Knocked Up by His Werewolf Dom [Lone Wolf Pack 2] (5 page)

It had taken Andreas some time, but going on just a bare-bones description and a first name, he'd identified Saul's mate as one Gavin Price, guidance councilor for one of the most popular private high schools in the city.

Taking a human as a mate wasn't forbidden by law, and so, neither Andreas nor anyone else could keep Saul from sharing his true nature with Gavin. But that didn't mean Gavin couldn't indirectly become a problem for the secrecy of their kind. The key to finding out the truth was Jessie Orwell, Gavin's best friend.

And that would have been just fine, except that from the very first moment he'd seen Jessie in one of the pictures he'd found of Gavin, he'd been drawn to the man. It made so much sense now. Because first and foremost, Jessie was also his mate, Andreas's other half. Andreas had known it from the very first moment he'd scented Jessie, and had seen the truth of it in the young man's brilliant green eyes.

He had not expected meeting Jessie here tonight. Their first encounter had been engineered to happen in an entirely different way. What was Andreas to do now? Leave and pretend they'd never met? He simply couldn't do it.

By his side, Jessie curled closer to him and mumbled something incomprehensible under his breath. Andreas's heart squeezed with affection. Jessie had been hurt once by a Dom, but he'd chosen to trust Andreas. Andreas couldn't disappoint him. He'd rather abandon his duty to his pack.

In the end, the entire plan was a moot point. Even if Jessie did know about werewolves, him being Andreas's mate cancelled out any danger he might have become to their kind. But Andreas had tasted something in Jessie's blood—something that made his lover special. If anyone found out about it… Andreas dreaded the sheer thought. Right now, his instincts were screaming to just grab Jessie and flee somewhere no one could ever find them, but that might not go over well.

A knock sounded at the door, distracting Andreas from his musings. Andreas tensed, his advanced senses already identifying the person on the other side. With a mental sigh, he extracted himself from Jessie's embrace as carefully as he could. He covered Jessie with a blanket, hating that he had to leave his mate's side even for a moment. He pulled his pants on and crossed the room. Careful so as not to wake Jessie, he opened the door and stepped out into the hallway. "What is it?" he asked his unwanted visitor.

Erdi crossed his arms over his chest and arched a dark brow at him. "Just checking up on you, making sure you haven't forgotten your mission."

"You have no business here, Erdi," Andreas replied between gritted teeth. "You would do well to remember that."

Erdi shrugged. "I don't care if you want to sleep with your prey, Andreas. Just be mindful of the consequences of your actions."

Andreas's hackles rose. "Jessie isn't prey, and I'm always careful. So go back to hunting rogues. There's nothing for you here."

Erdi laughed, although the sound didn't hold too much amusement. "I disagree," he said, his feral grin exposing his extended canines. "I think I'll stick around for a while longer. I suspect things are about to get interesting."

Andreas narrowed his eyes at Erdi. "Listen closely, silencer. I don't care what you do, just as long as you remember Jessie is off limits to you. Got that? Just try to touch him, and you die."

Erdi just shot Andreas that small infuriating smile that always drove Andreas crazy, and Andreas had a feeling he'd just walked straight into Erdi's trap. The other werewolf knew Jessie was his mate.

"It's not me you have to worry about," Erdi finally said. "Just don't start shouting from the rooftops that the human belongs to you. He already has a target painted on his back without you drawing more attention to him."

"That doesn't make any sense," Andreas said. "He's my mate now. Neither you, nor any other silencer can touch him."

"Don't be so sure." Erdi leaned in closer to Andreas. "I've heard from my Malik. Word is on the street that Jessie Orwell isn't the target in this mission. You are."

Andreas stared at the other man in shock. "What? Why?"

Erdi shrugged. "I don't ask questions, Andreas. It's none of my business. But we've known each other for a long time. Believe me, you're not helping your mate by sticking around. The best thing you can do right now is to leave him be, and proceed with the original plan."

Andreas had never understood exactly how the silencer guilds found out everything they did. They were assassins meant to clean up the messes other werewolves made and make sure their secret stayed safe—essentially the Plan B in case enforcers like Andreas failed to contain the issue. Sometimes, the silencer guilds weren't even wholly-werewolf, which, as far as Andreas knew, was Erdi's case. It was largely why Erdi didn't even have an Alpha, but a Malik, the equivalent of a guild leader in the region Erdi was from.

