Twenty-One – Jasper
I left Liam watching Vail, because if there was one thing I knew for certain, my sweet thing ran when she felt cornered. And by intercepting her letter, I’d taken her one small attempt at freedom and shoved it back in her face. Not a proud moment, but a point that needed to be made. She had to stop thinking of the collar as a punishment, and appreciate the motives behind it. Yes, I liked the fact it stopped other males from getting near her. But it was more than just a warning. It marked her as something beyond a status or a bloodline. She was chosen. She was protected. And there was no way in hell she wasn’t making it to her eighteenth birthday.
Especially since our wolves had started a mating dance.
Pushy fucker. I’d been fighting to restrain him since the hotel suite, when Vail was trussed up and panting under our gaze. The promise of the collar was the only thing that kept him from pushing through my skin. Still, her scent had been everywhere and the urge to hold her down had been almost uncontrollable. To stop her from running, but also to mark her. So, everyone knew she was claimed. The Luna to my Alpha.
There weren’t many secrets a shifter could keep from his beast. But the fact the collar suppressed her wolf while also keeping the males away, was one I’d had to hide until it was safely in place. My wolf had known instantly, and while I’d been aching to lie beside her in the hotel bed, he was having none of it. He’d pushed through the shift, raking his claws over my balls in the process, and then slept beside her all night. While I’d been walking with a limp ever since, he seemed immune to the injury. As if his rage at my betrayal was blocking out the pain.
I couldn’t help but smirk as I reached the packball pavilion and began shedding my clothes on the porch. The only thing that came close to releasing her wolf was skin-to-skin contact. Something I’d also kept from him, since he wasn’t beyond chasing her down and stripping her naked in the lobby of Omega House. But he’d ridden me hard from the moment I’d stepped into that dance studio and seen her in the arms of the Sawyer wolf. The only thing that saved Xavier from a pair of raked balls was the look of suffering on his face. But my wolf had no interest in rules or politics, or what had actually sent me to the room in the first place. Which was why I’d pushed her up against the studio wall and stripped her of her shirt.
Satisfaction rumbled through me as we both savored the memory. Pale skin, still sheathed in our glow, and those little bits of white lace with hard nipples peeking through. Reliving the image was as painful as when she’d been in my arms, since my wolf had kept a firm grip on my aching balls. Not that the threat had done much to discourage me. Forget the lobby, I’d been ready to feast on those pink buds right there in that kinky room of mirrors. But then my wolf had taken matters into his own paws and summoned the mating purr.
I had to chuckle as I kicked off my shoes and left my clothes in a heap. The pushy fucker was gloating like he’d just won the Packball Cup. But as he began to strip away my skin, I used my alpha power to hold him back. We were aligned on our ultimate goal, but had very different ideas about how we were getting there. Not that I could blame him. Ever since Michael Warren had laid out his plan in the diner, I’d been on the verge of tossing it to the wind and going straight for the jugular. But storming the Marrow Compound, and putting Vail’s grandfather under a blood claw, was a suicide mission. And then who in hell would be standing between my mate and her enemies?
My wolf howled and pushed the shift, but not before I felt his grudging consent ripple through him. Leaping from the pavilion, he tore away through the snowy woods, and for a moment I let him have his head. His instincts were screaming at him to turn back and track her down, but his promise to me kept him moving forward. And as much as my balls still hurt, I felt a pinch of guilt at the way it was killing him to follow my plan.
Which is why I didn’t rein him in when he leaped onto the porch of the hunting cabin and slammed his shoulder into the wooden door. I caught a glimpse of a panicked guard, before my wolf threw his head back and howled his fury into the rafters. Wentworth didn’t stand a chance. Not only was the teacher now my wolf to command, but he was the focus of a frustrated mating bond. All the pheromones my beast had built up to lure out Vail’s wolf flooded the small cabin and the omega hit his knees like a felled tree. My wolf didn’t let him shift, instead forcing him to crawl to our feet in his human form. Rolling onto his back, Wentworth showed me his throat, and something dark and ruthless slithered through my soul.
