If we don’t all find our place in the pack and settle into it, one of those powder keg moments is going to explode on us.”
Elias nodded in agreement, though they couldn’t see him do it. He should try to stop resisting the hold Jasper had over him. Maybe it was too soon to know for sure, but he didn’t see any bad in Jasper, only an overwrought sense of responsibility and a fear of ever letting anyone down. Jasper’s magnetic appeal, his unconscious sense of command, all those feral instincts that made him dangerous—they also made him a perfect leader.
“You three can’t be competing with each other all the time,” Jack Henry chastised.
“I know, I know,” Jasper said with a sigh. “Alphas. We’re territorial beasts. Thank the stars for how easy going Saul is. It’s Elias we’re going to have trouble with. I can barely feel him on the bond, and without sex as an option, I don’t know how to fix it.”
“Then you’d better figure it out. We’re only as strong as our weakest link.”
“I’ll work on it, bossy omega. Am I going to be sorry I claimed such a strong-headed omega or glad for it?”
“Glad, I think.”
“Yeah, me too. I’ve been waiting for you, bossy omega.”
“I was waiting for you too. I just didn’t know it.”
Elias rolled over to bury his head beneath his pillow. He didn’t want to hear any more. Jack Henry had been waiting for Jasper, even with Elias right there in front of him, and Elias was the weakest link, the place where their bond was most likely to fail. He’d never felt alpha enough, and with an uber-alpha around that wasn’t likely to change, but ironically his lack of alpha attitude wasn’t the problem. No, the problem was him having too much alpha attitude.
Alphas engaging sexually with other alphas was uncommon. He wouldn’t go as far as to say it was wrong because he’d been judged too often to be comfortable judging anyone else. But whether it was right, wrong, or indifferent, he couldn’t make himself want it. Was he supposed to fake it? Force himself to suck Jasper’s cock in a symbolic act of submission?
The more he thought about it, the more angry he got. He loved Jack Henry, and he’d agreed to this pack setup because it was his only chance to be in Jack Henry’s life, but damned if he wanted to be the fourth-wheel to a happy triad. Yes, strengthening the bond was important—he was the one who’d told them it was important, for fuck’s sack—but he’d assumed the bond would grow slowly and equally on all sides, that, if anything, he had a head start because of how long he and Jack Henry had been bonded emotionally. But apparently time and emotion meant nothing compared to a good fuck.
On the mattress next to him, Saul—the perfect alpha to be Jasper’s second in command—snored lightly, one arm flung out as if he was searching for his mates. Elias felt every inch of the space dividing them. Saul could cuddle with either Jack Henry or Jasper, and they would cuddle him right back. But Elias’s bond only went in one direction. Jasper was right. He was the weakest link.
Shortly after rising the next morning, they went back to the McKinley farm, not having anywhere else to eat or shower or do anything except sleep. Elias knew from that conversation he’d overhead that Jasper was sensitive on the subject. but he wasn’t in the mood to care about anyone else’s feelings. As they stood in the driveway in front of the farmhouse after breakfast to discuss their agenda for the day, he was the only one not touching anyone else—symbolic proof of his outsider status.
“I don’t want Jack Henry left alone,” Jasper said. “Saul, you stick by him.”
“I don’t need a babysitter,” Jack Henry complained.
“A bodyguard.”
“I don’t need a bodyguard either. Why would I?”
“I don’t know,” Jasper said in a frustrated tone. He put a hand on his chest in that spot where they all felt the bond. Just less so Elias than the others, apparently. “What about Lon?”
“Lon’s probably still in the hospital,” Jack Henry said with a roll of his eyes. “And don’t you think he’s learned his lesson?”
“Lon’s not the type who learns easy,” Elias put in. That was pure facts, not an attempt to back Jasper up, but Jasper flashed him a grateful look.
“Indulge me,” he said to Jack Henry, making it sound more like a