Bitten By Mistake (12 page)

Jared couldn’t help but flinch—mild panic making him grip the shopping bags tightly enough that his nails dug into this palms. He was amazed Nathan hadn’t reacted to any of that, not that Jared had noticed, anyway. Jared smiled, figuring he should say something when it looked like Nathan wasn’t going to, but then Nathan laughed loudly, surprising him enough to make him jump.

“I didn’t want to make you feel bad, since you’re not getting any.”

Luke rolled his eyes and gave Nathan a shove. “Fuck off.” He turned to Jared and shook his head in mock commiseration. “You must have the patience of a saint, putting up with his annoying arse.”

Jared wasn’t sure what came over him, but he found himself smirking and replying. “I find his arse very accommodating, actually.”

Luke’s mouth fell open, and Nathan’s shoulders shook with silent laughter.

Oh my God.

Jared’s cheeks flamed. He couldn’t believe he’d just said that. “Right, um….” He wiggled the shopping bags. “We really need to get this stuff into Nathan’s fridge.” He couldn’t move without dislodging Nathan’s hand, so pushing past Luke and running for cover was out of the question.

Thankfully, Luke snapped his mouth shut and winked at Nathan. “Have fun.”

Jared watched Luke walk down the steps, a wide grin in place. He opened his mouth, but Nathan’s quick shake of his head stopped him. Oh, of course.

Damn shifter senses.

They walked up the stairs to Nathan’s apartment in silence. Once the groceries were put away, Jared dragged Nathan into the bedroom and closed the door behind them. He leaned with his back against it, and Nathan faced him, one hand on the door next to Jared’s head. Far too close for Jared’s peace of mind.

Nathan grinned. “In a hurry to make use of my
accommodating arse
?”

Jared swallowed thickly as that image assaulted his mind, but he made himself scoff. “Not likely.”

“Uh-huh.” Nathan dipped his head, not quite touching Jared’s neck, but close enough. He breathed in, then let it out on a soft exhale. “Whatever you say.”

Jared ignored him, refusing to acknowledge the way that move alone made his heart speed up. “What’s with you and necks anyway? Is that a shifter thing?”

Nathan straightened and took a step back, regarding him curiously. “You don’t know much about us, do you?”

Jared shook his head. “No. I try to avoid your lot if I can. I don’t need to waste my time finding out what is and isn’t true.”

In truth, Jared had been as curious as the next person until that same curiosity had put him in hospital. After that, he quickly lost interest.

“Yes, it’s a shifter thing.” His gaze dropped to Jared’s throat with such a hungry look that Jared had the urge to cover it with his hands. Nathan’s voice dropped lower, almost a growl when he spoke again. “And you bear my bite mark. I can’t….” He visibly shook himself and looked up. “Let’s just say it’s difficult to ignore.”

He licked his lips, and for a second there, Jared thought he saw a hint of fang.

This time he did put his hands on his neck, effectively cutting off Nathan’s view. “Try harder.” Jared pushed past him and walked over to sit on the edge of the bed. “Why didn’t Luke hear us?”

Nathan stared at him blankly. “What?”

“Downstairs. You wouldn’t let me speak until we were up in your room, but when we were talking out on the street, Luke didn’t hear any of it.”

Or maybe he did?

Jared stilled. “Did he?”

“No. But the doors and windows are heavily soundproofed, so we’d have to be talking fairly loud for anyone inside to hear us out there.”

Ugh, everything’s so bloody complicated.

Jared collapsed onto his back and covered his face with his hands. “So, where is it safe to talk? I keep losing track of what’s soundproofed and what isn’t. What’s wrong with living in a normal fucking building?”

The bed dipped as Nathan sat next to him. “Trust me, if you had our hearing, you wouldn’t need to ask.” He waved a hand around the room. “This place and the other shifter buildings were all altered years ago when the pack bought them, and upgraded as necessary. The external doors and windows are fully soundproofed—as well as they can be, anyway. Only pack live inside, so the soundproofing is necessary for the sake of personal privacy, not pack safety.”

Jared turned his head to look at him. “So that’s why only the bedrooms and bathrooms are fully soundproofed.”

