Page 1 of Running with the Alpha’s Son (The Alpha’s Son #3)

“Max, you okay?” Jasper asks.

“Huh?”

I pull my eyes from the dash and look around. We’re in his car, idling by the curb out front of my house. I hadn’t noticed we’d arrived. To be fair though, I’ve been pretty out of it since we left the packhouse.

“We’re here already?” I ask.

Jasper narrows his eyes, leans a little over the central console. “Is everything okay?”

Let me think on that a minute… Jasper just announced in front of the who’s who of the Elite Pack that we’re mates. Even kissed me as the ball dropped welcoming in the new year to make his point. Sure, earlier in the evening, his former bestie Clayton tried to kill me—my back still scorches from the claw marks—and I tried walking away from Jasper for good. I’d just about given up on us being a couple, but with one gesture, albeit an impromptu one, everything has changed.

“I’m good,” I say, the beginning of a smile creeping into my expression. “Great actually.”

“Good.”

He leans farther toward me, his eyes closing gently, his mouth open ever so slightly, and I lean in too to meet his kiss. One of Jasper’s hands finds the back of my head and before I know it we’re making out in his car. Could this be more like a teen rom-com?! Is this for real?

Jasper’s free hand finds the side of my face and as it does a pain erupts in the front corner of my brain. Like an instant headache, only sharper, a targeted migraine attack. I wince and pull back.

“What’s wrong? Are you hurt?” Jasper’s eyes glisten with care.

I rub at my forehead as the sharp pain subsides to a dull throb.

“Headache,” I say. “Probably just a little much for one night.”

“You can say that again.”

I glance at the house, to the dull light in the front window. “I should probably get going, my parents will be waiting up.”

He places his hands on the steering wheel, like he’s about to be pulled from the vehicle and needs something to hold on to.

“Y-you want to come in?”

He chews the inside of his cheek as his eyes roam the empty street. “Your parents are in there?”

“Yeah. They sort of live there.”

Jasper’s lips move like he’s trying to form words but can’t quite manage it. Is he… scared?

“It’s okay,” I say. “You don’t have to.”

“It’s just, I think you’re right about it being a lot for one night.”

“Of course.”

“Maybe another time?”

“For sure.”

Jasper breathes a subtle sigh of relief but I catch it, just like I can spot the slight pinkish hue coloring his cheeks—signs of intimidation that might be imperceptible to the average person but not to me, not to his mate. I can’t believe stoic, princely, too-cool-for-wolf-school Jasper is nervous about meeting my unassuming folks. Now that’s a surprise!

A totally endearing one.

To be fair I can imagine the deep-dive interrogation my parents have in store my mate, no matter who they are. And I wouldn’t want to face that level of scrutiny. Maybe he’s right to be frightened.

“When—when will I see you again?” I say, forcing myself to ask the tough questions.

“I go back to college in a week.”

“Right and I go back to school next Monday.”

“How about a date then, before school starts back up for both of us?”

“A date?”

Somehow the concept of going on an actual, real-life, bona fide dinner-and-a-movie date with Jasper is so foreign to me I can’t quite imagine what it would be like. Where would we even go? Bowling? A concert? Would we hold hands in public? Get ice cream? Order one milkshake with two straws? I just can’t picture Jasper wanting to do any of those things. As much as I’ve wanted this, somehow I have no idea what dating Jasper will be like. But I sure as hell want to find out.

“That sounds great.”

“Are you free Saturday night?”

A niggling thought in the back of my brain tells me I had a vague plan to see Katie on Saturday, but with how she was acting at the New Year’s party, I don’t see why I need to be precious about keeping that date.

“I can be.”

“Great. I’ll pick you up around seven.”

Oh, moon gods, he’s making me breathless. “Okay.”

“Okay.”

My hand lingers on the door handle but for whatever reason I can’t open the door.

“You sure you’re okay?” Jasper asks.

“Mm-hmm.”

“Good night.”

“Good—” Jasper doesn’t even let me finish before he plants another full-bodied kiss on my lips.

I can still taste cherry as I exit the car and head up the drive. Jasper waits until I’m at the door, making sure I get home safely, even though we are in the middle of suburbia and nothing bad ever happens here. I slip my keys in the door and give him an awkward little wave. He nods, satisfied that I managed the dangerous trek to my house without dying, and drives off.

Once inside, I lean back on the closed door, breathing deeply, one hand clutching my chest to stop it exploding from joy-fueled adrenaline. My smile is irrepressible.

It’s been a stupidly mega evening, packed with stress and terror and so much drama. But for now the drama has ended, everything has turned out amazingly, because Jasper chose me. He chased me down and proved he wants to be with me. And now we’re together. Jasper and I are officially—for all the world to see—a couple.

“Is that you, kiddo?” Mom calls from the living room.

Maybe not all the world just yet. I take one more breath, savoring this little moment of triumph, before heading through to see my parents.

“Hi,” I say, hovering in the arched doorway, not wanting to get too close.

They’re watching TV, bathed in dim lamplight and the cool glow of the screen. I remembered to collect my puffer jacket before I left this time, which means the slash marks on my back are well-enough hidden, but still I hover at the edge of the room. They’re capable of scenting my trauma from a mile off. No reason to give Mom and Dad a reason to worry—at least, not tonight, not when I’m riding this Jasper-high.

