Chapter 14 #3
Wait. He’d been hiding from me? Although, why wouldn’t he? Mate or no, who wanted another person having 24/7 access to their emotions? But it was yet another reminder of how little I knew of the world I’d been thrust into. Curiosity swamped me, questions coming hard and fast.
“What do you mean when you say it won’t always be that way?” I asked. “We’ll feel each other’s emotions all the time?”
“Yes, if they’re really intense.”
“What if they’re not intense? Like if some asshole cuts me off in traffic and I’m irritated.”
He smiled. “You’ll learn how to block that kind of stuff from coming through.
The mate bond is about give and take. You’ll get stronger, but so will our connection.
You can think of it like a river flowing between us.
Over time, the riverbed will get wider. The water will flow faster, but we’ll have more space to spread out. It won’t feel so concentrated.”
“Was it like that with you and Philippe?” Right away, I wanted to apologize—to claw back the words before they could hurt him.
Because he seemed…wounded when he spoke of the man who’d turned him.
On the other hand, hadn’t I just resolved to learn about his past?
Didn’t I deserve to know? Maybe Jesse didn’t want his emotions flowing unchecked into my mind.
Fine. That was reasonable. But there was a difference between letting someone into your head and giving them basic information about the experiences that had shaped them as a person.
Jesse looked down at his half-finished ice cream. He was quiet for a minute, and I almost told him to forget I’d asked, but then he lifted his head. “Not exactly. Philippe and I were never mated. But he was my sire, and a very dominant wolf. Sometimes, his commands felt like more than just words.”
My curiosity tugged harder. Jesse had called himself an “ignorant farm kid.” He’d described Philippe as a nobleman.
A French count—centuries older and sophisticated.
That wasn’t a power imbalance. It was more like a power continental divide.
Jesse wasn’t an ignorant farm kid anymore.
Someone had introduced him to paddles and cock cages.
“How was it between you?” I asked. “Was he into…?” I trailed off as I mentally fumbled through words I only knew from porn. None of that felt remotely close to what Jesse and I did together.
Was he your Dom? No. Something about that phrasing was too clinical. Cartoonish, maybe.
Was he your master? Ugh. Better to just drop it.
“Into kink?” Jesse offered, his dark gaze steady. I must have looked like a deer in headlights, because he laughed softly. “I don’t mean to embarrass you. But you looked like you needed some help.”
My nape heated as I pushed away my empty bowl. “You don’t have to answer,” I mumbled.
“It’s normal to wonder about the person you’re sleeping with, Caleb, especially when that person’s bedroom activities aren’t exactly vanilla. For the record, dominance among werewolves isn’t the same as dominance in bed.” He smiled a little. “Or other places you might enjoy yourself.”
I knew my cheeks were red. Damn genetics.
Jesse took pity on me and kept talking. “As wolves, age and the strength of our gifts determine rank. If you walked into a room full of werewolves, you’d sense the hierarchy without anyone telling you.
That said, personality traits definitely influence our beasts, and our wolves often take cues from our human halves.
Philippe was someone who needed to be in control, and that need manifested in every area of his life. ”
“Including sex,” I said, my dick stirring because why the hell not? Why not get hard while discussing my boyfriend’s dead lover’s sexual practices? Totally normal stuff.
Jesse nodded. “We didn’t call it kink or BDSM or anything specific back then.
No one did. But the concepts were similar, and they’d been around for a lot longer than you might suspect.
Consent wasn’t as formal as we make it in modern times, but Philippe made sure I was on board with whatever he wanted to do. ”
“And you let him take charge?” I couldn’t picture it.
“Submission is about ceding control, not giving up power.” Jesse’s dark eyes grew unfocused, as if he was seeing another time and place.
“I was young, and unlike a lot of people turned under traumatic circumstances, I embraced being a werewolf right away. I’d seen so much death, and Philippe was so…
alive. He was larger than life, really. I wasn’t a virgin, but I was damn close.
It would be an understatement to say I was sexually frustrated.