“Yeah. Doing the whole building would be a nightmare and cost loads. Unit members are like immediate family, we don’t keep secrets from each—” He stopped with a look of such intense regret, Jared’s chest tightened in response. “We didn’t used to.”

What did Jared say to that? He got no enjoyment seeing someone upset, but it wasn’t as though he could tell Nathan it wasn’t his fault. Lying to him wouldn’t help anything.

Fortunately the beep of Nathan’s phone saved Jared from coming up with a distraction.

Nathan slid it out of his pocket, read the message, and cursed.

“What?” Jared hated being out of the loop, even if wasn’t technically any of his business.

“Alec came looking for me today.” He pointed at the screen. “That was Luke, said he saw him outside my door about lunchtime.”

“He didn’t think to mention it when we were downstairs?” Jared wondered if his presence had kept Luke from bringing it up. The look on Nathan’s face told him that was exactly the reason. “Oh.”

“It’s nothing personal. He doesn’t know you, or what you are to me, so he erred on the side of caution. It’s what I’d do.”

“Fair enough.”

Nathan started typing on his phone, waited, then typed something else. Jared itched to scoot closer and read over his shoulder.

“I have to go upstairs for a bit,” Nathan said without looking up.

Jared sat up and caught a glimpse of the phone’s screen. He saw the name Gareth, and after a second or two of trying to recall exactly who that was, he remembered. He pointed at the phone, since Nathan didn’t appear to be hiding it. “Is he your pack leader?”

“Unit leader.” Nathan met his gaze.

“Same thing.”

Nathan shook his head. “No, it’s really not.” He pulled one leg up onto the bed and turned to face Jared more fully. “I told you our alpha is Cameron Harley?” Jared nodded. “He has four betas—Gareth, Daryl, Mike, and Alec—and each beta is responsible for a unit.”

“And a unit is just your normal, run-of-the-mill shifters, right? No fancy titles?” He grinned at Nathan’s raised eyebrow.

“Yes.”

“Is that why there are four buildings? Where does the alpha live?” Jared hadn’t been interested in shifter politics before, but now that he’d got a small glimpse, his curiosity was piqued.

“Yes, that’s why we have four buildings, and Cameron lives in the same one as Alec.” He got up and straightened his clothes. “We can talk more later, but I need to go and tell Gareth what happened today. I’ll be back in a bit.”

Jared watched him walk towards the bedroom door. “Oh, wait. Can I have my phone before you go? I need to check in with people before they start to worry.”

“Good idea.” Nathan hurried over to his wardrobe, opened the safe, and tossed Jared’s phone to him. “I won’t be too long. Try to keep your voice down if you leave the bedroom, just in case you say something you shouldn’t.”

“Yeah.” Jared waved him off without looking up, too busy scrolling through the numerous notifications on his phone. Thank God it still had charge.

He checked his emails first. The only important ones were a couple from work colleagues. Jared read those, and responded by saying he’d be working from home that week, and most of the next, then taking a couple of weeks off as holiday. That should take him up to the full moon. He also emailed his boss to say the same thing. They’d already had a similar conversation on the Friday just before he was bitten, when Jared had been thinking about going to visit his parents, so it wouldn’t come as a surprise.

With that done and out of the way, Jared wasted a few minutes scrolling through Facebook and Twitter. He saved his texts for last, knowing there would be some from friends and family and that he was going to have to lie to them. Sure enough, his inbox showed fifteen new texts and five missed calls. Jared racked his brains trying to remember if he’d had plans to do anything that weekend. He didn’t think so, but getting bitten and then kidnapped by a shifter had made him forget about everything else.

The first message was from his mum, checking to see if he was still alive—had it been that long since he’d spoken to her? He replied to her first, telling her he was fine. The others were from his friends, wanting to know if he hooked up Friday night and whether he was going out on Saturday. And then of course a slew of texts followed from the same people wanting to know why he wasn’t answering, and finally if everything was okay.

The last one, from his best mate Seb, sounded increasingly worried. Jared read it twice.

Stopped by your flat and no answer. Its not funny Jared. Answer your fucking phone or at least send me a text. Starting to think you pulled an axe murderer on fri night and he stashed you in his fridge. In pieces! Call me!

