Alpha Father Traded His True Heir for His Bastard Daughter Now Karma's Ultimate Payback novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: The Terms

Jasper sets his rules on the drive to Stonegate and laughs when she names Faye as the killer. At moonrise the burn drops her and he catches her, then Faye's order arrives: seal his brother's room.

Jasper Holloran drove his own truck, and he did not say a word for the first forty miles.

I sat against the passenger door with my wrists in my lap.

The silver scars itched where the cold air from the vent touched them.

At a red light he rolled his window all the way down and breathed in the night.

His knuckles were white on the wheel.

"You smell of silver," he said, without looking at me.

"Five years of it."

"Don't say it like I did it to you."

"You asked for it," I said. "Through a courtroom door. I heard you."

His jaw moved.

He did not answer, and the light turned green.

Twenty miles later he spoke again, in a flat voice.

"Rules."

I waited.

"You get the guest wing at Stonegate. The door stays unlocked, because I won't lock a door on a woman I don't intend to touch."

"That's generous."

"I don't touch killers," he said. "And you don't ask me about my brother. Not his name, not his grave, not his room. Break either one and the Council hears you broke your debt."

"I didn't kill Mark."

The truck swerved a few inches on the empty road.

"You signed it," he said.

"My parents told me to sign it."

"That's a very convenient story."

"It's the one that happened." I kept my voice low, because I had practiced it in the dark for five years. "Faye killed him. I walked into the clearing and she was running, and he was on the ground with the knife in him. I pulled it out. I held him while he died."

I stopped, because my throat had closed.

"Then my father told me she'd hang, and I could take six months in silver and walk out an heir."

Jasper laughed.

It was one short, ugly sound.

"Faye Netherton sat beside me at his memorial three years running. She drove four hours to bring my mother soup. She's the reason I got a name and a sentence for what happened to him."

"Ask her where she was that night."

"The Council library. It's in the log."

"Then the log is wrong."

"You're asking me to believe you over the woman who put you in a cell."

"I'm not asking you for anything," I said. "I'm telling you what happened. Believe it when you can."

He turned his head and looked at me for one second, with eyes the grey-green of river ice.

Then he looked at the road again, and he said nothing else until the mountains came up black ahead of us.

Stonegate was a long timber house at the end of a gravel drive.

The drive was lined with wolves.

Forty or fifty of them stood in the headlights in the dark, men and women and a few teenagers, and they did not make a sound.

A woman near the gate held up a framed photograph of a young man laughing.

Mark.

A man beside her spat at the truck as we went by.

Jasper did not slow down, and he did not tell them to stop.

I looked straight ahead, because I would not let them see me look away.

He parked in front of the house and got out.

I opened my door and stood up, and the moon came over the ridge.

It was only three-quarters full, but it found the scar around my throat.

The pain started there and ran down through my arms.

The silver was off my skin, but it was not out of it, and the old burn woke up.

My knees went, and the gravel came up at me.

Two big hands closed around my ribs and held me up.

He had crossed the yard faster than I could see.

I hung there against his chest with my breath coming in ragged pieces, and his heart slammed against my back.

Heat ran through me where he held me, and it was nothing like the burn.

My wolf stirred in the dark of my chest and pushed toward him.

"Rule one, Alpha," I managed.

He didn't answer.

His hands were trembling.

For three long breaths he held me, and I felt the growl low in his chest where it did not belong.

Then he set me on my feet and let go, and wiped his palms down his coat.

His eyes had flashed gold.

I saw it in the glass of the truck window, and so did he.

"Get inside," he said, hoarse.

His Beta came down the porch steps with a cream envelope in his hand.

"Alpha. A courier from the Prosecutor's office, hand-delivered. It says it's urgent."

Jasper tore it open and read it under the porch light.

His face went hard.

He passed it to me, which I had not expected.

*By order of the High Council Prosecutor: effective at once, the room of the late Mark Holloran is sealed and will be inventoried by the Council on Thursday.*

*Faye Netherton.*

I read it twice.

There were dozens of rooms in that house, and Faye had asked for exactly one.

Faye had asked for exactly one.

← Chapter 1 · All chapters · Chapter 3 →

Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend