Jared put his hand on the small of Seb’s back and guided him to the armchair in the corner, making introductions as he went. “Gareth, you and Seb already know each other. Alec, this is my best friend Sebastian Calloway. He’s been renting my old flat since I moved in here with Nathan.”
Seb held in his huff.Rentingwas a bit of a stretch. Jared had bought that flat outright with inheritance money and refused to let Seb pay for anything other than bills and food. Not that he wasn’t incredibly grateful—his last place hadn’t been anywhere near as nice, and now he had privacy—but it still made him feel as though he was taking advantage.
Jared waited for Seb to settle himself in the chair. “Seb, this is Alec Knight, also a Regent’s Park pack beta.”
The guy sitting on the far end of the sofa was huge: broad shoulders that seemed to take up a full sofa cushion and legs that stretched out a long way in front of him. He had dark hair, with maybe the odd fleck of silver in it, although Seb wasn’t sure if that was a trick of the light or not.
“It’s good to finally meet you.” Alec smiled, warm and welcoming.
It caught Seb off guard and he smiled back. Jared had painted Alec as the typical arrogant shifter—cold and uncaring, especially where humans were concerned. But Alec now regarded Seb with an expression that, if anything, he’d class as concerned.
Alec’s forehead creased into a frown when his gaze landed on Seb’s wrapped ankle. “Is that a result of last night?” he asked, gesturing to Seb’s wrist too.
Casting a quick glance at Jared, who gave him a small nod of encouragement, Seb replied. “Yeah. I fell down the stairs.” He shrugged, a bit embarrassed about the whole thing now. Did it really warrant all this concern?
Alec hummed and let his gaze wander back down over Seb’s injuries. “I’m sorry you were hurt. But I understand you were in Tim’s capable hands?”
Seb felt his cheeks heat a little.Why am I blushing at that?
An image of Tim getting all growly at Jared flashed in his head. Yeah, maybe that was why. He might not want to get involved with one, but there was no denying he found shifters hot.
“Yes,” he said, having to clear his throat to get rid of the sleep huskiness. “Him and his brother, David.” Despite wanting to squirm under Alec’s intense scrutiny, Seb sat perfectly still, not quite sure what was going on. As far as interrogations went, they’d not asked him much, really.
Seemingly satisfied with checking out Seb’s injuries, Alec turned his focus to Nathan, and his whole demeanour changed. The warmth in his eyes vanished, and when he spoke his tone was curt, businesslike. “I shouldn’t have to remind you that Sebastian’s safety is your responsibility.”
Nathan sat rigid in his chair. “I know that.”
Alec waved a hand at Seb’s ankle. “And yet here he sits, injured and afraid. If you need assistance, you should ask for it.”
“It’s not Nathan’s fault,” Seb protested. “I was drunk, and I fell down the stairs because I was startled,” he added, because injured, yes, but he wasn’t afraid now.
Alec met his gaze, and that warm smile was back. “Jared thinks of you as family,” he explained patiently. “This affords you the same protection as him. As Jared’s mate, Nathan is responsible for ensuring that both Jared and you are safe. As I understand it, this isn’t your first interaction with P-Pack shifters. Nathan should have informed Gareth before things escalated to this.”
Again his gaze dropped to Seb’s ankle. Seb was beginning to wish he could hide it from view. He fully expected Jared to jump in about now as usually he wasn’t one to hold his tongue, but Jared didn’t say a word. Clearly there were some shifter hierarchy rules at play that Seb didn’t understand.
Gareth sat forward, his elbows on his knees. “Calm down, Alec. We can’t be certain that every instance was down to shifters from the Primrose Hill pack. And besides, from whatIunderstand, neither Nathan nor Jared knew about any of it until last night.” He looked over at Seb. “That’s right, isn’t it?”
Gareth had one eyebrow raised, and Seb felt like he was being chastised for doing something stupid. “Yeah. I didn’t think it was important, so I didn’t say anything.”
Four sets of eyes focused on him with varying degrees of incredulity. Seb chose to look at Jared, the safest bet, in his opinion, and he almost laughed at the “are you fucking stupid?” expression on his best friend’s face. “Look,” he added quickly before anyone could start shouting. “I’m not a shifter, so I can’t be certain exactly who’s been lurking around the area, but I’ve seen a couple of suspicious-lookingpeoplewith a P-Pack van. Whether or not it’s theirs or—”God, I’m rambling, but having three huge shifters in the room is kind of intimidating.He shrugged. “No one’s actually growled outside the flat until last night.”
No way was he mentioning his suspicions about being followed. Tim didn’t appear to have told anyone, so it can’t have been that important. Seb still thought they were taking this far too seriously. Everyone in this room knew that if members of P-Pack wanted to hurt him, then they could easily have done so. The fact that he was sporting a broken ankle and a sprained wrist was his own fault for being drunk and clumsy.
Maybe he needed to spell that out. “If they wanted to hurt me, there’s nothing I could have done to stop them.”
“That’s very true.” Gareth turned to Alec. “What d’you reckon? We’ve got to report to Cam in an hour. He’ll want answers.”
Alec sighed and ran a hand through his hair. He turned to Nathan, and that same curt tone was back again. “You sure it was P-Pack last night?”
Seb was desperate to know what the story was between those two.
Nathan nodded. “Positive. And it might’ve been the first time they made their presence known, but I think they’ve been to his front door more than once. Their scent seemed days old in places.”
That thought made Seb shift uneasily in his seat. Before this, he’d imagined they’d scraped their claws or whatever over his door and then run off. Kind of like a shifter version of “knock-a-door-run.” Had they been down there while he slept, listening at his door like the creepers they were? He thought back to what else he got up to in bed and swallowed.Fuck.
The thought of them hearing him jack off made his skin crawl.
Alec stood and walked over to stare out the window, as if the view outside held all the answers. “What the hell is Newell up to?”
