Heat Race - Tanya Chris Page 0,81

of Saul healing right in front of him.

The night of the race, he’d been impressed by how quickly Saul had gone from beaten to horny. Saul might not be an uber-alpha, but Jasper suspected all four of his mates had more wolf DNA than they were aware of. Saul’s rapid recovery was a hint, as was Jack Henry’s ability to bear children. And as for Elias, the sparring they’d done had brought out the full force of his inner alpha. He’d learned to control his teeth and claws in ways that would prove useful in a real fight, though he hoped Elias would never have to face a real fight.

Even as he thought that, the bond in his chest twanged. Miller was looking at him, waiting for the go-ahead to drive into town for a doctor. Jasper didn’t trust him to go for a doctor instead of running off to save his own skin, but Miller wasn’t the source of the concern crawling along the bond.

Everything’s fine, Jasper tried to convey to Jack Henry and Elias. They must be feeling Saul’s condition and responding to it. Come home, he added. The bond didn’t carry actual words—only the emotion behind them. But home was an emotion, and Jasper needed his mates. He needed to see them all whole and well, and he needed their strength. Physically, he never ran out of strength, but emotionally, his strength had been depleted. Come home.

JACK HENRY

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

“We have to get back to the build site,” Jack Henry told Elias. He rubbed his chest, which ached with a mottled combination of worry and relief. “We don’t have time for this.”

Around them, the dance studio bustled with people. A doctor knelt next to Lon’s body, pronouncing him dead. A police officer kept trying to take their statements, even though they’d already both given statements more than once. Someone had called Dee, apparently, because she was flitting around the studio, shaking her head at the puddles of blood on the floor and then coming back to hover over him again, no matter how many times he told her he was fine.

Elias had suffered some damage at Lon’s hands, but he shook off the EMT trying to tend to him, insisting on standing right next to Jack Henry even though Jack Henry was fine. He was fine. Why did everyone keep asking him if he was okay when he was fine?

“I’m so terribly sorry this happened to you in our town,” Mayor Hyde said.

Why was she even here? Lon was from Ferris. Galvetta wasn’t responsible for what he’d done. No one was going to sue anyone. He was fine.

“We have to go home,” he repeated to Elias, ignoring the mayor altogether. “Something’s wrong. Don’t you feel it?”

“I’m not sure. There’s… a lot.” Elias had just killed someone, and now he was a little numb. Maybe Jack Henry was numb too, but mostly he was fine and something at home was wrong.

“Now,” he insisted. “I want to go home now.”

“Elias should probably go to the—”

Elias’s emphatic no interrupted the mayor’s suggestion.

“Then let me find someone to drive you,” she said. “I don’t think either of you is in a fit condition to drive.”

They followed the mayor onto the street where she flagged down a uniformed officer and ordered him to drive them home. They got into the backseat together, unwilling to be separated.

“Please offer my apologies to Jasper,” the mayor said through the window. “Again, we’re so terribly sorry this happened to you here in…”

Jack Henry tuned her out. It could’ve happened anywhere. He just wanted to get home, to see Jasper and Saul and the house, because even though the threat was behind them, his chest ached as if it weren’t.

Nothing happened, he reminded himself. Lon hadn’t done anything worse than kiss him and grope him. Nothing that would leave a permanent scar. Nothing that would create a baby.

He wanted a baby. His mates’ baby. As Lon had forced himself on him, everything he stood to lose had flashed through his mind. Bearing a child might be a dream he’d never thought to dream, but his longing for it grew crystal clear as Lon threatened to turn the dream sour. Jack Henry and his mates and their children. The big house with the open loft. Other packmates around them, eating together in the giant dining room, farming the land behind the house. That was what he wanted.

Saul would build him a dance studio, a place where omegas would feel safe