Thirty-Three - Jasper
The new center of my world was a little green blip on my phone. I might have chewed my mom out for putting the tracker in Vail, but I wasn’t beyond using it once it was done. And the news wasn’t good. In fact, it was enough to make me crack two screens and put my claws through the dashboard of a service vehicle.
Despite every inch of my wolf fighting against it, Vail and Reed were the new campus couple.
A dinner date in Huntington, followed by movie night on the alpha floor on Thursday, and a birthday breakfast for the Marshall Head Omega on Friday. My security team were giving me a wide berth as I absorbed what the data was telling me. Which was everywhere Reed went – other than class and the bathroom - that green dot went, too.
But it was the hours between ten and dawn that were the most fucked up. Because that was when the green dot didn’t move at all, and I knew she was in his bed.
Fuck me.
Jealousy gnawed at my chest until I knew my wolf was on the edge of a feral fit. I lay in my bed in the rose cottage and glared at the empty pillow by my head. All I could hear was her telling me she was with Reed now, and how he was doing everything he could to keep her safe. The fucking irony made me grit my teeth until my jaw throbbed. A part of me – the wounded pride part – wanted to tell her good luck with that. If she thought I was controlling, she hadn’t seen the Ragemaster in action. But that just made my wolf gnaw at my guts in frustration. Because when Reed wasn’t raging out, he was careful, and deliberate, and never made a move he hadn’t thought through a hundred times. Which meant he hadn’t just taken Vail into his bed, but he was planning on making her more.
Something my wolf was prepared to stop at any cost. Twice I’d watched her from the shadows of an empty classroom. She’d passed by so close, I could have grabbed her by the scruff and dragged her inside with me. It was fucked-up, and stalkerish, but being more than a dozen feet from her was starting to cause me physical pain. By Friday it was so bad, I even thought about moving back to the alpha floor. Just so I could be near her, catch her scent in the elevator, and hear her voice as she chatted with her friends. But it was the thought of what else I’d hear, including the visual of my wolf sledgehammering through Reed’s wall at one in the morning, that forced me to keep my distance.
And drove me to another meeting at the diner in Denner territory. Liam knew I was spoiling for a fight, but didn’t try to talk me out of the meet. Word had come from Michael Warren in the same untraceable way it had last time, and he’d been just as blunt. He was hearing disturbing things at the academy about our security and Vail’s safety, and he had new instructions for me. Not the kind of disrespect my wolf needed to hear right now, especially from such a shady asshole. But everything he’d told me at our last meeting had checked out. He was Vail’s dad – or the closest thing to it – and was prepared to go to any lengths to keep her out of Marrow’s hands.
We met in his car, instead of going into the diner. It was a different model to the one we’d put the tracker on, and I didn’t even bother to ask if it was his. The Denner dive was busier this time round, and we were parked in the shadows thrown by a long-haul semi. Two rows back, but we could still see through the window of the diner. Every booth was full, and the scraggly waitresses were earning their pay, scooting around with coffee pots and greasy menus. Warren was watching the action like it was a live show, and I was pretty sure I knew why. Liam had confirmed the two guys in the corner booth were the Walpole brothers. Black Denners, and most likely the assholes who’d chased Vail through the Horn woods. I wanted to challenge him to the right to take them down myself, but settled into the passenger seat instead. “Not here for the steak dinner this time?”
He shot me a sideways look, although the bill of his cap was pulled low, so I was spared the full force of his freaky gaze. “She’s still wearing the containment collar?”
“Yes,” I grunted. “And she fucking hates me for it.”
“Get used to it. Her safety’s more important than her happiness at this point.”
“Spoken like Father Of The Year.”
He knuckled the steering wheel at that jab. “I’m not her father. And your only job is to make sure she stays off everyone’s radar until she comes of age. And that includes Trey Fucking Barakat.”
I remembered what Wentworth had said about the asshole. He was a void, or a mercenary, or some kind of mythical other species. All bad news in my book, and I didn’t hide my sneer. “You’re the one who dropped her on his doorstep all those years ago. You couldn’t have found somewhere else to leave her?”
He kept watching the window, but I figured those Denners in the diner were going to feel more of his wrath than was probably their share. But after staring a hole through the glass for a while, all he said was, “Leave Barakat to me. You get the Marshall wolf under control.”
“By control, you mean tell him to stay away from your daughter? Because that’s not going to sound the same coming from me.”
“Give him an order,” he sneered. “You’re his Clan Alpha, aren’t you? And Nathan Marshall’s too smart to let his son cross both you and Marrow.”
I ground my teeth at the idea of telling Reed to back off Vail. And not because it was going to make her hate me even more, but because it might actually bring the Ragemaster to the surface. And if there was one thing my wolf wanted right now, it was a throw-down, all-in brawl.
But that wasn’t the reason I was here. My first priority was Vail’s safety. Especially since during my previous trip to the diner, Warren had spelled out Marrow’s intentions. If Vail mated a wolf before her eighteenth birthday, her grandfather would put them both in the ground.
