Page 2 of Running with the Alpha’s Son (The Alpha’s Son #3)

“ Hello ?” I lean through Aish a’ s open door and glance into her apartment.

“Come on in, dude,” she calls from the kitchen, where she’s leaning over the open oven door, waving steam away with a tea towel. Or maybe that’s smoke? I didn’t know Aisha baked.

As I step inside, Troy emerges from the bedroom wearing gym clothes, with a duffel bag strapped over his shoulder. “Is that Max?”

“Hey Troy.”

“What’s up, bro? Happy New Year.”

He holds out his hand to give me one of those complicated handshakes I’ve never been able to figure out. I copy him as best I can but end up sort of smooshing my hand against his until the inevitable fist bump brings the operation to a close.

“Sounds like you had quite the party,” he says. “Aisha told me all about it.”

“Yeah, it was definitely one for the books.” I rub the back of my neck and can feel the tip of a scratch mark. My wounds have mostly healed in the three days since New Year’s, but they were deep enough that they will probably leave a scar.

“Don’t make him relive his trauma,” Aisha says, coming to join us, holding what looks like a loaf of something cakey on a platter, only it’s so blackened it might as well have been baked on the surface of the sun. “I made banana bread!”

I force a smile. “Looks…great!”

“Damn, I wish I could hang for a bit,” Troy says. “But I was just on my way out. Great seeing you, man.”

I think he’s about to go for another handshake but instead he takes my hand and pulls me in for a cute one-handed hug. “I’m glad you’re okay.”

“Thanks, Troy.”

“Hey, save me a slice of that…what did you say it was?”

Aisha deadpans, “Banana bread.”

Troy eyes the burnt loaf suspiciously. “Yeah. Save me a piece of that for when I get back.” He kisses Aisha on the cheek and heads for the door, grabbing his coat on his way out. “Have fun you two.”

After the door shuts, Aisha holds up her loaf and smiles. “Want a slice?”

“It’s delicious!” I say, forking another bite into my mouth. It’s not a complete lie: with enough butter spread on top, and if I avoid the corners where the loaf is the most charred, it does actually taste like banana bread.

“It’s burnt.” Aisha drops her plate on the coffee table and flops back on the sofa.

“No, it’s…yeah, it is. What’s up?” I ask, sliding my unfinished slice onto the table as well and pulling a leg up so I can face Aisha properly.

“I’ve just been feeling weird since New Year’s,” she says, fiddling with the hem of her jeans.

I wish I didn’t have any idea why Aisha might be feeling off since the whole Clayton-attack thing, but annoyingly I have a greater insight than I would like.

“Hey, I”—I gulp-swallow and press on—“I need to tell you something.”

“What is it?”

“I think maybe I have an idea why you might be feeling kind of shitty.”

“Why’s that?”

“When Clayton had me pinned to the railing up on the roof I was pretty sure he was going to kill me and I needed to do something to stop him. And I realized with this whole blood-wolf-wolf connection thing I have now, I could maybe use that to my advantage. So I sort of went looking for something I could use to, like, hurt him back.”

“Hold up.” She shuffles a little closer. “What do you mean you went looking?”

“It’s hard to explain. It’s like I could feel his emotions, and those were linked to events—memories—and if I concentrated hard enough I could see those memories, like visions.”

She lifts her brow, impressed. “You’re not escaping those Professor X rumors.”

“True. A-anyway, I saw one of Clayton’s memories. You were in it.”

Aisha’s amused expression drops, replaced by a wall of neutrality. She shrugs and looks away. “And?”

“I saw him trying to…and you when you rejected him. I know you were mates once.”

With a huff and a shake of her head, Aisha purses her lips and continues not to meet my eye.

“It wasn’t like I went looking for that memory specifically, it’s just what I found. And I don’t mean to be intrusive. I know it’s weird. I know it’s super uncomfortable. That’s why I wanted you to know what I saw. So it wasn’t a secret.”

Finally, she turns and places a hand on my leg. “It’s fine, I’m not mad at you. It’s him, it’s always him. That’s why I’m burning cakes and acting all weird. Because I hate feeling this way. After all this time and after rejecting him he still makes me flinch, y’know?”

“I get it.”

She looks at me now with tears springing to her eyes. “I told people he was an ass. I told them he was no good. But he’s so rich and powerful, so entrenched in the pack and all that, no one cared what I had to say.”

I place my hand on top of hers. “I’m so sorry that happened.”

“Thank you.” Swiftly, she wipes a single tear from her cheek and sniffs back the rest. “That’s why I don’t hang out with the pack as much as I can––I’m still part of it, but that’s why I love dancing and that’s how I found Troy, because it’s separate from all that.”

“Yeah but you shouldn’t have to be separate. You’re as much a part of the pack as anyone. You deserve to feel welcomed.”

