Page 33 of Running with the Alpha’s Son (The Alpha’s Son #3)

Omar has just dropped a bombshell.

All this time we assumed George Peng was responsible for everything that happened to us last summer. He arranged with the rogues to kidnap Aisha, then he hired them to attack Jericho at his house and forced Eleanor to threaten Jasper into becoming her mate.

But now Omar is saying there was another person, a third party, who was responsible for all of it. Someone else who was pulling the strings all along.

“But who?” I ask. “If someone was controlling George then who?”

Omar’s face drops. “I—I don’t know his name. I only ever saw him.”

“The rogues in charge didn’t say anything? They never mentioned what his position was in the pack?”

Jasper is conspicuously quiet at my side. From the stern look of concentration on his face I can tell he’s running the numbers, trying to compute this new information and make it make sense, trying to figure out who this mystery puppet master is.

“No,” Omar says. “But I can remember what he looks like. I’ll never forget that face as long as I live.”

“Can you describe him?” Jasper asks.

Omar glances at Jasper then back at me and I see a sort of strange determination in his eyes, a spark that’s been missing this whole conversation.

“No, but I can show you. Max, use your gift, find the memory.”

“You want me to go looking around inside your head?”

“It’s the easiest way.”

I’m not sure about this, especially about doing something so intimate with Omar in front of Jasper, but I give him a questioning look and he nods.

“Okay,” I say. I press a palm flat against the glass and Omar lifts his hand to meet mine. I close my eyes and try to concentrate.

Like a rocket I shoot through the darkness toward the red veins of consciousness, and faster than ever before I’m able to identify which belongs to Omar, like he’s calling out to be found, signaling so I can find him. I reach out and grab it, and all of a sudden I’m pulled into a memory.

I’m sitting on a set of metal stairs. It’s hot and dusty, the scent of petrol and wolf musk fills my senses. Below me is a bucket of warm, soapy water, in which I’m holding a pair of blue jeans. Suds cover my wrists as I rub to get them clean. Damn grease never gets out. Just then a black town car arrives, a trail of dirt and dust pluming out behind it. I recognize the car as belonging to Alpha Jericho, but Omar doesn’t have the same recognition. I drop the jeans in the water and stand, wrapping my wet hands around the iron railing of the stairs. A driver wearing a gray uniform and dark sunglasses steps out of the driver’s seat. It’s not George, it’s some other chauffeur I don’t recognize. He opens the back door and finally a wolf I do recognize steps out.

His gray hair is swept back where it sprouts like waves on the sides, the remnants of what was once a thick head of blond. His blue suit is expensive and immaculately tailored. Sunlight reflects off his polished cuff links and patent leather shoes.

Walter Bridgers surveys the industrial site before him as his lips curl downward in an unpleasant snarl. He glances my way and my instinct is to duck, to hide, to not let him see me. But of course, I’m not here, this isn’t happening now. It’s Omar’s memory and in it he doesn’t move, just watches as the fancy pack wolf in the designer clothes turns to glare in his direction. His eyes lock with mine, with Omar’s, and I want desperately to turn away, but Omar doesn’t have the same impulse. He stares Walter down. From his expression, it’s clear Walter has no idea who the random rogue on the stairs is. His sneer turns to a grin as he and Omar continue their staring contest, the grin of a hunter having laid eyes on his prey.

The roar of a large metal door rolling back breaks the tension in the air and Walter turns, ending their moment. Two familiar-looking rogues exit the nearby warehouse. One with a long scar on his face, the other in a denim jacket with the sleeves chopped off and the mark of his gang tattooed on his bicep. Two of the wolves who kidnapped Aisha. They shake Walter’s hand and lead him inside.

As he goes the vision fades and I leave Omar’s memories, my senses flooding back into my own body, and my eyes snap open.

“Max?” Jasper asks. “Are you—?”

“We have to get Omar out of here,” I say.

Omar squints at me, concern wrinkling his forehead.

“Why? What did you see?” Jasper asks.

“Walter. He’s behind all of this. He’s the one who paid the rogues to attack us. He must have used George and Eleanor as a way to cover his tracks. He must be the one who’s turning the other packs against us too.”

