Bitten By Mistake (27 page)

Muttered voices sounded around the room. One of the Primrose Hill shifters pushed to the front, and Nathan bristled when he saw who it was. Fucking
Wes
.

“How the fuck do we do that, then?” He grinned as growls erupted from Nathan’s pack.

How dare he talk to Cam like that?

All four of Cam’s betas stepped forward, but Cam raised a hand stopping them.

“It’s a good question. Even if the person asking it is an arrogant dick.” He turned and bared his teeth at Wes, letting his features change enough to look terrifying if you were on the receiving end. “Learn some fucking manners or get out of my house.”

Nathan smiled in satisfaction when Wes visibly paled and stepped back.

“Of course. My apologies, Alpha Harley.”

Cam nodded, and with a shake of his head was back to normal. “We could watch and wait, but that could take days, weeks even. The easiest way to get them to open up is to give them something to drive in there. We plan to let them steal a van.” He paused to let that sink in. “One of our human workforce has been passing them information—not a lot, but enough to give them an idea of where we’ll be at certain times. We will hand the human informant over to the police after this mess has been dealt with, but for now we can use him to pass on something we want them to know.” He nodded at Newell.

“We also had an informant—one selling secrets for a beta position in the rogue pack—but since ours wasn’t human, he’s been dealt with and is no longer a problem.” Newell looked around the room, searching for someone, and then his gaze found Nathan and stuck there. Nathan fidgeted under the scrutiny, and Luke tensed next to him. “That’s not the only problem we have, though.”

Cam turned to face him, obviously surprised by that. “Oh?”

Newell smiled. It sent a cold shiver down Nathan’s spine, and he forced himself not to flinch. “We happened upon some disturbing information this afternoon concerning one of your shifters and his human boyfriend.”

Oh shit.

“And what’s that?” Cam’s expression revealed nothing, but Nathan would bet he was thinking the exact same thing Nathan was.

“Apparently, Mr Kohl only met his current boyfriend on April 22nd, the night after the full moon, and yet two days later you assure me they are in a serious relationship and use that as the explanation for his presence near my territory.”

Cam shrugged, appearing disinterested with this piece of news. “Shifters fall quickly once they find a match, you know that.”

“True. But apparently the human has been acting out of character since meeting Kohl—suddenly infatuated with a shifter where before he hated our kind, overly possessive, and wanting to spend all his time with Kohl, even giving up work to do so.”

Where the fuck has he got all that from?

Nathan struggled not to react. Any outward signs of guilt and the whole fucking room would sense it. He wanted to deny it, tell Newell he was full of shit, but apart from the fact he’d be lying, it would probably get him killed. At the very least, Cam would be furious with him, and he needed to stay in his alpha’s good books.

“And you know all this how, exactly?” Cam asked.

Newell’s smile widened. “Oh, we have our sources. But first tell me, Alpha Harley, what does all that suggest to you?”

“I’m not sure I like what you’re implying.”

“You haven’t denied it. In the interest of trust, considering our new alliance, we’d like to see the human boyfriend for ourselves. To satisfy our curiosity, that’s all.” He addressed Nathan. “Is he still hiding out at your flat?”

The implication of that wasn’t lost on Nathan, but he forced himself to remain calm, outwardly unaffected. “He was staying at my flat. But I think he had plans to meet a friend later. I would call him, but I don’t have my phone on me.” He remembered Jared mentioning yesterday about meeting up with Seb this afternoon, and he prayed Jared had ignored all of Nathan’s instructions to stay put.

Gareth stepped forward. “I’ll go check if you want.” He put a hand on Nathan’s back, out of view of the two alphas. Nathan calmed immediately. “If he’s there, I’ll bring him back with me.”

“What an excellent idea. Why don’t you take Darren with you?” Newell gestured to one of his own betas, then looked towards Cam, who had no choice but to agree.

A refusal would be as good as admitting they had something to hide.

Which we fucking well do.

“Fine.” Cam gestured for Gareth to come forward. “Take Darren and go and fetch Jared, if he’s still there.”

Gareth nodded. “And if he’s not?”

