Maybe he wouldn’t stop coming to Dee’s Dance after Saul built him that new studio. She needed him.
“Do you want to talk about what happened?” she asked when she had him settled. “I know you’ve got a passel of mates, but they’re all men.”
“What do you think I am?”
“Someone who almost got raped, which isn’t something those boys are going to understand except for how it relates to them.”
It was true. Not that his alphas hadn’t all been wonderful in their own way, but if Jasper made one more comment about ‘his omega,’ Jack Henry might smack him.
“They’re proprietary,” he admitted to Dee. “Or Jasper is, especially. Elias is so proud of himself for killing Lon he thinks killing Lon ended it. He doesn’t understand it’s still happening in my head.” Not that he’d told Elias that. “And Saul’s just injured.” Or maybe not just injured. Saul was healing fast, but he moved as if he didn’t have anywhere to go. He was quick to cuddle but slow to smile and slept more than seemed healthy, even for someone whose bones were busy knitting together.
“That’s why you need me,” Dee said. “I haven’t ever been raped, but I’ve been afraid I was about to be raped, so I know how that feels. It feels like you can never be safe again. Are you sure you wouldn’t rather the pack moved away?”
“No, because it’s not Galvetta. Or Lon. It’s…”
“Men,” Dee said with a shake of her head.
“Alphas,” Jack Henry corrected. He could handle a human man. Before yesterday, he might’ve imagined he could handle an alpha. But now he knew better, and that knowledge would never go away. “And alphas are everywhere.”
“Thank the stars for that bond of yours, that Elias knew to come save you. That’s a pretty special thing you’ve got.”
It was. Jack Henry searched out the spot in him that connected him to his mates. Each point shone brightly, even though Saul and Jasper were miles and miles away.
“Once we have a baby, the bond will be even stronger.”
“Now, you’re not having a baby because of what happened with Lon, are you?”
Sort of. He kind of thought of a baby as a talisman—something that could protect him from loss—and maybe that wasn’t so healthy. On the other hand, he’d learned that life was more fragile than he’d previously realized. Which meant the time to love was now.
“You don’t think I should get pregnant?”
“Honey, I think you should do whatever you want.” Dee got to her feet with an exhausted oomph. “I’ve got to get ready for those toddlers. God, grant me strength.”
Her departure left Jack Henry alone, but not really alone. Because the bond was always with him, even without a baby. He sent out a burst of love and got three answering pulses back. All present and accounted for. All safe and almost happy.
SAUL
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Saul sat on a ridge overlooking the forest to the east of Jasper’s land, hiding out from the build site. He wasn’t up to construction yet, and while he appreciated the stream of people checking on him, he was tired of answering the same questions and rehashing the same ground.
He wasn’t a hero. He’d survived the attack thanks to his genetic ability to heal and a stubbornness that didn’t know when to quit, but that didn’t make him a hero. Jasper was a hero—showing up to rescue him just when he’d felt sure he would die, taking on all those men at once and vanquishing every one of them. Elias was a hero too—saving Jack Henry by beating an alpha nearly twice his size. But Saul wasn’t a hero. A hero would’ve handled Lon the night of the race. A hero would’ve realized what his father was up to.
No one had said it out loud, but Saul figured they all knew it was his father who’d sent Lon, which meant as soon as Saul healed, he would need to step up and do something about him. In the meantime, there was a letter that might tell him whether he had at least one parent he could forgive.
He opened the envelope with shaky hands. Two sheets of paper spilled out—a diagram he put aside and a letter typed on official letterhead and signed in a spidery hand. The letter was brief and not terribly helpful. Galvetta’s town clerk had discovered that his mother was from a town called Woodhaven, but no one there had heard from her in the last ten years. The other piece