his mate, Andreas padded to Jessie's side. He set a massive paw on the bed, not quite daring to leap onto the mattress lest he frighten his mate. Jessie tentatively reached for him, rubbing his fingers over Andreas's paw.
The sensations Jessie's touch summoned inside him felt so good that, if he'd been a feline, Andreas would have purred. It wasn't even solely because of the physical caress, although that definitely contributed to it. Rather, it had more to do with the fact that, through that simple gesture, Jessie was showing his acceptance of Andreas's nature. His wolf wanted to crawl on the bed and nuzzle his mate, but Andreas sternly reminded himself now was not the time for that. Maybe later.
Even as he thought this, Jessie's fingers traveled from his paw to his lupine forehead. Andreas flicked an ear, but Jessie didn't seem startled. If anything, he appeared to be fascinated by Andreas's closeness.
"Andreas?" he finally asked. "Is that really you? Can you understand me?"
In reply, Andreas licked his mate's hand and wagged his tail. He probably looked ridiculous, but he couldn't help himself. In the end, Jessie had reacted far better than he could have which was probably because he already knew that Andreas wasn't human.
One more check on the list of hard things to do. Andreas wished he could have stayed in his wolf form longer, perhaps get Jessie accustomed to his beast, but they still needed to talk about too many things. He stepped back and shifted into his human shape. "How are you doing so far?" he asked his mate once he could use his vocal cords for speech.
"Okay," Jessie said. "All things considered, it makes sense. Kind of."
Andreas wanted to ask what Jessie had been considering, but in the end, it didn't really matter. This wasn't even the most serious part of what he had to tell Jessie, and Jessie had some questions of his own. "One moment," he piped up before Andreas could continue. "Is that why you always end up stuck inside me after we have sex? And do werewolves carry STDs? What does it mean when you bite me?"
"Werewolves are immune to most human diseases, including STDs," Andreas explained. "As for your first question, yes, my werewolf nature is connected to it. The process is called a knotting, although it doesn't happen every time." The reason for that was connected to Jessie's third question, but that was something he needed to approach with more care.
Clearing his throat, he added, "As you can imagine, my kind is very keen on this sort of information not coming out. It is forbidden for it to be shared to anyone outside the species. Therefore, I was dispatched to investigate whether you knew about it or not. That was the whole point of me infiltrating your workplace."
"And if I'd known about it, what then?" Jessie asked quietly.
Andreas sighed heavily. "Enforcers like me are mostly assigned to contain the problem. Basically, we try to clean up the mess without unnecessary bloodshed. If the human is found exceptional in any way, he is integrated in the system, found a job, if you will. If that's not the case, the next course of action would be to discredit the human and make sure he is deemed insane by the humans. We have special facilities that don't ask questions and don't listen to rants about monsters with fangs and fur."
"And if none of that works?" Jessie inquired, his voice so low now it was almost inaudible.
"If the human is particularly 'noisy' or considered a higher-than-average risk, silencers are dispatched. They're basically… assassins."
Jessie paled. "You wanted to kill me?"
"Not me," Andreas immediately rushed to assure the other man. He knelt next to the bed, taking his mate's hands once more. "I'm only an enforcer. I don't make the rules and I've always tried to keep information from leaking. So far, no one's died on my watch." And now that he thought about it, Erdi had always cooperated with him so that everyone would stay safe.
He paused, giving Jessie a few moments to
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