Heat Race - Tanya Chris Page 0,26

squealed as he flung himself into Jack Henry’s arms. “There’s nothing like being mated to your best friend. Nothing.” He smiled at his sweetheart, who beamed back just as widely. “And you must be so excited,” he said to Elias. “I was hoping you’d catch him. I was afraid… oh, never mind what I was afraid of. Fate made the right choice. That’s all that matters.”

“It’s a little more complicated than that,” Jack Henry said.

“You aren’t mated to Elias?”

“I am. Sort of.” He flashed a look at Elias, asking for help, and Elias provided it. Elias had always loved reading about their legendary ancestors, and he made a thorough explanation of uber-alphas and how new packs got formed as Jack Henry fingered the leather of Jasper’s vest, stirring up the smell of animal and alpha.

“So you had a gang bang?” Ashton asked Jack Henry doubtfully.

“It wasn’t a gang bang.” It’d basically been a gang bang. “It was a claiming ceremony, just like what you had.”

“Except Beauregard and I promised to be faithful to each other.”

“So did we.”

“But what happens when the pack expands? Do you have sex with everyone?”

Jack Henry looked at Elias, who shook his head very slightly to tell him he didn’t know the answer to that. Great. Jasper, Saul, and Elias were all people Jack Henry would’ve chosen individually, but enough was enough. What had he gotten himself into?

SAUL

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Saul itched to duck out from under Jasper’s arm, and yet its weight was as soothing as it was disturbing. He could feel the beginnings of the bond they’d formed warming his insides, telling him this was his alpha. But eighteen years of living in a society with certain expectations about what it meant to be an alpha weren’t so easily overcome. Alphas were territorial with each other. They challenged each other—in overt ways, like how Lon had challenged him last night, and in a thousand more subtle ways. An alpha always needed to have his guard up, to watch for aggression and be prepared to match it.

Which Saul hated. He was big—physically fit and capable of fighting, as he’d proven last night—but not interested in fighting. He loved the idea of having an omega mate, but he sure didn’t want to be an uber-alpha, to be the one in charge all the time or have to jump into the ring over every little slight.

“I’ve got this,” Jasper said into his ear. And that was a relief. If any of the questioning glances crossed the line from questioning to threatening, Jasper would be the one to handle it. If Jasper told Saul to fight, he would fight, but he didn’t have to make the call himself. He stopped resisting the tug of Jasper’s arm and leaned into it instead. They would be leaving Ferris soon. It didn’t matter what anyone here thought of him.

Jasper steered him over to a line of couples waiting their turn to register. The race director was checking names off cheerily, giving each couple an enthusiastic congratulations as she made note of their match. Not all the alphas had matched, but the ones who hadn’t were mostly gone by now. Only a few stragglers hung around, lined up along the chain link fence in case any omegas came strolling in unmated.

Saul scanned the line for Lon. He wasn’t there, of course. The last time Saul had seen Lon, he’d been horizontal, bleeding from the neck and so near death it’d made Saul anxious. Jasper had a right to defend himself, and they all had a responsibility to defend Jack Henry, but Saul preferred to settle his disputes without anyone dying.

“Name of alpha,” the race director prompted with her eyes on the clipboard in front of her.

“Jasper McKinley.”

The race director looked up—probably because she didn’t recognize Jasper’s name—and fixed him with a hard stare, as if annoyed he’d come from out of town to lay claim to one of their omegas. Then she turned her gaze on Saul.

“Oh! Did you, um…? I don’t know if I have the form for that.” She flipped through the papers on her clipboard until Jasper stilled her hand.

“That’s not the form we need. I’m not sure there even is a form for what we need.” He flashed her a charming smile that Saul felt all the way through him.

Fuck, that’d been hot last night. Not just the parts with Jack Henry but the parts with Jasper too. Being mated to both Jasper and Jack Henry meant getting everything he’d ever