“I’ll show you the washer,” Matt said, standing.
Jesse hesitated a moment before getting to his feet. For an instant, Matt thought he was about to say something, maybe to ask something. But then he stood, and the moment was gone.
Matt showed him the laundry room—really just a mudroom with a washer and dryer stuffed into one corner—and found himself a shelf to tidy as Jesse dragged a meager collection of clothes from the duffel he’d scarcely taken his eyes from all meal.
Once the washer was going, Matt led Jesse to his den, where they wouldn’t be interrupted.
Chapter Four
JESSE
Here it came, whatever that alpha wanted from him. He might have said he didn’t want anything, but Jesse knew better.
The room he took Jesse to was small and felt dark, dominated by an imposing brick chimney, a large desk, and two brown leather armchairs. Urban closed the door firmly behind them, and Jesse clutched the strap of his duffel. He was determined to take it with him when he escaped, though he realized too late that most of his clothes would be lost to him now they were churning away in that washer.
But Urban didn’t touch him. He didn’t even look at Jesse as he sat down in an armchair and pretended to relax. Pretended, because Jesse couldfeelthe tension in him. Tension coiled inside Jesse too, squirmy, restless, and worried.
“Take a seat,” Urban said mildly, tilting his head toward the other armchair in the room.
Figuring he had no other choice—Urban could take him down before he got to the door—Jesse sat, carefully twining his hand in the strap of his duffel where it sat on his lap. He licked his lips nervously, and Urban’s gaze tracked the motion. A muscle in Urban’s cheek twitched and something unreadable flickered in his face, but then it was gone.
“You know you’ve broken all shifter laws by coming onto my territory uninvited. I don’t necessarily intend to exact punishment for it, but Idowant to know why.”
“What the hell?” It burst from Jesse before he could stop it, then he bit his lip firmly and stopped anything more escaping. Urban had started out sounding like he was a schoolkid deserving detention but had ended up sounding pretty damn dangerous. He didn’t know exactly what punishment Urban might deal out, and he’d like to keep it that way.
“Like I said, I was just running under the moon. Well, the clouds,” he added, because although he couldfeelthe moon as a wolf, it hadn’t been visible. Which made those other wolves running into him all the more unfair—it had been almost pitch black and they hadmilesof space to roam. What the hell was his luck that they’d found him?
And what was it about Urban that reminded him of how it felt to run under the full moon? That made no sense.
“Onmyterritory,” Urban reminded him. “You may like to think you weren’t doing any harm, but we both know better.”
Jesse knew Urban was dangerous. Knew he could tear Jesse limb from limb and Jesse wouldn’t be able to stop him. Even so, the damninjusticewas too much for him.
“I didn’t fuckingknow, okay?” He was bolt upright in the armchair, glaring at Urban. “How was I supposed to know? Not like you put signposts up.”
Urban’s brow wrinkled slightly. Again, something flickered in his expression that Jesse couldn’t quite read.
“That’s exactly what we did.Wolfsigns.”
He took his time, examining Jesse’s face, staring into his eyes until Jesse fidgeted in his seat under the weight of that gaze. His skin prickled, but not with fear. Something else. He set his jaw, refusing to look away first.
“Are you trying to tell me you couldn’t interpret them?” Urban asked. “And before you answer, know this—I might forgive trespass, but I won’t be lied to.”
“I ain’t a liar.” It burst out of Jesse, indignation overriding his tactical sense. Aw, hell. He was damned anyway—might as well go down swinging. “I didn’t know, okay? What do you want me to do about it? Cause I’ve already said I’m sorry for trampling all over your precious territory.”
He was gasping by the time he finished, torn between terror and fury. Urban could kill him here and now, and no one would ever know what happened to Jesse Turner.
But Urban was looking at him a little less like a threat and more like a bug under a microscope. It was everything Jesse could do not to squirm under that long, careful study.
“How can you be a shifter and not know this?” Urban asked at last. “Who the hell’s let you run around without basic survival tools?”
Lethim run around? That, right there, was the problem Jesse had with other shifters. No onelethim do anything. He did what he wanted. Which, for now, meant trying to get out of here in one piece.
He thought back to the small amount of research he’d done when he found out he could turn into a wolf. All he remembered was that shifters were born, not made—despite what some ignorant humans said—and that alphas were bastards, each ruling theirpack and their territory with a rod of iron. Not a damn thing about scent markers, whatever the hell they were.
Urban was obviously not going to let this one go, because he was back on it again, worrying at the subject like a wolf with a bone. “How’d you get to your age without knowing scent markers?”
Goddammit, he made Jesse sound like Methuselah instead of being twenty-three. Or so. Not like he knew for sure.