“Why would he do that? He has too much invested in the pack, his whole family history is rooted in the Elite Pack. Why would he—?”

“Because he wants power,” I say. “I don’t need to read his mind to know that, it’s clear as day on his face. Who do you think taught Clayton he was entitled to the whole world? Maybe he’s convincing the other packs to align against us to oust your dad.”

“But why try and mate me off to Eleanor?”

“It was never about that,” I say. “Don’t you see? He just wanted to show that we were weak. He wanted to show the other packs that we were vulnerable.”

“Hey, uh, cuz,” Omar jumps in. “I’m glad you all are figuring this out but what was that you were saying about getting me the heck out of here?”

“Right.” I think back on the flashes of a vision I was able to sneak from Walter this afternoon. “I saw something.”

“When?” Jasper asks.

“Earlier today, upstairs in your apartment. I snuck a look at Walter’s memories and saw him making a deal with a super shifty-looking wolf. He gave him this big wad of cash. Like he was paying him for a job. He was being all sneaky and underhanded. Definitely up to no good.”

“Come on, cuz, what’s that got to do with me?”

“He saw you,” I say. “The day you watched him arrive at Rogue City, he looked up and he saw you. He knows you know it was him.”

“And you think—”

“He may have been paying that guy to take care of—”

“Loose ends,” Jasper says, finishing the thought for all of us.

We each exchange glances. Then when it feels like we’re all too scared and caught up in the moment to do anything, I can’t hold back any longer.

“He’s going to have Omar killed.”

A moment passes between Jasper and me and I wish more than anything in the world right now I could know what he’s thinking—if he’s willing to go along with me and save Omar, even if that means stepping out of line and breaking the pack rules, or if he’ll back away. I wait for an answer.

“Then we need to get Omar to safety,” Jasper says finally, and both me and Omar release a long-held breath.

“Great,” Omar says, looking around at his seemingly impenetrable cell. “How you gonna do that?”

Just then a beep sounds, reverberating down the hallway, and the little light on the black box overhead turns red.

“Oh no,” I say. “Our time is up.”

“Wait, what—?” Before Omar can finish speaking, the glass turns back to black and whatever technology was allowing us to hear him shuts off.

It’s just Jasper and me left in a dark corridor.

“What do we do?” I ask.

Jasper looks up and down the hall, trying to think of a solution.

“Jasper Apollo and Maximilian Remus,” the voice of the guard from earlier echoes from a speaker attached to the ceiling a few feet away. “Your visitation time is up. Please return to the entrance and log out.”

He clicks his microphone off and Jasper and I meet eyes. Something tells me we’re thinking the same thing.

“He said they’d escort us out,” Jasper says.

“Which means there are more guards here somewhere,” I add.

“And they might have access to the cells,” Jasper concludes.

“It’s a risk.”

He takes my hand and gives it a squeeze. “It’ll be worth it. All we have to do is stay right where we are.”

“And let them come to us.”

We nod in agreement and adrenaline rushes through my body.

The guard’s microphone clicks on again, the rattle of static breaking the silence.

“Report back to the main office now!” the guard bellows.

Jasper smiles at me then turns to the speaker and a small camera he’s spotted next to it.

“Come and get us!” he shouts.

And like clockwork the elevator doors at the end of the hall clank open. Two guards emerge in uniforms, with clear visors covering their faces. They’re wearing riot gear for Selene’s sake!

“Uh, Jasp,” I say, my fingers grazing his elbow. “Maybe we didn’t think this through. How do we get the keys off them?”

The guards growl as they approach ever so slowly. One of them whips out a baton, blue electricity fizzing at one end.

“Can you, ah, do your mind thing?” he asks. “Like with Clayton? Pull up some painful memory or…something?”

“Uh, let me see, I need to concentrate.”

I snap my eyes shut and try to find peace to clear my mind and reach out for theirs but it doesn’t come. I peek through one eye and the guards are nearly at us, their fangs fully extended.

“I’ll give you some time,” Jasper says, and steps forward, leaping into a run.

