by Paige Tyler
“Want another?” Eric asked as she drank the last of her latte.
Jayna was tempted to say yes simply so she could hang out with him a little while longer. Despite talking about the Albanians and the mess Liam had gotten them into, she was having fun with Eric, which was something she hadn’t done in a really long time. But she’d already been away from the loft too long.
“I can’t,” she said. “They’ll think something is wrong if I’m gone much longer.”
Eric looked as bummed as she felt, but didn’t say anything. He knew as well as she did why she had to go. She couldn’t leave her pack behind, and he wouldn’t ask her to.
“Will you be okay getting back?”
Jayna could only nod. That was the first time anyone other than her pack mates had ever shown concern for her. It felt…nice.
She was halfway out of her chair when she remembered something crazy important she needed to tell Eric. She sat back down. He did too.
“Damn, I almost forgot,” she said. “Kostandin is planning to take out your pack. He doesn’t care that you guys are cops. He wants all of you dead.”
She expected Eric to freak out, or at least immediately pull out his cell phone and call his alpha, but he simply nodded and said he’d let them know, like he was used to people trying to kill them all the time.
He stood when she did. “You’re going to need to wash off my scent before you go back, or they’ll smell me all over you.”
“Crap. You’re right.” She hadn’t even thought about that. “How am I going to get it off? I don’t think a sponge bath in the bathroom at Starbucks is going to do it.”
“You’re going to have to take a shower.”
That meant getting a hotel room. How the hell was she going to afford that?
Jayna was still wondering if she could somehow wash in Starbucks when Eric pulled out his wallet, yanked out all the cash he had in it, and held it out to her.
“Buy what you need and get a hotel room. It’d be best if you washed your clothes too, but I’m guessing you don’t have time for that, so spray a lot of perfume on them instead.”
To say she was stunned would be an understatement. Eric was a cop. He should have been arresting her instead of helping her.
“You might want to take the money now,” he said softly. “It’s starting to look like I’m offering to pay you for a sexual favor or something.”
That got her moving. She quickly reached for the money, shoving it in her pocket with a nod of thanks.
“Be careful,” he said. “I don’t know what I’m going to do yet, but I promise I’ll come up with some way to get you and your pack mates out of this mess. Just try to stay alive long enough for me to do it, okay?”
Jayna nodded, a tiny part of her believing he really could help them. But she quickly dashed that hope. There was no simple way out of a crappy situation like this. That was one thing her life to this point had taught her.
She agreed to be as careful as she could—and to exchange phone numbers with him. She was embarrassed pulling out the cheap prepaid cell phone Liam had given her, but Eric didn’t say a word as he entered his name and phone number into the memory. Then she gave him her number and watched as he typed it into his fancy iPhone so fast she could barely see his fingers move.
“Don’t call me unless it’s important,” she said after he put his phone away. “The only people who have this number are my pack mates. If it rings when they’re all there, Liam will flip out.”
He nodded. “Can we meet again tomorrow? Around this same time? I should have some kind of plan by then.”
Even though she had no idea why, Jayna agreed. Meeting him twice in two days was beyond dangerous. She must have been insane. Clandestine dates with a cop who thought he could save her and her pack from a gang of vicious mobsters—what the hell was she thinking?
Eric opened his mouth, then closed it. She thought he was going to ask her to stay. For one crazy moment, she almost wished he would. But then the real world intruded and she remembered she’d been gone from the loft for a long time.
Giving Eric a small smile, she forced herself to turn and walk toward the door, pleased that she was able to keep herself from turning back to see if he was watching her…at least until she reached the door. Then she threw a brief glance his way. He was still standing where she’d left him, gazing at her with those beautiful blue eyes.
Why did that make her so happy?
Chapter 5
It took every ounce of werewolf strength Becker possessed not to follow Jayna to make sure she got back to the loft okay. If he had, he would never have been able to leave, and he couldn’t help Jayna and her pack if he staked out the loft 24-7. Now, on the ride back to his apartment, all he could think about were the past few hours he’d spent with her. He’d go to his death before he ever told a soul, but it had been the best date he’d ever been on. Maybe that was because he’d never been on one that started with a full-out sprint across downtown Dallas.
Damn, Jayna was fast as hell. He’d really had to push it to keep up with her, which had shocked him. He could outrun anyone in his SWAT pack without even breaking a sweat. And the way she’d gone from flat-out hauling ass to a full stop in two steps was unbelievable. He’d almost snapped his ankles trying to do the same.
But as much as he’d enjoyed racing Jayna, he’d liked the benefits that came with it even more—the view of her ass in those curve-hugging jeans and the pheromones coming off her incredible body. In fact, he was having a hard time figuring out which one of those things had come closest to making him nearly pass out.
While Becker would have liked to spend the rest of the drive to his apartment fantasizing about Jayna, he had more pressing things to think about—like figuring out how to help her and her pack. And he needed to do it fast. The longer they stayed with the Albanians, the more chances there were that it would end badly.
But just because he needed to come up with a solution fast didn’t mean he could. Other than finding a place near the loft and trying to keep an eye on Jayna’s pack from a distance, he had nothing. As plans went, it was pretty damn useless.
