Heat Race - Tanya Chris Page 0,87

going to remain in Galvetta—which was yet to be determined—one fatality was enough. Though Elias couldn’t help being a little proud of having caused their single fatality.

“Thanks for taking care of Lon for me,” Saul said, as if he knew where Elias’s mind had gone. “I shouldn’t have stopped Jasper from killing him at the race. If he’d hurt Jack Henry, I wouldn’t have been able to forgive myself.”

“It wouldn’t have been your fault,” Jack Henry said. “Lon’s responsible for his own behavior, and I don’t want Jasper turning into the kind of alpha who kills people just because he can.”

“But it wasn’t wrong that I killed him, was it?” Suddenly Elias wasn’t as proud of himself as he’d been a minute ago.

“No, that wasn’t wrong.” Jack Henry shuddered, and Elias hauled him into his lap. “You’ve been keeping me safe from Lon for years.”

“How so?”

“By telling him we had an arrangement.”

“Oh.” Elias winced, caught out. They’d never had an arrangement, but he might have let Lon believe they did.

“No, don’t feel bad about it. I’m the one who messed up. Once he realized I didn’t want him—that it had nothing to do with me already belonging to another alpha—that was when he decided to come after me. I should’ve played along better.”

“You had every right to decide who got to claim you. Even if we’d made a prior arrangement, I wouldn’t have held you to it.”

It’d taken him a long time to get to this point, but he was finally glad Jack Henry had chosen a whole pack instead of just him, because today he truly felt like Jack Henry’s alpha. The Elias who’d stood at the starting line feeling sorry for himself because Jack Henry wouldn’t make it easy on him had grown up.

“Shit, I forgot.” Jasper sat upright in a move swift enough to jostle them all. He pulled on a pair of pants and dashed out of the cabin, leaving them to raise questioning eyebrows at each other. “This came for you,” he said when he returned with an envelope he handed to Saul. “I assume it’s news about your mother.”

Saul turned the envelope over in his hand a few times before putting it under his pillow.

“You don’t want to open it?” Elias asked him. If it were his family, he’d want to know. Like right now.

“Later,” Saul said. “I’m still kind of tired.”

“Of course. You should sleep. It probably helps with the healing.” He didn’t really know how accelerated alpha healing worked. He’d never noticed any tendency to heal faster than the average human in himself. But the marks he made on Jasper’s body while they were sparring always disappeared overnight. “I’m not sure anything in the last twenty-four hours counts as sleep,” he added with a smile.

“It counts.” Saul patted his belly. “Jack Henry’s not the only one fully charged.”

Well, maybe semen did more good than sleep. It was another subject to research, just in case any of them was ever seriously hurt again. Elias chuckled to himself as he imagined spoon-feeding semen into an injured packmate’s mouth.

“What?” Jack Henry asked.

“Oh, nothing.” Elias wrestled him down to the mattress where the blankets were warm and pack-scented. “Just wondering if you’re up for more fluid exchange.”

JASPER

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

Jasper brought his whole pack to the meeting with Miller and the mayor, though the meeting was a waste of time as far as he was concerned. Miller ought to be in jail, and Jasper ought to be out scouting for a parcel of land farther away from marauding neighbors. They couldn’t raise a child on the outskirts of a town that hated them.

Miller was already in the mayor’s office when they arrived, seated in one of the chairs around her conference table. When he saw Jasper, he jumped to his feet and backed away, as if Jasper had come in gunning for him. Jasper flexed his sharp-tipped fingers. He couldn’t suppress his claws, but he didn’t really want to.

“Tell me why I shouldn’t kill you right now.”

“Because we’re in the mayor’s office?” Jack Henry put a hand on Jasper’s arm to hold him back.

“I appreciate your coming,” Mayor Hyde said. “Why don’t we all take a seat?”

“I’m good.” His adrenalin wouldn’t allow him to sit.

“I’ll, um, just stand over here,” Miller said from his spot in the farthest corner of the room. As if Jasper couldn’t cross that distance in a single leap.

“Well, Saul needs to sit.” Jack Henry guided Saul into a chair and sat down next to