Chapter Eight
JESSE
His head was spinning at the idea those feelings inside him were his wolf. The squirrely feelings that made no sense because they didn’t always line up with what he was thinking.
He should probably come up with a better word than squirrely. A wolf probably wouldn’t appreciate being compared to a tree rat.
But Urban had said his wolf nature was somehow separate.
Jesse didn’t like that. He was his wolf, and his wolf was him.
Still… the part Urban said was his wolf had been more insistent than usual since they met.
That pull toward Urban—wanting to touch, wanting to be close.
Or maybe that had been Jesse’s own brain.
God only knew how he’d resisted all that skin.
And then Urban had said he’d show Jesse scent markings before he left, such a casual confirmation that Jesse was allowed to leave. He wondered if he’d gotten all this wrong. Maybe he hadn’t needed to be on high alert from the start.
But something about Urban still disturbed him. And not just his dick, although that had been pretty disturbed by the sight of Urban in sleep pants.
He realized he was zoning out, staring at Urban’s bare chest across the table. With an effort, he dragged his gaze back up. Urban’s breathing had gone shallow, his gaze fixed on Jesse’s lips.
But before Jesse could say anything, Urban pulled his focus away and locked it down. The way he held himself—all that command, that self-control—sent a shiver down Jesse’s spine.
A very good shiver. And his dick agreed.
“Do you have any questions?” Urban asked.
Jesse took a moment to interpret that the right way. Shifter questions, not “Can I see you naked” questions.
And yeah, he did have one huge question. He’d looked it up online, but everyone and their mutt had a different theory, and he had no idea what to believe.
“Where’d shifters come from?”
Urban snorted what sounded like a laugh. “Couldn’t ask anything easy, could you? No one knows.”
Jesse was disappointed. He’d begun to believe Urban had an answer for everything. Sure as hell acted like he did. But he hadn’t finished.
“We’re in records going back to Ancient Rome, but no one knows how or why the first shifters came to be.
Some say a wolf impregnated a woman, but the only people who believe that are those who hate us.
Others believe it was some sort of mystical union to do with the moon and magic, because legend says the first shifters, the Argents, glowed silver under the moon. ”
“Wait, what?” Jesse leaned forward in disbelief. Mates were bad enough, but wolves that shone? “You tellin’ me they lit up like fucking nightlights?”
Urban’s lips twitched.
Jesse sat back with a snort. “Sounds like a perfect merch tie-in. Bet the Romans made a killing, little glow-in-the-dark wolves for kids.”
“When you put it like that, you may have a point,” Urban said.
“But there’s a couple of sources reliable enough to make me wonder.
A lot of shifters still believe it. They say the Argents ruled us once—silver wolves, the rarest of all, born to lead.
Some call them a royal line, though God knows what that meant in practice. ”
“You said they died out? Mighty convenient, just when cameras came along.”
“They were wiped out long before that. Hunted for their coats, or just for being different. But to get back to your question where we came from, the way I figure it, we’re simply a product of evolution, only it took a left turn somewhere, away from the rest of humanity.”
“So you reckon we’re human, then? Despite what some people say.”
Urban’s eyes on him carried a weight, suddenly, and Jesse remembered he was talking to an alpha.
“Damn right, we’re human. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.
If you want to look up anything more about shifters, stick to shifter-hosted sites.
Non-shifters don’t understand us at all, and they know nothing about our history and our culture.
They just make up whatever serves their agenda. ”
He pushed his chair back. “I’ll take you out later, teach you about scent markings, but first, I want to check in with Karl. Better if you stay in the house for now.”
Better for who? Jesse should probably argue, but fuck, he was tired.
And yet, exhaustion wasn’t the only thing on his mind.
Even now, with his eyelids drooping, he couldn’t tear his focus away from Urban—the lines of his chest, the sharp edge of his jaw.
The skin that practically dared Jesse to touch it.
His pulse kicked up, and not because he was afraid.
