16. Finn
Chapter 16
“What the fuck is going on?”
Finn woke up with a start, registering a loud bang followed by shouting. The soft, sleep-warm scent of Jaime hit him, along with the steady thrum of mate, mate, mate, nestled deep in his chest. But an unknown, yet slightly familiar scent was also there.
Too close!
His instincts kicked in, and before he was even fully awake he shifted and uncurled his body from around Jaime, thundering across the room, and pinned the stranger to the wall—claws at his throat.
Mate is vulnerable.
Protect, protect, protect!
“Hey! What the—Jesus Christ, what the fuck are you?” The stranger cried.
Jaime stirred awake behind them. “Huh?” he snuffled, and rubbed the sleep from his eyes, blinking in the harsh morning light. When Jaime finally focused on them, he leapt out of bed and across the room, also shouting, “Finn, don’t!”
Jaime yanked at his wrist, pulling him away. Confused and stunned, Finn finally registered the stranger’s face. And then understood why the scent seemed familiar.
He was shorter than Jaime, and sturdier. Not quite stocky, but built more like a swimmer than Jaime’s long faerie-like nothing-but-legs profile. They had the same eyes and hair; maybe Jaime’s were a murkier green, and his hair was a shade darker, but they shared the same pale, freckled complexion, and the same ruddy cheeks.
There was absolutely no doubt about who this was. Sam Lamont.
Finn felt his stomach drop to the floor. He had just threatened Jaime’s brother. A brother he very clearly loved and cared for deeply, despite their current falling out and the hurt that was palpable between them. And then Finn realized that not only had he just threatened Jaime’s brother, but he had done it shifted. And naked.
Oh God.
“What the fuck is going on?” Sam shouted again, rubbing at his neck where he’d gone red from Finn’s hold. If he didn’t know from experience that Jaime’s skin—and Sam’s too, probably—marked at even the gentlest hold, he’d be even more worried.
“Sam,” Jaime croaked.
Sam’s face hardened, and the look he gave Finn would have scorched his fur had he not already shifted back into his human form. Self conscious, he grabbed a pillow from the bed to cover his dick.
“Jaime. Get your things, we are leaving. You’re coming to live with me. I don’t know what the fuck this thing was doing to you in his bed, but it stops now. I can’t believe I trusted them to look after you.”
Sam pointed his finger at him, and Finn knew this was it. He had just threatened Jaime’s brother’s life, had his claws at his throat, and Jaime would finally see that he was capable of doing just as much damage as the monsters that haunted his dreams. Clenching his teeth, he kept his head down.
He couldn’t bear to see the shock and fear on Jaime’s face.
Sam continued, “You, whatever the fuck you are, stay away from my brother. I’ll be filing a police report. You’ll never touch him again, you monster.”
Finn winced, but looked up, needing to say something, needing to say he was sorry, but before he could, two things happened.
Silas walked through the door, harried and shaken, a look on his face that Finn had never seen before. He took in Finn’s nakedness with raised eyebrows, and then Jaime’s before quickly averting his eyes to the ceiling.
And then Jaime punched his brother in the face.
“Owe, shit!” he cried, shaking his hand as he took a step back from Sam.
Finn dropped the pillow and darted forward to check if Jaime’s hand was hurt, and Silas moved toward Sam who was bent over his knees, holding his nose. Pulling him up, Silas cupped the back of Sam’s head and tilted his face up toward him, moving it this way and that before releasing him.
Then Silas moved so that he was positioned nearly between the two brothers, which only seemed to irritate Sam because he elbowed his way around him and gave him a look that made Silas go sheepish and shuffle his feet. Given their height difference, all of that would have been hilarious if he wasn’t currently cradling Jaime’s injured hand.
Or meeting his brother for the first time, balls and claws out.
“You’ll be fine,” Silas said gruffly to Sam, eyes still intense. “That probably hurt Jaime’s hand more than it did your nose.”
Indeed, Jaime’s hand was red and would probably be sore for a few days, but Finn didn’t detect anything broken. Still cradling it before him, he gently rumbled, “We should put some ice on it, Jaime.”
