3 Days Later “Thank you,” Jason smiled to the beautiful blonde-haired, blue-eyed she-wolf who placed a mug of coffee in front of him on the penthouse coffee table twenty-five floors up in Harrison Wolfe’s New York hotel. It had been less than a year since their last visit, though things were definitely much more peaceful than the last. “You’re welcome,” Acacia Wolfe returned his smile and turned to her newborn son, who had begun to coo and fuss in his Moses basket at the edge of the room.“I am sure they won’t be too much longer.” “Alphas will be alphas,” Jason responded with a shrug. Though he could hear Layon and Acacia’s husband, Harrison, leader of the New York pack, talking in the library down the hall, he was trying his hardest not to listen to what they were actually saying. If they had wanted him to know what they were talking about, they would have invited him in on the meeting. Jason couldn’t help but wonder whether something might be wrong between him and his first

Standing outside Layon's office inside Silverdale Manor, Jason debated whether to knock for the hundredth time. He had been fighting the urge to approach his best friend for the last few days now. It had been two days since their return from New York and since Layon had received the call from Lara's sister, and still Jason was feeling as though something wasn't right. He had called Lara's phone over and over again whenever he found himself alone, hoping and praying that she would answer, even if it was only to tell him to fuck off. Even if she said she wanted to forget all about what had happened between them and that she never wanted him to contact her again, he could face that. What he couldn’t face was the dreadful thought that something awful had happened to her while he had been away in New York. He wasn't sure he would ever be able to forgive himself if something had happened. Why would it be my fault? he asked himself even as he raised his fist to knock on the door for the

Having just left Tanny’s studio apartment with little more information than he’d had when he left the Silver Moon Bar, Jason was surprised when his phone started to ring in his jeans pocket. For a split second he hoped that it was Lara, calling to tell him that she knew he was asking around Silverdale about her and that she wanted him to stop. Yet the moment he saw Layon’s name flashing across his screen, his heart sank. Offering one final acknowledgment to Tanny who was waving farewell from the apartment window, he clicked the answer button and pressed the phone to his ear. “Hey, Layon, I haven’t managed to get any new information on Lara’s disappearance yet but…” “That’s going to have to wait,” Layon’s voice cut him off abruptly, and he had to bite the urge to growl at his first. The last thing he wanted to do was wait to find her. If it had been up to him, he would have found her days ago and she would be in his arms right now or running through the woods on the Silverdale es

Still in his designated room at the Silverdale Manor, Jason was most surprised when his phone began to ring, and he crossed the room from where he had been getting dressed to pick it up from the bedside table, only to find that it was Harrison calling. With a raised eyebrow, Jason thought, Why would the New York alpha be calling me? Though they had known each other throughout their studies at Silverdale University, he and Jason had never seen eye to eye, and it had only ever been Layon's decision for them all to hang out together. Sure, he visited with Layon from time to time and the packs had grown closer since they helped Harrison take back what was rightfully his, but still Jason couldn’t understand why the werewolf would be calling him. "Only one way to find out," he grumbled aloud before pressing the answer button and pressing his phone to his ear. "Hey, Harrison, what's up?" "I tried to call Layon, but he wasn't picking up,"Harrison's voice sounded fairly urgent on the pho

Rushing directly to Layon's office at the manor, Jason found it empty and followed his best friend's scent from the door of the study through the manor and out into the gardens where he found Layon and Angel walking up the lawn from the copse of trees beyond. A wave of jealousy hit Jason the moment he thought of the fact that the two of them had likely been sharing a shift, transforming into wolf form and frolicking through the trees with little care for anything else. He would have given anything to do that with Lara. We've come a long way from hating each other’s guts, he realized, his insides twisting as he half wished he could go back to a time before he had approached Lara at the Silver Moon Bar, before he had helplessly fallen for her, before his wolf finally realized that she was his… Growling to himself to stop getting distracted, he began to race down the lawn toward Layon and his mate, determined to finally make them listen. "Whoa, Jason! You smell like a trash heap!" An