I might have resented her connection to the Marshall wolves, but Vail had really won the genetic lottery when it came to the Marrow side of the family.
“The collar’s not working, anyway,” I told him. “Or not how you said it would. She bit one of my guards on Den Night. And it was definitely a shifter bite.”
He went so still, I glanced at the window to see if the Denners were on the move. But everything was as normal, except for the tension rippling off Warren. “That’s not possible.”
“You think I don’t know the difference? Even my mom recognized it.”
His hand jerked out across the console and went for my throat so fast, I had to pull on my wolf to block him. And I wasn’t gentle, blasting him back into his seat with alpha power at the same time I raked a claw along his wrist. It wasn’t my blood claw, but the threat was there. The lunatic barely flinched, staring at me with wild eyes. “She can’t shift.”
“She did.”
“Then you’re not putting enough power into the damn collar!”
“Any more power, and it will cut off her air supply!” I glared at him, but retracted my claw. “You told me it wouldn’t hurt her, but she’s fighting it so hard. And if it’s harming her wolf, I have to take it off.”
He finally seemed to realize he was bleeding and grabbing a rag from the glove compartment, wrapped it round his wrist. It was a poor job, especially for a doctor, but he barely seemed to notice as he reached into the back seat for a folder. He dropped it in my lap and said, “Vail’s file. The real one, not the one I loaded into the lab’s records.” He flicked a finger at me and I opened it with a frown. “She’s been tested twice. Once when she was eleven, and again by Klein. Both the tests came back the same way.”
I re-read the summary paragraph at the top of the report a second time. It still didn’t make any fucking sense. “You’re saying she’s a void?”
“There’s no way her wolf is trying to get out.” He stared through the window, but I didn’t think he was seeing the Denners anymore. “I left her with the Chances right after those test results came back. Moved to Huntington, and got the job at the pack lab. Spent the last six years researching everything I could about voids. Tied it into the genetic work I’d done out of college. And I can tell you, keeping that collar on her is the kindest thing you can do.”
“Bullshit!” I didn’t know how he was hiding his lies from me, but the level of his deceit was astounding. Every time I looked at Vail, I remembered how our wolves had purred in unison. “She’s not broken. There’s something there. I’ve felt it.”
His lip curled with enough contempt to make my hackles rise. “And what do you know about voids? I’ve heard how you kids run that school. A pecking order as short as your dicks. Alphas on top, and everyone else beneath you, with the duds kicked to the bottom. Half the time they’re just traumatized wolves, not that you lot care. But there are other things out there in the world than just shifters with hang-ups.”
I tried to scent the truth behind his scorn. Was he calling her a void because she’d never connected with her wolf? Or was he saying he believed Vail was a non-wolf shifter, like the bullshit Wentworth had bought into? That Vail could be a Demon Shadow – that she could be haunted by some twisted imposter of a shifter – made me feel like throwing up. Maybe Warren could tell, because he tapped the file and said, “You don’t want this to come out any more than I do.”
“Maybe I do.” I tried to ignore the way my wolf was pushing at my skin, ready to shred that file to pieces. “Maybe this gives me leverage over Marrow.”
He gave me a nasty smile. “Remember how last time you were here, I slapped you? A little because you were being a punk, but mostly for a skin sample. I analyzed it, and it confirmed you were already part way into a pair bond.” He watched me as the implications sank in. “Are you really prepared to enter into a soul bond with a void? The newly-minted Alpha of the Hunter Moon Clan? Because I can promise you, once it gets out what she is, you’ll face blood challenges every week. That’s assuming Marrow doesn’t take out your whole clan to wipe his genetic slate clean. We have to stop this before it goes any further.”
I’d never felt more like tearing someone’s throat out for being the bearer of bad news. “So what? You yank her out of school again? She goes on the run with you, hiding from Marrow and all his resources?”
He just shrugged, his eyes flicking back to the window. “That’s not your concern.”
“The future of my fated mate isn’t my concern?”
He was silent for a long moment, but then grudgingly replied, “Jonathan isn’t the only Marrow. Vail has a cousin, Lucas Marrow. He’ll take her in.”
“Who the fuck is Lucas Marrow?”
I was really asking my earpiece, which Liam was monitoring, but Warren just shook his head. “Your bloodhound won’t know. Lucas is as deep underground as I was off-the-grid. But he’s the answer.”
“To which fucking riddle? The fact mystery Marrows are popping out of the woodwork? Or how to stop my wolf from ripping your head off for calling his soulmate a void?”
He curled his lip, but instead of answering, took a small leather case from the console and flicked it open. It looked like a typical medical kit, except next to the gauze and plasters were a row of small brown bottles. I recognized them immediately, and rage burned through my veins, but Warren just plucked one free and held it out. “It’s a scent shield. Something I cooked up in the lab. You give it to Vail to take a few days before I come for her, and it’ll cloak her scent.” When I just stared at the vial, he dropped it in the pocket of my shirt. “Relax. It’s completely harmless. Besides, she’s used it before.”