He was still trying to come up with something when he turned into his apartment complex and saw Cooper’s Jeep Wrangler in the guest parking spot beside his reserved space. When Becker pulled in beside him, Cooper got out and fixed him with a pissed-off look.
“Why the hell aren’t you answering your phone? I haven’t heard a word from you in over twenty-four hours and every time I called, it went to voice mail. Where the hell have you been?”
Becker flipped down the kickstand on the bike, then climbed off. “With Jayna—the female werewolf from the warehouse.”
Cooper did a double take. “You found her? What’d you find out?”
Becker jerked his head at his apartment building. “I’ll tell you about it inside.”
He led the way up to his fourth-floor apartment, dropped his keys on the table just inside the door, and headed for the kitchen. He opened the fridge and started to reach for a couple beers but grabbed two bottles of water instead. Cooper was on duty, and while werewolves couldn’t get drunk, smelling like beer wasn’t a smart thing to do when you were in uniform.
He tossed one of the bottles to Cooper, then cracked open his own. He leaned against the counter and took a long pull before getting his friend up to speed on the situation. Between the Albanian mobster with the serial-killer underboss, the mercenary omegas, a jackass alpha, and Jayna’s pack of betas, even Becker’s head was spinning by the time he was done, and he already knew the story.
“Oh yeah,” he added. “There’s one other thing. The sadistic underboss I told you about, Kostandin, is gunning for us. Guess he figures they won’t be able to focus on what they want to do in Dallas until we’re out of the picture.”
Cooper nodded. “I’ll make sure the Pack knows. So, Jayna’s a beta, huh? And the werewolves who run without a pack are called omegas? Gage should really give a class on s
ome of this stuff because there’s obviously a lot we don’t know.”
No kidding. Then again, maybe Gage didn’t know betas existed either. “Yeah, well, she and her pack are in deep crap if we can’t come up with a way to help them.”
“And there’s no way you can convince them to walk away from this asshole Liam?” Cooper asked.
Becker shook his head. “Not a chance. Her pack won’t leave, and Jayna won’t leave without them.”
“Huh.” Cooper’s mouth edged up. “You got to respect that.”
“No, I don’t have to respect it,” Becker snapped. He swigged the rest of his water and angrily threw the bottle in the recycle bin. “The Albanians are dangerous. She’s going to get killed.”
Cooper raised a brow, clearly surprised by the vehemence in Becker’s voice, but didn’t say anything. Becker ground his jaw. He rarely got pissed, especially at his best friend, but he was worried as hell about Jayna.
“So, what did you tell Xander and Gage about why I didn’t show up for work today?” he asked, trying to steer the conversation in a different direction. When he’d texted Cooper yesterday to tell him he wouldn’t be in, his friend had said he’d come up with some reason Gage would buy.
Cooper shook his head. “I told them your sister was having problems with her pregnancy and you were spending most of the day on the phone trying to figure out if you needed to go to Denver.”
Becker frowned. As lies went, that was a good one, except… “My sister isn’t pregnant.”
“But no one knows that,” Cooper said. “And if you need to disappear for a few days to help get Jayna and her pack out of the mess they’re in, it’s the perfect cover.”
Becker couldn’t argue with that. Now he just had to figure out how to make it happen.
“So, what’s the plan?” Cooper asked.
“I’m not quite sure yet.” Becker told him about his original idea to raid the loft when Jayna’s pack wasn’t there and why that wouldn’t work. “Other than staking out the place to make sure they’re safe, I got nothing.”
Cooper regarded him thoughtfully. “How far would you go to keep her safe?”
“That’s a dumbass question. I’d go as far as I have to.”
“I thought you’d say that.” Cooper sighed. “Then it’s obvious what you need to do.”
Becker frowned again. “It is?”
“Yeah,” Cooper said. “If you can’t get Jayna out of the situation, you need to get yourself into it, so you can protect her.”
Becker shook his head. “I don’t think sitting on the place is going to work. Not only would one of the werewolves pick up my scent sooner or later, but I also wouldn’t be close enough to protect Jayna when it really matters. If the Albanians send her out on another job like that warehouse gig, I wouldn’t even know it was happening until it was too late.”
“Then you need to be closer,” Cooper said. “So close you’d be right under the other werewolves’ noses…and you can go on those jobs with her.”
Becker’s heart started to thud as he realized what his friend was getting at. Shit. Leave it to Cooper to come up with a plan that verged on suicidal. “You’re suggesting that I go in undercover?”
“Yeah.” Cooper grinned, as if he thought his plan was foolproof. “You said her alpha is bringing in omegas to fill out the ranks. You can go in as one of them and keep Jayna safe from the inside.”
Becker snorted. “That’s insane. You remember how shitty my first, last, and only undercover job turned out, right?”
“You weren’t a werewolf back then,” Cooper pointed out. “And the second one is always easier.”
How the hell would Cooper know? He’d never done any undercover work. “That doesn’t mean I’m going to be any better at it now.”
“You’ll be better now because you have to be. The life of the woman you think is your soul mate depends on it.”
