Heat Race - Tanya Chris Page 0,45

natural command that Saul had never questioned it, but Jack Henry—whether he was an uber-omega or just a regular omega—definitely wasn’t a stereotypical omega. He scowled at Jasper. Jasper rubbed his chest in a gesture Saul understood. Negative emotions coming across the bond registered like an ache inside you. Saul stepped closer to Jasper in a show of support.

“Jasper’s going to be a good leader,” he said. “We’re building this thing without blueprints, but we’ve got… trust.” He didn’t know how else to put it. “Fate brought us together, so if we keep doing what seems right, then it’s going to come out right.”

“As long as by right you mean what’s right for all of us,” Jack Henry said. “Not just what’s right for Jasper. He may be my alpha, but he’s not my king.”

Jasper grimaced. “I don’t want to be king. Being king is stressful as hell.”

“Then maybe you should’ve registered the pack under a more inclusive name,” Elias said. “I’m not crazy about being a McKinley.”

“Come up with something else, and I’ll change it.”

They all looked at each other, but no one had any ideas. Saul didn’t mind being registered under McKinley. That was how the humans usually did it. When they got married, which was their version of mating, they took a shared last name. He kind of liked it.

“I’m going to make this as democratic as I can,” Jasper said. “But at the same time, I’m an uber-alpha. I can’t always control that aspect of myself.” He sprang his claws, spooking Elias into jumping backward.

Elias flushed, embarrassed at having jumped, and Jack Henry flushed too, but in him it was arousal because as much as he’d just protested about Jasper being king, whenever Jasper went feral, he got hot. His arousal caused a chain reaction of pheromones. Saul adjusted himself.

Elias rolled his shoulders. “Yeah, well. We have things to accomplish this morning, right?”

Right. Now wasn’t the time for another four-way tumble, much as Saul suddenly very much wanted to have one.

Jasper went back to the farm. He was the only of them with a job at the moment, so he needed to keep working at it. Elias went to the library to research omega fertility, which left Saul to accompany Jack Henry to the dance studio. Jasper had pointed it out as they’d driven past it on the way in, and they strolled in that direction, past shops all painted the same light blue and tied together with white gingerbread molding. Flower boxes flanked the doors, which were all a bright rose.

“This town is seriously quaint.” Jack Henry sounded a little sarcastic, but Saul thought the town was adorable. And despite Jasper’s warning that the pack’s integration into it might not be as easy as Mayor Hyde made it sound, Mayor Hyde was the mayor. Saul had been welcomed by the mayor herself. He couldn’t help feeling hopeful about their chances, especially with the bright morning sun making everything glisten.

Jack Henry looked particularly fine today, dressed in slim-fitting jeans and a pink top with a scalloped neckline that set off his sun-kissed hair and brightened his creamy skin. Saul was honored to walk next to him. He put a tentative arm around his shoulders, and when Jack Henry didn’t resist, he tugged him in closer. Being Jack Henry’s bodyguard was no hardship, that was for sure.

The dance studio was fronted by a picture window, across which Dee’s Dance had been written in gold scroll. The wall across from the window was fully mirrored, and the side wall held a barre. A line of folding chairs sat beneath the window, and a curtain behind the reception desk suggested the presence of a back room. But that was basically it. The studio Jack Henry had trained at back home hadn’t been world class, but it was several steps up from this.

Saul opened the door for Jack Henry, and he sailed through it with his usual grace, his head high and his shoulders back, looking as regal and important as Saul believed him to be. A bell tinkled, announcing their arrival to a petite woman stationed behind the reception desk. She was middle-aged, with exaggerated makeup that matched the brassy blond of her hair and a figure that suggested she was a dancer herself. Her hair was piled on top of her head in a massively untidy nest pierced by multiple pencils, as if she were wearing a porcupine for a hat.

“Can I help you?”

Jack Henry had waltzed through