Voyage of the Silver Treader

| 4 | Different

"Right, well you clearly didn't know the Vârcolac well enough; otherwise, you wouldn't be here," Jesse muttered.

Ross scoffed, but instead of lashing out as Jesse feared, he laughed a little and tossed the towel over to the laundry basket.

Jesse then blurted, "Why did you do it?"

"Do what?"

"Become a Ucigaş."

Ross shrugged and said, "Money."

"So, you're an assassin."

"Sometimes." He set his vacant gaze on Jesse. "Why the ceremony?"

Jesse looked away. He didn't want to answer; he knew that Ross was fishing for information because he came from a family of wolves who hunted people like Ross for the Government, but he was also fishing for information on Ross. Maybe he'd understand why this guy made his wolf react so strangely, and maybe he'd find a way to escape, a way to untangle himself from this web of misfortune and terror he'd been weaved up into.

"Well, you evidently know that my family do bounty work for the Nosferatu, and they're all Alphas or Betas and super strong and smart and amazing." He sighed deeply. "And then there's me, the only Redwood who doesn't like hunting or killing. All I wanted to do was find my mate, and...I thought I found him, but I was left last minute because...I'm different," he lamented.

"Because you don't hunt and kill?" Ross questioned.

"No," he mumbled. "James said he liked that I was different, but of course he only meant that behind closed doors." He didn't want to think about it anymore. James was in the past—at least he tried to convince himself that he was. Every time he thought about him, he felt the urge to head back home and try to make things work, but he knew that was pointless. It was over. "He rejected me instead of letting everyone think that he was with someone...someone like me."

Ross, who was staring at him, frowned slightly. It looked like he was thinking, and when he rested his left hand on the blanket and leaned a little closer to Jess, he asked, "Someone like you?"

Jesse tensed up again. His dismay was replaced with fear and anxiety, but his curious wolf kept him in place. The man's right hand met his knee, and when he dragged his palm up Jesse's thigh, his heart began racing.

"Someone...different?" Ross asked, edging his face towards Jesse's neck.

He wanted to pull away; his anxiety quickly overwhelmed him, and when Ross nuzzled his neck, Jesse closed his eyes and tried to find the courage he needed to fight his wolf...but the beast inside him always won. He gave in to his wolf's curiosity, and as Ross' fingers traversed his inner thigh, he tightly gripped the blanket beneath him with both hands and let the strange feeling of anticipation enthral him.

But when Ross' fingers reached his crotch, he felt the man hesitate, and the excitement withered like a flame in a cold, harsh breeze.

Jesse opened his eyes and watched as Ross pulled his face away from his neck and looked down at his hand.

"You're...a—"

"I-I'm a trans man," Jesse blurted before Ross could say the word his parents degraded him with.

A flicker of confusion moved across Ross' face, but he didn't move his hand away from Jesse's crotch. "That's why you were rejected?"

Jesse hung his head in despair. "Straight guys treat people like me like dirty little secrets; we're just this...fun little thing for them. They're too embarrassed to publicly admit that they're not straight—it's like they think we're women, like being with us doesn't make them gay." He glanced at Ross, who was staring at him, listening and maybe even thinking. "I've had four boyfriends in my life, and they all felt the same way. I don't know why I thought James would be any different. I mean he was fine until I got top surgery; it was after that he started acting weird...more reluctant to be seen with me outside his house."