12. Finn
Chapter 12
Jaime knows that you know Jeffrey Dugan. He knows that you’ve kept things from him.
He knows.
He knows.
He didn’t know all of it, though. And all of a sudden, confronted with the very real possibility that Jaime would reject him if he knew the truth—that Bishop was a wolf shifter, and so was Finn, and Finn wasn’t that different from the man who’d hurt him so badly… fuck.
He’d thought that he wanted to be whole for Jaime, to be wholly wanted, but when it felt like everything between them was slipping through his fingers, he couldn’t help but think that he’d take what he could get.
Finn would take Jaime wanting only half of him, if that’s all he could ever have. It could be enough.
If their earlier almost-kiss had unraveled him, now he felt frayed—pulled in both directions by his desire to show Jaime everything, and the fear that howled at him to hide.
Finn followed Jaime into the house and prayed that wherever this conversation led, it wouldn’t end with him being thrown out of the house, forced to keep watch from the trees in his wolf shift. Silas may be just as comfortable, if not more so, as his wolf, but Finn very much appreciated hot showers, a bed, and eating food that had been cooked and seasoned.
He prayed it wouldn’t end in Jaime deciding he didn’t want Finn in his life, after all.
Jaime led them to the living room, mercifully taking the couch. Finn didn’t think he could have this conversation if the furniture stole what was left of his dignity. Taking a seat in the armchair across from him, Finn held his breath, and waited.
“So. You know Jeffrey Dugan,” Jaime said.
Straight to the point. Right. Good, okay. He could do this. He could navigate these questions without scaring Jaime away.
Sure, you can.
“Um, not really. Not in person. I know who he is. I know of him.” Finn winced. He knew that wasn’t the answer Jaime was looking for, nor was it the full truth. But he didn’t know how to explain further without letting the wolf out of the bag, so to speak.
Still, the eyebrow Jaime raised said enough. He owed him more.
“He’s part of an… organization. One we are familiar with. Silas, Sheppard, and I, that is. We aren’t associates of his! We just know what circles he runs in.” He added the last part hastily, trying to sooth the shock blooming across Jaime’s face.
“An organization? Like, what, the mafia? Is Jeffrey Dugan in the mafia, Finn? Wait, are you in the fucking mafia?”
Finn’s eyes nearly bugged out. “No! No! I’m not in the mafia! And no, it’s not like that. It’s not, like, organized crime. More of a… club? Like, they all do business with each other.”
This was not going well. Jaime was starting to panic, and that was the last thing he wanted. Holding his hands out, he pleaded. “Jaime. I had nothing to do with what happened to Vera. Neither did anyone else at the security firm. We only suspected that Jeffrey had something to do with it because of what we know about his… friends. How he does business.”
Jaime slowed his breathing, and croaked, “Explain.”
Finn took a deep breath. “It’s sort of an understood rumor that Jeffrey Dugan married Vera for her father’s business contacts in Monroe. He was a major developer in the area, and when he died, she inherited the firm and all the subsidiary holdings. When she was murdered, all of it went to Jeffrey. So it wasn’t a stretch to believe that he had something to do with her murder.”
All of that was true, Finn wouldn’t lie to Jaime about that. But he was just not ready to tell him that the “club” he referred to was the Salt Creek pack, and Jeffrey Dugan was a high-ranking member who had frequent business dealings with their alpha. With Jeffrey as the sole decision maker of Vera’s substantial holdings, the Salt Creek business interests would greatly benefit, making them just as invested and likely culpable in Vera’s murder as Jeffrey was personally.
But he couldn’t tell Jaime any of that without addressing the giant, furry wolf in the room.
Jaime looked confused and angry. “Do the police know this? Surely, if they can prove that Jeffrey had a financial interest in Vera’s murder they could arrest him, and his goons wouldn’t be threatening me in my driveway. They’d have actual proof, not just the testimony of some guy who happened to overhear a fucking phone conversation!”
Finn tried to soothe him. “They do. The good ones, at least. Detective Sutton and DA Rivera. But Jeffrey’s associates are well connected. They have a presence in Monroe PD. From what we’ve gathered, it’s made prosecuting Vera’s murder difficult, and now that there’s someone to hold accountable, it’s made rooting out Jeffrey’s involvement even more difficult.”
Jaime voiced pitched high in panic. “Are you saying you don’t think that Bishop had anything to do with it? That he wasn’t the one that was in her house that night?”
“No, that’s not what I’m saying. He’s definitely the guy, Jaime. He’s the one who killed her and hurt you, and after he’s convicted he’s going to go to prison for a very long time for it. He can’t hurt you anymore. But public pressure significantly eased once they arrested him. It may be easier for Jeffrey’s contacts in Monroe PD to convince everyone to shelve the case after Bishop’s trial and conviction.”
