Bitten By Mistake (13 page)

Jared breathed out a huge sigh of relief, not caring if Seb heard it. “I have.”

“Just be careful, and for fuck’s sake, keep in touch.”

“Thanks. And I will, I promise.” Jared was about to end the call when Seb said, “Oh, what’s his full name and address? You know, just in case I need to report you missing to the police.”

“Seb….”

“I’m serious, J. If he’s such a wonderful guy, then what’s the problem?”

The problem is I don’t know his last name. Fuck. And he’d probably hit the roof if I told you.

But Seb was unlikely to let it go. And maybe it wasn’t such a bad idea, after all. What if something did happen to him? Something Nathan couldn’t foresee.

Jared scanned the bedroom, looking for a letter or something with Nathan’s full name on it. A white envelope on the bedside table caught his eye, and Jared reached over for it, snatching it up. “His name’s Nathan Kohl.” Jared rattled off the address, hoping it wouldn’t come back to bite him in the arse, so to speak.

“Okay. I’ll talk to you soon. Take care, J.”

“I will.”

Jared hung up and collapsed back on the bed with a groan.

That could have gone a lot better.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Gareth’s door was ajar when Nathan reached it. He walked straight in and followed his scent into the living room. “Hey.”

“Nathan. Have a seat.” He gestured to the chair, and Nathan sat as instructed. “We need to make this quick. I’ve got a meeting with Cam in forty minutes.”

“Another one?” Nathan was surprised. Not that the betas didn’t keep in frequent contact with their alpha, but two meetings in two days was unusual.

Gareth sighed. “The Primrose Hill pack are reportedly having the same trouble as you had the other night.”

Interesting. They must have already contacted Cam about it. Nathan wondered if they’d told Cam about him and Jared too. Thank God he’d called to give Gareth advance warning. “It’s unlike them to be forthcoming with information.”

Gareth grinned. “Yes, it is, but they had something else they wanted to inform our alpha about.”

Oh, Nathan could just imagine. “Did it have to do with me?”

“Yep. Good job you called. You know how Cam hates to be caught off guard.”

Yeah, Nathan did know. His dad and Cameron Harley had been good friends, and Nathan had a better relationship with their alpha than the rest of the general pack, but that didn’t mean he wanted to piss him off. And making him have to hear news about his own pack from another alpha was a good way to do just that. “What did he tell them?”

Gareth’s grin got wider. “They wanted to know why you were there, so close to their territory. Apparently it’s no secret that you don’t date. They were curious as to why you were hanging around if it was just a one-night stand.”

“They think I picked up Jared so I could spy on them? Really?”

“More that you took advantage of the situation.”

Nathan scoffed. “That’s ridiculous.”

“Agreed, but you know what a conceited arsehole their alpha can be.” Gareth checked his watch; clearly their time was nearly up. “Anyway, to cut a long story short, Cam thought it best to keep them sweet for now, so he told Newell that you and Jared are serious and they should consider it a courtesy notice that you’ll be in that area frequently for the foreseeable future. So you’d better not make him a liar.”

Nathan swallowed. Pretend boyfriends it was then. “Of course not.”

“Good.” Gareth stood, so Nathan copied him. “We’re done for now. Keep your eyes open for any signs of trouble tomorrow. We still don’t know who was behind Friday’s attack and I don’t want a repeat occurrence.”

Nathan nodded and let himself out. Now he had to break the news to Jared. Keeping up the appearance of a relationship wouldn’t just mean staying a couple of nights at Jared’s place. If the Primrose Hill alpha was suspicious—and Steven Newell was wary to the point of paranoia sometimes—then he’d be keeping a fairly close eye on Jared’s flat. Scents clung to the body for a while, even after showering. If they ran into any pack members while they were there, which Nathan fully expected to do, then they needed to smell like they were a couple. That meant a lot of skin-on-skin contact as well as smelling like they were fucking.

I might as well kill myself now.

Nathan glanced at Jared, wondering how to broach the subject of their fake relationship that needed to be maybe not so fake after all.

Jared eyed him suspiciously from the corner of the sofa. “What’s wrong? You’ve been acting weird… well, weirder than usual since you got back.”