“Then we’ll have to do this some other time. I want to get the rogue pack taken care of as soon as possible.”

Please be out, Jared.

Nathan watched with a sinking feeling as Gareth marched out of the room, with Darren hot on his heels. The room erupted into loud whispers as the two alphas separated to join their remaining betas. Everyone was discussing either Nathan, Jared, or the upcoming fight with the rogue pack.

“Hey.” Luke nudged him. “Whoever has to drive the bait van’s as good as dead. Wonder who they’ll get to do that fucking suicide mission.”

Nathan glanced up to find Wes watching him from across the room. “I can think of someone.”

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Jared leaned against the kitchen counter, tapping his fingers against the worktop. Nathan and Luke had been gone for about forty minutes, and he was already restless. Anything could be happening in that meeting. Jared was desperate to know what had been decided and whether or not Nathan would be involved in a fight to the death.

He gripped the edge of the worktop; those thoughts made his knees weak. He’d seen Nathan change, all sharp teeth and deadly claws. Two shifters fighting each other would be a bloody mess.

Fucking hell. How is this my life?

Jared closed his eyes and tried to get the violent images out of his head. His phone rang, vibrating next to him on the worktop and making him jump. Seb’s name popped up on his screen and Jared suddenly remembered he was supposed to be at his flat. “Oh shit.” He snatched the phone off the counter and answered it quickly. “I’m so sorry, I forgot all about you coming round.”

“I figured as much when no one answered the door. That’s not why I’m calling—well, it is… but,
shit
, Jared, I think I’ve done something bad.”

Jared straightened and clutched the phone. “What do you mean?”

Seb sighed. “I was banging on your door, cursing up a storm and moaning about Nathan and saying some shit about how this time a couple of weeks ago you’d never have ditched me for a fucking shifter. Those were pretty much my exact words.” Jared winced. “Anyway, these two guys walked up to me, said they were from Nathan’s pack.”

“What did they want?” Jared went cold all over.

“They wanted to know about you and Nathan, said they were worried about him spending so much time with a human.” He sighed again. “I may have gone on a rant about how it wasn’t Nathan they needed to worry about as you seemed to have suffered a personality change since meeting him two fucking weeks ago. They were very interested in that, asked me to explain, and I got halfway through telling them about how you used to hate shifters and now you couldn’t seem to get enough, when it dawned on me what a stupid thing that was to do.”

“Fuck.” Jared’s heart pounded against his ribcage. “What did they look like?”

Seb described them, and Jared was pretty sure they were the same ones who’d stopped them outside his flat on that first Sunday.

“They weren’t from Nathan’s pack, were they?”

Jared scrubbed at his eyes and sighed heavily. “No, I don’t think so.”

“Shit. I’m sorry, Jared. I was angry at you, and I wasn’t thinking straight, which is no excuse, I know. But I would never cause trouble for you. Or Nathan.” There was a pause, and then he added. “Well, probably not Nathan, although I’m not 100 per cent sure on that.”

Jared laughed despite feeling as though everything was falling apart. “He’s not like Eric, Seb. He’s an arrogant arse sometimes, but he would never hurt me.”

The opposite was true—Nathan would do anything to protect him.

“That’s what you said about Eric, and look how he turned out.”

“Nathan’s different.
We’re
different. Look, I can’t explain now, but soon, okay?”

Nothing but Seb’s breathing sounded on the line for several moments until “Okay. I’ll hold you to that. And I’m really sorry if I’ve complicated matters for you. Text me later, let me know everything’s all right.”

“Promise.”

Jared ended the call as someone knocked on the door. Every shifter he knew was at the pack meeting, and Nathan hadn’t said to expect anyone. They knocked again. Jared stared into the hallway, wondering what the fuck to do. Should he answer? What if it was the same shifters who’d been to his flat? He walked into the living room, intending to wait them out, but caught the belt loop of his jeans on that stupid catch in the door frame. Stumbling backwards, he fell into the door, making it bang loudly against the wall.

Bollocks.

He froze, not daring to take another step on the off-chance they hadn’t heard him.

The flat was sort of soundproofed, right?

“Jared?” Gareth’s familiar voice sounded through the front door. “We know you’re in there, we heard you. Please open the door.”

