fallen mate. Jasper fought to avenge Saul, staying in human form so he could enjoy playing with his opponents as they took turns coming after him.
One after another they went down—incapacitated, possibly dead. Jasper didn’t care. Eight lives weren’t enough to pay for Saul’s, but he concentrated on the ones still on their feet, toying with them, allowing them to believe they could somehow beat him, until sorrow and anger overtook him and he went full wolf.
His clothes ripped as his wolf emerged. His wolf was big—bigger than any non-hybrid wolf these men would’ve seen—and his fangs grew four time as long in this form. They extended sharp and wet from his open jaws as he lunged at Garrison, one of the fuckers who’d been laughing at the end of the table earlier. He wasn’t laughing now. His eyes were so wide and his limbs so frozen, he didn’t even flinch as Jasper sprang at him, just buckled under him.
Jasper tore his throat out and left him bleeding into the dirt. He turned to see who was left and found only Miller, brandishing a gun. If Jasper had been in human form, he would’ve laughed at Miller’s mistaken confidence. Bullets ripped through him as Miller fired over and over, but Jasper only shook them off. He healed so fast that anything short of a torn jugular was only a temporary nuisance—a flash of pain easily forgotten in the deeper pain of having lost Saul.
He stalked Miller until Miller was out of ammunition and finally looked as scared as he ought to. Bodies surrounded them. Moans and groans filled the air, indicating that Jasper still had clean-up work to do, but first he would take care of Miller.
“Jasper.”
He stopped at the sound of his name. That’d been Saul talking. He trotted back to his mate.
Saul?
Saul’s trembling hand scratched behind his right ear. “You’re so handsome like this,” he slurred before his hand fell back to the ground.
Jasper shifted into human form, forgetting Miller and the bodies surrounding them. Saul was alive. Keeping him that way was all that mattered. He felt along Saul’s torso, searching out the extent of his wounds. So much blood covered him it was hard to tell where he was bleeding from. He ripped Saul’s shirt off and prodded gently at his abdomen, watching Saul’s reactions to identify where things were broken or damaged.
“Here.” Miller thrust a first aid kit at him.
Really? It was Miller’s fault Saul was in this condition to begin with. But Jasper took the box. He didn’t have any attention to spare on making Miller pay right now. He used the gauze in the kit to apply pressure to Saul’s head where blood clotted in sticky globs, while Miller tended to a wound along Saul’s rib cage. From the way Saul winced, Jasper could guess he had some broken ribs, but Miller was trying to help, not hurt. Why?
“Things got out of hand,” Miller said.
Out of hand. Yeah.
“We were going to burn down the house, that was all. He wouldn’t let us.” Miller looked at Saul with something like admiration. “Alphas,” he said with a derisive snort. “We’re stubborn. And maybe too violent.”
“Saul’s not.” If Jasper could’ve communicated with Saul before this happened, he would’ve told him to let the house go. It was only a structure. And if this was how Galvetta was going to treat them, then they’d move and start over. He couldn’t live with the fear that every time he left his mates alone, something like this might happen.
“We need to get a doctor out here,” Miller said. “A lot of doctors.”
“I don’t give a fuck whether the rest of them live or die.” And just because Miller had come up with a first aid kit didn’t mean Jasper had decided to let him live either.
“Jasper,” Saul said, his words wet and weak. “Don’t… don’t be that alpha.”
Jasper clenched his jaw, holding back what he wanted to say—which was that he was that alpha. Or at least, he had been during those minutes he’d been tearing through the men who’d dared to attack his mate. Nothing of civilization had been left in him. Only anger and vengeance. But Saul was alive and asking Jasper to grant the men clemency, so Jasper leaned down to kiss the bloody lips that’d made the request.
“You’re all I care about.”
“Healing,” Saul gasped out. The word ended with a groan so agonized it tore Jasper’s heart in half, but he could see the evidence