Jaime was shaking with rage, and hadn’t seemed to hear him. Finn grabbed a blanket from the bed and draped it around him, so he wouldn’t feel so exposed, while Sam glanced back and forth between them, wide-eyed and shocked.
Jaime’s voice shook, but he straightened his spine. “Don’t ever call him that again. And you have no right, no right, to tell me where to go, or who to be with, or how to stay safe.”
He stepped toward Sam. “You can’t just ignore me for a whole fucking year because I’m such a burden to you and then storm in here demanding I follow your orders on a whim. You can’t say shitty things about the people I care for just because you haven’t been around enough to understand what’s going on!”
“Jaime—” Sam began, voice breaking, but Jaime kept going.
“Where have you been, Sammy? I called you. Many times over the last year, and you ignored me. I know I’ve been a lot. I know I’ve needed too much from you. But I just— fuck, Sammy, I just needed my brother! That’s all! Forget about the money and the lawyer and everything else. I wanted my brother. And you weren’t there.”
Finn’s heart broke all over again at the pain in Jaime’s voice. He wanted to tell him that he’d never been too much, he’d never been a burden. But only Jaime could heal the parts of him that felt that way. Only Jaime could decide when he was ready to confront those feelings with his brother for them to work through together. All Finn could do was make sure Jaime knew every day how much he wanted him and cared for him.
How much he loved him.
Suddenly, he desperately wanted to tell Jaime how much he loved him. That he’d fallen in love with him sometime in the last week, swiftly and deeply and irrevocably. Maybe even before that, when Jaime was only a face and a voice through his phone.
He knew how crazy that sounded, but even then, he’d known Jaime was right. He’d known he’d never be able to walk away, not fully. But that could wait. It wasn’t the right moment, and there were still things he needed to share first.
He also refused to confess his love in front of Silas and Sam, naked, hiding his cock behind a pillow.
Sam looked like Jaime had hit him again, and Jaime’s anger had clearly burned too bright and quick, sucking all the energy from him and leaving only the hurt and pain.
Jaime turned away from Sam. “It’s fine. I am capable of making my own decisions and looking after myself. I’ll be fine. You don’t have to worry about me anymore. Please, just go.”
“Jaime, that’s not what I want. I didn't—I can’t—please, come home with me. Alone. I’ll explain everything, and we can?—”
“No.” Jaime’s voice was thick with tears, but resolute.
Sam was crying now, too. “Jaime, please.”
He shook his head. “No, Sam. I’m not coming with you. I survived the last year without you. Alone. I was never helpless—I don’t need anyone else to manage me. I hate feeling like that. I want to be around someone who wants to be around me, too.”
He looked up at Finn, hope in his eyes. “And I think I’ve found that, now. A choice. A chance to be with someone who wants to be with me, not someone who thinks of me as a burden.”
He turned back to Sam, squaring his shoulders. “So you can go. There’s a safe house that the security team is preparing for us. I’ll stay there until the trial.”
Sam cast a glance at Finn, still wary. “You’ll be there with him.”
“Yes.” Jaime’s voice turned hard again. “And you cannot go to the police about what you just saw. There’s nothing to report. Finn is my—Finn is with me. And I’m with him. What you saw, just forget about it. It has nothing to do with you.”
Sam, incredulous, waved his hands at Finn in a gesture nearly identical to one he’d seen Jaime make. “Jaime, you can’t seriously expect me to just forget about Big and Hairy over there, nearly ripping my throat out!”
Silas choked a laugh into a cough, and Finn knew he’d hear that nickname again.
Still, Finn winced at the mention of threatening Sam, but Jaime snapped back, “Don’t be fucking dramatic. He did not.”
Finn made eye contact with Silas over the brothers’ heads, and grimaced. He kind of had, but he wasn’t going to argue that point.
Jaime continued. “Besides, you stormed in here, unannounced, screaming like a banshee. I know how grouchy you can be in the mornings. Now, I’m tired, and cold, and naked, and I want to go back to bed. Leave.”
Sam was looking at him like he’d never seen his brother before. Like they were strangers, and this was the first time they’d ever met. Maybe it was, in a way. From what Jaime had said, Sam had always taken care of Jaime, even when they were little, and again when Jaime was first attacked. And Jaime kept reaching and reaching for him this last year, only for Sam to retreat further.
