Page 10 of Guarding the Runaway Omega

“Upset is an understatement, he was tearing the house apart. You see…” Jasper cleared his throat. “Somewhere in his addled brain, he’d concluded that the next best thing to his son being an Alpha was having a son-in-law who was an Alpha. He thought he could use me to lure Nic Petrov out of his self-imposed exile and marry me off to him.”

Hawk shook his head. “That’s ridiculous.”

Jasper frowned, pursing his lips. “Gee, thanks. I’m not that hideous.”

He reached over and patted Jasper’s arm before returning his hand to the wheel. “Not even the tiniest bit. Any Alpha would be lucky to have you by his side.”

Jasper wasn’t sure if Hawk was messing with him or not, but the flattery felt good anyway.

“What I meant was that Nic has to be at least twenty years older than you and, at the time, had already abdicated his rule to his younger brother.”

“Yeah, well, my father’s never been the most rational thing on two legs. But after that day, I knew I was in trouble, knew my father was going to find a way to gain an advantage through me somehow. I’d already been planning to runaway when they came for me that night.”

Jasper was greeted with several moments of silence, so he turned to check Hawk’s reaction to his story. Hawk’s scowl radiated fury and Jasper swallowed hard. Even if he’d reached the conclusion that he trusted Hawk and believed he would in truth protect him, the guy could be scary at times.

Overall, Hawk pressed all the right sexy buttons for Jasper. Tall with wide shoulders, strong and muscled, Hawk’s tumble of tightly-coiled black curls cascading past his shoulders only accentuated the hotness the shifter possessed. Once he added in Hawk’s deep brown eyes set against his tawny skin—along with the sacrifices Hawk had already made for him—and Jasper had his ultimate dream man sitting right next to him.

Jasper lowered his chin. Except for that shifter he was talking to outside his shack. Even if Hawk didn’t love the guy back, it didn’t mean he didn’t care about him. Jasper wondered how long they’d been dating. He was also curious over whether the fact that Hawk was gay had contributed to how he was being treated in the Guardian Pack. Most shifters didn’t discriminate, and everyone was pretty open about their orientation, but then there were the assholes like his father.

Maybe that David guy gave Hawk grief over being gay and stealing the Charger was payback. Jasper grinned. I approve.

Chapter Five

Hawk didn’t dare respond to Jasper’s revelation—at least not until he’d had a moment to process.

What in the name of all the gods is going on with the Yukon Deltas?

Everyone was aware—the Guardians in particular—that there had been a rogue faction within the Deltas who had challenged Nic to assume control of Wolf Creek, but that had seemed to be confined to a couple dozen shifters who’d been swayed by one main Alpha. Hawk surmised that Nic’s pack relative who had visited Jasper’s father that night was none other than Nic’s traitorous brother, Artur.

What he was still trying to piece together was why Jasper’s father had kept him shielded from so much in the way of life outside the pack over the years. From what little he’d described, it seemed as if Jasper wasn’t aware of many of the Alliance goings-on, only what his father had allowed him to know or he’d heard through gossip.

Hawk’s fingers ached from how hard he kept gripping the wheel out of frustration. One of the backroads he and his father had always used to take a short cut back to their pack was less than ten miles ahead. Then once they were off the main highway, he’d take a moment to call his dad and alert him to what was up. He could ping off a cell tower not too far from there before he’d no longer be able to pick up a signal.

But more than anything, he wanted some time to speak with Jasper about his captivity when he wasn’t in danger of crashing the car into a tree. The mere thought that anyone had done anything to his mate wanted him to tear flesh off bone with his teeth.

“Are you mad at me or something?” Jasper spoke tentatively. “I mean, I wouldn’t blame you. I know I’ve been a huge pain in the ass.”

Hawk grunted. “Not mad at you at all. Mad for you, though.”

“Do you think your dad will freak out?”

“No, that’s not his style. He’ll want to help you too.”

“What about your mom? I hope this doesn’t upset her or that your parents get into trouble because of me.”

A stab of pain hit Hawk’s chest at the mention of his mom. The cancer had taken her not long after the diagnosis. “My mom isn’t around anymore, died about five years ago. I don’t have any brothers or sisters either, so it’ll just be my dad.”

“Oh. Sorry.”

Hawk wanted to reach over and touch his mate, offer him some reassurance that everything would be okay. Soon. “We keep saying that to each other. Why don’t we call a truce on the apologies?”

Jasper chuckled. “I almost said I was sorry again. But yeah, truce.”

Hawk chanced a quick peek at Jasper before returning his attention to the road. “I think its rather clear by now that we’re in this together.”

Jasper snorted. “For real.”

As they approached the road leading to the short-cut, Hawk slowed down quite a bit. He wanted to take the turn easy, disrupt the area as little as possible. Then he would pull over, get out, and cover any evidence that a car had recently driven down that path.