Jared had seemed a bit twitchy too, now that Nathan thought about it. Jared’s fingers tapped out an annoying rhythm on the edge of the sofa, and Nathan was seconds away from leaning over and smacking them. “So have you.” He narrowed his eyes, cataloguing the tells as Jared’s body gave him away. He didn’t need the ability to hear Jared’s heart to know that he was nervous and most likely hiding something. Apart from the incessant finger tapping, his body temperature was higher than normal and a faint scent of perspiration filled the air between them. What did he have to be nervous about?

Jared sighed. “I made some calls while you were upstairs.”

Nathan tensed. That sounded ominous. He turned up the volume on the TV just in case. “And?”

“Nothing much. I emailed work—I’d like your Wi-Fi password while I remember, assuming you have it?” Jared eyed him expectantly and Nathan nodded, impatient to hear the rest of it. “I told my boss I’d be working from home for the next ten days and then taking two weeks’ holiday.”

Okay, so far so good.

“And then I called my mother and Seb.”

From the way he emphasised Seb, Nathan guessed he was the cause of Jared’s anxiety. “Who’s Seb?”

“He’s my best friend.” Jared smiled when he said his name again, as though unable to help himself, and Nathan suspected they were more than friends.

An unwelcome prickle of jealousy worked its way down his spine. “Are the two of you involved?” Nathan thought he’d kept a neutral tone, but with the way Jared’s eyes narrowed and his mouth curved up at the edges, maybe not. He went from looking nervous to smug in the blink of an eye.

“We used to be.” Jared leaned forward to rest his hands on his knees. “Seb’s hot as fuck and great in bed. That’s how we met—I picked him up in a club. I thought he was way out of my league, but I had to have a go.” With a grin, Jared shrugged one shoulder as if to say “you know how it is.”

Nathan scowled. “He sounds perfect.”

The obvious sarcasm in his tone made him wince and Jared grinned from ear to ear.

“Oh, he’s far from perfect. But he’s a good man.”

“Why aren’t you together now, then?” For fuck’s sake, he didn’t give a shit who Jared did or didn’t sleep with. Yet the thought of this Seb and Jared together made his skin crawl and itch with the urge to let his wolf out just a little.

I’ll show them who the better man is.

That thought snapped Nathan back to reality with a jolt. Jesus Christ, he need to rein it in before he did something stupid, like shift fully and scare Jared to death. They needed to act like boyfriends who couldn’t keep their hands off each other, and that might prove a little difficult if Jared was frightened to be around him.

The past couple of days had been stressful, to say the least, and Nathan was on edge. That was all it was.

Jared shrugged again and Nathan curled his lip in irritation. “Stop doing that, just answer the question.”

“Fine, calm down.” Jared frowned. “We decided we were better off as friends, that’s all. Why? Are you jealous?”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“Mm-hmm. You chatted me up in that club, not the other way around. Does it bother you that I wanted Seb but not you?”

Jared’s smile had a cold edge to it, and Nathan got the feeling the conversation had taken a turn he wasn’t aware of. How had things suddenly got away from him? He ignored the fact that Jared was dangerously close to the truth with that question. “As I keep telling you, you can lie with words, but not with your body.”

“What?” Jared glared at him, his smile faltering.

“Have you forgotten what I am?”

“No. Of course not.”

Nathan inhaled deeply, then flashed a grin at Jared that was all teeth. “I am
exactly
what you want. You can’t hide that from me. Or any other shifter, which is fortunate for us.”

“Fuck off. Do you realise what an invasion of privacy that is?” Jared slumped back against the sofa cushions, arms crossed over his chest.

The truce they’d come up with in the van seemed to be slipping away with every word out of Nathan’s mouth. He needed to fix things before it was too late. Closing his eyes, he breathed in and out, and tried to calm down enough to think before he spoke.

“There you go again, gauging my mood and my feelings when I don’t fucking want you to.”

“I was just breathing, for fuck’s sake!” Nathan looked at Jared—closed off and hunched in on himself. “Look, I’m sorry. I can’t help my senses any more than you can. Your body telegraphs your emotions, and I can’t block it out.”

“You wouldn’t if you could.”

“Probably not,” he conceded. That would be like wearing a blindfold or earplugs. Why would he?