The problem was now that Andreas couldn't be sure he could trust Erdi. The man was an assassin, after all, and while Andreas couldn't have called them enemies, they weren't friends either.

"Why are you even telling me this?" he asked.

"Think on it a little, and you might be able to figure it out," Erdi replied.

Truth be told, Andreas didn't even have to think too hard. He'd always suspected that he hadn't been sent here just because of his Alpha's concern for the secrecy of the werewolf world. Wendel Adler had never been particularly worried about the rest of their kind. It was pure politics, and politicians—especially werewolf ones—could be particularly ruthless. It was a battle for a territory that could easily erupt from the death of an enforcer. The Simmons pack hadn't been doing too well lately, and werewolves thrived on exploiting vulnerability.

"You do know, don't you?" Erdi guessed. "Then you have to realize that sort of thing isn't good for anyone, especially not for silencers."

Andreas still wasn't convinced of Erdi's reasons, but he did have a feeling the other man was telling the truth with regard to everything else. "Fair enough, Erdi. Thanks for the warning."

"No problem. I'm sure you'll pay me back one day." The silencer smirked at Andreas. "And on this note, I'm off. Have fun with your Jessie, while you can."

Andreas watched him go, knowing he had only one possible course of action. He couldn't draw extra attention to Jessie—that much was clear. If the truth about Jessie came out, if everyone realized the real secret Jessie was hiding, he'd be hunted, and Erdi might not be so eager to cooperate with Andreas.

With a heavy heart, Andreas slid back into the room, ready to face his mate.

****

Jessie didn't know what woke him up. It could have been the sound of voices, or simply the loss of Andreas's presence by his side. Either way, he only caught one last phrase, spoken by a voice he didn't recognize. "Have fun with your Jessie, while you can."

Scowling, Jessie got up, wrapping himself in the blanket while trying to hear more of what was said. He was sore in all the right places, since he and Andreas had fucked several times before Jessie had finally succumbed to exhaustion. But that didn't mean he couldn't figure out this new arrival was no friend of his.

Alas, the conversation ended before Jessie could figure out what it meant and the person who'd mentioned him walked away. Andreas stepped back into the room, clad only in his leather pants.

The Dom didn't look awfully surprised that Jessie was up. "I'm sorry," he said softly. "We woke you."

Jessie shrugged, not particularly bothered by that. Something else worried him, and he had a feeling that whoever Andreas had been talking to hadn't brought good news. "Don't worry about my sleeping. What's going on?"

Andreas pinned him with a serious look. "I want you to listen to me very closely, Jessie. This is very important."

Jessie didn't like the sound of that, and he proceeded to point it out to his Dom—in those exact words. "Uh-oh. I don't like the sound of that. Is this where you tell me 'it's not you, it's me'?"

Andreas smiled, but the expression held no amusement. "Yes and no." He sat next to Jessie onto the bed. "Just listen because we don't have a lot of time. Your friend Gavin has recently become involved with something very serious. I came here to investigate the matter, and to find out if you knew anything about it."

Jessie's eyes widened. His father and his friend had warned him that Gavin's pregnancy might draw the wrong attention, but he'd never expected Andreas to be the one who wanted to hurt his friend.

Jesus Christ. How did he always manage to trust the wrong people? His stomach roiled as he realized Andreas had only slept with him to garner information. "I can't believe this," he whispered under his breath. "How could you lie to me? How could you use me like this? God, I'm leaving."

He threw off the blanket and scanned the room for his clothes, only to realize they were nowhere to be seen. Shit. In his eagerness to get Andreas's cock, he'd forgotten all about his own belongings. How could he be such an idiot? Fortunately, he'd left his ID, and cell phone at home, only taking some cash with him. The money was probably lost, but Jessie did need to find the clothes. Either way, he had no intention of staying here, at the disposal of this liar.

Andreas grabbed his arm, keeping him from moving away. "Wait, Jessie. Just let me finish, okay?"

"I don't want you to finish," Jessie shot back viciously. "I understand exactly what you mean."

