1. A Chance Meeting
A Chance Meeting
Jasper
“I don’t know if I can do this. It’s been years since I’ve gone anywhere alone. Now I have to travel across the country to see my son. It’s too much.” Panic infused my voice.
“Take a breath, Jasper.” My therapist and friend, Karina, said. “You have all the tools for keeping your anxiety at bay. Have you spoken to the council?”
“I have. Councilman Ford was available to speak to me last night as I packed. He confirmed that I no longer need guarding, but there will be an official report outlining everything.”
“So you know that it’s safe for you to travel then?
I can understand your concern. It’s a rather big adjustment, but you handled yourself well yesterday.
You’ve dealt with so much in our sessions.
” She paused, and I sensed this next question was going to be difficult. “What’s happening with you and Silas?”
Over our sessions, we had dealt with my struggle with intimacy and difficulty in developing an emotional bond with my young alpha guard.
There had been a lot of tension to begin with between us, since he felt used for sex and wanted a proper relationship.
Karina had helped me see things from his side, while also understanding my perspective.
She’d been there for Silas to talk to when he’d needed her.
Without the therapy, I didn’t think our fragile arrangement would have worked.
“We haven’t talked about it. He said he wanted to see how things go.”
“Which is reasonable. You have a lot of upheaval ahead. Call me if you need me, okay? Even if it isn’t a session and just an out of hours talk like today.”
“Thanks Karina. I feel bad for taking up your personal time.”
“Jasper, you’re my friend, as well as my client. I’ll make time for you, okay? Just call.”
“I will.”
We’d begun our journey late morning the day after I’d been told my ex had died.
I hadn’t discussed it with Angelica, not seeing the need to upset her.
As far as she knew, her dad had died not long after she had been born.
I’d tried to limit discussions about Rincoln around her and she had never really expressed an interest in the man.
All she was aware of was that an evil man wanted her papa and we had to be careful of who we spoke to.
It was much easier to be on the run with a baby than a small child.
Every day, I feared Rincoln would trace me through his daughter just by finding her through school.
I’d spent sleepless nights wondering what she would say to strangers.
Then I wondered if he even remembered that she existed.
His focus always seemed to be on our son and me.
When I went to say goodbye to Silas after a night of tossing and turning, there was no reply from my knock on the door.
It had pushed open at my touch, displaying an empty room.
I didn’t know what that meant for us. My heat was a month away and with school breaking up within weeks, there was no reason for me to rush back here.
I could spend the next few months getting to know my son again.
Would Silas make me choose between him and Kade?
We traveled all day, stayed in a random city halfway there after our car died on us. There was no saving it. After finding alternative travel, we then spent another day traveling by train before we finally arrived in Sweetwater in the evening.
Our fox alters hated flying. Though it would have been the quickest and safest way for us to travel, I just couldn’t cope with dealing with my panicking alter as well as having my child freaking out and likely shifting mid flight.
Shifters, aside from avian ones, weren’t meant to fly.
We’d tried it before when Angelica had been about two.
She’d spent the entire short flight in fox form.
Luckily, I had Grady and Trey to help me then. This time, I was alone.
Thoroughly exhausted and emotional, I gave Sweetwater a cursory glance as our rideshare took us from the train station in Northarbor to the town my son was living in.
Sweetwater seemed like a beautiful place to live from the glimpse I got of the place.
There were plenty of tree-lined streets and green spaces.
Small stores littered the main street as well as the expected chains.
We’d booked into a small hotel in the town not too far from the pack’s main compound so we could go back and forth easily.
The hotel was clean and comfortable, but Angel wouldn’t settle.
She took an instant dislike to the guy on the desk and I tried to show patience for her, knowing that her own premonition power came in the form of dreams, mine in flashes of visions.
I knew my son had a gift, too. Intuition, that gut feeling in a situation.
He hadn’t nurtured the gift, or at least hadn’t at nearly twenty-one, when I’d last seen him.
So it wasn’t too far-fetched that Angel had dreamt something while napping on the train.
She wanted to leave and begged me even as I unpacked our belongings and pulled out pajamas for her.
