Page 51 of Lost and Bound
“Good,” Nate said after a pause, sounding a lot less confident. “That’s a relief.”
“Yeah,” I managed to rasp through my tight throat. “It really, really is.”
“Okay then,” Arik said briskly, and jumped to his feet. “My work here is done. Nate, anything to add? I’d understand if you wanted to check him out too.”
Nate blinked up at him, looking a little startled by this display of professional courtesy. “I trust you,” he said.
“Oh.” Arik cleared his throat, his cheeks flushing. “Of course, I mean, you don’t even know what a spleen is.”
Nate rolled his eyes. “Whatever.”
“I’m heading back to the house. Matthew has a council meeting later, and I need to catch him before that.” The flush deepened. “We have some important stuff to discuss first.” And with that, he strode off through the woods. “I’ll tell him I gave you the all-clear, Jared,” he called back over his shoulder.
And then Nate and I were alone. I grabbed my shirt and pulled it on quickly, the consciousness of being half-naked while alone with my ex, my cousin’s mate, hitting me hard. Ian would kill me if he saw this.
“Important stuff,” Nate muttered derisively. “I guess Matthew’s knot in his ass qualifies as important.”
Oh, gods. I choked, tried to cover it with a cough, and ended up red-faced and wheezing when that went sideways and made me have a coughing fit for real.
Nate eyed me, unimpressed, chewing on his lip. That might’ve turned me on a couple of years before. Now it just made me feel like pond scum.
Christ. I wasn’t going to get another chance, not with Ian clearly feeling not so great about having me and Nate in close proximity. Trying to manufacture another opportunity to get Nate alone would only end up with Ian breaking my nose, or possibly rearranging my remaining internal organs with his claws.
I braced myself. This was going to suck, but dammit…Arik had confirmed I was me. That meant…gods, that meant I actually had to live with these people. Get along. Make my peace with everyone. Something that felt a lot like Arik’s magic not-worms squirmed in my gut.
“I’m sorry,” I said, still sounding a little hoarse. “Nate. I know you maybe don’t want to hear this from me, and you don’t owe me anything, like forgiveness. But I’m truly sorry. I fucked up. And maybe you want to hear this even less, but I really liked you. Like you. Not like that!” I added, when his dark eyes went wide and his eyebrows shot up. “Not anymore. Maybe not ever.”
Okay, not helping, because now he’d gone all red and he looked pissed as hell.
“Maybe I did, for a while, you’re really hot,” I babbled. “I mean, not hot like I’m trying to hit on you. Hot like…it wasn’t just because he told me to. But you’re Ian’s mate. And I respect that! And that’s not the only reason I’m not hitting on you, I respect you too—”
I broke off, completely nonplussed, as Nate burst into laughter. Not just a polite ha-ha, or an awkward chuckle, but full-bore, body-shaking cackles. I stared at him, my face getting hotter and hotter, as he laughed himself out, finally subsiding with a few helpless guffaws and wiping at his watering eyes.
“Oh my fucking gods,” he said, and laughed some more, shaking his head—at himself or at me, or maybe both. “Jared, you’re such an asshole. I can’t believe it. Even when you’re trying to make nice and make it up to me and apologize, you are still just such a fucking bag of tools.”
My face could’ve fried a whole carton of eggs. Lucky me, because I probably had a whole carton’s worth of egg on my face.
Stiffly, I got up, brushed the detritus off my jeans, and gave Nate an awkward nod. Understood. Living with him in the same pack was going to be…fuck.
I turned to go.
And Nate’s voice stopped me. “That doesn’t mean I’m not glad you’re alive.”
I turned back, and I found his intent dark gaze fixed on me, completely serious.
“That’s hard to believe.”
He shrugged. “Believe what you want, I guess. But it fucking broke Ian when you…died. When he thought you’d died. When you were gone. You don’t deserve to have him love you that much,” he said fiercely, eyes blazing. “Ian’s so loyal. He’d have loved you no matter what, and hedidlove you no matter what, and you treated him like shit. I don’t even care about what you did to me. Whatever, I got some mediocre sex out of it.”Mediocre sex?But I shoved down the flare of offended anger. I deserved whatever Nate had to dish out, even if I didn’t deserve Ian’s loyalty. And Nate was right about both. “And I got a mate out of it, sort of indirectly. A better mate than you’d ever have been.”
Mediocre sex. Fuck my life.
He really was right, though, dammit.
“Yeah. I’m sure he is.” Nate stared at me, mouth open. What, he’d expected me to argue? To say something snide about how if it’d been mediocre for him, how bad did he think it’d been forme? Probably.
But that was previous-Jared.
This was the new, spleen-free Jared, who didn’t want to be a treacherous, selfish dick anymore.