So living in France, being immersed in Philippe’s glittering, libertine world, was like seeing in color after a lifetime of black and white.
I would have done just about anything to please him. ”
My fucked-up, fledgling desire died a swift death.
Philippe’s world sounded like a party. But I didn’t need a counseling degree to know that going from the trenches of war to a libertine’s ballroom was a mindfuck of the highest order.
Would an ancient French nobleman know that?
And if he did, would he care? Something in Jesse’s voice made me think he’d spent all his time with Philippe squishing himself into a role that didn’t quite fit.
There was more to Jesse’s story. Things he wasn’t saying.
Had Philippe hurt him? Did Jesse miss him?
The latter shouldn’t have bothered me as much as it did.
It was wrong to be jealous of a dead man.
It was callous to care more about Jesse mourning Philippe than Jesse suffering from something Philippe had done.
But knowing I was wrong didn’t stem my resentment.
A new feeling tightened my chest, the sensation altogether different from the constriction that seized me whenever Jesse ordered me around.
That restriction was good. It was protection. Security and safety.
This was a weight. It was barbed and merciless, its points dripping poison that threatened to slide into my veins.
Jesse had fallen silent, his gaze fixed on some hazy spot over my shoulder. He was lost in thought, his mind in a place where I couldn’t venture. I hadn’t known Philippe and never would, which meant I could never truly know what he’d been to Jesse.
The jaws of jealousy clamped tighter. I would have done just about anything to please him.
What kind of man had Philippe been to command that level of devotion?
More questions swirled in my head. How had Philippe taken his own life?
Where had he done it? How long had Jesse lived with him? Had Jesse loved him?
The last put a hitch in my breath, the sound drawing Jesse’s attention. He frowned as he looked at me.
“What is it?”
I couldn’t voice my question. Because I couldn’t bear to know the answer. But Jesse was waiting, his dark brows drawing together, so I opened my mouth and asked, “What was Philippe’s gift?”
For a moment, Jesse stayed as he was, frowning and expectant. Then his expression shifted into something neutral. Polite.
“Teaching,” he said, “the same as mine. We inherit our gifts from our sire.” As that little nugget of knowledge landed in my lap like a bombshell, he gathered our bowls and carried them to the sink on the other side of the kitchen.
As with painkillers and alcohol, I hadn’t given much thought to gifts.
Once again, I’d been too busy being on the receiving end of Jesse’s gift.
I’d let him teach me all kinds of things, like how to shift onto four feet and how to scream into a spit-soaked wad of my shirt so my fellow co-eds didn’t bust into the dean’s office and see me getting fingered to an orgasm.
But I was a werewolf now, which meant a gift of my own.
And maybe I should have been more excited by the prospect of gaining a superpower, but I wasn’t, really.
Aside from enhanced strength that only showed up when I was close to losing it, all the physical changes I’d experienced were more of a nuisance than an asset.
“I was sired by a rogue,” I said. “How does that work with gifts and stuff?”
Jesse loaded the bowls into the dishwasher, his back to me as he spoke. “Gifts can take a while to manifest.”
“How many gifts are there?” I asked. “Is there a list?” I slid off the barstool. “If we don’t know who turned me, how will I know what kind of powers I’m getting?”
“I’ve been meaning to talk to you about that.
” Jesse turned, a dish towel in his hands.
He returned to the island and ran the cloth over the ring of condensation that had formed under my bowl.
“I’m heading back to Hale Valley first thing in the morning.
I need to take care of the rogue before he hurts someone or exposes us to the human world.
” He stopped wiping and looked at me. “I want you to stay here.”
I was shaking my head before he finished his sentence. “No way. You can’t ask that of me.”
His frown reappeared. “I’m not asking, Caleb. You’re staying here where it’s safe.”
“So it’s not safe hunting the rogue? Is that what you’re saying?
” The anxious, jumpy feeling from the dining room rushed back.
Images of Jesse sprawled on the ground splashed through my mind.
He stared up at the sky with sightless eyes, a trail of blood trickling from his mouth.