We?

Gareth clearly wasn’t with Nathan, and the tone of his voice was nothing like before when he’d been in the flat. Gone was the friendly reassurance. He sounded serious and professional, like Jared did when he spoke on the phone to customers.

“Come on, Jared. We need to talk to you.”

Jared hurried to Nathan’s bedroom, frantically looking around for something to cover his neck with, but the only thing that would work was a scarf, and that seemed way too obvious. No way was he putting the collar on either.

Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck.

They banged on the door again, and Jared had no choice but to go and answer it.

He opened the door with one hand on his neck as though he was rubbing at a sore spot. “What can I do for you?”

Gareth looked a mixture of worried and pissed off, and Jared got the impression he didn’t much care for the guy he was with—tall, lean, and mean-looking. Jared wasn’t warming to him either.

“This is Darren, he’s part of the Primrose Hill pack.” Gareth gestured at the guy with him. “Can we come in?”

Christ, obvious or not, that scarf will have to do.

Jared glanced down the hall behind him. “Yeah, but hang on a sec, I just need to—”

Darren pushed the door back before Jared could move out of the way. He lost his footing and put his hands out to support himself.

“Oh, dear. Now I see why you were so keen to leave.” Darren eyed Gareth as though impressed.

“I didn’t think he was in. That’s why I wanted to leave.”

Darren scoffed. “Uh-huh. Nothing to do with that huge fucking bite mark on his neck?”

Jared instinctively put a hand over it, blocking it from view.

“Tell me—” Darren made a show of taking a big breath in. “—did he bite you then fuck you, or the other way around?”

“That’s none of your fucking business.” Gareth interjected. He turned to Jared and put a hand on his arm. “Come on. They want to see you in the pack meeting.”

“What?” Jared stared at him.
Why the hell do they want me there?
“Where’s Nathan? Is he okay?”

“He’s fine, I promise.” Gareth bared his teeth at Darren when he muttered something too low for Jared to catch.

“Hey.” Darren held his hands up. “You know as well as I do he’s going to be in deep shit for this.”

“That’s not our call.” Gareth stood back and forced Darren to do the same so Jared could get out the door. “Jared?”

Christ, it looked as though he had no choice in the matter. He grabbed Nathan’s keys, shoved them in his pocket, and followed them out.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Nathan and everyone else in the room looked towards the double doors as they heard Gareth, Darren, and Jared enter the building.

Every step they took felt like a nail in Nathan's coffin. Cam might not have punished him, but now another alpha was involved, and who the fuck knew what he would demand? The P-Pack could insist he be banished for this, or cast out from his pack, or worse. Nathan had no clue how Newell would play it.

He wouldn’t blame Cam if he chose to deny all knowledge to avoid being implicated in Nathan’s deception. It wouldn’t be far from the truth—Cam had only found out a few hours ago. Despite what Gareth had said, surely the good of the whole pack came before loyalty to one member?

Jared’s scent carried to him on the air—heavily laced with fear and confusion. Nathan wanted to run down there and snatch him away from them. Jared was his. His to protect, his to touch. The thought of two shifters being in such close proximity to his mate—and no matter how much he’d avoided the word up till now, that was what Jared was—made his claws edge out ready to slice the first one to lay a finger on him.

Luke put his hands over Nathan’s and carefully curled them into loose fists. “Calm down.”

“I am calm,” Nathan snapped. He clenched his fists tighter, counting on the pain to make his words true. He managed it for all of three minutes, and then Jared walked through the doors and into the room, flanked by Gareth and Darren. Darren put his hand around Jared’s bicep to guide him forward, and Nathan lost it. The sense of wrongness gripped his insides. Another shifter, not even from his own pack, touching his mate?

No, I don’t fucking think so.

Shaking off Luke’s hand, he leapt forward, shifting in mid-air. The change rippled through his body with a sickening crack of bones, and Nathan landed, teeth bared, in front of the three of them. The others in the room backed off immediately and a shocked quiet settled around him.

“Nathan.” Gareth stepped forward, palms out. “He’s not been harmed. I wouldn’t let anything happen to him.”