Shit.
After listening to three voicemails, one from his mum and two from Seb, Jared realised a text message wouldn’t be enough. He had no choice but to call them. If they didn’t hear from him soon, they might contact the police. Besides, Jared didn’t like the thought of worrying them—even if that meant lying to them.

He called his mum first and rehearsed what he wanted to say while waiting for her to pick up.

She answered after the fifth ring, sounding a little breathless. Jared managed to appease her with apologies and promises to call more regularly in future. He told her he was working from home for the next week or so, in case she called work looking for him—however unlikely that might be, but you never knew with mums. After a lecture about looking after himself properly, she hung up, seemingly satisfied.

Jared suspected Seb wouldn’t be so easy to convince.

The call connected after the first ring.

“Where the fuck have you been?”

Jared winced. “Hey, Seb.”

“Don’t you fucking “hey Seb” me. I was hours away from calling the police. Do you realise how worried I’ve been?”

Not that Jared didn’t appreciate the concern, but it seemed a little bit of an overreaction for a few missed calls and texts. “Sorry, I lost my phone and only found it this morning.” A lame excuse by anyone’s standards, but what else could he say?

Silence.

“Seb?”

“You lost your phone,” he said flatly.

“Yes.”

“Mm-hmm. And what’s your excuse for missing lunch yesterday? You forgot about that?”

Oh shit!

Now he remembered—he was supposed to meet Seb for lunch at one o’clock. No wonder Seb had been worried.

A sharp exhale sounded on the other end of the line. “You did, didn’t you? Jesus, J, I’ve been worried sick! I called you and went by your flat yesterday afternoon
and
this morning.”

Jared tensed. Christ, Seb must have missed them by minutes. “Fuck. I’m sorry.” He felt like such a shit friend.

“You know, I asked around on Saturday night, wondered if anyone had seen you. And I heard the strangest thing.”

“Oh?” Jared swallowed, not liking where this was going.

“Yeah, apparently you were seen on Friday talking to this really hot guy—no, wait… a really hot
shifter
. And that the two of you left about the same time.”

Jared scoffed. “We did
not
leave at the same time. He left first.”

“Oh, so it’s true?”

Bollocks.
“Yes, but—”

“Did you go home with him?” Jared hesitated, the lie wouldn’t come quickly enough, and Seb knew him too well. “For fuck’s sake, J, after everything you went through last time! I thought you hated them?”

“I do. I—” He thought about Nathan. Yes, Jared had hated him initially, but Nathan had apologised over and over for biting him, and Jared believed that he was sorry. He’d seen how guilty Nathan felt for lying to his pack, and since that night, Nathan hadn’t laid a finger on him. Apart from that morning in bed, but Jared was willing to concede he was as much at fault as Nathan was. And then there was the kiss outside Jared’s flat, but that had been necessary.

Oh, who am I kidding? As much as I want to, I can’t hate Nathan.

“Jared?”

“Nathan’s different.”

Seb’s laugh was harsh and unpleasant. “Oh, it’s Nathan, is it? They’re all
different
! I thought that was why you hated them?” Silence. Then “Are you still there? At his place?”

Jared sighed. “Yeah. I went to my flat this morning, but I came back to his with him.”

This was not going as planned, and Jared didn’t know how to explain so that Seb would leave it alone.

“I see.”

“Do you?”

“No, not really. I mean, after what happened… after what
he
did… I understood how you felt. I didn’t necessarily agree with you, but I understood. But this? Two nights together and you’ve had a complete change of heart? I’m sorry, J, but I just don’t buy it.”

“Seb—”

“Are you there against your will?”

“
What
?”

“Fuck, is he listening to this phone call?”

“No,
Jesus
.” Jared sighed and rubbed at his temple, a headache forming rapidly. “I’m fine. He’s not forcing me to do anything.” He cringed, hating himself for not telling the truth. Seb had been his best friend for years, they knew everything about each other, and Jared was so tempted to just blurt out the truth. But that would put Seb in danger, and no way did Jared want that.

“Fuck, J, I don’t know what to say.”

“I know it’s weird, but I like him.” Jared pulled a face, the words felt wrong coming out of his mouth. “I’m going to stay here for a couple of days, just to see where it goes.”

Silence again. God only knew what was going through Seb’s mind.

He must think I’m crazy. And I don’t blame him.

“Fine, I guess. You seem to have made up your mind.”