the other changes Camden had made as alpha, for the most part, the transition had been smooth.

They had scouted the nearby woods to get rid of any lingering members of the Ironbrand pack.

Jasper, Franco, and Cillian had uncovered a handful of pockets of resistance, but nothing that they couldn’t handle.

They’d dealt with far worse over the years when they had been in the military.

At this point, sometimes it felt like the hardest part of the transition had been getting used to calling one another by their first names again after the years of military life.

“Jasper?”

One woman’s voice brought him back to reality. A blond woman was batting her eyelashes at him, smiling and waving him over. “I have a question on technique. Would you mind correcting my stance?”

The class continued, Jasper, demonstrating another couple of moves, explaining their uses and potential pitfalls.

The cycle repeated itself, with Jasper breaking the women into clusters and helping the ones who needed work on their forms. He might have been imagining it, but some of the women’s forms were so terrible, he could have sworn they were doing it to get him to come over.

After an hour, he clapped his hands. The murmurs and sounds of scuffling stopped, and all the women turned to look at him.

“All right, that’s it for today,” Jasper said. “Good work, everyone. I’ll see you all next week.”

There were a handful of disappointed mutters and some quick, appreciative thanks, and that was it. Some of the women began to disperse, grabbing their bags that lined the room, talking animatedly with one another. Others, however, walked up to Jasper.

“Thank you so much,” a woman named Isabel said. “That was a great lesson. You’re such a good teacher.” Her hand went to his bicep, fingers tracing the muscle there.

“You really are,” said another, Silvia, coming to stand next to her. “I was wondering if you might have time for some private classes?” She batted her eyelashes. “I really learn so much better in more intimate settings, you know?”

“You’re all doing incredibly well without any extra help,” Jasper said.

Silvia frowned, a mock pout. “But I think I would learn so much better if you could help me after hours. Maybe at my house? I could make dinner, too.”

On the outskirts of the cluster that had formed around him came more than one annoyed murmur at the proposition.

Jasper wasn’t entirely sure why, but he dismissed it from his head and kept a pleasant smile on his face.

This happened after nearly every meeting.

He couldn’t figure out why the women kept persisting, but he had a funny feeling it was going to continue whether he liked it or not.

His eyes strayed past the small semi-circle of women toward a woman at the back of the room, currently slipping on her jacket.

She brushed her auburn hair away from the jacket collar and gathered the rest of her belongings.

She didn’t glance at him, instead keeping her head low as she dipped out the door.

Jasper politely extracted his arm from Isabel. “Unfortunately, I’m way too busy at the moment to run any extra lessons,” he said.

Silvia gave another mock pout and sighed, then straightened, returning to her coy demeanor. “If you’re sure. See you next week.”

She winked and waggled her fingers at him, then sauntered off, swaying her hips far more than necessary. He didn’t miss the way she turned to look back over her shoulder at him as if to check if he was looking, but he didn’t react to it.

Wasting as little time as possible, he hurried out of the gym and glanced around. There was no one. But he had an idea where he should go. He shouldered his bag and made his way down the street toward the nearest coffee shop.

When he reached it, he slowed. He glanced into the window, not keeping his head low necessarily, but not drawing attention to himself, either. He peeked inside, and he felt a jolt lurch through him at the sight inside.

Nikki was there, talking to the barista.

She smiled and laughed. She had a beautiful smile.

The barista smiled back and handed her a coffee.

A caramel and chocolate latte. Jasper knew without having to hear the exchange.

She got it nearly every time he had seen her in there, after nearly every training session.

Another brief conversation, and the barista dipped over to the bakery cabinet, pulling out a massive cinnamon roll drizzled with cream cheese frosting. Another staple of Nikki’s order.

After this, she would walk through the park and sit on a bench for a little while. She’d probably pull out a book from her bag and read by the lake. Then, she’d head to the library where she worked.

Jasper moved away before she exited the coffee shop and headed down the street behind her.

He didn’t know what it was about her, but whenever he saw her, he felt drawn to her.

He was always aware of her presence, and he always seemed to pay particular attention to whatever she did.

Whenever he went over to help her during the training sessions, he always had to hold himself back, to remain as neutral and expressionless as possible.

Even when he tried not to pay any particular attention to her, he could sense her; he noticed her and what she did.

Even when he stumbled across her in the middle of town by chance, he found himself watching her, seeing what she was doing, who she was with, where she was heading.

It wasn’t just that he felt drawn to her, though.

He had this overwhelming need to keep an eye on her whenever possible, to make sure she stayed safe.

The thought of anything happening to her became an uncomfortable distraction, and the only way to stifle the concerns and thoughts about her was to watch her, to keep an eye on her.

She didn’t go to sit on the bench today.

Instead, she headed straight for the library.

An early shift, then. He followed a little behind, chiding himself for doing so in the first place.

He knew what he was doing wasn’t healthy or normal.

He had tried to stop. But he seemed to be drawn to her like a magnet, even if she didn’t notice he was around.

She walked into the library. Jasper waited another moment. For half a second, he entertained the idea of going in after her. He wondered what that would look like. He pictured walking in and trying to fumble some excuse about searching for a book, striking up a conversation.

He turned and walked away. Best not to even consider it. He had other things he had to deal with without adding that complication.

***

“You know, I didn’t think retirement was going to have this much paperwork,” Cillian grumbled, slumping back in his chair. He glowered at the stack of pages in front of him as if they had personally offended him.

“Well, that’s what happens when you decide to work for the new alpha,” Camden said without looking up.

By now, all four of them were used to Cillian’s antics and good-natured grumbling to effectively tune it out. They were in Camden’s oversized office, going over their weekly meeting that went over pack dealings.

“So far, things are looking all right,” Jasper said, looking down at his own notes. “We aren’t experiencing a whole lot of friction—”

“Except for a few of the old guard,” Franco chimed in. “At least a couple of them are still making noise about things not being the way they used to be.”

Jasper tipped his head in acknowledgment.

“They’ll come around eventually,” Camden said. “I hope.”

“There’s always the hope that they’ll storm off and take care of the problem themselves,” Cillian said. “Save us all the headache.”

“I’d rather it not come to that,” Camden said. “I don’t like the idea of people leaving the pack because of something like that.”

“Why not? It would weed out the people we don’t want around, anyway,” Cillian argued.

Camden shot Cillian a withering stare, and the other shifter clamped his mouth shut.

“The point of running Silverrose is to make it a welcoming place,” Camden said.

“We’re working on it. Just as long as we don’t have some other new problem to contend with,” Franco murmured.

“Please,” Cillian said dismissively. He flapped his hand. “Nothing bad’s going to happen.”

“Don’t jinx it,” Franco said.

“Impossible.” Cillian reclined, kicking his feet up on the desk.

The top half of the tower of papers began to teeter, and the only reason the pages didn’t tumble to the floor was that Jasper lunged forward to right it.

“It’s karma,” Cillian continued. “We’ve already had to deal with so much craziness and danger over the years that the universe is bound to ease up on us now. ”

Camden and Jasper exchanged glances. Jasper’s lip twitched upward, but he said, “We’ll see. You never know.”

“Trust me,” Cillian said. “You can relax. Silverrose’s got nothing to worry about.”