Page 30 of The Alpha: Part Three
“Yeah,” Jasper says. “Everything is okay. I just wanted to talk to you about a few things. Do you have a minute?”
“Of course.”
He takes an audible breath and gets to it. “I want to hate you. I really, really do. I've had big plans of politely tolerating your inevitable presence in our lives ever since it became obvious that you weren't going anywhere. But it can't be that way now. I don't think it was ever going to be that way, not forever anyway; but I did think we'd be a lot older before things changed.”
“You can hate me, Jasper. You should.”
“No, Seth. I really shouldn't. I mean, what happened with Talia was bad. Really bad. But that was a really bad situation, and my opinion of it doesn't matter. Talia's opinion of it matters, and that's the only thing that matters. My children adore you. Even Zetty.”
I smile at the thought of them. I miss them.
“The point is,” Jasper continues, “I can't hate you anymore. At all. If anything, I owe you a debt.”
“You don't owe me anything,” I say around the knot forming in my throat.
“I do. How much do you know? About me? My family?”
I fall back against the couch much like Michael did. I don't want to talk about the things in Jasper's file. I've never talked about his file before, and I don't want to start now. “Ben and Michael are with me.”
“Just tell me.”
I hesitate for a few moments before I answer him. “I know you had sisters. I know you had cousins. I know what happened to them. I know that you were moved around a lot after something big and terrible happened when you were a kid. I always thought it was to keep you hidden.”
“It was,” he interrupts.
“I know your father was a son of a bitch, and that his pack did what he told them to instead of what was the right thing to do. You had a friend, right before the big terrible thing. She was relocated, too. Her name wasn't mentioned.” I don't know how much he's comfortable with me saying out loud. I firmly believe it's his story to tell and I'm not sharing it with anyone. I don't have details, just a clinical explanation of the ungodly number of kidnapping attempts and the deaths of his siblings and cousins. And I'm as glad as he is that his friend's name wasn't in the file.
“Good,” he whispers. “Good. Did you see any of the psych eval notes?”
“I closed the file when I saw the page heading. Do you know why my father had your file?”
His laugh is cold. “Probably the same reason everyone else wanted it.”
“I'm glad Devon won.” There isn't typically an actual physical fight among packs for an omega. It's all either handled naturally with scents and immediate natural bonds or politically. Packs fought for Jasper. Even after he made it abundantly clear that he would be with the Johnson pack. The goal of the fights went from showing him they were the strongest to eliminating Devon and the others.
That was the first time I'd ever seen them operate as a unit. Devon has always been an asshole, but he was older than me so it didn't affect me. Trent and Nathan are just a year older than I am, though. Trent was as much of a dick when we were younger as he is now and thatdidaffect me. Nathan had never been anything but a quiet accomplice, but that day they were all vicious.
“I'm glad you aren't the person I thought you were,” Jasper says gently. “Thank you for protecting me. Thank you for protecting Talia.”
“That's what alphas are for.”
“Not all alphas feel that way, Seth.”
“They should.”
He's quiet for a few seconds then he takes a breath, and I can almost visualize him shaking himself out of the very heavy moment we just had. “Corso won't tell you, but they'll have the house on the other side of the distillery finished before winter sets in. He's really excited about it. He wants our packs to be close so our kids can grow up together. Elizabet has also been circling. She can't wait to meet Desir'ee.”
Oh god. I've been with them long enough to know that circling is a very polite way to describe the way Elizabet mines people for information. I was hoping me and my pack wouldn't be on her itinerary. “Maybe she's just curious because Desir'ee and the twins are from the West Coast.” I can hope until the last second.
Jasper laughs. “Nope. You've recently been declared family so you get the same treatment the rest of us do. I don't know what kind of mother you grew up with, but mine wasn't anything like Elizabet. It'll take a minute, but you'll get used to her...eventually.”
My mother wasn't a bad mother. I would even go as far as to say she spoiled me. She definitely spoiled me. Looking back, I think she did it to make up for some of the things my father had planned for me. She wasn't strong, though. Not like Elizabet or Talia. Or Desir'ee.
“Before winter, you said? I still can't believe he's renovating a whole house for us.”
“I think so,” Jasper answers. “And the offer of the farmhouse still stands if you'd like to stay there until the house here is finished.”
“I don't know how to be grateful enough for that. I never thought–”