Until now. Until Jaime stood up for himself and chose his own path forward. “Fire the lawyer if you want. End the contract with the security team, if you want. I don’t give a fuck. I’ll figure it out.”
Finn had a moment of internal panic before he relaxed. His decision to take Jaime’s case had never been about the contract—it was merely an excuse to justify shoving his way back into Jaime’s life when he’d walked away last year.
But Jaime hadn’t walked away willingly; he’d been forced to drop contact due to some terrible circumstances, and now that they were together, there wasn’t a force on Earth that would keep Finn from him.
So, fuck the contract. He’d quit and hole up with Jaime in a safe house somewhere indefinitely for all he cared. He had the savings. And he’d show Jaime just how wanted and loved and safe he was, for as long as Jaime wanted him back.
Sam looked utterly defeated, like a completely different man from the one who had stormed in demanding answers. “Jaime, don’t do this.”
Jaime sighed heavily. “We are both responsible for breaking this, Sam. I needed too much from you, and you pushed me away because of it. Maybe someday we can mend that. But I cannot continue having this conversation with you right now. I really need you to leave.”
Sam stared at his brother for another long moment, then at Finn and Silas, before he turned and left.
Silas watched Sam leave with that same intensity. He glanced back, pointedly not looking at Jaime covered only by the blanket. “I’ll follow him, and make sure he doesn’t go to the police.”
He stepped out the door, and tossed over his shoulder, “Sheppard called, the safe house is ready.”
The quiet in the truck was tense as Finn drove them north from Jaime’s cabin past Silver Rapids, taking the only real highway this far into the Alaskan interior until they hit Fairbanks just over five hours away.
They wouldn’t be going that far, though; the coordinates Sheppard had sent him through a secured device directed that he turn east off the highway in two hours before another two hours of backroads finally got them to the safe house.
This place truly was tucked away in the Alaskan wilderness.
Sheppard warned him that the cabin’s water supply came from a giant tank out back, so while they did have a tiny shower stall and running water in the kitchen sink, there was no indoor plumbing, and they’d have to conserve water. But, their overnight delay had allowed him to get people out to clean and open everything up, heat the stove, and stock the fridge and pantry and other amenities.
They’d just be shitting in an outhouse for the next week until Bishop’s trial.
Jaime hadn’t said much after Sam left; all of the courage and bravado had left him, so that he just looked hurt and worn. They’d packed quickly and silently, leaving their personal phones on the coffee table for Silas to hold onto. It wasn’t safe to take anything that could be tracked, and Jaime didn’t seem inclined to bring his phone along anyway. The only times Finn had ever seen him use it were to try and call Sam or his lawyer, and they both knew he’d be at a safe house and could get ahold of him through the secured phone the security team provided.
Not that Finn thought that Jaime would answer, if he knew it was Sam calling.
So they drove, with Jaime staring out the window and Finn stewing over whether he should say something. He stewed for the next four hours, in fact, all the way down the rough and jarring dirt road that was barely passable this time of year. If Sheppard used this house year round, he’d have to fly or snow mobile clients in.
By the time they pulled up to the cabin, the ground in front of the door cleared by whoever opened and stocked the place, Finn had worried and spiraled himself so far into worst-case-scenario territory that he didn’t know which way was up.
Jaime still wasn’t speaking.
Was he angry with Finn about threatening his brother, and he just hadn’t said anything in the aftermath of their argument? He’d told Sam that they were together, but did he regret that? Should Finn have double checked that Jaime wanted to be all the way out here with him? Was he afraid of being this isolated and alone with a guy who could turn into a wolf? Did he regret being intimate with him?
“Finn.”
Snapping out of his anxious thoughts, he looked over toward Jaime, who had already opened the truck door and stepped out, stretching his legs. Finn was still sitting in his seat, hands clutching the steering wheel, engine idling. “Sorry. Right, I’ll get our bags.”
