Page 24 of Slow Heat

“I didn’t harass him. I only—”

Pater’s eyes flickered. “So you did go to him?”

“Yes, but—”

“Did you assault him?”

“What?” Jason blinked in shock.

“Did you touch him? In any way?”

“No.” Jason swallowed hard, a thunderclap of hurt rolling in him. “I wouldn’t…I’d never…”

Pater reached in his pocket before holding out the pill Jason had abandoned on his bedside table. “The dose we left for you was the right amount, Jason. Anything less and…” He raised his brows, letting the implication dangle.

“I’d never hurt him. Never.”

Pater measured him carefully with his eyes and then glanced over Jason’s shoulder to Father. After shrugging at whatever he saw there, he took a drag from his cigarette and turned to Jason again. “Sit down.”

Father moved into his usual ‘Jason’s in trouble’ position. He stood solidly behind Pater, hands on the back of the sofa, his shoulders broad, as though guarding Pater against some threat, and facing Jason with all the alpha authority he could muster. It seemed unfair—two against one.

“I didn’t do anything bad,” Jason said, as he took his place in the stuffed wingback ‘punishment’ chair—so called because it was where he’d been steered for lectures ever since he was child. “I only talked to him.”

Pater threw up his hands, cigarette ash breaking off and falling onto his t-shirt. “You went and disturbed that man’s peace? Out of the bounds of protocol?”

“I wanted—”

“You probably scared him to death, you realize.” Pater sucked at his cigarette. “An imprinted alpha showing up on his doorstep with wolf-god only knows what intentions! He probably—”

“I just wanted to talk to him.” The words burst out painfully.

“And did you?” Father asked, waving away Pater’s exhaled smoke with a grimace.

“Yes.”

“And how did that go?” Father’s eyes narrowed.

“He was…fine with it.” Jason squirmed, stubborn defiance warring with a hint of shame. Maybe hehadscared Vale—all right, there was no maybe about it—but it’d turned out fine in the end, hadn’t it?

“Start talking,” Father said, rubbing Pater’s shoulders.

Pater shrugged off the touch and then leaned to stub his cigarette out on the brass plate kept on the side table for that purpose.

Jason frowned. “Let me tell you the whole story before you talk over me, okay? Hear me out.”

Pater waved his hand like he was being extraordinarily gracious to let Jason speak. Biting back the irritation, Jason cleared his throat and began. He told them about waking up and realizing they weren’t going to treat him like an adult.

“Just like now,” he pointed out. “I knew it would be this way. You aren’t going to tell me the real things I need to know about Vale. You’re going to try to decide for me—what I want, what I should contract for, what’s important. That’s not all right with me.”

“You don’t trust us to have your best interests at heart?” Father said, surprise and hurt flashing on his face.

“Of course, I do. But my best interests aren’t whatI’minterested in. What are his best interests? What does he want? Who even is he, really, underneath all those stupid facts the investigator is going to dig up?”

Pater sighed and rubbed at his forehead. “Jason, you can’t just go to this man’s house and demand entrance.”

“I didn’t.”

“You’ve already admitted you did.”