“Good night?” Dad asks.

“It was pretty epic,” I say.

“Looks like you had a nice time.” Mom eyes my untucked shirt, my loose collar and absent bow tie, my messed-up hair. “No kidnapping this time?”

“No, no kidnapping. Bit of a rocky start but it turned out great.”

“You hungry?” Dad asks.

“No, just tired. I might head to bed.”

“Okay, kiddo,” Mom says, clearly fighting the urge to pry for more information. “Sleep well.”

“Night, Max.” Dad is already unpausing the TV.

“Good night.”

Once up in my room I pull off my shredded button-down and shove it into the back of my closet, reminding myself to take it out to the trash tomorrow before my parents can see it. I think about messaging Jasper but don’t want to come off as too clingy or obsessed— play it cool, Max —so instead I head for the shower, wanting to make sure the already-healing wounds on my back are clean and any residual blood is gone.

When I’m washed and ready for bed, I slip my aching limbs under the covers, finally feeling the weight of the night’s events settling into my bones and muscles, and glance at my phone to find a text from Jasper waiting.

Thank you for tonight. Have a good sleep. See you soon. Xxx

I begin crafting a reply but before I can hit Send my eyes are already closing. Exhaustion overcomes my body and I slip into sleep, dropping my phone on the comforter.

I’m standing on the roof of the packhouse, over a hundred stories in the air. Above me clouds roll and tumble, lightning splitting the sky and casting my attacker’s face half in light, half in shadow.

Clayton has his paws on me, his claws digging into my chest, his jaws snapping, slick with glistening saliva, and crowded with razor-sharp teeth. My back is bending unnaturally over the balustrade as I fight to stay upright. Below, traffic whirs past in strips of gold and red light. The pedestrians are a crowd of black dots hustling to and fro—all unaware that I’m under attack.

I thrash and fight but it’s no use against Clayton’s immense strength. I have to do something or Clayton will surely kill me, push me over the edge and send me tumbling. As I stare into his black eyes I realize I do have strength, a power neither Clayton nor any other wolf has.

With my eyes closed, I relax my body and open my mind.

Like a spider’s web the strands of my consciousness reach out, a net of squiggly and swirling red veins, curling and twisting in all directions. I search the strands for Clayton’s, and find it in the darkness, rotten and deteriorating, falling apart like a diseased root. Just as I’m about to follow the thread into Clayton’s consciousness I feel something, a gentle tug on my consciousness, pulling my attention elsewhere.

I glance about, searching for the source of the distraction, but it’s gone. The blood strands flicker and pulse, they shiver and quake, they reposition themselves. They’re alive .

Again I feel the pull, only it’s stronger this time. I spin to catch it, and stare into the inky blackness. It comes again like a pulse. I move toward it. The pull tugs over and over, rushing past me like waves, drawing me nearer with each surge. And then I realize not only can I feel it, I can hear it. The pulse has sound, and that sound is a howl.

The second I hear it, I’m torn from the vision—pulled back onto the roof. Only Clayton is gone, the shape of his wolf replaced by a human form.

Jasper.

His hair is a mess, his shirt untucked and unbuttoned. He stares at me with dark, vengeful eyes. His teeth are clenched, his brow slick with sweat. His hands are on my neck and I can’t breathe.

“Killer,” he rasps between clenched teeth.

With a grunt and groan, he hoists me over the side of the building, and I’m powerless to stop him.

The ground rushes at me as I fall, and I’m about to hit the sidewalk when…

“Maximilian!” I’m woken the next morning by Mom bellowing my name from downstairs. “Maximilian Xavier Remus! Get your butt down here!”

I sit up in bed, wincing as the skin on my back is pulled taught, tugging at my injuries which have scarred over in the night. My head is throbbing like I drank a whole beer keg, even though I didn’t touch a drop, and images from my dream are swirling in my mind. What was that? A howl? Why did I feel like it was calling to me? And what was with Jasper calling me a…killer?

“I’m not joking, kiddo!”

Mom doesn’t sound like she’s messing around, so as fast as I can I jump out of bed, slip on a T-shirt from the pile on my floor, and run downstairs. I’m still wiping my bleary eyes when I find Mom and Dad waiting for me in the hall.

“What is it? What’s wrong?”

Mom looks flustered and Dad is wearing gardening gloves, like he was pulled away from planting his spring bulbs to address whatever emergency is happening.

“I just received a text from Katie’s mom, who received a text from her friend Stacy, who was texted by Kaitlin Thompson.”

“Okaaaaaay,” I say, shaking my head. “You got a text. It happens. What’s so important?”

“Kaitlin was at the packhouse last night,” Mom says, her eyes wild.

Oh. Oh no.

“Care to explain this?!”

Mom turns her phone so I can see it, thrusting it at me like I’ve murdered someone and she’s found a crucial piece of incriminating evidence.

Lit up on my mom’s phone screen, however, is not a bloody murder weapon or some chart showing a perfect DNA match, but a photo of me and Jasper onstage at the New Year’s party, fireworks exploding in a rainbow curtain behind us while we kiss.

“Anything you’d like to tell us?” Mom asks.

My face crinkles in on itself as I shrug meekly.

“Surprise…”