They sat in silence for a long time while Jaime absorbed everything Finn had said. Somehow, he had found a way to tell Jaime just enough of the truth while hiding the rest. So then why did he feel like someone had carved out his chest with a shovel?
“Why didn’t you tell me any of this before?” Jaime’s voice was hollow, like it had been when he’d told Finn about his brother disappearing from his life.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
Finn scrambled. “I didn’t want to worry you anymore than you already were.” He struggled to find the right words, the right thing to say so he didn’t hurt Jaime and didn’t let on that there was even more to all of this that he wasn’t aware of. That there was more to Finn that he wasn’t aware of.
“I wasn’t sure if you would want to know how deep this goes. You were never meant to be caught up in any of it. You shouldn’t have to worry about this, because it was never meant to affect you. I just thought we could keep you from having to be involved.”
Wrong. Finn knew it was the wrong thing to say the moment it left his mouth, Jaime’s face closing off completely.
He stood from the couch in an unfairly graceful rush. “But it did affect me, Finn. It did. I may not have been their target, but I was there. I saw what he did to her, and I couldn’t help. And then he shoved me in a closet and I thought I was going to die. But I didn’t. I survived, and now every fucking person around me wants to keep me from facing it!” He looked away, and Finn’s chest went cold.
“I don’t need you to protect me from the truth. That’s not how this works. You can’t… manage me, like that. I don’t want that from you. Not you, too.” Jaime’s voice broke, and Finn felt like he’d been kicked in the stomach.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck!
Jaime walked toward the stairs. “I’m going to bed.”
Finn stood up quickly, following him. “Jaime, please. I’m sorry. Please, you haven’t eaten dinner yet. Let’s just… just, sit, and eat. And talk. I won't?—”
Finn’s plea caught in his throat, choking him. What could he say? He wouldn’t lie to Jaime anymore? What a joke, when Finn was keeping so much from him still.
Jaime kept his back to him, voice pitched low. “You cannot tell me that you want to know me more, and then keep things like this from me. You cannot tell me that I’m not a burden to you and then treat me like someone you need to manage. You told me that I’m strong, but it makes me feel so weak when you and my brother don’t give me a chance to decide for myself how to handle all of this.”
He continued up the stairs. “I’m not hungry. Goodnight.”
The click of Jaime’s door closing might as well have been a bomb, shattering Finn’s world.
Finn was a wreck. He’d spent the entire night lying awake, tossing and turning, anxiously watching the monitors for signs of Salt Creek activity around the house, and ears strained for any hint of Jaime’s movements. He’d locked himself in his room all evening and all through the night, and the only movement Finn heard was when he’d shuffle out of bed and pad to the bathroom and back.
Finn stumbled out of bed the next morning later than usual, but Jaime still hadn’t left his room. He whipped up some oatmeal for them both, topping Jaime’s bowl with all of the things he knew he liked. He left a note telling him to warm it back up in the microwave, and that he needed to run a few errands and would be back soon.
What Finn really needed was a good hard run. The four-legged kind.
He needed to sink into that headspace where his emotions were muted, and it was easier to flip the switch on his anxious thoughts—where he could focus on the soft padding of his paws hitting the earth as he loped through the trees. He hadn’t shifted all week, too afraid to go out of earshot of Jaime, and he was feeling it.
He texted Silas and asked him to come and watch the house for a few hours so that Finn could go blow off steam. Seeing as the two Salt Creek shifters had seen Silas yesterday, there wasn’t any sense in him keeping his distance anymore.
Finn stepped outside when he heard Silas’s truck pull up and met him in the driveway. Silas took one look at him and asked, “What happened?”
Finn shook his head. “Nothing. I just… explained that we had an idea about Jeffrey Dugan’s involvement when we took the case, and hadn’t told him about it. He was angry and hurt. Jaime doesn’t like to feel like he’s being kept in the dark about things. I should have told him sooner, but…” he shrugged.
Silas scanned his face. “It bothers you very much that he’s angry at you. That you hurt him.”
Finn locked eyes with Silas and nodded.
“But that’s not what’s driving your wolf to run, Finn. Talk to me.”
It was an odd thing, when Silas gave him orders like that. Finn always thought that being half wolf made him immune to the more innate instincts—the desire to patrol and mark his territory, the urge to square up with other wolves and fight for dominance. But when Silas spoke in that way, when he gave him a direct order, Finn was all but compelled to obey. He didn’t do it often, and almost always looked guilty after, especially when it interfered with the chain of command in their military years.