Before I know it he’s barged into the guard on the left. The guard tumbles backward but Jasper somehow remains upright. The other, the one with the baton, swings his weapon back but Jasper manages to block the blow with his forearm. Meanwhile the tackled guard has gotten to his feet. Jasper engages them both at the same time, trying to keep them distracted while avoiding the zap of the electric baton.

“Anytime, Max,” he says while dodging a punch.

Knowing there’s no time left to gawk at my action hero boyfriend, I close my eyes again and reach out, and just like before, I whiz through the sea of wolf consciousnesses and zero in on the guards. I grasp onto their threads simultaneously and search frantically for anything I can use to bring them down—a death in the family, a rejection from a mate, anything painful that will render them useless. But there’s nothing. These guys have either led very lucky or very uneventful lives. Then I notice something: they’re both mated. And I wonder…

I pull a moment from both of their lives to the forefront, letting the emotion wash over me, pulling it into myself until it’s amplified and fizzing. It’s warm and comforting and makes me want to stay with it, bathe in their shared elation, but I know I can’t—I throw it back into them.

My eyes dart open as they both stagger backward, away from Jasper, who stands hunched and huffing. Then one after the other the guards drop to their knees crying tears of joy.

“What did you do?” Jasper asks.

“I found the moment they met their mates and made them feel all that gooey goodness at once.”

“You overcame them with…happiness?” Jasper asks, a little bemused but also sort of impressed. He rolls his eyes affectionately. “Of course you did.”

“You can stop gushing now,” I say. “We need the keys.”

“Right.”

Jasper is on the crying men in an instant. One even reaches out to him with a giddy smile on his tear-streaked face, laughing and spluttering like a big emotional mess. For a moment Jasper searches his body, trying to push his hands away, until finally he finds something. It’s a fob similar to the one he used to enter the building.

“This might work,” he says.

Next to Omar’s cell panel is a small censor. Jasper swipes the fob over the censor and we wait with bated breath as the light on top blinks red, then orange, then…green!

The glass turns from black to clear and then rises in an instant into the ceiling. Omar is waiting, a wild, panicked look in his eyes. He surveys the scene around him.

“What’s up with them?” he asks.

“Overcome with happiness,” I say.

Omar smirks. “Cool, should we?”

“Yes,” Jasper says, his voice suddenly low and serious. “They’ll be locking this place down any second.”

And with impeccable timing, like they can hear us or something, an alarm blares, the lights flash red, and the elevator begins to slide slowly shut.

“Move, now!” Jasper orders.

We sprint for the closing elevator, knowing if we don’t make it we’re stuck down here. But that’s not an option. Accessing my superspeed, I take the lead and reach the elevator just before the door closes. I slide between it and the wall and hold it open. It takes all the strength in my lanky arms to keep the thing from closing and crushing me but I manage to just long enough for Omar and Jasper to dive through. The door slams shut with a bang.

For a second we stand in the elevator not knowing what to do.

“Won’t they just stop the elevator from working so they can trap us here?” Omar says.

“Maybe,” Jasper says, running a thinking hand through his hair. “But if this fob was able to unlock a cell maybe it can override the elevator too?”

He swipes at another panel but it doesn’t do anything. The light blinks red, time after time.

“Don’t you have some alpha authority or something?” Omar asks, leaning against the back wall. “Can’t you override the system?”

“It doesn’t work like that,” Jasper says.

“Man, sucks to be you.”

Jasper turns in a circle looking for some way to get this dumb elevator to move but there doesn’t seem to be anything he can do.

“Nothing?” I ask.

He shakes his head. “This place will be flooding with gammas. There’s no way we can get past that many wolves.”

Omar lets his head flop against the wall. “Great plan, boyos.”

“Wait,” I say. “You said this place will be flooded with wolves, right?”

“Any second now,” Jasper responds.

“When we were upstairs I couldn’t sense anything, like the walls were built to block out any wolf energy. But down here it was different. If there are more wolves up there now though the energy will be stronger—maybe if I can latch on to it I can do something.”

“Do you think you’re up to that?” Jasper says.

No, no I really do not. “There’s no other option.”

“We can help,” Omar says. “Use our energy to amplify your own.”