“It’s only for a little while, baby girl. We can decide what we are going to do when we meet your brother.” I was beyond exhausted. My nerves were fraught with what the next day would bring. There was no way I could bring myself to search for somewhere else to stay.
“Can we go now?” she asked.
“No, it’s past your bedtime. Let’s both just get some sleep and go see him in the morning.” Both of us were looking rumpled and tired. A good night’s sleep would help us both.
“But Papa, I don’t think I can sleep. I’m too excited.”
“I’m excited too, Angel. I can’t wait for you to meet your brother, but it’s best we try to get some sleep.” My smile was weak, with too much on my mind, making it an effort to maintain.
There was a knock at the door, and I pulled the chain over before unlocking. The man from reception was on the other side. “I just wanted to check if you two needed anything.”
A flash of a scene flitted through my mind of Angelica crying after the man got angry had me being very careful with my next words. “Oh, that’s too kind, thank you. We are just settling down to sleep. Tomorrow we have a meeting with Alpha Sweetwater, so I want to be at our best.”
The man gulped and stood straighter. Now no longer in my space, I took a tiny, relieved breath. “Alpha Sweetwater? Is that right?”
“Well, we are shifters, so we have to ask permission to be so close to his pack and to move through his territory, but I’ve been told that my son is his mate. I can’t wait to meet my new son-in-law.”
Those were the words that had him backing away from the door. “Well, just pick up the phone and press zero for reception if you need anything. I’ll be here all night.”
Thanking him, I closed and locked the door again, leaving the chain on and moving the dresser in front of the door. It surprised me they hadn’t bolted it to the floor, and it was easy for me to move with my shifter strength. The human wouldn’t be getting in tonight.
“He’s a bad man, Papa.” Angel repeated.
“I know, baby girl. We’ll find somewhere else tomorrow, okay? Let’s just sleep for now. We’re safe.”
“Okay.”
Angel settled down and soon her eyes closed. Mine stayed open, replaying events from the last few days, fanciful ideas of what would happen tomorrow, and memories of the last moments with my son.
As I finally closed my eyes to sleep, there was another brief flash of a fox and a bear together in the woods in my mind.
Rather than wait a day or two, make some calls or whatever, I decided just to go ahead and visit the compound and ask for pass through rights, then demand to see Kade. My brain still tripped over the name, accustomed to thinking of my son as Ryder as my former mate had named him.
I packed up all of our belongings but didn’t check out of the hotel just in case we couldn’t find somewhere else to stay.
Awareness that I was all alone here if Kade didn’t want to see me had me making a back-up plan.
We’d come back here. Rest for the night and then journey home.
Feeling better about being organized, I set about making the visit happen while Angelica questioned me about her brother.
It took hours to find a car rental place and get a ride over to collect our vehicle.
They’d provided an adequate seat for my daughter, but if we were going to stay here for any length of time, I was going to buy a better one.
I started mentally compiling a list of things I needed to do and buy to calm my nerves.
Lists calmed me when the stress got to be too much.
The pack compound was easy enough to find.
It was so large it was almost its own town.
“Are we there now, Daddy?” I flinched at Angel calling me daddy.
It was such a human thing. A way of dismissing the omega male’s role in the process of making a child.
Shifters didn’t call their birthing parent daddy.
That honorific was reserved for their alpha parent.
It showed me how little of our culture that I exposed her to. Another thing for me to fix.
“Papa, sweetheart. And yes. The gate is just up ahead.” I slowed the rental as we approached the gate. All words to plead my case fled in the face of the boy I’d watched grow. The man that had been my son’s partner. Who I thought had sided with my ex, Rincoln.
Roan.
What had Silas said? Roan had been the one to carry out the kill order. He’d done it to save Kade and his mate, the alpha of this pack. What did it mean?
We just stared at the other for a full minute before I heard Angelica call for me.
“Mr Hayes! It’s you.” Roan looked dumbfounded, but shook himself out of it when he heard Angel. It couldn’t have come as that much of a surprise that I came to Sweetwater. Surely someone expected me to appear. Why wouldn’t I visit my son as soon as I was able to? It was safe for us to be a family.