Jared rolled his eyes, but Nathan ignored him. Something had already been bothering Jared when Nathan got back from talking with Gareth, and he didn’t think it was solely to do with his enhanced senses. “Is there something you’re not telling me?”

“There’s plenty of things I’m not telling you.” Jared bit his lip, and it took the edge off his bravado. Before Nathan could probe further, Jared ran a hand through his hair and sighed. “Seb gave me a hard time, that’s all. Stuff happened, and I had to tell him I was staying with you for a couple of days. He knows you’re a shifter, and….”

“
And
?” Nathan wasn’t sure he wanted to know.

“And considering my past, he thought I was either crazy or you were holding me against my will. He was worried.”

Another mention of Jared’s past. The little snippets of information alluded to something that had happened to him—something bad enough to kindle his hatred for all shifters. Nathan figured his best guess was probably near enough to the truth, but each time Jared referred to it, it whet Nathan’s appetite and left him dying to know what had happened. Not that he was going to ask. If Jared wanted Nathan to know, he’d tell him.

And despite hating Seb just
because
, he could appreciate him being worried for a friend. And Seb was essentially right—Nathan was holding Jared against his will. Or he had been to start with. Now it was more that he’d convinced Jared it was safer this way. But it would still sound sketchy if they had to explain it to anyone. “Look. I understand—”

“I told him your name and where you live,” Jared blurted.

“What?” It came out too loud, the snap of his teeth rang out in the quiet of the room.

Jared shrank back farther into the cushions, tensed as though expecting a blow.

Shit.

Nathan didn’t know what to deal with first. Instinct told him to reach out and comfort because the acrid smell of fear surrounded Jared and Nathan wanted it gone. Thankfully his brain kicked in and relaxed his body, pushing himself back against the sofa and away from Jared. The cocky attitude Jared wore like a suit of armour had vanished, leaving him exposed and vulnerable.

Nathan was out of his depth. Shifters rarely felt at such a disadvantage, and he didn’t know what it was like to be scared and unable to defend himself.

Jared had been right about him; he was arrogant and selfish, and he hadn’t given much thought to how Jared felt in all of this. Yes, Nathan knew he was pissed off and angry, but Jared was in a building full of shifters who could tear him apart without breaking a sweat. He was living with one. Nathan had told him he wouldn’t hurt him, wouldn’t do anything to him against his will, but was that really true?

What if Jared refused to go along with pretending to be boyfriends, or worse, only did it because he was scared.

Bile rose in the back of Nathan’s throat. He’d never forced anyone to be with him, and never wanted to. Whatever had happened to Jared, whoever had hurt him, Nathan refused to make Jared relive it.

It was all Nathan’s fault. He’d broken the law, ruined a man’s life, and run away like a coward. How incredibly selfish to make Jared pay for Nathan’s error in judgement. “I’ll take you to the police station. Now, if you want, or first thing in the morning.” Nathan spoke quietly. The TV should mask their voices, but no sense risking it. He didn't want to alert the whole building yet.

Stunned silence met that announcement. Jared just sat and stared at him. Then “What?”

Nathan dropped his head into his hands as his heart pounded. “I’ll take you to the police, and you can tell them what I did. I’ll hand myself in and take whatever punishment you see fit.”

“But… but you said your pack would kill me, that I’d be a wanted man.”

“I could be wrong about everything. All that was speculation on my part. It’s not like I can ask them what they’d do. But I’ve heard stories. Look, the police can protect you, Jared. You might have to leave London, but you’ll be free then. I doubt the pack will try and find you.”

Jared still stared open-mouthed. “Well, that’s comforting.” The scent of fear no longer clung to him, and he sat forward. “I don’t know what the hell just went through your head, but what the fuck? You’ve spent the last two days convincing me that staying with you is the safest course of action, and yet all of a sudden you want to drop me off at the nearest police station. Was it all a big fucking lie?”

Nathan stood. Blood coursed through his veins as the reality of his offer set in. “No! Of course not,” he hissed. “But things have changed, and you don’t understand—”

“Explain it to me, then! Because like I told you earlier, I have no wish to be on anyone’s shit list, let alone a whole pack of pissed-off shifters.” Jared stood too, all defiance and righteous anger. “And what if I become one? What happens to me then? This sudden change of heart makes no fucking sense, so just tell me what the hell has happened.”