Page 239 of The Alpha's Second Chance Mate

“Wow,” Cole said with a sigh. “You’re right. It is about over. Crazy how fast it went by.”

Ashton frowned bitterly. “I hate that I spent most of it with that crazy creep. It would have been nice to relax and have fun all summer.”

Thinking about Kyle was enough to make my skin crawl. The guy most certainly had been a creep.

Langston’s father, Archer, had used some of his pull to cover the murder of Kyle and his men. He’d said they’d all perished in an accidental fire caused by a lightning strike. The thing I’d been most worried about was the strange scientist. Neither Ashton nor I had seen him in our time in the mansion. Archer had handled that as well. He’d come to us the next morning with more information on the guy.

Sitting in the living room along with Langston and Zayde, Archer had explained who the man was.

“His name is Dr. Clauss Schueffler. He worked for the government for many years. He was a leading researcher inshifter and human biology as well as genetics. He was fired a few years ago after an ethics inquiry into his work.”

“Not surprising,” Cole grumbled. “I doubt this guy has anything in the way of morals.”

Archer nodded grimly. “He was caught using humans on death row as guinea pigs. We believe it was his first attempt at creating this forced shifter drug. We also located a journal in his personal office that gave a bit more insight. He is obsessed with shifters. From what we read, his true motivation was trying to become one himself. The day he was terminated, he vanished, along with his research notes. We think he managed to get twisted up in Kyle’s little mafia operation and used his financing to continue his experiments.”

“He’s still out there?” I asked, icy fear crawling up the insides of my ribcage.

Archer grinned. “Nope. He’s been apprehended. Our agents caught him at the Atlanta airport. He’d purchased a one-way ticket to Morocco. We have no extradition with them, so if he’d boarded that plane, he’d have vanished into the wind. Thankfully, as smart as he is with genetics, he’s equally dumb when it comes to being a criminal. He tried to hide the purchase by using one of Kyle’s credit cards. The ticket was flagged, and when his boarding pass was scanned, my team took him in. He won’t be any trouble for anyone anymore.”

“Thank God.” I sighed.

“Uh, what about the girl?” Ashton asked. “Sydney?”

The strange look on my son’s face made me uncomfortable.

“No sign of her,” Archer said. “We’re still looking, but she’s gone underground. We’ll update you if we find her.”

Archer and the others left soon after, and I gave Ashton a hard look. “What was that about?”

“What waswhatabout?” Ashton said, but his eyes were wide with embarrassment.

My son had the hots for that girl. A girl who was five years older than him.

“No way, mister. Not on my watch,” I said. “I’m glad she saved us, but she is far too old for a kid your age.”

Ashton’s cheeks and neck went red. “I didn’t… well, that’s not exactly what I meant. I was worried about her, and?—”

“That’ll do,” Cole said, breaking in. “Stop giving the kid hell, babe.”

We’d let it drop, but even now, a week later, it still hung at the back of my mind. My baby wasn’t really a baby anymore. Soon, he would have a real girlfriend. In a few years, he’d leave for college. Time was speeding up, and I didn’t like it.

I thought about that now as Ashton and Cole talked over lunch.

“You’ve still got two weeks of summer,” Cole said. “You should make the best of it. Brayden and the other guys from the pack are probably still hanging around. You could get some ball games in with them, hang out a bit.”

“That would be cool,” Ashton said, then took a massive bite from his sandwich.

“Speaking of the pack,” I said. “What time is the meeting today?”

“In an hour,” Cole said, wiping his mouth with a napkin.

Ashton swallowed hard and glanced from Cole to me. “I’m nervous,” he admitted.

Cole put a hand on his shoulder. “No reason to be. These are your people. Hell, you’re basically part of the pack, anyway. This is just a formality.”

Ashton nodded, but he drummed his fingers on the table and tapped his foot anxiously.

By the time we arrived at the meeting an hour later, he was fidgeting and visibly uncomfortable. Apparently, standing in front of hundreds of people was more terrifying to a teenager than being kidnapped.

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