He stretched his arms over his head, rolling his shoulders to get rid of his building tension. “Reckon I’ll go back to bed.”
Urban’s reaction was fast, barely there, but Jesse caught it—the flicker in his eyes, the brief parting of his lips. Like the word bed had conjured something vivid in his head. Like Jesse wasn’t the only one still feeling this between them.
“By the way, Jesse,” he said, as Jesse got to his feet. “What you said earlier about alphas—you’re not wrong about some of them, but an alpha’s true purpose is to protect and lead their pack. Control’s essential for that, but it’s not control for the sake of it, or for anything bad.”
Yeah, right. Jesse narrowed his eyes as he looked at Urban. Like he was going to believe that. Except, Urban looked… Unless Jesse was losing it, Urban looked haunted.
“Okay,” Jesse said with a shrug, wanting to wipe that look from Urban’s face. “Told you I don’t know about shifters.” Then he huffed. “Well, I didn’t know. Reckon you put that right.”
It was the closest he could get to saying thanks.
No way was he going to put himself in Urban’s debt, but he was kind of grateful.
There was a lot for him to think about, and he still thought most of it was bull, but for the first time, he felt as if he were part of a larger picture.
Like he wasn’t some ghost, slipping through the world alone and unseen.
As he locked the bedroom door behind him and dropped his duffel on the carpet, he thought again about Urban’s insistence that shifters needed a pack. He wondered what that would feel like. But no way did he want to be under some alpha’s control. Not even if that alpha was Matt Urban.
Though he wouldn’t mind experiencing just a little bit of that control in bed. He stripped and climbed beneath the covers, intending to think about all the ways it would be if Urban was there with him right now, all commanding and powerful, taking him apart.
But as sleep pulled him under, the fantasy shifted. It wasn’t rough or urgent any longer. It was warm. Safe.
Something he’d never known.
MATT
With Jesse safely shut away in the spare bedroom once more, Matt headed outside. He wasted no time shifting. And then he put his head down, and he ran.
He needed to run the perimeter. Needed to protect his pack, keep his senses sharp, stay busy.
That worked for about five minutes. Then the dam burst. And everything he’d been holding back flooded through—Jesse was his mate.
The thought threatened to steal the air from his lungs even as he ran.
When he’d lost everything years ago, that had included any hope of ever meeting his mate.
Partly because he’d left all other shifters behind, except for Bryce, but also because he didn’t deserve to.
It hadn’t been much of a loss, not compared to what others had lost because of him.
Not once, in all the sleepless nights he’d spent drowning in guilt, had he wondered how his mate’s life might be without him.
Well, now he knew. And it didn’t change a thing.
Matt would do everything he could to keep the truth from Jesse. From everyone. He knew the rest of the pack wouldn’t understand why he couldn’t be with his mate. They hadn’t learned the same hard lessons he had. For an instant he tasted blood, guilt and shame, as if ten years hadn’t passed.
He couldn’t have Jesse. The last time Matt let people get that close to him, they ended up dead. That weight never left him. It was why he’d fought so hard against having a pack.
Jesse challenged every instinct Matt possessed. He was unpredictable, untamable. Worse, he put Matt off-balance and made his control slip. Made him reckless. And that was one thing he could never be again.
So what if he wanted to tumble Jesse into the nearest bed, to taste him, to drink in his scent, to claim him?
It meant nothing that in his dreams, running beside Jesse had made him happy, had made him feel free.
Or that Jesse was starting to make him want to laugh as much as swear in frustration.
That damn wolf was almost as stubborn as Matt.
None of it mattered. Because Matt couldn’t have a mate. Wouldn’t.
He told himself that again, just to be sure.
It didn’t make the want go away.
He forced himself forward, ignoring the deep, unsettled whines of his wolf and the pull dragging him back toward the house. Toward Jesse.
Jesse would be gone in a few hours, and everything would be back to how it had been. Matt would make sure of it.
However wrong it felt.