Jaime turned to take in the cabin. It was small, longer than it was wide with a steeply pitched roof. The walls went up five or six feet before meeting the roofline, so it wasn’t quite an A-frame, and several steps led to a porch spanning the front of the cabin.
There were three large windows framing the roof peak, but the windows along the ground level were small, and Finn had no doubt they were reinforced, both for security purposes and because of wildlife.
He grabbed their bags out of the back seat. “Stay by the truck, I’m going to go check that everything is clear inside. This time of year bears can be unpredictable and aggressive, and they’ll break in if they smell food.”
Jaime paled and shuffled back to sit in the truck and wait. Finn entered and did an initial sweep, noting the lower level was all one open space with a kitchen, living area, and a wood stove for heating. He fed it a few pieces of kindling to get the room warmed up, as it had clearly been some hours since the people who had opened the cabin had left.
Opposite the stove, sat a couch and chair flanked by large shelves filled with books and board games and puzzles, and then a narrow set of steps led to a loft area which contained one large bed. A matching set of windows framed the peak that sat over the space, and someone had strung up fairy lights all along the loft area, making it feel soft and warm.
Had those always been there, or were they a special touch that Sheppard had requested, knowing the two of them would be there for a while together?
Right. Well, this would be cozy.
He set their bags down by the bed and stepped back out onto the porch to wave Jaime in, and while he was heading inside Finn paced around the side of the cabin to check that the outhouse was clean. He fiddled with the stash of toilet paper a little before making his way back around to the front porch where he pulled out their secured line and fired off a quick message to Sheppard and Silas, letting them know they’d arrived, before pocketing the phone again.
And then he just stood there, staring out at the scenery.
The view was breathtaking; true wilderness with a vista of the interior’s taiga that Finn knew would showcase stunning sunsets over the distant mountain range. He couldn’t take it in though, couldn’t relish in the soft sounds of animals moving through the brush or the creek trickling nearby, because he was too worried that he’d already fucked up this thing with Jaime before it began.
Again.
Taking a final, deep breath, he turned away from their beautiful view. Enough was enough; if Jaime was going to reject him, he’d better just go face it instead of hiding in a fucking outhouse like a coward.
Walking back inside, he locked the door before turning to see Jaime standing in the middle of the living area, fiddling with the hem of his shirt and avoiding eye contact.
Even when he was nervous, he was nearly otherworldly enchanting in the way he moved—Finn could stare for hours and hours and still not completely take him in. Stepping toward him, he gathered his courage to speak, but as usual, Jaime beat him to it.
“If you’ve decided that you don’t want me, just tell me. I’m sorry about what my brother said. What he called you. It’s not true. You’re not a monster. Or, you’re not the kind of monster that Bishop is.”
Finn felt like someone had kicked him in the gut. So, Jaime did think he was a monster? Just a different kind of monster than the ones he already knew?
Seeming to sense his downward spiral, Jaime looked up at him, intense and focused and in the way that Finn had always imagined he looked at a subject before he painted them. All-seeing. It gave him goosebumps to feel the full weight of Jaime’s attention. It was overwhelming, but not dissecting. He was being seen entirely, but not judged.
And because Jaime always saw Finn, his face shifted from wary hurt to sharp determination. “I’ve asked you several times now to show me your shift. All of you. But you’ve avoided me, and I think it’s because you don’t want me to see you for those things. You want me to see you for you.”
Jaime stepped forward and cupped his jaw, running his finger along the blunt end of a normal human canine. “But I already do. And I ask to see those other parts because I want all of you. I want everything. I love your teeth, and I love what you look like, all big and hairy and growly.”
He turned red, and Finn remembered that fleeting moment in Jaime’s bedroom after he’d pulled the attacker off of him, and had smelled Jaime’s arousal at seeing Finn shifted for the first time.
Jaime continued, “I ask to see you because those are parts of you, too, Finn. I don’t separate them from the man standing in front of me. And you use the word monster like it’s a bad thing, but it’s not. Not when it’s about you, about all the wolfy sides of you. I want those parts, too. Now. Always. I don’t want you to hide from me, Finn.”
He doesn’t really mean that. You haven’t told him everything. You haven’t told him you want to have sex with him when you look like that.
