My heart skipped a beat. His everything? “Then share with me, let me in on your secrets.”
“I told you when you made the rule that I always be honest with you, that there would be things I couldn’t tell you. I won’t lie to you, but this is a secret I need to keep.”
“If I’m going to stay with you, I need to know more.”
He laid a finger over my lips. “Not now. Not yet.”
I could tell I wasn’t going to get anywhere with him, at least not that night, so when he moved his finger away and replaced it with his lips, I let him seduce me into silence.
13
Emerson
King was gone when I woke the next morning, and he’d left me a note that he’d be busy most of the day. After a brief stop in the bathroom, which was always interesting when I had on a cock cage, I headed to the kitchen. I needed to think, and to do that I had to have coffee. The day before had been even better than I’d imagined when I’d asked King to spend it with me, but after several days of being together, he still wouldn’t explain why I needed round the clock protection, and I was afraid he never would.
Whatever he was worried about was something big. I was sure of that. I’d tried multiple times to get more information from Storm and from Jax and Denny, but they clearly weren’t going to tell me either. It was time for me to do some investigating of my own. I scrambled some eggs as the coffee pot did its thing. Once I had protein in me and a bit of caffeine, I got my laptop out. I hadn’t plugged it in while King and I had been gone the day before, and it was completely out of battery, so I had to find the cord, plug it in, and wait for it to wake up.
While I waited, I checked the messages on my phone. Other than responding to a few increasingly frantic texts from friends who wanted to know where I’d disappeared to and what was going on with Brady, I hadn’t communicated with anyone in the outside world since I’d met King.
I supposed as long as Jax was with me I could go wherever I wanted, but the truth was, I wanted to be wherever King was. My life in the year prior to meeting King hadn’t been all that great. With the exception of a few friends, I’d felt pretty isolated. I’d hated my job, and I’d known Brady wasn’t right for me, but I hadn’t been able to force myself to end things.
Once my computer had restarted, I brought up a browser window. I’d resisted googling King before, wanting to let myself keep living in this fantasy world I’d landed in. But if there was truly a chance King might want me long term, I needed to know more. I typed King Howler in the search bar and clicked return. I got a few links to people with similar names and all their social media profiles, but there was not a single post about him. How could that be?
Next I tried Tooth and Claw club.
The club had its own website, which used euphemisms to explain what went on there and gave very little information except for making it clear that it was for shifters only. There were a few articles about an arrest that was made at the club a few months ago. And that was it.
Storm Howler was my next search.
I came up with nothing. How could they have wiped themselves from the internet? Everyone had something about them out there. Didn’t they have social media? The club did, but as far as I could tell, neither King nor Storm had any profiles under their own names. It was as if they didn’t exist. If I was going to learn more about them, I needed help.
I grabbed my phone again and scrolled through my contacts until I found Henley, one of the few friends from college that I kept up with. He worked as a computer engineer for a data mining company, but he was also a top-notch hacker.
I began typing out a text, and then realized my situation was far too complicated to explain that way. I was going to have to call him. By the fourth ring, I was trying to figure out whether to bother leaving a voicemail, then he answered. “Em, it’s been a while.”
“Yeah, it has. Sorry about that. The last few months have been rocky for me, and now I… Well, I need your help.”
“Sure. What’s up?”
“Um… Any chance you’ve got a few hours later today that you could meet me somewhere?”
“Yes, but what’s going on?”
“Short version. Brady’s an ass.”
“That’s obvious.”
“What? You mean you thought that all along? Why didn’t you tell me?”
“You don’t just tell your friend their boyfriend’s an asshole.”
“I wish you had.” Or did I? If I hadn’t been through the shit I had with Brady, I might never have met King.
“So you realized Brady’s an ass, and…”
“Unfortunately, I didn’t realize it until he found out I have kind of a fetish for shifters and um… dominance. He thinks that’s sick, and he kicked me out.”
“Whoa. There’s a lot to pull apart in all that.”
“I said this was the short version. He kicked me out. I got a little self-destructive, and I got myself in a bit of a mess at a club.”
“Did you find yourself another asshole, but one that’s not so vanilla?”
I’d forgotten how much I enjoyed Henley’s directness. “It’s a shifter club. Humans aren’t allowed.”
“Wow. When you get self-destructive, you go all out.”
“The club owner came to my rescue, and this is where it gets more complicated. I really just need to talk to you in person.”
“You’re kind of weirding me out here.”
“Knowing the things you see every day, that should really scare me.”
“Yeah, it should.”
“So the club owner—his name is King—he and I are not exactly dating, but we’re in some kind of relationship that’s gotten intense really fast.”
“Do you need me to rescue you? Or call the police?”
“No, nothing like that. He hasn’t hurt me or anything. It’s just that I’m staying at the guesthouse at his family’s… estate, I guess you’d say. He and his brothers all live here. He owns the club and some other businesses, but there’s something none of them are telling me.”