He didn’t look guilty now, though. He just looked like a concerned friend. So, Finn didn’t fight the order.
“I want to tell him.”
The relief from speaking it aloud was devastating—all of his emotions swelled to the surface, and he couldn’t stop the outpouring if he tried. “He smells right, Si. He smells like mine and he said he wanted this to be more, to try. He’s curious and smart and unintentionally hilarious and beautiful and I want to hear him laugh every day and I want to be the one that makes him feel safe. But then I kept things from him, and he was hurt, and I?—”
He heaved a sob, and Silas put a supporting hand on his shoulder. “What if I tell him and he hates me for lying about it? What if I tell him and he hates me? Looks at me like I’m a monster?”
Silas made a soothing rumble in his chest. “Come on brother, let’s go sit in the truck.” Finn cast a glance back toward the house, but Silas pushed him forward. “He will be fine inside, Finny. I’ve got an ear on the place, no one’s nearby. Up, in the truck.”
Finn shuffled in, and Silas followed on the driver’s side. They both just sat together, deep breaths mirroring each other, and Finn basked in the ease of finally opening up his heart. Silas had always seen and known all of him, and had loved him like a brother even more for it.
“I knew it the moment we pulled into this driveway, you know. Sitting just like this. You shot out of the truck and went straight for him. The way you both looked at each other in that moment…” Silas nodded his head. “I knew.”
“How? I don’t think I even knew then.”
Silas gave him a half smile. “You did, you just hadn’t quite gotten there yet. I remember once when I was young, before we left the pack, I saw it happen. An alpha from a pack in Maine had come to visit for business, and he’d brought his children along with him. One of his sons saw a daughter of one of the higher ranking members, and—” Silas snapped his fingers, “just like that. They were only eighteen or nineteen at the time, but still, they were mated and wed within a week.”
Silas chuckled at the wide-eyed look Finn gave him. “I’m not saying you have to bite and marry the man by tomorrow. I’m saying that for some of us, it’s just like that. We know. And I can’t imagine what it must feel like for you to know your mate, and want your mate, but to not be sure if your mate would want you in return. I know it has you all twisted up, Finn. But…”
Finn looked over at him. “But?”
“I think that fear is clouding your judgment. And you are still doing what he’s very explicitly asked you not to do. You are still hurting him by keeping him in the dark, managing what he knows because you think you know what he wants.”
Finn made to argue. Jaime didn’t want to be kept in the dark about the case—about things that affected him in that way—but Finn being a wolf shifter, Jaime being his mate, that was so much more. “It’s different.”
No, it’s not.
“No, it’s not.” Silas raised his eyebrow at him. “You said he told you that he wanted to know you more. He wanted to try with you. Do you feel the same?”
Finn sighed heavily. “Yes. Obviously.”
“Well, then. Try. If not for him, for your mate, then who? Who will be worth risking your heart for?”
Finn didn’t have an answer to that.
“He’s not your mother, Finn. I know she really did a number on you and your relationship with your wolf, but Jaime has never given me the impression that he would hate something just because he doesn’t understand it.”
Finn groaned. “Even if that thing he doesn’t understand is the same thing that haunts his nightmares? That tore up a woman in front of him?”
Silas startled. “Seriously, Finn, is that what you think? You are not the same as Bishop. Just because he’s a wolf and you are too, that doesn’t make you the same. You are not bad just because of what you are. Would you say the same of me?”
“Of course, I wouldn’t!”
“Well, then.”
Finn digested that. Eventually, he sighed, and tipped his head back against the seat as he looked up at the house. “How would I even go about telling him? He’d call me insane, kick me out, and call the cops before I could even finish explaining.”
Silas hummed. “You could just show him. Rip the bandaid off, so to speak. It’s what I would do.”
Finn shot him an unamused glare, and Silas held his hands up in a surrender. “Fine. You and I are not the same in that approach, I get it. Think on it though, brother. Go for your run. I’ll be here.”
Silas paused, and reached over to clap Finn on the shoulder. “But don’t deny yourself a lifetime of happiness and companionship out of fear. Please.”
Finn nodded, holding back the fresh tears suddenly clouding his vision.
He reached for the door handle, but Silas stopped him. “Wait. Um, Finn.” He cleared his throat, suddenly sounding nervous and looking like he’d rather be anywhere but here.
Confused, Finn asked, “What? Are you ok?”
Silas nodded, not making eye contact with him. “Yeah Finny, I’m fine. I just… I’m not sure if anyone’s told you, or if you would have had a reason to know, or if it even would happen to you since you’re half-shifter, but I should tell you something.”