That thought scared the hell out of Becker so much his hands shook. “There’s no way I can go in there. They’ll know I’m a cop the moment they check me out. And I’m pretty sure I can’t just make up a name. These Albanians seem a little sharper than that.”
Cooper thought about that for a second before he grinned. “Then you need to go in with a new identity, a really good one established a long time ago by professionals.”
At first Becker didn’t know what Cooper was talking about, but when he figured it out, he couldn’t keep the smile off his face. “You think we can break into Gage’s safe without him knowing it?”
“We don’t have to break in. Gage uses the date when he changed into a werewolf as the combination.”
“And how would you know that?” Becker asked.
Cooper chuckled. “Because I’m a very curious werewolf by nature.”
* * *
Jayna was torn as she walked the last few blocks to the loft. She dreaded facing Liam and Kos and the crap she knew was coming her way. If she didn’t love her pack mates more than anything in the world, she wouldn’t have gone back there. Kos was going to be suspicious about why she had been gone so long, and Liam was almost certain to be furious.
It wasn’t her fault though. Walking away from that Starbucks had been hard. Well, walking away from the coffee shop hadn’t been that difficult. It was leaving Eric that had been tough. She couldn’t understand why a guy she barely knew had that kind of effect on her. When she walked out of that coffee shop, she’d felt this crazy sensation…like she was leaving something really important behind. The urge to run back in had been almost overwhelming. But she’d forced herself to keep going. It was going to take a while to shower, and it was going to take even longer if she hung around mooning over the big, blue-eyed were-hunk.
She’d stopped at a pharmacy on the way and picked up a bottle of perfume and the fruitiest shampoo she could find. Then she’d gotten a room at the Holiday Inn Express a few blocks off Canton, drawing a bit more attention than she’d liked when she pulled out the wad of cash Eric had given her and discovered that most of the bills were fifties. Who the heck walks around with that kind of money in their wallet?
Jayna expected to see Megan and the guys waiting for her, but they were nowhere in sight. Instead, she found two Albanians and an omega parked on the couch in front of the giant TV, playing video games, while another omega watched. On the other side of the atrium, Liam, Kostandin, and Brandon were still deep in conversation about a job. She heard Brandon ask how they would get in the safe and Kostandin saying something about the daytime manager knowing the combination.
“Don’t be afraid to break a few bones to get her to talk,” Kos said. “Just make sure you break the ones on her left hand—she still has to open the safe.”
She walked over to the omega watching the guys playing video games. Short and stocky, with curly hair, he had a mustache and full beard that could have used a trim. “Where are Megan and the guys?”
He barely glanced at her. “What the hell do I look like, your secretary?”
Jayna didn’t realize she’d shifted until she started forward, her canines and claws extended, her right hand poised to rip out the idiot’s throat.
The omega’s eyes widened in alarm and he quickly backpedaled, raising his hands in an attempt to protect his face and neck. “Shit. Chill out! The girl is upstairs. The three guys are checking out a drug lab that Kos wants to take down in a couple days.”
Jayna’s rage immediately faded. Her pack mates were okay—or at least as okay as they could be considering the present situation.
Abruptly aware of eyes on her, she glanced around and saw everyone staring at her. The omega she’d been about to shred was looking at her like she had horns as well as fangs and claws. She didn’t know why he was so terrified. Sure, she’d lost control for a second, but the guy had to know there was no way a beta her size could take on an omega without her pack. But as he took another step back, she realized he clearly wasn’t aware of that fact.
On the other side of the lobby, Liam f
rowned at her in obvious displeasure—probably pissed she was usurping his pack authority again. Beside him, Kos regarded her with an expression of sick amusement. That pissed her off even more than the look her alpha was throwing her way.
Screw them both, Jayna thought as she turned and headed for the kitchen. She grabbed the first thing she saw on the counter—a box of frosted cinnamon Pop Tarts. She yanked out a pack and ripped it open, then bit into the pastry. It didn’t taste nearly as good as the coffee cake Eric had gotten her at Starbucks. That had tasted better than anything in this room ever could, and she had no doubt it was because he’d been sitting across from her.
Jayna was so wrapped up in thoughts of Eric that she didn’t notice Kostandin coming in until she turned and almost bounced off his oversized chest. How the hell had he been able to sneak up on her like that? He was the size of a house.
The fact that a guy as creepy as Kos could sneak up on her gave her goose bumps all over, and she took an involuntary step back. She might have scared the hell out of the omega out in the lobby, but it was obvious Kos wasn’t intimidated by her in the least.
He closed the distance between them, and before she realized what he was doing, he’d leaned in and sniffed her hair. She pulled back in revulsion even as he chuckled.
“You smell good, she-wolf. Like a peach.” He gave her an oily smile. “I like peaches.”
Jayna tried to walk past him, but he moved with her, blocking her path and gazing down at her with an unnerving glint in his eyes. She growled, reaching for the rage she’d just unleased on the omega only a few minutes ago. But that powerful rage—and the werewolf who’d shown it—now seemed to be AWOL. In its place was a frightened seventeen-year-old girl facing not a sadistic mobster but a sadistic stepfather. For a second, she was so scared she could barely think, much less defend herself.