“Emerson, what the hell have you gotten yourself into?”
“That’s what I need you to help me figure out. King is… I think I’m in love with him. This isn’t like Brady or anything else I’ve experienced. But I’ve got a bodyguard and King keeps talking about needing to keep me safe. I don’t know that much about shifter society, but I know that King’s family are some kind of big fucking deal. I just need to know what’s actually going on.”
“Nothing good would be my guess. You need to get out of there.”
“Can you just come and use your hacker magic to figure out who he is?”
“Have you tried searching yourself?”
“Yeah. Other than the mention of his name in connection with a review of the club, there’s nothing out there about him or his brothers.”
Henley whistled. “You may be in some deep shit.”
I was worried he was right. Since I’d been at King’s house, I’d been in a protected bubble. It was easy to convince myself that the outside world didn’t exist, that my questions weren’t really that pressing. King would tell me why we needed guards and whatever his current crisis was would get better. But hearing myself explain it to Henley, it all sounded seriously fucked up.
“Do you think King’s in like the shifter mafia?”
“Maybe.”
Fuck. That was not the answer I’d expected. I’d been more or less kidding. Henley continued, “And at this point, I’m not sure if I can get you out.”
“From what I’ve seen, you can do just about anything, but I’m not sure I want to get out, I just want to know what’s happening.”
“Em, I’m worried about you.”
“Worried enough to agree to help me?”
He sighed. “Where do you want to meet?”
“Can you come to me?”
There was silence for several seconds. “They won’t let you leave? And you think this is okay?”
“No, I can l
eave. I just have to go with the driver and a bodyguard. They’ll give us privacy but it’s just…”
“Complicated.”
“Yeah.”
“You think they’ll let me leave again if I come see you?”
“I do. You might get grilled or maybe frisked by Jax, my bodyguard, but he’s actually great and—”
“Shit, Emerson, how do you manage to get into this crazy shit?”
I’d been in some interesting scrapes in college, one involving an attempt to liberate a book from the library that they wouldn’t let me check out but I needed for class, and a far less humorous one involving my boss at a diner where I’d worked and some books that didn’t add up. “If you met King, you’d—never mind.” King would be scary as shit to anyone else. I knew he wasn’t a bad man, but I had no way to make Henley believe me. “I’ll check with Jax and make sure there’s no issue with you coming here and then leaving.”
“Okay. In a lot of ways it would be easier for me to see this from the inside.”
“I don’t want to get you in trouble. Maybe I shouldn’t have called you. Maybe I should just wait until—”
“No way. You called, and I’m going to help you get to the bottom of this. I hope to hell you’re right and the situation isn’t as bad as I think it is. But if it is, I will figure out how to get you out of there.”
Would I let him? The thought of being separated from King made me feel like an elephant was sitting on my chest. My mind whirled and panic closed in on me. I wanted to curl into a ball. I wanted to scream. I couldn’t leave King. No matter who he was or what he’d done, he was mine.
When Henley arrived, Jax let him in with minimal fanfare. He was willing to take my word that Henley was a friend. Henley got right to work on two different laptops as well as a tablet. After about fifteen minutes of rapid-fire typing followed by lots of cursing followed by more typing and more cursing, he said, “I’m going to have to call someone. I’ve got a few connections in the shifter world, including a panther-shifter client. I’ve done some favors for him, and he owes me.”
“Call him. I need to know.” I was too anxious to listen to the conversation, so I headed into the kitchen and began looking around for any junk food that might be stashed in the pantry. I remembered that Henley liked to have a constant supply when he was working like this.
As I heard the murmured conversation with his client, my heart raced and my skin grew clammy. It was all I could do to focus on pouring drinks for each of us and popping some popcorn. What would he find? What if King wasn’t a decent man like I thought? What if I was in a far different kind of danger than I’d imagined? I didn’t know what I would do then.
When I re-entered the small office where Henley had set up his equipment, he was still on the phone, but he was laughing now. A few seconds later, he said, “Thanks, Damian. I had no idea you were such an important man. I appreciate your help, and I swear I won’t say a word or use any of it against him.” He ended the call.
Henley looked at the bowl of popcorn and the other food on the tray I carried. “Wow, you were setting me up for a long afternoon of this, weren’t you?”
“I know the kind of fuel you need. Though I may have overdone it.” The tray held chips, M&Ms, and gummy bears. I wondered who’d thought to stock those in my kitchen. I’d have to see if I could find out.
After downing a handful of popcorn, Henley smiled. “As it turns out, I’m not going to need any more time.”
“What? Don’t tell me King’s so hidden even you can’t find him?”
Henley scowled at me. “That was a low blow. No one is so hidden I can’t find them. But on occasion, good old-fashioned talking gets you what you need. Though it’s disappointing when I don’t get to wow my clients with my ninja-level hacker skills.”
“Wait? You mean you know about King, about what he’s into?”
Henley nodded.
“So?” I set the tray on the edge of the desk as the room began to spin around me. This was it. I was finally going to get answers.