Finn exhaled hard, leaning into Jaime’s palm. “I keep thinking that the next thing I show you, the next thing I tell you, will be the thing that scares you off. Please. I don’t want to see that in your eyes. If this is all we can ever be, it can be enough for me. This can be enough.”
Jaime’s face sharpened in anger, a flash of what Finn had seen directed at his brother this morning. He placed a hand on Finn’s chest and pushed, knocking him back against the kitchen counter. “Do you think so little of me? Do you really think that I only want some of you, Finn?”
Tears pooled in Jaime’s eyes, his anger making his face ruddy. “If this is your way of telling me that you do not want anything more with me, then just say so, and I won’t ask again. But I have asked, Finn, because I want to know you. From the very fucking beginning I have wanted to know all of you. If you aren’t ready for that yet, then tell me, and I will wait. I will wait as long as you need me to wait. But stop pushing me away out of your own fear of rejection and then telling me it’s my fault.”
Finn whined at the sight of Jaime’s tears, all of his fear and doubt bubbling up, up, up—needing out, needing absolution. Silas’s words came back to him, then.
Try. If not for him, for your mate, then who? Who will be worth risking your heart for?
Jaime was. Of course he was.
“You’re my mate,” Finn blurted out, words tumbling over each other in a rush. “My person. I’ve known it from the moment we met in your driveway. Maybe even before. You’re my mate and I love you very much and I want to claim you as mine, if you want that too. But you should know it’s not like marriage. It binds us together, here.” He laid a hand over Jaime’s heart, right where he felt a matching tug on his own, it’s beat frantic under Finn’s palm.
He’d planned how he would tell Jaime. About being his mate, about the bite, about the ‘maybe-balooning-dick’ thing—all of it. As he’d held a sleeping Jaime in his arms last night, Finn lay awake and planned to sit him down, maybe with some space between them so that Jaime didn’t feel overwhelmed.
He’d start from the beginning, and explain that he’d felt a connection right away, even when they hadn’t met in person yet. How when they had finally been face-to-face, he’d known, and done his best to respect Jaime and not push.
But now that Jaime knew about him, maybe someday he’d be comfortable letting Finn claim him, bite him. If he had a knot, they’d talk about it, try having sex without him shifting. Surely he could just not put the knot in? He could keep himself in check, so he wouldn’t hurt Jaime.
He’d thought through everything, planned everything to be nice, and safe, and as normal as that kind of conversation could be.
But Jaime had never asked for any of that. All Jaime had ever asked of him was to be honest, to not withhold important things from him. Even before he knew about Finn being a shifter, he’d wanted to be included in Finn’s thoughts.
And now that he did know, all he ever told him was how much he liked the wolfy parts of Finn. Loved them. Jaime didn’t just tolerate them or ignore them, he sought them out when they came together. He climaxed at the sight and feel of Finn’s teeth wrapped around his cock, and moaned and writhed beneath him as he nipped and teased him. He’d been aroused by Finn when he was partially shifted, and repeatedly asked Finn to show himself that way, again.
Jaime wanted all of Finn, in the way he had always needed to be wanted. And as Jaime blinked up at him, eyes wide but not fearful, he brought a hand up to cover Finn’s where it rested over his heart.
Yes, he could give Jaime what he’d been asking for this whole time—what Finn had desperately wanted to give him this whole time.
It had just taken him a little while to work up the courage.
Twisting them so that Jaime was now the one pinned between his body and the counter, Finn shifted. His claws caught in the material of Jaime’s shirt and his descended canines ached to sink into the soft flesh where his neck and shoulder connected.
Finn met Jaime’s wide-eyed gaze, voice trembling now, and continued. “It’s forever. No matter if we are together or apart, you’ll feel me. You’ll be mine, and I’ll be yours. It can’t be undone. And if you decide you want that, you should know it means that I will bite you, here.”
He moved his other hand up to cradle the place he would claim Jaime, the soft skin warm and inviting. “I don’t know if it will hurt, I’ve never asked. It’s a private moment between people and not something you really ask questions about. Which I know seems ridiculous given the gravity of the act, but, well.”
