Chapter Twenty-one
JASON
Jason hadn’t wanted the evening to end. Most of his fears hadn’t come true, and those that had, they’d somehow survived.
He couldn’t stop thinking about how well Riley had fit in, and how the pack seemed to like him, and how everything was coming together as if it were fated to be perfect.
He just knew Matt would invite Riley back again, and maybe, another time, Riley wouldn’t have to leave.
He wandered back around to the yard, ready to help clean up. The only people left were Bryce and Matt, sitting at the table beneath the tree and talking in low voices.
Bryce was the first to see him, and called him over. “Want another beer?” he asked, gesturing at the cooler which still held a couple of bottles.
Jason shook his head. He felt drunk enough on Riley’s kisses. Catching movement out of the corner of his eye, he turned to see Jesse and Tristan playfully chasing one another. Even in the diffused moonlight, Jesse’s coat shone silver.
“Do you think all shifters started off as Argents and then somehow the gene pool got diluted?” Jason asked, aiming his question somewhere between Matt and Bryce.
“You know, if generations of shifter historians haven’t worked that one out, it’s probably not going to happen with two drunk cowboys sitting in their backyard on a summer evening,” Bryce said, and took a swig from his bottle.
“That sort of thing keep you up at night? Because I’d have thought with that hot blond in your bed, you’d have better things to focus on. ”
Bryce was so predictable, yet it was also kind of nice having what was between him and Riley talked about. Somehow, it reinforced that they were really together.
Bryce put his bottle down, and when he met Jason’s eyes, the teasing glint had vanished. “So when were you going to tell us you’d met your mate?”
Jason rolled his eyes and waited for the punchline, looking to Matt when it didn’t come. Matt looked expressionlessly back at him. And something in that lack of expression felt serious enough for Jason not to just ignore Bryce’s question the way he’d been going to.
“What are you talking about?” he asked.
“Riley. Don’t tell me you don’t know,” Bryce said, an eyebrow raised quizzically.
“He’s not a shifter,” Jason spelled out. “Just how much of that beer have you had?”
“So you fall into the one point four percent of shifters whose mate isn’t a shifter,” Matt said calmly.
Jason blinked, but Matt was simply looking at him, as if what he’d just said was perfectly normal.
“I’m sorry, what?” Jason said faintly. “You—we—Riley’s my mate?”
Bryce passed him an open bottle of beer and Jason took a swift swig. It did nothing to calm the fluttering in his stomach. “But how—no, you must have got it wrong. What makes you think that?”
“When he thought I was making a move on you, that was pure wolf looking at me through his eyes. Which, by the way, is a very interesting insight from the point of view of genetics and evolution. It was what I’d see from any shifter who thought I was making a move on their mate.
And believe me, Jason, I’ve seen that look a lot. ”
“Ain’t that the truth,” Matt agreed. “You okay with this, Jason?”
Jason’s head was reeling, and he sank down on the nearest chair because otherwise his knees would have given out.
“I have no idea,” he admitted, his voice soft.
He’d spent so long wanting to belong somewhere, fitting himself around everyone else, making himself useful, quiet, careful.
And just after he’d got out of his own way—finally understood his place in the pack—Matt and Bryce were telling him he belonged to someone, forever.
Belonged to Riley. He could have both these things, either of which were more than he’d ever dared hope for. It felt too good to be possibly true.
But how could it even work, having someone as a mate who wasn’t a shifter?
He looked down at the damp wrinkled label on the bottle he held between his hands and worked his thumbnail under one of the corners, easing the wet paper away from the glass because it was easier to concentrate on that than it was to think.
“I don’t know.” He stumbled over the words. “Are you sure?” He didn’t want to start to believe if it wasn’t true. “How can you be sure?”
“How do you feel about him?” Matt asked.
“I love him.” It was easy to say because it was the truth, even though they’d only just gotten to know one another. “But that doesn’t mean we’re mates.”
“It doesn’t,” Matt said, his voice tight. “But tell me, Jason—when you’re not with him, is it just that you miss him? Or is there something inside you that’s restless in his absence, that tugs you toward him?”
As Matt spoke, he looked out to where his own mate was currently rolling in the grass with Tristan, ferocious mock snarls escaping them. Jason was almost sure Matt was unaware he’d done so.
“And then there’s the way sex is between mates,” Bryce said.
“Bryce.” Matt cut across him.
“What? I’m just saying.”
“Enough,” Matt said firmly, and Bryce subsided with a wink at Jason.
Jason thought again about everything with Riley, about how it had felt the first time they’d touched.
He’d assumed the surge of electricity that had left him shaking was what everyone felt when they touched someone they were attracted to.
He’d had nothing to compare it to, no way of knowing it was anything out of the ordinary.
And there was the way he wanted nothing more than to follow Riley to town right now and spend the night with him, even though this was his home, and the pack was his family. Something inside him was urging him toward Elk Ridge. To Riley.
“I guess we are,” he said softly. It started to hit him and he could hardly breathe for delight. Riley would stay. This was forever.