Henley stood and took hold of my arm. “Have you eaten today? You’re seriously pale. Come on. Let’s sit down.” He walked me over to the small couch that was situated under a window.
“I’m just nervous. And scared. I feel this pull toward King. I don’t know why. I don’t—”
“Oh my God, you might be fated mates.”
“What?”
“Fated mates. I thought you knew a lot about shifters.”
“Um… I know a lot about shifter porn?”
Henley rolled his eyes. “No wonder you don’t know anything about real-life shifters, then. Sadly, you can’t believe a thing you see in porn.”
“Well actually, in terms of—” Henley held up his hand.
“Don’t give me any details I’ll regret knowing.”
I grinned. “Fine.”
“When a shifter finds his fated mate, he can tell by their scent, which will be the most amazing smell he’s ever experienced. He’ll become incredibly possessive, and sometimes fated mates will literally become sick if they’re forced to be apart for too long. You feel drawn to each other in a way that is beyond any human crush you’ve ever felt.”
“But how could I be his mate if I’m human?”
“It happens. Shifters’ mates can be human or from a different shifter species. Probably somewhere in your ancestry there are some shifter genes.”
“So when King says I’m his, he means like—”
“Forever. If you’re fated mates, the feelings you’re having aren’t going away.”
“Is that bad?”
“As it turns out, not as bad as I feared. King’s family was into some bad shit in the past. When you guessed shifter mafia, you weren’t far off base.”
“And that’s not as bad as you’d feared?”
“Just hear me out.” Henley retrieved the tray and handed me one of the cans of sodas I’d brought for us.
I popped it open and took a tentative sip. The cold fizzy liquid felt good going down, and I was able to breathe a little easier. If Henley thought things weren’t so bad, maybe everything was going to be okay.
“Apparently King’s family is one of a few very powerful families in shifter society. The way these families gained power was through business dealings that are illegal in the human world. Crime became one of the only avenues for them to gain wealth when they were still hidden from human society. So the Howlers have been involved in drugs, prostitution, weapons, and black-market sales of alcohol and other high-value goods—no human trafficking, though.”
“Um… that’s good. I guess. I mean, that’s worse than the rest of it, right?”
“Yes. They’ve used their businesses for money laundering and they partnered with other shifter families to control these criminal activities within the city.”
“And this is good?”
“Hang on. Apparently, my client Damian has been being rather modest about his contacts within the community. He’s part of an elite group of which King is a member. Basically it’s a governing council for shifter affairs, an unofficial one that manages more illegal business than legal. He says King is a good man. He and King and some of the others on the council want to move more into legitimate businesses, or at least as legitimate as most human billionaires.”
“King’s a billionaire?”
“I didn’t actually hack his bank accounts, but based on what Damian said, I assume so.”
“Oh my God. What the hell have I gotten myself into?”
“Possibly, you’ve found your mate. And he’s a dangerous motherfucker. But one who is fiercely protective of his family and trying to right some of the wrongs of his father and grandfather.”
“So wait. If Damian’s part of this, then isn’t he…?”
“Involved in plenty of illegal business himself. I thought you realized that most people who hire hackers aren’t concerned with working within the law.”
“Then why did you act so shocked that I
was—”
“I like to protect those around me, and I am selective about my clientele. They don’t have to be absolutely aboveboard, but there are things I won’t involve myself in, and I won’t have my friends involved in them either.”
“Why would Damian tell you all this when King’s been so secretive with me?”
He turned away to grab some M&Ms, but when he looked back his cheeks had gone red. “He trusts me. And we’ve… we’ve gotten to be friends.”
I could tell there was more to it, but Henley was clearly uncomfortable, so I didn’t push. “So King’s okay.”
Henley grinned. “That may be going a little too far, but I’m willing to accept that he does mean to keep you safe. And if he’s your mate, then no way would he ever hurt you. Based on what Damian knows and the little I did find, King cares about consent and keeping his people safe, even if those people are just employees or patrons of his club or other businesses.”
“If we really are mates, why wouldn’t he tell me?”
“Tell a human that some mysterious hand of fate has put the two of you together, and you can never leave him? Maybe he thought that would scare the fuck out of you.”
“Not as much as being left in the dark.”
“Shifters don’t think like humans. Please remember that.”
“How do you know so much about shifters?”
“Like I said, when shifter society was all underground, they took control of a lot of areas where having a hacker on staff is useful.”
“And Damian tells you the rest you need to know?”
“No. Well, he tells me some things, because we… I mean… never mind.” He stood so fast he almost knocked the tray off the coffee table. What was he so nervous about? Was there more than friendship between him and Damian? I could tell it wasn’t the time to ask, but hopefully, he’d tell me more eventually. “I should get going, but call me soon and let me know how things are going. I’m still ready to rescue you if you need it.”
I rose too and pulled Henley in for a hug. He squeezed me tight.
“Be careful. I’m serious.”
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