“Enough.” My voice cracked in my throat, which was still vibrating from my wolf’s howl. To say nothing of the quiver in my spine at my sudden shift. “On your feet, Omega.”
Wentworth lay panting for a moment, his glasses sitting crookedly on his nose. “That was unnecessary, Alpha.”
“You don’t know how wrong you are.” My guard tossed me a pair of sweats and I pulled them on. I was dressed and sitting at the table before the omega had picked himself off the floor. I ignored the scent of his wounded pride; the asshole had that and a lot worse coming his way. When he didn’t move fast enough, I kicked out the chair opposite and growled, “Don’t make me fucking wait, Wentworth.”
He gave me one of his snooty looks and I felt my slight grip on my temper fray. Blasting him with enough alpha power to put him on his ass, he made a helpless sound and fell sideways onto the chair. He’d given up his fancy suits, but he was still wearing a neat button-down and linen pants, and he smoothed down both before gripping the edge of the table. “Your outbursts are beneath you, Alpha.”
I gave him a small shrug. “I have to get my kicks where I can. And you don’t want to know what my wolf is urging me to do to you.”
He lowered his gaze to the table and I picked up the pad and began reading his neat hand-writing. After a slow start, he’d filled two of the things in the time he’d been holed up in the cabin. And as much as I didn’t like the male, I appreciated his recall abilities and attention to detail. I flicked him a glance as I came to the end of the section he was working on. “I bet you killed your communications classes, Omega. You’re quite the storyteller.”
Something dark flashed behind his glasses. “Not every pack provides their wolves with an academy education.”
He’d hinted at this before – and there was enough darkness peeking through his written descriptions for me to get the gist of how he’d grown up. “And yet you ran straight into the arms of the biggest, baddest asshole in these parts.”
“He sponsored my work visa.” Wentworth was fiddling with his cuffs, and I knew the back of his shirt was already soaked through with sweat. At my insistence, the guards kept all the windows and doors bordered up, and a roaring fire going day and night. I was literally sweating the truth out of the former Math teacher, and yet, according to the guards, he still washed and ironed all of his clothes every day. Stubborn fucker. “Part of my contract was to provide reports on wolves of interest,” he went on, “but I never put anyone in harm’s way.”
Even though there was no hint of a lie to his words, I drummed my fingers on the table. We’d been through this before, and I didn’t give a fuck about his excuses. He was a Marrow spy in a Hunter Moon den, and that alone could have him skinned and staked out for the scavengers. That was definitely one of Marrow’s favorite ways of dealing with his enemies, as Wentworth had already reported in vivid detail. “You’ve covered what you know about his business operations, close contacts and the compound layout. But you’ve given up little on the man himself. Torture and murder I already knew about. You need to go deeper. Tell me what makes him tick.”
Wentworth’s mouth narrowed into a thin line, his nostrils white at the edges. I thought he was going to give me some spiel on how he’d already given me everything he knew, but he surprised me by dropping his head into his hands. He was silent for a long moment and I felt the guard watching him blankly, although I could sense the worry under his professionalism. Fucking omegas. Even tough-as-nail security crews went soft after too much exposure. Finally, he said in a small voice, “I try to block it out. He’s… not a person you want to get too close to. But he likes omegas. Especially males.”
I felt the guard’s anger at the implications and shot him a quelling look. He instantly busied himself loading logs on the fire. “He screw you, Wentworth?”
“Not sexually. He has a stable for that. But he likes putting vulnerable wolves in painful positions.”
Truth. As much as my wolf’s hackles rose at this new piece of information, I simply picked up the pen and tapped the pad. “More on that, then.”
He flashed me a look of bitter dislike. “It won’t help you protect her from him.”
I stood and went to the icebox. Like the lights, it ran off a generator, and the guards always kept a pitcher of cold water ready for my visits. I poured myself a glass and leaned back against the counter, the omega’s throat moving painfully as he watched me drink. The only thing he’d asked for since I’d locked him up was a tea kettle, and I’d instantly ordered his guards to ration all his drinks. He looked away as I grinned at him. “You’ve a savage soul, Alpha Arras.”