Now Finn was even more confused. Really, what could he want to talk about with him that would make him so nervous? The kind of porn he liked to watch? “Just say it, please. It cannot be as bad as I’m imagining.”
Silas cleared his throat. “Have you ever had sex with someone in your partially shifted form?”
Maybe it can be as bad as I’m imagining.
“I’m sorry. What?”
Silas gave him a pained look and whined. “Christ Finny, I do not want to be having this conversation with you. But I can’t be a good friend without making sure you’re… prepared.”
Finn raised his eyebrows, voice pitching high. “Are we seriously having a safe sex talk right now? You know we’re both thirty-two years old? And that I have used a condom with every single person I’ve ever been with, despite our super-healing, disease-immune wolfyness?”
Silas pinched the bridge of his nose. “No, Finn, I’m not talking about using a fucking condom. I’m talking about sex while you are partially shifted. It’s… different. Things are… different.”
Finn waved his hands around wildly. “No, Silas. I have not had sex with someone while I’m partially shifted. That’s actually been the furthest thing from my mind mid back-alley hookup!”
Some of the tension left Silas’s face. “It won’t be the furthest thing from your mind when you’re with your mate.”
That stopped Finn short. “Are you saying I’m going to want to shift if Jaime and I ever… become intimate?”
Silas moved his head in a yes and no gesture. “I’m saying your wolf will want to be right there with you when you’re with him. All the time. Have you not noticed it?”
Blinking, he considered. He had noticed, actually. He’d barely been able to keep his shift in check whenever he was in the same room as Jaime, let alone… with him. “Oh, fuck.”
Silas nodded. “So, for everyone’s sake, it might be best to tell him before you… you know.” He made a lewd gesture with his hands, and Finn shot him an exasperated look.
“So that’s what you meant by different? With my mate, I’ll want to be partially shifted?”
Silas nodded, but then cleared his throat again. “Also. Um. This may not happen to you since you’re only half wolf, but…” He looked like someone was forcing him to eat an entire plate of fish heads. Raw. Eyeballs and all.
“Just fucking spit it out Si, so I can get out of this truck and try and forget this conversation ever happened.”
Silas whined again, and said something way too fast for Finn to believe he’d heard him correctly. “Yourdickmightgetaknotwhenyoucome.”
A beat of silence. Two. Three.
“I beg your pardon.”
Silas tipped forward, resting his face against his crossed arms over the steering wheel, words muffled and resigned. “When you have sex in your partial shift, your dick might swell at the base forming a knot. It will get stuck inside… whatever your dick is inside. So maybe have a conversation about that, too. Before, you know. Surprise.”
Surprise.
Surprise, Jaime. You’re my mate and if you’re cool with it I’m going to bite you to tie us together for life and then I’m going to fuck you when I’m all wolfy and hairy, and then my dick will swell and get stuck in your ass?
Of course Finn knew what knotting was, he was a grown man who’d been on the internet before. Sometimes you’d stumble across something you couldn’t unlearn. But he’d thought that was just embellishment. An exaggeration from humans who had been with well-endowed shifters, and the truth got trickled down and mashed up with real wolf mating behavior, and then turned into lore and imagination due to most of the world still being in the dark about the whole ‘paranormal creatures dwell among us’ thing.
Although, he had to adjust himself at the thought of knotting Jaime—locking them together, pressing his cock deep, grinding against his prostate and making him squirm and whimper and beg beneath him, holding him down and making him take it.
Jaime would take it so well. He’d be such a good boy.
Well, it hadn’t taken him long to get on board with that.
Silas groaned. “Please stop thinking about doing it! Fuck, this is already uncomfortable enough without you stinking up the truck.”
“Hey, I’m not the one who brought it up!” He shouldn’t complain, though. If Silas hadn’t told him, this could have been a very bad situation where he truly scared or hurt Jaime.
If he ever decided to talk to Finn again.
“Why has no one told me about this before? Why didn’t you tell me about this before? I knew about the whole ‘biting your mate means forever’ thing, but a knot? My dick will actually change? What the fuck?”
Silas sighed, resigned to his fate and probably wondering what he’d done to earn this particular level of hell. “I didn’t tell you because it never came up. You never asked about shifting during sex, and you never indicated that you had met someone you thought might be your mate. And, shockingly, I wasn’t particularly anxious to have this conversation!” He continued, “Wolves knot their mates to ensure pregnancy. It’s a carryover.”
Finn went pale. “Wait, you’re not saying?—”
Silas guffawed. “Christ, no, Finny. You can’t get him pregnant. But on that note, condoms will be pretty useless if you knot him. Just so you know.”
“Right. Well. Thanks for the information.”