“Oh my God,” he said, staring at Matt. “We’re mates.”
Out of nowhere, his eyes stung. He’d thought he’d never find his mate, but he was here, in Elk Ridge, and he wanted Jason just as much as Jason wanted him.
“Congratulations,” Matt said, raising his bottle in a half salute.
As Matt got up from the table and walked away, Jason wondered why he didn’t look happier about it.
RILEY
Coldness had taken hold deep inside Riley by the time he got back to the motel. He glared at the moon as he got out of his car, then slammed the door of his room against the accusation in the night sky.
Turning on the lights—and why the fuck did every motel in every town in the world have the same low lighting that made it impossible to see?—he threw himself down in the god-awful green vinyl armchair.
If only he’d never met Jason, he could do his job and get out without a second thought. Except for the occasional twinge when he remembered Mr. Garrity. And Tim, who’d been so welcoming. Sam, too.
Jason, though. Walking away from Jason felt like inflicting a mortal wound. Which made no sense, because they’d only just met, for God’s sake. But it didn’t feel that way.
Even if Riley stayed, if he turned his back on his life and his last chance of reconciliation with his father…
Even if he left everything to be with Jason, it could never work.
He’d heard the soft wistfulness in Jason’s voice as he’d talked about mates, and having that one person who was made to be with him.
The kind of bond shifters formed with their mate was a once-in-a-lifetime, bone-deep connection.
If Riley stayed, one day Jason’s shifter mate would come along. And when that happened, Riley would be left alone, like always. Until then, he’d always be waiting for the other shoe to drop. And Jason would always be waiting for someone else.
Riley didn’t want to leave, but there was no future for him here.
As if on cue, the Imperial March blasted from his phone.
“What did you find out?” Amy asked before he’d even finished saying hello.
“I’ve met all except one of them, and narrowed it down to three possibilities.
” Christian had been a dick, but at least shifting like that meant he’d ruled himself out of the running as the Argent, which left Dave, Karl, and Jesse as potential candidates.
Bryce and Tristan had been around too long—Urban would have used them before now if it was either of them.
“Not bad work, Clark,” she said, surprise in her voice. “What’s your next move?”
“I’m angling to get myself invited back tomorrow,” he said, making it up as he went along, because his vague plan for tomorrow of lurking in the bushes with a pair of binoculars on the off-chance the night wasn’t cloudy and the Argent was outside would not impress her.
“You’re angling to?”
Oh, shit. That tone took unimpressed to a whole new level. “I’ve made friends with one of them,” he said quickly, “and the alpha’s pretty welcoming now that he knows me. He’s watchful, though—I can’t push too hard.”
“Watchful as if he’s protecting a secret?”
“Maybe.” It was possible she was right, but Riley had the distinct impression that Matt Urban was naturally just that alert.
“That’s not the answer I want,” she snapped. “I don’t care how watchful that alpha is. If you push hard enough, he’ll give himself away. I want you back among the pack and with results for me by this time tomorrow. Clear?”
His mouth was dry. There was no way he could have an answer for her that quickly, not unless all the bad luck he’d had in his life suddenly decided to make up for itself in one go.
“Clark?”
“I hear you,” he said.
“You know what happens if you don’t deliver this time.” She cut the call without waiting for an answer.
He was shaking as he put the phone down on the desk. Fuck. She was asking the impossible, but he couldn’t lose this job and fail all over again. He just couldn’t.
Maybe he could simply ask Jason if there was an Argent. He didn’t think Jason knew how to lie, so he’d definitely get an answer. Even if Riley didn’t know which of them it was, finding out for certain whether there was an Argent had to buy him time from Amy.
But his stomach turned at the thought of using Jason like that. He couldn’t. Not least because Riley intended to leave town before his story broke. That way, he’d never have to see the look on Jason’s face when he realized what Riley was.
How couldn’t Amy see that he just needed a little longer? This story was so huge, it made sense to give him the time he needed. After all, if he wasn’t working on this, he’d just be writing lifestyle filler.
As he thought contemptuously about fluff articles, a solution for his dilemma presented itself.
Scrabbling eagerly for his laptop, he turned it on.
He couldn’t write his real story yet, but what he did have on the Elk Ridge pack was enough information to write a gossipy, suggestive article of the sort The Daily Sentinel’s readership loved, hinting at the possibility of an Argent but leaving the readers to fill in the gaps.
If he couldn’t get Amy’s answer for her by the deadline, this would persuade her to give him a little more time.
An hour later, when he’d finished editing his article, he looked once more at his chart with the names of each pack member, with columns for yes, no and maybe as to who was the Argent, and noticed that Jason’s name wasn’t on it.
It didn’t matter. It couldn’t be him. Jason wasn’t a headline. Jason just… was.
He saved the article for what felt like the fiftieth time, because he was a little obsessive when it came to stuff like that, toed off his shoes, stripped off his jeans, and crawled into bed. Despite the hollowness inside him, he finally fell asleep.