Page 93 of Chasing The Alpha's Son
Overhead the stars are twinkling like they’re on the front of a Christmas card, and the moon has begun to wane ever so slightly, its rosy tint almost entirely gone. I can’t look at her for too long without feeling a small bubbling panic rise at the back of my throat, so instead I focus on the sausage.
“In the morning, we’ll figure out a way to get back up the mountain,” Jasper says.
Omar didn’t have any vegetarian sausages, so Jasper opted for a cheese sandwich, which he ate in about three seconds.
“Where will you sleep?” I ask, assuming I’ll be heading back to my cot after dinner.
“That guy said he has a tent and a heater with an extension cord.” Jasper doesn’t sound too happy about this arrangement, but he’s not complaining.
“His name is Omar,” I say.
“Is it?”
The fire pops and I think my sausage is finally ready. I pull it out of the flames and take a bite. It’s hot and juicy, and with each bite more strength rushes back to me.
“Did they explain what they think happened?” I ask.
“No.” The fire is dancing in Jasper’s eyes, and I wish I could know what he’s thinking. Then I remember something.
“Jasper, back in the car before we… Before we stopped, I had a dream or a vision or something. I don’t know what it was.”
“And?”
“And I saw…your mother.”
Jasper flinches. It’s the tiniest movement, almost imperceptible, but I see it.
“You were there with her, weren’t you? The day she died.”
Jasper’s lips press together, his hands clench and shake, and his eyes gloss over.
“Yes.” He breathes. “I was there with her that day. They left me out of the stories in the papers—my dad made sure of it, wanted to save face or something. But I was there.”
Jasper’s shoulders rise and fall.
“I was in the car when those rogues drove her off the road, and I’m the reason…” He pauses, the fire crackles in his eyes, his lip trembles ever so slightly. “She swerved to save me.”
I remember the look of resolution, of determination, in his mother’s eyes as she spun the steering wheel.
“If it weren’t for me,” Jasper continues, “she’d still be here, still be alive.”
I drop my stick and the half-eaten sausage falls into the fire, sending sparks swirling. How can he blame himself? He was just a kid. She was just doing what any mother would: trying to save her child.
“Jasper”—my hand drifts toward his, but every muscle in him tenses and I stop—“I’m so…”
A pair of headlights beam through the misty air, lighting the snow and blinding us momentarily. Agatha pulls to a stop on the snowmobile and hops down, pulling off a frost-covered helmet and sliding a pair of goggles from her eyes. She lifts the seat and pulls out a waterproof backpack, then sidles over to us.
“Feeling better, blood wolf?” she asks.
THE MONSTER AND THE MYTH
“So you really think I’m the…the blood wolf?” I ask hesitantly, fingers fiddling with the wooden pendant hanging from my neck.
Agatha is sitting across from me at her rickety table, her wild hair held back by a tie-dyed headband. One hand cups a mug of tea, each finger adorned with a chunky ring, while her other arm is slung casually over the back of the chair. She lifts her eyes as if to appraise me. I glance toward Jasper, who’s sitting to my right, and then to Omar, who’s fiddling with some piece of machinery over by the cot.
Agatha shrugs and leans forward. “Who can say?”
“But the stories, the blood moon… Something has changed in me, I can feel it.”
