thing Avanti and Torem just talked about.
Avanti felt like shit.
* * * *
Zeus pulled the ear buds out, coming in from his jog. He set his
MP3 player on the counter and grabbed an orange juice from the
refrigerator. Even though he loved to run in his wolf form, he was an
oddball among shifters. Wolves weren’t supposed to love jogging in
human form.
He gulped the juice straight down and tossed the bottle and lid.
The run helped clear his mind, but he still hadn’t come up with a
solution to his problem. How was he going to handle his mate?
“Enjoy your run?” Torem asked as he came into the kitchen.
Jasper
29
“Same as always.” Zeus rolled his shoulders, wanting a hot
shower now to relax the muscles he could feel tensing. It seemed the
run hadn’t done any good after all.
“Your mate’s in the living room with Menacing.”
“It’s Minsheng. Try and use it.” The small guy was a menace, but
Zeus liked him. It probably didn’t help his self-esteem to have
everyone calling him out of his name. The three men may keep him
supplied in aspirin, but they never asked to be forced into such
horrendous circumstances.
“Touchy today,” Torem teased, pulling the chair back from the
kitchen table and taking a seat.
He never talked about his feelings, and he wasn’t going to start
now. Besides, he didn’t want to hear what his Beta had to say. He’d
figure out a solution on his own.
“I’m not touchy, just tired.” Zeus grabbed another bottle of juice
and left his Beta to go find his mate. Although things weren’t going
well, the pull to be near Jasper was undeniable.
Jasper was still engaged in conversation with Minsheng, only now
Yasuko was in there with him. He was the quiet one of the bunch, and
Zeus always kept an eye on the quiet ones. It seemed that no matter
where Minsheng was, Yasuko wasn’t too far behind. Those two stuck
together like glue. It was rare to see Minsheng without him. The third man was Kamiko, but he was nowhere to be found, as usual.
“So you play these games and they fun?” Minsheng asked Jasper.
“Oh yes, I’ll have to see if I can get my hands on a system. I’ll
show you how to have a blast.” Jasper laughed.
Zeus was once again in awe of the musical voice. Maybe he was
being unfair. Just maybe what his parents had wasn’t how everyone
viewed a relationship. He stepped into the room, nodding at the two
shorter men and then looked over at his redhead.
“Hi.” For the first time in his life he was tongue-tied. This was
very odd for him.
30
Lynn Hagen
“Hello.” Zeus could smell the apprehension coming off of his
mate. How could he give his mate what he wanted while keeping him
safe and obedient? That was the twenty thousand dollar question.
“Could I speak with you?”
“Depends, are you going to order me around or actually talk this
time?” Jasper stood, facing Zeus with his shoulders squared. “I’m not
difficult to get along with, but I won’t be under someone’s thumb.”
Zeus glanced at the other two men, unsure of how to handle this.
“Can we take this somewhere more private?”
“Fine, lead the way.” Jasper walked over to him, clasping his
hands in front of him and waiting. It was hard to suppress the need to dominate, the drive to tell his mate to do as told, and there wasn’t
going to be any discussion about it. That tactic wasn’t working. He
had to find balance.
Zeus gave a tight smile to the two men watching the scene and
then led Jasper away. He frowned when he spotted his office door
ajar. Who the hell had been in there? “Wait right here.” Zeus held his hand up, stopping Jasper from entering behind him.
“What is it?”
He didn’t want to answer that. His mate would only argue that he
could look out for himself and now was not the time for it. “Please.”
“Since you put it so nicely.” Jasper leaned against the wall,
tapping his fingers on the paneling behind him as Zeus entered. He
scanned the room but found nothing out of place. Everyone in the
house knew he didn’t like anyone in there when he wasn’t.
“Come on in,” he said after one last sweep with his eyes. He
spotted the half empty cup of tea and knew Minsheng had been in
here. There was another who didn’t like to obey. He would have a talk
with him about being in his office.
“I must say, you look rather hot in those basketball shorts.” Jasper
batted his eyes. Zeus was speechless. After the way things had gone,
his mate still wanted sex? He would have thought the redhead’s pride