She shrugs. “I wish it were that way too. But that’s just not how things are.”

We sit quietly for a moment. There isn’t much else to say. It’s wrong that Clayton got to stay in the inner circle—got to hold on to his status and feel like he owned the whole damn world while Aisha had to look elsewhere to feel like she belonged. It’s so wrong, it doesn’t warrant stating. So instead we sit quietly, knowing we’re aligned but that there’s nothing much we can do.

“Man, this is terrible,” Aisha says finally, pushing the unfinished plate of banana bread farther away with her foot. “You want to go out and get something decent to eat?”

“For sure.”

“So your parents were cool with you and Jasper being mates?”

“Mmm, I wouldn’t say that.”

Aisha and I are sitting in the back of a cozy noodle joint in her neighborhood, enjoying a couple of steaming ramen bowls.

“After the initial shock had worn off they were happy for me, I guess. But then the floodgates sort of opened. They were suddenly suspicious of everything that had happened since the Blue Moon Festival. Wanted all the details.”

“And what did you tell them?”

“Pretty much everything.”

She sucks a noodle into her mouth with a slurp. “Whoa.”

“I guess I figured since there was no reason to hide anything they might as well know everything that’s gone on.”

“And?”

“Now they’re freaked. As much as they’re happy for me and Jasper, they’re worried about my safety and about what my future looks like. Like if I’m mated to the alpha does that mean I have to give up everything I want in life.”

“Fair point,” she says.

I shrug and stir my cloudy miso broth. “Maybe. But I don’t know why they’re being so dramatic about it all. And that’s coming from me.”

“I’m sure they’ll adjust in time.”

I raise a brow.“Yeah, but now they want to meet him.”

Aisha drops her chopsticks and laughs. “Oh no.”

“They said I wasn’t allowed to go on a date with him until they’d spoken to him. It’s so cringey.”

“And how does Jasper feel about that?”

Now it’s my turn to drop my utensils. “I haven’t told him yet.”

She shoots me a look that says You in trouble, girl.

“You don’t understand. I don’t want to tell him by text but he’s been traveling a lot on pack business, I guess doing damage control after the whole coming-out-to-the-pack thing, and he hasn’t had a chance to call me back.”

“Mm-hmm.” Aisha isn’t convinced.

“You think he’s being a shitty boyfriend?”

“I think he should be able to find time in his busy schedule to call you. He made a big gesture, which is great, but he wasn’t the only one on that stage. What he did affects you as well. He should call.”

I lean back in my chair, suddenly having had enough noodles. “Maybe you’re right. As far as I know we’re still on for our date tomorrow night. If he doesn’t call me back before then, well…I hope he likes surprises.”

“Jasper?” She rolls her eyes and grins at me. “Oh, yeah he loves surprises.”

Saturday night rolls around and Jasper still hasn’t responded to my texts asking him to call me. No, it’s not a great start. But I’m willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, for now. Maybe he’s not a caller—that tracks. Maybe he’s been traveling and has been in and out of cell service, across time zones, maybe he ran out of battery?

He did manage to send a text this morning:

I’m excited for tonight. Be there at 7. Be hungry. xxx

I still have no idea what we’re doing on our date, but at seven I’m sitting in the living room drumming my fingers on my knees. His car pulls up outside bang on the hour and I can’t help the jittery mix of nerves and excitement playing havoc with my nervous system.

It takes all my willpower, but I force myself to stay seated until I hear the doorbell ring.

I open the door to find Jasper looking ridiculously dashing in an expensive-seeming white roll-neck sweater and a black suit jacket. He’s dressed like he’s going to the Oscars, meanwhile I’m in a hoodie and jeans. There is, however, a hint of rosiness to his cheeks and an easy, relieved smile on his face.

“Hey,” he says, almost breathless.

“Hi. You look…amazing.”

“Thanks. You too. Ready?”

“You don’t think I should change? I didn’t know what we were doing, so…”

“No you’re great. You look perfect.” He takes my hand. “Let’s go.”

“Wait…” Here comes the surprise. “We can’t go.”

He furrows his brow in confusion. “Is something wrong?”

My face is heating up, I’m doing this all wrong. “No. Well? No. It’s just I didn’t want to tell you by text. Maybe you should come in.”

Jasper’s expression remains confused as I usher him into the house and shut the door behind him.

“Max, you’re starting to worry me. What’s going on?”

“I wanted you to call me back so I could tell you.”

“I’m sorry, I couldn’t. I’ll explain in a bit but first, tell me what? Do you not want to go on our date anymore?”

“No, it’s not that, I…I do. I very much do.” I place my shaking hands on his shoulders, then take his hands. “It’s just…we can’t go anywhere until…”

“Until?”

“Until you’ve met my parents.”

Jasper’s mouth topples open and his confused expression becomes one of utter dread.