Finn shuffled, and then added softly, like a question, “I’ll try to make it good for you?”
Jaime still hadn’t said anything, but he kept his hand over Finn’s resting on his heart, and wrapped the other around his waist to pull him close, their hips slotting together. Jaime gave him a soft smile, eyes glassy and tender, so Finn figured, what the hell.
Might as well rip the bandaid off, as Silas would say.
“Also, if I bite and claim you, it will be very difficult for me to have sex with you without shifting into this form. My wolf wants you, just as much as I do. Maybe because I do. I’m not really sure how it works, but it feels like a mutual decision. Anyway, Silas says that when I have sex in this form I’ll get a knot, and I’ll want to put it in you and it will get stuck. A knot is?—”
“I know what a knot is,” Jaime blurted.
Now it was Finn’s turn to blink down at him, finally stunned to silence after his emotional outburst. Jaime turned bright red and didn’t continue, making Finn wonder…
“Jaime, how do you know what a knot is?” He felt the side of his mouth tip up.
Jaime squirmed beneath him where he was pinned against the counter, avoiding eye contact now and shifting his hold on Finn so that his fingers absently stroked through the fur on his forearms. “Keep going. You were telling me that you want to make me yours and have hot wolfy sex with me and that you love me.”
Finn’s mouth split into a wide grin. “You read werewolf smut, don’t you?”
Jaime cast him a haughty look, nose up in the air. “I may have stumbled on one or two novellas. Short ones. Accidentally. A while back. Not recently.”
Finn leaned in, pressing his smile, teeth and all, into the soft skin behind Jaime’s ear. And licked.
“Unnf, Finn! We are having a moment, and I want to tell you that I love you back!”
His protests were all for show though, because Finn could smell that he was very into this unexpected turn in their conversation. Also, Jaime was still clinging to him, fingers buried in his fur, and Finn could feel him hardening in his pants.
Interesting.
He nuzzled and chuffed in Jaime’s hair, his scent sweet and strong. “You’ll have to tell me about your favorite parts from those novellas that you’ve maybe read a long time ago.”
Jaime huffed, still stroking Finn’s forearms, and pouted, “I don’t know how I’m the one that knows what a knot is and not you, when you’re the wolfy one.”
Finn blushed. “I know what it is, I just didn’t know that I had one. It’s never… made itself known, before. I don’t even know if it will happen since I’m only half shifter, but Silas warned me that being with my mate will be different. He didn’t want us to be surprised.”
Jaime giggled, green eyes dancing, and Finn needed the sound branded on him. He needed it direct in his vein—he needed to hear it forever. “I would pay to hear how he explained that to you.”
Finn grimaced. “It was horrific. I wanted to pour bleach into my ears. I’m still not sure I can look him in the eye.”
Jaime continued to giggle, and Finn tucked his nose back into his hair, needing the closeness. “You love me?”
He felt Jaime swallow, laughter turning into a soft hum as Jaime pressed his lips into Finn’s neck. “I love you. I’m not sure when it happened… I knew I loved you yesterday, when I saw you shifted in my room and you looked at me like you needed to be scooped up out of the rain and kept warm. I knew when you made me oatmeal with all of my favorite things, even though I was avoiding you. And I think I knew when you hounded Andi for the butternut squash ravioli recipe so much that she nearly threw you out of the restaurant, just because I said I liked it.”
Finn chuckled. “And because I need to hear the sounds you made while eating it again. That wasn’t purely altruistic.”
He felt Jaime’s beaming smile against his skin, felt the catch of his human teeth at the base of his neck, miming the bite he’d make when he claimed Jaime. “I knew when you were ready to protect me this morning from someone barging into our room. And I knew I loved you when you listened to me when I asked you to stop. When you let me stand up for myself, and tell Sam how I felt.”
Jaime took a deep, shaky breath, and pulled back just enough to look up at him. “I want everything you said—I want all of it, with you. And I don’t ever want to lose you again. I want to be yours in every way that is meaningful to us both.”
He placed his hand over Finn’s heart, eyes intense. “And I want you to be mine, too. Bite me, claim me, knot me, but I’ll make you mine, just as much as you make me yours.”