I gulped the drink dry and dropped the glass in the sink. “It’s Clan Alpha now.”
When I glanced back at him, I saw the first hint of fear on his smooth features. “Then you intend to challenge him.”
I nodded at the notepad under his elbow. “I’m not the one spilling my guts. Have that finished before my next visit, Omega.”
***
I let my wolf roam the woods for a while, knowing Vail would be finished with her classes and safely back at Omega House. He tried to run off his rage, but his frustration with the plan was like a thorn under his paw. He was sick of waiting and the visits to Wentworth’s cabin just pushed him closer to the edge. Any wolf in the throes of claiming his mate was single-minded, but mine was scarred by losing his claiming mark. And the looming threat of Vail’s eighteenth birthday.
When we finally made it back to the packball pavilion, he was eager to shift, and I was tired to the bone. I dragged on my clothes, shivering at the damp material. There was a stack of paperwork waiting for me and I’d promised my lieutenants we’d get pizza and shoot the shit for a while. Then there was the security briefing with Liam, and the homework piling up on my nightstand…
“You’ve got a rat in the bunker, big dog.”
I finished lacing my boots before I gave Callum my attention. I’d sensed him lurking inside the pavilion from a mile out, but figured he was either boning his den mother or hiding from his pack. Despite the power I felt rippling under his skin, he was the worst alphason in Sawyer history, if you were judging him on his interest in pack life. Not that I could blame him given all the freaky fuckers he had to call kin. “Two legs or four?”
“Hard to tell.” He was wearing his black leather pants and an out-of-shape sweater. He stank of sex and gin and weed, but he looked more alert than I’d seen him in a long while. “His hidey-hole is inside.”
I frowned, but followed him into the pavilion. It was a couple degrees warmer inside, but that’s all it had going for it, since it was even more basic that Wentworth’s cabin. The front room was for treating packball injuries that couldn’t be fixed on the field, and the back room was for storage. Nothing looked out of place until Callum moved a crate out of the way and I saw a sleeping bag and pile of bones on the floor. “What are they?”
“Rabbit. Squirrel.” He toed a jaw bone. “That’s a dog. Domestic gone wild.”
“It doesn’t smell like a den.”
“Don’t think it is.” He rubbed his chest through the old sweater. “But I’ve smelled him before.” He gave me a small smile. “Want to know when?”
Callum Sawyer was a strange wolf. We’d been friends and rivals since we were pups, but I wasn’t sure I really knew him at all. If I had to describe him, I’d say he was bone lazy and didn’t give two fucks about anything. The females called him a bad boy, and my lieutenants thought he was a waste of a good bloodline, but something about those labels always felt wrong.
But one thing I knew for sure was that Cal had one of the best noses in the pack. If he said he’d smelled the male before, I could take that to the bank. “The pool,” he said, watching me closely. “The night of Hunter Moon. Someone had just fished your omega out and carried her off.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. The last time I’d been in this pavilion with Cal, he’d called Vail the lowest kind of bitch and I’d hit him in the mouth. He’d grinned through the blood, but I’d tasted something under his mockery. He didn’t like Vail – he’d made that plain since day one – but he didn’t like the thought of me with her, either. “Spit it out, Cal.”
“Trey Barakat.”
I went still. “You’re saying Barakat took Vail from the academy on Hunter Moon?”
He quirked his brow at me. “Yeah, you’re missing the point, big dog. He’s been here as recent as yesterday.” He toed the sleeping bag. “The fucker’s scent isn’t just in here. It’s all over the woods.”
I felt my guts shred under my wolf’s claws. Not the real thing this time, but the promise was enough. I was moving towards the door when Cal grabbed my shirt, his mouth working for a moment before he said, “You can’t collar a wild thing, Jay. It’s always going to find a way out.”