“I can do that?”

“That’s how you were able to access the lunar plane. Yoki and I transferred some of our energy to you.”

“Is that why you fell asleep?”

“Nah.” He shrugs. “You were out for so long and I was mad tired.”

“Well,” I say, glancing between them both, “if you think it will help.”

“It will,” Omar says and holds out his hand.

I glance at Jasper, swallow, and then take Omar’s hand. I reach out for Jasper on my other side and he takes a breath before returning the gesture. Then Omar holds out his free hand, nodding at Jasper to take it. Jasper stares at it like it’s a dead fish.

“Come on, dude. We need to complete the circle.”

Jasper presses his lips together, settles his face, and takes Omar’s hand.

“Good,” Omar says calmly. “Now try and gather the energy in your core, channel your inner wolf, and when you have it centered, send it to Max. Max, you’ll know when the time is right. And uh”—he looks at Jasper once more—“it helps if you close your eyes.”

Jasper gives a subtle roll of his eyes first, but does what he’s told. Next Omar gives me a reassuring nod and closes his. Then I close mine.

At first nothing happens. I compare the feel of Omar’s rougher hand and Jasper’s more slender hand and how they feel in mine. I notice Jasper twitching and give him a calming squeeze to let him know I’m here. My fingers begin to tingle, then my palms and wrists, and then suddenly, pulsing energy rushes up through my arms, flooding my torso and running down to my legs. Their energies wash over me, until they flow inside me like blood. Each has its own distinctive feel, but as they mingle and mix, I stop keeping track of whose is whose, and as their energy settles with my own, I begin to lose all sense of where I end and where Omar and Jasper begin. Our energies have become one.

That’s when I know to reach out.

I expand my consciousness up and out like a mushroom cloud, searching in all directions for other wolves. As I reach the ground floor I’m suddenly hit with a wall of energy. That must be the entrance chamber. It’s now filled with at least thirty strong wolves, waiting with tense muscles and set jaws. I don’t attack them, instead I delve into their subconsciousness, I speak with their inner wolves, I pat their heads and whisper calmly to them, until one by one they fall asleep.

The guard behind the glass is the only one I leave awake. Him I coax into pressing the necessary buttons to activate the elevator and bring us back to ground level.

I open my eyes as we arrive and the doors slide open. Sleepily Omar and Jasper open their eyes as well. Jasper looks especially groggy, his eyes red and droopy, and Omar looks a little drunk, like one side of his face is too tired to move.

“Did we do it?” Jasper asks.

“Almost,” I say.

Feeling strong, galvanized even, I step from the elevator and make my way through the carpet of sleeping guards.

“They look sort of cute,” Omar says, following behind.

“You!” the guard in the window shouts. “You can’t do this! When the alpha hears about this you’ll be—”

“ Silence ,” Jasper commands in his alpha voice, stepping forward. He’s given an order and the guard has no choice but to submit. “ Open the door .”

The muscles in the guard’s face twitch as his cheeks turn pink. Clearly, he’s struggling against the direct order from his future alpha. But the part of him that’s a wolf, that’s part of this pack, knows not to disobey his superior. He hits whatever buttons he needs to to open the door, and before Jasper can lose control or any of the other guards wake up, we hightail it out of there.

“Where will you go?” I ask Omar as the crowds of Grand Central rush like rapids around us. We ran straight here from the packhouse, knowing we needed to get Omar as far from the city, from Walter and his assassin for hire, as possible. “Back to the Sanc?”

“No,” Omar says. “I’ll only bring trouble with me. They don’t need any more upheaval.”

“Then where?”

Omar glances at the departures board as some passing commuter knocks into me.

“I’ll head north,” he says. “Maybe cross the border into Canada, see what it’s like for rogues up there.”

“I—I don’t know when I’ll see you again,” I say, noticing the way Jasper clears his throat subtly.

Omar places one of his sturdy hands on my shoulder. “You can always find me, cuz.” With the same hand he taps one finger against his forehead. “We’re all connected, right?”

“Right.”

“Jasp.” Omar turns to my mate, who has been hanging out a couple steps away. “You’re a decent guy. Maybe with you as a leader this pack has a chance of not sucking.”

