Page 31 of Jasper

“I love you,” she said once her heart had stopped pounding. “Mate.”

The sound from his throat was half growl and half purr, but all contented male. “I love you too, Melody. Sweetest mate, other half of my heart.”

She closed her eyes and snuggled into his embrace.

She knew now that no matter what else happened, she and Jasper were marked mates, and that meant nothing on earth would separate them.

“I want to mark you too,” she said, then yawned.

“I’d love that. But first, let’s rest. I’m tired as hell since there was this sexy female begging for orgasms and keeping me from bed.”

She laughed. “Next time on the bed.” Then she added, “And maybe another time on the couch.”

“We’ll christen every room in the house, and the couch again. As much as you want, I’m the male for the job.”

“Damn, I missed you.”

“I missed you more.”

She was going to argue thatno, she missed him the most, but his breathing deepened in sleep and she decided to let him have this one. After all, he’d given her two amazing orgasms. She couldn’t wait to return the favor.

Later. After they rested and got to thatchristeningbusiness.

Ludo Stallard staredat the prison where he’d once been banished by his cousin Daniel for nearly a month with little food and water. Daniel had seen that Ludo was going to be powerful and had tried to break his spirit and get him to toe the line. At the time, when Ludo was merely fourteen and hadn’t even shifted yet, he’d not been thinking about taking over the pack. But once he’d been let go from the prison and exiled with a slash of Daniel’s claws across his face, Ludo had decided he’d get his vengeance someday. And that day had come.

It had been years and the scars on his face still ached, reminding him forever that his cousin had tried to weaken him, when he’d been too young to shift to heal himself and left with a permanent reminder that someone had thought he was a threat. Maybe he never would have tried to take over the pack if Daniel hadn’t done what he did, but that was beside the point now.

Daniel and his mate were dead, as was their son Dario.

Ludo was the alpha of the pack by right of conquest, and he’d managed to not only take his cousin out, but also imprison the highest-ranking members who would have been loyal to Daniel.

All was going well until someone set the second-in-command, Finn Atwood, and his mate Viola free.

Ludo had been asleep during the infiltration, and his males had been caught off-guard, which pissed him off to no end. He’d successfully taken over the pack with only ten males on his side. But now, as he stared at the prison while the sun came up, he had a serious problem.

Because the people who’d helped Finn escape weren’t just wolves, they were other types of shifters.

“I pick up lion for sure,” Mark, Ludo’s right-hand male, said with a derisive sniff. Ludo knew that Mark hated lion shifters because a rogue lion had killed his mate several years earlier. While Mark had dealt with the male, he still harbored hatred for all lions, regardless of who they were.

“Yeah.” Ludo scratched his jaw. “Bear and wolf too, but there’s one I can’t figure out. Like the jungle.”

“Gorilla,” Seth said. “But the question is, how the hell are so many different shifters together to free that male and his mate? And why?”

“I’ve got it!” Damien, the self-proclaimed pack nerd, jogged toward them with a large book against his chest.

Ludo turned to face him. “You’ve got what?”

“The answer to who came to get Finn.” Damien opened the book and turned it around to face Ludo. In the early morning light, Ludo read about an exiled male who attempted to mate a non-shifting female. The male? Jasper Breslin, who was a pup when Ludo was exiled.

But the female? Finn and Viola’s child.

According to the entry in the pack’s history, Alpha Grimes had exiled Jasper and told him if he tried to take Melody with him, that he’d hunt her down and kill her. Then he issued an order that Melody was not to mate or bear pups for anyone in the pack, on threat of death.

Closing the book with a hum, Ludo handed it back to Damien. “So he really hated non-shifters, huh? Interesting. Thereason we’re here is because there are rumblings in the pack about Finn being set free.”

“Why does it matter?” Kieran asked, scuffing the toe of his boot in the dirt. “He’s gone and we’ve still got the other high-ranked males in the cells.”

“It matters because he’s definitely going to come back and try to take control of the pack. No way Finn justlets it gothat I killed Ludo to take over.”

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