“Roan —“ He had grown into his features more. In front of me was a tall, muscular man. Not the boy I’d known. His bright green eyes were haunted and full of pain as he looked me over in turn.
He swallowed audibly and gathered his wits. “I know you probably want to see Kade, but this really isn’t a good time. If you’d like to make an appointment with Alpha Blake’s second, then Axel can explain things to you.”
“Roan, I just want to see my son. It’s been too long.” My voice sounded tired to even my own ears.
“Mr Hayes —“
I cut him off, hurt at the formality. “Jasper. I’ll always be Jasper to you.”
“Even after —“ He didn’t have to say the words. I felt his pain as if it were my own.
“Even after that. You did us all a favor. You did it to protect my son.” I told him firmly.
There was no doubt that he had to do what he’d done to Rincoln.
I didn’t mourn my former mate. Our love had turned to ash years before Angelica was born.
He’d been abusive, and I’d only stayed because of Kade.
So many times I had regretted that decision.
If I hadn’t, though, I wouldn’t have had my daughter, and I loved her dearly.
She was worth the pain Rincoln had put me through.
I just hoped Kade would forgive me for staying as long as I had.
“But—“
“No. I need to see Kade. We’ve had a long couple of days of traveling. Let me through!” My desperation overrode my sense, and I raised my voice. Years of hurt, worry and fear bled into my words. It needed to be now before I lost my nerve.
“I can’t, Jasper. Kade can’t see you right now.” Roan was firm, but his eyes pleaded with me.
“Everything okay, Roan?” Came a voice from the hut next to the open gate.
“It’s fine, Chase. Kade’s Papa is here. I’ll deal with it.” Later I’d realize that his voice took on a desperate edge. It wasn’t that he was angry with me. It was an emotional time. Then, though, I didn’t hear it and ignored my fox, who tried to soothe my temper..
It. Like I was some kind of thing to throw out like trash.
“Roan, I’m going up there and speaking to Kade.
I haven’t seen him in five years. Either get in the car and come with me or get out of the way, because I’m going up to that house right now.
” I could feel how red my face was getting with my anger at being denied.
Who were these people keeping me from my son?
“Chase?”
“Go with him. I’ll watch the gate. Axel owes me big time for missing out on everything.”
Roan ran around the front of the car and jumped into the passenger seat. “Guess I’m coming with you. They’ll just say the same thing. Kade is in heat.”
I ignored him and put my foot on the gas, cruising through the compound and following Roan’s directions to the large white mansion. Parking the car directly in front of the porch steps, I got out and went to help Angel from her car seat.
“Mr Hayes, I’m not sure that this is a good idea.” Roan took to pleading with me, but I was beyond hearing it. I was so close to seeing my son.
“Roan, I don’t really care what you think right now.
” I snapped as I took Angel’s hand and marched past the people guarding the doors.
I could only assume that Chase at the gate had told them to let us by, since they didn’t stop us.
One, a red-haired female, looked amused as I stalked past, dragging a confused Angelica behind me.
“This way.” Roan led me to an office space, and my anger grew into fury.
“I demand to see my son!” I told the assembled group.
They crowded the room. All of them were shifters.
Their scents mixed too much to tell me what they were.
I caught bear and one fragrant smell that tickled my nose.
My fox stood at attention. I quickly cataloged the room for exits and dangers.
“Deke, Axel, he wouldn’t take no for an answer.
I thought he was going to shift into his fox and run right here.
” Internally, I huffed. That had been my next idea.
Angel would have shifted with me, too. “This is Jasper Hayes, Kade’s Papa.
” Roan said to them. His body language screamed how uncomfortable he was with the situation.
He’d never been an alpha to impose his will on others.
“It’s okay, Roan. You’ve done the right thing by bringing him here.” One turned to me. I didn’t catch his name and didn’t care. “How can we help you, sir?”
My fox caught the scent again, paper and cotton, my two favorite scents in the world.
It was coming from an immense mountain of a man towards the back of the room.
He was absolutely huge and looked like he could snap me in half with a thought.
Fear iced my veins. My head snapped up and our eyes met.
Mate.
No no no.