Jasper’s voice catches a little in his throat. “Thanks.”

“You take care of him.”

“I will.”

“Cuz. It’s been real. Keep up the meditation. Stay true to your inner wolf. Don’t let those walls get in your way. You’re going to do amazing things.”

I can’t help the tears welling in my eyes. “Be safe,” I tell Omar, then I give him a super tight hug.

He winces and I let him go.

“Sorry, I forgot about the bruises.”

“Nothing a bit of time won’t fix.”

For a second we stand under the starry ceiling, letting the crowds drift by, not quite ready to leave just yet. Then Jasper clears his throat.

“You should probably get going,” he says. “It’s not safe.”

“You’re right,” Omar says. He steps away then looks back one last time. “You’re a cute couple. I hope there’s someone like that out there for me.”

“There is,” I say. “I promise.”

“I’ll hold you to that.”

And with two steps Omar is gone, disappeared behind the streams of travelers making their way to their destinations. Jasper gives me a second before coming to stand by my side.

“He’ll be okay,” he says.

I try to wipe an errant tear away and pass it off as if I’m scratching my face with the back of my hand. “I know.”

“We should get moving too,” he says. “I need to figure out how to explain all this to my dad.”

“Right.”

From Grand Central we walk across town back to the packhouse and Jasper’s apartment. For most of the journey we walk in silence. I know Jasper must be trying to figure out the exact way to tell his dad that one of his closest advisers has betrayed him, not to mention that we broke a confessed criminal out of the packhouse’s holding facility and knocked out a whole battalion of wolf guards. But I’m also worried about what he suspects Omar might mean to me.

When we approach his block I can’t take the suspense anymore.

“Hey, I just want you to know what you did back there—I really appreciate it. And just so you know, with Omar, I—I do care about him, but it’s not like what I have with you—it’s not like—”

Jasper stops walking, a small smile threatening to turn into a bigger one on his lips.

“You don’t have to explain,” he says. “I trust you. And I trust your judgment. Omar is a good man. And you’re allowed to care about other people.”

“So you’re okay?”

“I’m fine. In fact, I’ve never felt more certain about things—things I’ve been torn up about for a long, long time. That’s because of you.” He slides his hands into mine. “And back there, I felt connected to you in a way I never had before. Nothing can take that away.”

“Good,” I say. “Because I feel the same, I feel like we were really a team.”

“An amazing team.”

“Yeah we actually sort of kicked butt.”

“We slayed.”

I can’t help but laugh. Did Jasper just say slay ?

“Okay, slay,” I tease. He laughs and blushes something stupid. “You’re very cute when you’re embarrassed, did you know that?”

“No I didn’t.”

“Well, you are. Like, incredibly.”

“You’re cute all the time.”

“Well.” I shrug like I just can’t help it.

We walk a little farther.

“Jasper, I want you to know I’m ready now, to be a part of your life and everything that entails, but also I want to do more, I want to use the gifts I have to help people. No more running away. I want to stay and be in it, really in it.”

“Me too,” he says, stopping once more to lean in and kiss me.

“I love you, Max,” he says as he pulls away.

“I love—”

Something catches my attention and I stop mid-sentence. A shadow darts across the windows of a closed store across the road and before I can do anything, the man in the leather coat with the greasy ponytail appears in the street. He rushes at us, pulling something from inside his jacket. My heart explodes when I see the gun.

“Jasper, watch out!”

As the gunshot rings out I shove Jasper away from me and he stumbles into the street. The gunman remains holding the smoking firearm in front of him. He sneers at me and my stomach roils, then he dashes off, vanishing around a corner.

I reach down and feel my stomach, my torso, expecting to find a bullet wound, but I’m fine. I breathe a sigh of relief.

“Jasper, are you…?”

In the middle of the street, Jasper is standing looking down at where his hands are clutching his stomach. A red blossom is blooming outward, staining his shirt. He lifts his head, panicked and confused, and our eyes lock.

“Jasper? Jasp?”

He crumbles, falling to the street, and I run to him.

“JASPER!”