answer, the stranger hung up.
The phone slid out of Gavin's now limp hand as he tried to process how he'd
gone from blissfully happy to heart-broken within the expanse of ten minutes.
"I'm so sorry," Jessie whispered, hugging an
unresisting Gavin close.
"I really thought... I really thought we had
something." Tears filled Gavin's eyes and this time, he didn't even try to
keep them in check. He just buried his face in his friend's shoulder.
"God, how could I be so stupid? How could I let him do that to me?"
Jessie pet his hair, shushing him, telling him everything was
going to be all right. Maybe Gavin would have been inclined to believe him, if
the comfort of Jessie's touch hadn't made Gavin want Saul more. It just wasn't
the same, and even if it felt like a betrayal of his faithful friend to even
compare him with Saul, a part of Gavin still ached for Saul.
He pulled out of Jessie's embrace and wiped his eyes. "I
fucked up, didn't I, Jess?"
"Yeah," Jessie replied, "but I'm here for you.
We'll both take a few hours off and we'll go to the clinic. Let's take it one
step at a time and make sure you're healthy first. We can deal with the broken
heart part after. Deal?"
"Deal," Gavin replied.
Even as he spoke, though, he picked up his phone and stared
at the screen. Had Saul truly lied to him? Why had he pretended to do the whole
romance thing if he'd never meant to take their relationship further? Gavin
feared that he might never find out.
****
"You're a fucking asshole, you know that, Finn?"
His brother just snorted as he turned Saul's cell phone off
and tossed it into the glove compartment of his car. He turned toward Saul,
who'd been assigned to the backseat of the vehicle. "Don't tell me you had
any further interest in the human. He sounded like just a random twink to
me."
Saul bit the inside of his cheek so hard he drew blood.
Feeling his mate's pain at Finn's callous words had him on the edge, and if
Finn wasn't careful, he might regret it. Saul was already considering tearing
the throats of the large werewolves who flanked him on the backseat, and his
anger was only liable to get worse. That was the disadvantage of the half-way
mate bond. Saul could feel Gavin's emotions, but until Gavin accepted him as a
mate, it would only be an incomplete connection that just made Saul's wolf even
more agitated. But the best thing he could do right now was to keep Finn from
realizing just how much Gavin meant to Saul.
"Finn, I want you to be perfectly honest with me,"
he said, changing the topic. "I'm your brother and I deserve that much.
What is this all about? Werewolves have mingled with humans ever since the dawn
of time. It's nothing new."
"This isn't about your propensity to mingle with humans,
Saul," Finn said. "You broke the law. You went against the Secrecy
Accords, and you know what that means."
"U-huh. And what exactly did I do? When did I break your
precious law?"
"You'll be told everything once we reach the pack."
With that, Finn turned away from him, and Saul knew all
possibility of conversation had disappeared. Truly, one of the reasons why Saul
didn't even stick around in the pack all the time was because two born Alphas
simply didn't get along. Both he and Finn had Alpha instincts, and they'd been
at each other's throats since Saul had become old enough to challenge his
brother's dominance.
Fuming, Saul tuned the other werewolves out and focused on
his incipient mate bond with Gavin. The human was hurt, frightened and
confused, and his pain was Saul's fault. Once Saul got out of this mess, he'd
have to do a lot of groveling to get Gavin to forgive him. He hoped that it
wouldn't last more than a few days. Not even the elders could manipulate
werewolf law, and the truth was that Saul hadn't done anything to warrant this
treatment. He just needed to hang in there for a little while, and then he
could return to Gavin and lavish his beautiful human with attention without
risking Gavin's safety.
Even with
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