Page 47 of Clawless

“Not true, little Marrow. That trade I did with your old man was to find the Marrow Reserve. They don’t call it that, but it’s run by your cousin and he gives sanctuary to wolves like us.” She reached out and slapped my other cheek. It wasn’t as hard as the Arras Alpha’s, but it still left a mark and I hissed at her, but she just grinned. “The freaks and orphan outcasts.”

“You’re nuts.” I wet another towel and scrubbed at both cheeks, before giving up. At least the red patches were matching now. “Who is this guy, really?”

She hunched inside her leather jacket, but I could feel her excitement. “I can’t say much more, just that he’s a good wolf. And when I told him I was checking up on you, he said to tell you to watch out for your grandfather. The shit you’ve heard about him doesn’t even scratch the surface. And if he wants you to go to his compound, it’s not to exchange the Christmas cards you missed over the years, so watch your back.”

I nodded. I’d heard enough about my grandfather to know I wasn’t in a hurry to meet him. But as I rearranged the scarf at my neck, Sin leaped off the counter with a hiss. It was the first time she’d lost her grin since I’d met her – including when I hit a Black Denner with a pitchfork – and I realized she was staring at Jasper’s collar. And the emotion in her eyes was a deep, churning rage. Maybe even edged with a touch of fear. “Who the hell put that on you?”

I flushed and pulled the scarf back in place. “It’s a long story.”

“Bullshit.” She spun on her heel. I followed her to the door, but she was already heading towards the kitchens. “Sin, where are you going?”

“This changes things, little Marrow. I’ll be in touch in a couple days.” She paused to look back at me from the kitchen door. “And whoever put you on that leash better start running. Because the only thing your cousin hates more than a trapped wolf, is the asshole who did the trapping.”

Thirty-Three - Jasper

The new center of my world was a little green blip on my phone. I might have chewed my mom out for putting the tracker in Vail, but I wasn’t beyond using it once it was done. And the news wasn’t good. In fact, it was enough to make me crack two screens and put my claws through the dashboard of a service vehicle.

Despite every inch of my wolf fighting against it, Vail and Reed were the new campus couple.

A dinner date in Huntington, followed by movie night on the alpha floor on Thursday, and a birthday breakfast for the Marshall Head Omega on Friday. My security team were giving me a wide berth as I absorbed what the data was telling me. Which was everywhere Reed went – other than class and the bathroom - that green dot went, too.

But it was the hours between ten and dawn that were the most fucked up. Because that was when the green dot didn’t move at all, and I knew she was in his bed.

Fuck me.

Jealousy gnawed at my chest until I knew my wolf was on the edge of a feral fit. I lay in my bed in the rose cottage and glared at the empty pillow by my head. All I could hear was her telling me she was with Reed now, and how he was doing everything he could to keep her safe. The fucking irony made me grit my teeth until my jaw throbbed. A part of me – the wounded pride part – wanted to tell her good luck with that. If she thought I was controlling, she hadn’t seen the Ragemaster in action. But that just made my wolf gnaw at my guts in frustration. Because when Reed wasn’t raging out, he was careful, and deliberate, and never made a move he hadn’t thought through a hundred times. Which meant he hadn’t just taken Vail into his bed, but he was planning on making her more.

Something my wolf was prepared to stop at any cost. Twice I’d watched her from the shadows of an empty classroom. She’d passed by so close, I could have grabbed her by the scruff and dragged her inside with me. It was fucked-up, and stalkerish, but being more than a dozen feet from her was starting to cause me physical pain. By Friday it was so bad, I even thought about moving back to the alpha floor. Just so I could be near her, catch her scent in the elevator, and hear her voice as she chatted with her friends. But it was the thought of what else I’d hear, including the visual of my wolf sledgehammering through Reed’s wall at one in the morning, that forced me to keep my distance.

And drove me to another meeting at the diner in Denner territory. Liam knew I was spoiling for a fight, but didn’t try to talk me out of the meet. Word had come from Michael Warren in the same untraceable way it had last time, and he’d been just as blunt. He was hearing disturbing things at the academy about our security and Vail’s safety, and he had new instructions for me. Not the kind of disrespect my wolf needed to hear right now, especially from such a shady asshole. But everything he’d told me at our last meeting had checked out. He was Vail’s dad – or the closest thing to it – and was prepared to go to any lengths to keep her out of Marrow’s hands.

We met in his car, instead of going into the diner. It was a different model to the one we’d put the tracker on, and I didn’t even bother to ask if it was his. The Denner dive was busier this time round, and we were parked in the shadows thrown by a long-haul semi. Two rows back, but we could still see through the window of the diner. Every booth was full, and the scraggly waitresses were earning their pay, scooting around with coffee pots and greasy menus. Warren was watching the action like it was a live show, and I was pretty sure I knew why. Liam had confirmed the two guys in the corner booth were the Walpole brothers. Black Denners, and most likely the assholes who’d chased Vail through the Horn woods. I wanted to challenge him to the right to take them down myself, but settled into the passenger seat instead. “Not here for the steak dinner this time?”

He shot me a sideways look, although the bill of his cap was pulled low, so I was spared the full force of his freaky gaze. “She’s still wearing the containment collar?”

“Yes,” I grunted. “And she fucking hates me for it.”

“Get used to it. Her safety’s more important than her happiness at this point.”

“Spoken like Father Of The Year.”

He knuckled the steering wheel at that jab. “I’m not her father. And your only job is to make sure she stays off everyone’s radar until she comes of age. And that includes Trey Fucking Barakat.”

I remembered what Wentworth had said about the asshole. He was a void, or a mercenary, or some kind of mythical other species. All bad news in my book, and I didn’t hide my sneer. “You’re the one who dropped her on his doorstep all those years ago. You couldn’t have found somewhere else to leave her?”

He kept watching the window, but I figured those Denners in the diner were going to feel more of his wrath than was probably their share. But after staring a hole through the glass for a while, all he said was, “Leave Barakat to me. You get the Marshall wolf under control.”

“By control, you mean tell him to stay away from your daughter? Because that’s not going to sound the same coming from me.”

“Give him an order,” he sneered. “You’re his Clan Alpha, aren’t you? And Nathan Marshall’s too smart to let his son cross both you and Marrow.”

I ground my teeth at the idea of telling Reed to back off Vail. And not because it was going to make her hate me even more, but because it might actually bring the Ragemaster to the surface. And if there was one thing my wolf wanted right now, it was a throw-down, all-in brawl.

But that wasn’t the reason I was here. My first priority was Vail’s safety. Especially since during my previous trip to the diner, Warren had spelled out Marrow’s intentions. If Vail mated a wolf before her eighteenth birthday, her grandfather would put them both in the ground.

I might have resented her connection to the Marshall wolves, but Vail had really won the genetic lottery when it came to the Marrow side of the family.

“The collar’s not working, anyway,” I told him. “Or not how you said it would. She bit one of my guards on Den Night. And it was definitely a shifter bite.”

---