“Sure. Let’s never do it again.”
Finn couldn’t get out of the truck fast enough, this time. “Yep. Never again. I’m going for a run to forget all of this.”
Silas waved as he headed off.
He smells like ours.
Bite him and knot him, make him ours.
Finn bounded along the edge of the lake, through the trees, and made a giant circle in the Alaskan wilderness surrounding Jaime’s cabin. The intense smells and sounds, along with the stretch and strain in his legs that had built up from staying too long in one form brought him some of the relief he was looking for, but that constant drum beat of want remained, always tugging him back to the cabin.
Back to Jaime.
Thump, thump, thump.
Don’t deny yourself a lifetime of happiness and companionship out of fear.
Thump, thump, thump.
Claim him and knot him.
Now that it was there in his mind, he couldn’t shake it. It was like some innate, instinctual part in him had reared its head, sensing his arousal at the thought of knotting Jaime, and now it was a lingering, steady pulse that simmered low in his groin.
Thump, thump, thump.
Go back.
Thump, thump, thump.
His stride elongated, finally settling into four legs and a heart made for endurance.
Go back. Go back.
Thump, thump, thump.
Go back!
Without realizing it, he’d circled back already, nearly tearing through the tree line and into the clearing where Jaime’s cabin stood before he halted, breaths coming in heavy puffs. He shook, but stilled when he sensed something was off.
Smell.
Silas wasn’t in his truck. He could smell him nearby, but it wasn’t his human form. Silas had shifted, which meant something was wrong.
Listen.
He could make out a low, rumbling growl—Silas—and a slightly whinier response. A wolf, but not someone he recognized. He was a split second away from circling around to the back of the house to help, when he saw it.
One of the Salt Creek wolves that had been there yesterday stepped out from the tree line across from where Finn was hiding, still fully shifted. The intruder remained on two legs, but his limbs were elongated, with talons extending from his fingers, and his lips were pulled back to show his prominent canines. A partial shift. In a few strides, the intruder was across the lawn and kicking down Jaime’s front door.
Finn reacted without thought.
Leaping across the lawn, he threw himself inside the busted-open front door and tore through the living room. Shouts were coming from Jaime’s bedroom, so he flew up the stairs, shifting as he climbed, and landed on the top step. Two elongated legs carried him down the hall and through Jaime’s bedroom door in a blink, which had also been torn open ahead of him.
A howling shout left him at the sight of Jaime, eyes wide in terror and shock, backed up against the far wall as the intruder lunged across the bed, claws outstretched.
With speed he never knew he possessed before now, Finn hooked a clawed hand around the attacker’s throat and yanked him back, hard, slamming him into the wall opposite Jaime, denting the drywall and pinning him with a snarl.
“I’ll rip out your goddamn throat for this!” His words were thick through his canines, like he was chewing on them.
The shifter sneered at him. “Oh, so Silas’s little half breed friend has a backbone, does he?”
Finn ignored him. Before he had time to consider how to get the other shifter away from Jaime, Silas thundered up the stairs and burst into the room.
If he was a mountain of a man in his human form, Silas was truly massive in his partial shift, nearly seven feet tall and thick as a tree trunk. Between his sheer size and the overwhelming anger and dominance that radiated off of him in this form, the wolf that Finn still had pinned to the wall cowered.
“I’ll take care of him,” Silas snarled. He reached a clawed hand over and grabbed the intruder by the scruff, pinning his hands behind his back.
Finn stepped back to block Jaime from the danger. “The other one?”
Silas snarled again. “Gone. He took off when you showed up. They must have followed me here and waited until you left.”
“Are there any more of them?”
“None that I can smell in the area. Sheppard is on his way, he should be here in about ten minutes.” Silas yanked the Salt Creek wolf out of the room, leaving only Finn and Jaime.
Waiting until the sound of their combined footsteps faded down the stairs and out the front door, Finn kept his back to Jaime, trying to slow his breathing and prepare himself for the fear and disgust and hate he would certainly see on his face.
But then Jaime made a small sound that had Finn’s wolf whipping his head around, ears perked and zeroed in on the noise.
While he did see shock and fear, there was no disgust or hate in Jaime’s eyes.
Instead, he saw wide-eyed wonder as he peered up at Finn, their height difference even more exaggerated in this form. Jaime remained plastered against the wall, palms splayed at his sides, but his shoulders relaxed when Finn turned toward him fully.
He had two shallow scratch marks running from the base of his throat and down his chest from when the Salt Creek shifter had tried to grab him.
Finn let out a high-pitched whine at the sight, and he stepped toward Jaime before halting at the sound of his voice.
“Finn?”