Andreas's eyes glowed gold and his jaw tightened with obvious frustration. "Jessie, you're not hearing—"

Jessie cut off the man's words. A memory drifted in his mind, connecting to what had happened to Gavin. "Oh, Jesus. You're just like Saul. You're… not human." Last night's events flashed through his consciousness and he froze as he realized that, like Gavin and Saul, they hadn't used protection. "What did you do to me?" he croaked out.

Andreas frowned fiercely. "So you do know about it. What was Simmons thinking when he told you? Surely he must have known about the danger." He tilted his head, eyeing Jessie speculatively. "Or… Did you know from before? You're not exactly human either."

Jessie pulled his hand from the other man's grip, glowering fiercely. "I have no idea what you're talking about," he said, "and I've seriously had enough of creatures like you coming into our lives and turning everything topsy turvy. You'd better hope that you didn't do anything to me, because I swear to God, you'll pay for it."

Judging by Andreas's expression, the man couldn't figure out what Jessie meant by that—which gave Jessie some hope that the secret of Gavin's pregnancy hadn't been revealed. And okay, it hurt like hell to know that he'd just slept with a guy who might possibly be even worse than Jake, but he had to cope with it.

Andreas stepped between Jessie and the door, keeping him from advancing. "Jessie, come on. Stop trying to push me away and let me explain."

At some level, Jessie realized that he should, indeed, listen. Andreas hadn't hurt him until now, and, in fact, he'd been excruciatingly gentle. But Jessie had trusted other men before, and that hadn't turned out so well.  If he stayed here, his treacherous heart was liable to get him into even more trouble. Already, Andreas's proximity was having a very distinctive effect on him, his cock hardening, his ass already begging for Andreas's dick again.

Fortunately—or unfortunately—for him, a knock sounded at the door, shattering the moment and keeping him from doing something really stupid.

"Yes?" Jessie called out.

The door opened and a man Jessie recognized as one of the guys who'd starred in the threesome peered into the room. "My apologies for the interruption, but my Dom thought you might like your clothes back."

Jessie didn't even bother suppressing his sigh of relief. "Please give your master my thanks," he said as he pushed past Andreas and took the items in questions from the sub. The other man just nodded at Jessie and bowed respectfully at Andreas. With a murmured goodbye, he took his leave, presumably to return to his Dom's side. Jessie wished he had the stranger's good fortune, but alas, even if every single fiber of his being remained attuned to Andreas's presence, his place wasn't here.

He focused on pulling on his clothes, but that became a little hard to do when Andreas's hands landed on his shoulders. "I realize you're angry with me," Andreas said, "and you have every right to be. I did approach you under false pretenses and kept secrets from you. But what I feel for you isn't a lie, which is why I'm telling you this in the first place."

Jessie faced the other man, furiously squashing the spark of hope daring to appear in his chest. "I can't listen to you right now. I don't even know what to believe anymore. I just want to close my eyes and pretend this whole thing never happened."

Andreas recoiled like he'd been struck. He just stood there, staring at Jessie, hurt so clear in his eyes that Jessie wanted to take the words back. He didn't—his own pain and insecurity kept him from doing so. Instead, he quickly finished getting dressed, moving faster than he himself thought possible.

Finally, he put his shoes on and fled the room before Andreas could say anything else. It was cowardly and in all likelihood, he should have stayed, found out more about what Andreas had come here to do. But it just hurt too much, and Jessie felt like he couldn't breathe, like his heart was breaking all over again—only worse. This time, no one would be able to pick up the pieces and build him anew.

He kept going mostly on auto-pilot climbing the stairs up to the main level of the club. The activity had toned down, the dance floor all but empty. The clock on the bar read four twenty eight in the morning. The bartender was busy gathering abandoned bottles, but Jessie made his way there and cleared his throat. "Excuse me, could you perhaps call me a cab?" He really wasn't looking forward to going hunting for a taxi at this time of night.

The bartender eyed him from head to toe, huffed in irritation, then nodded. "Sure."

Jessie guessed that the man had seen thousands of rattled subs just like him, but he couldn't even be embarrassed about it. He just thanked the bartender as the man complied with his request.