Page 227 of Claimed By the Rival Alpha
I whipped around, but it was only Jasper. “Oh, Jasper.” I pressed a hand to my chest. “I wasn’t expecting to see you around the compound.”
“My bad. Didn’t mean to scare you,” he said with a sweet, apologetic smile. “I thought you heard me calling.”
“I probably should have, but I guess I was zoned out.” I relaxed. “It’s been about a week since I’ve seen you. What’ve you been up to?”
“I wish I could say I’ve been having a good time, but that hasn’t been the case.” He gave me a sad smile. “I’ve been hunting down Troy, and I needed to give Alpha Night an update.” He obviously had some bad news. “I’m glad I bumped into you, Bryn. You’ll probably want to hear my update. Want to walk with me?”
“Oh, sure.” We fell into a comfortable rhythm as we walked. All that was missing was Tavi. A pang of guilt hit me in the chest. Maybe I should’ve asked her to come with me after all. She might not mind seeing Jasper after all this time.
I frowned. Something he’d said stood out to me. “Hey, Jasper?”
“What’s up?”
“When you say ‘hunting down Troy,’ you mean you’re part of the search party, right? You’re hunting him down…to arrest him, right?”
He laughed like I’d made a joke. “Oh, we’re searching for him, alright. But no, not to bring him in. Our orders are to kill on sight. The only thing we need to bring in is proof of our kill.”
His answer rattled around in my head until it finally clicked into place. My confusion turned to fury hot enough to boil a kettle.
“A hunting party, you say,” I repeated, my voice low. “How interesting.”
Night had broken his promise to me. I stopped walking, and Jasper continued for a few steps before stopping and turning to me. When he saw the expression on my face, his smile fell.
“Jasper, when did Night give the order for this hunting party?”
“The day he got back to the compound. I think that was about eight days ago or so?”
That was the day he met with the Wargs’ council. I’d thought he’d told me everything, but he must have “forgotten” to mention this part of it. How convenient.
“How interesting that he didn’t tell me about this.”
His eyes became as wide as dinner plates. “Bryn, I’m sorry. I thought you knew?—”
“Well, I didn’t.” I shouldn’t have snapped at him. It wasn’t his fault that Night had kept me in the dark, but I was pissed off, dammit, and I needed to speak to my mate now. “Follow me, Jasper,” I said, storming towards the construction site. Night had mentioned he would be assisting Dom with repairs.
We found Night and Dom standing together and laughing about something, but when they saw us approaching, they stopped.
“Bryn, what’s?—”
“When the hell were you going to tell me you sent a hunting party after Troy?”
Night blinked, looking like a startled buck. “What?”
“Night, I want to knowright nowwhy you’d send ahuntingparty after Troy when I told you I didn’t want him killed.” I looked at him expectantly, my rage wafting off me in waves.
Night didn’t answer right away. He looked from me to Jasper, who held his hands up in surrender and took a step back.
“I saw Bryn when I arrived,” he explained quickly. “I didn’t know you were keeping it a secret, Alpha. If I had, I wouldn’t have told her.”
I stepped in front of Jasper. If I were calm, I would have found it funny and maybe a little nostalgic that I was getting between the two men again, just like I had when Night and I denied our feelings for each other. But I wasn’t calm; I was ready to rip someone’s head off his shoulders.
“Don’t you dare blame him, Night Shepherd,” I snapped. “Youare the one keeping secrets from me. Why didn’t you tell me that you did this? No, forget that—why did you send a hunting party at all?”
He sent one more glare at Jasper, then put his hand on my shoulder. I allowed him to steer me away from Dom and Jasper to a more private spot, but I jerked free the minute we had gone far enough.
“Stop stalling and tell me,” I demanded.
He closed his eyes briefly, and when he opened them, he looked a little apologetic, but not in a way that said he knew he’d fucked up. He just looked like he was sorry he’d been caught.