My throat went dry, and my heart thumped faster.
“If you’ll be in danger, I should be with you. ”
“I’ll be fine,” he said. “I’m an experienced fighter. And the rogue wants you, not me. Which is precisely why you can’t return to Hale Valley right now.”
Nervous energy vibrated through me, traveling down my legs until I wanted to…
do something. Like leap over the counter and wrap my body around Jesse so he couldn’t leave.
Instead, I curled my hands into fists and said, “If the rogue wants me, that’s all the more reason for me to go. I can lure him to you.”
Something dangerous flashed in Jesse’s eyes. “Absolutely not.”
“I’m coming with you.”
“I said no.”
“Are you going to the jogging trail first? I’ll wait in the car while you hunt.”
“This isn’t a negotiation,” he said, his voice hard.
The vibrations sped up, threatening to make my teeth chatter. “You can’t force me to stay here. I’m not your prisoner.”
It was the wrong thing to say.
In a blink, Jesse was in front of me, backing me against the island, his thick fingers wrapped around my throat.
His grip was light—a warning that didn’t constrict my breathing in the slightest. But he didn’t need to touch me to render me helpless.
He held me with his eyes, his wolf staring out from irises the color of polished amber. And the beast was furious.
“No,” he bit out, “you’re my mate. But if you want to leave, I won’t stop you. However, you will stay here until the rogue is dead. Then you can go. You have my word.”
The promise of freedom was worse than any threat. “I don’t want that,” I rasped through a thickened throat. The anxiety twisted, sprouting wings of desperation. They beat in my chest, where my heart slammed against my ribs. “I just want to help you.”
“By using yourself as bait? That’s not very smart, Caleb.
And here I thought you were a college boy.
” He ignored my growl and plowed on, his power fluttering around his words.
Honing each syllable like the sharp edge of a blade.
“You have no idea what rogues are like. They’re worse than wild animals.
If the rogue catches you, he’ll rip out your throat before you can draw breath to scream. ”
“Then let’s go somewhere else,” I said. “Forget about the rogue.”
“Not an option. He could expose us. And even if I didn’t care about that, he’ll never stop hunting you. I won’t tolerate that kind of threat hanging over your head.”
My heart pounded harder. The food I’d eaten churned in my gut. “You can’t go without me.”
“Caleb—”
“Jesse, please.”
“I won’t repeat myself. This is—”
“Brownie.”
He drew back, his hand falling from my throat. He looked as stunned as I felt. For a second, we stared at each other as my safeword seemed to echo around the kitchen like a gunshot.
“I’m sorry,” I blurted. “I know it’s not for— I shouldn’t have used it. But you said it was a hard limit.” My throat burned like someone had taken a blowtorch to it. “This is my limit. I can’t let you— I don’t…” A hot tear streaked down my cheek.
Jesse made a low sound. The next second, I was in his arms. “You have nothing to apologize for.” He turned his head and spoke against my temple. “Nothing. Okay?”
“Yeah,” I croaked, embarrassment rising like water in a flash flood.
Forget attachment issues. This was a full-on meltdown.
I couldn’t face him, so I buried my head in the space where his neck met his shoulder.
His scent hit my lungs, and that lazy contentment I’d felt that first night in his kitchen in Hale Valley returned.
It flowed through me, ferrying away the anxiety and weird, frazzled vibrations.
After a minute, he pulled back, his hands on my upper arms. He frowned, and I braced myself for another round of arguments—or worse. But he brushed a thumb over my cheek, smoothing away the track of my tear. “All right,” he said softly. “You can come. But you’re going to do everything I tell you.”
“I will,” I said. “I promise.”
His expression hardened. “I mean it, Caleb. I can’t be distracted during this hunt. If I’m worried about you, I could get hurt.”
I covered his hand with mine. Held it against my cheek as relief weakened my knees. Later, I could freak out over my inability to be parted from him. But right now, I was just grateful he’d changed his mind. “I’ll do whatever you say. Even if I don’t agree with it.”
That earned me a smile. “Fair enough.”