In the Company of Wolves

by Paige Tyler

  “If I find anything in your background I don’t like, you know I’ll kill you, right?” Frasheri said.

  Eric seemed unconcerned as he picked up his jacket and slung his pack on his shoulder, but Jayna’s stomach clenched as Frasheri strode out of the lobby. Even though Eric had assured her his fake identity would check out, she couldn’t help being worried anyway. Suddenly remembering Megan and Moe, she introduced them to Eric. Neither of her pack mates were interested in a meet and greet and clearly couldn’t wait to get out of there.

  “We’re going to grab something to eat,” Megan said. “You coming, Jayna?”

  “In a little while,” she said. “I’m going to show Eric to his room first.”

  Moe frowned at that while Megan gave Eric a wary look. “Do you want us to come with you?”

  Jayna shook her head. “Go get something to eat.”

  “Are you sure?” Megan asked, and Jayna could see that her best friend was on the verge of panicking.

  “I’m sure.” She smiled. “I’ll be fine.”

  Megan looked like she wanted to argue, but instead she caught Jayna’s hand and pulled her close. “Be careful around him,” she whispered in her ear. “He’s freaky crazy.”

  Jayna wanted to assure her pack mates they had nothing to fear from Eric, that he was there to help them out of this mess, but she couldn’t. So she simply nodded and gave Megan’s hand a squeeze, then told her and Moe that she’d see them later.

  One of the Albanians tossed her a set of keys and gave her an apartment number a few doors down from the guys on the fourth floor.

  Jayna tried to look casual as she led Eric upstairs. His apartment was almost a mirror image of hers and Megan’s.

  “Sorry about Megan and Moe,” she said as he closed the door behind them. “They think you’re just another crazy omega who can’t be trusted.”

  “I figured that.” His mouth curved. “Don’t worry about it.”

  Jayna nodded, then frowned, her gaze going to his torn T-shirt. “Let me take a look at those claw marks.”

  She knew from experience that ragged claw marks could hurt like hell and take a long time to heal.

  “You don’t have to,” he said, but didn’t stop her as she pulled his shirt up over his head.

  After the fight she’d just seen, Jayna expected to see a bloody mess, but the dozen or so ragged scratches took a backseat to the overall view she got of his truly spectacular upper body. It was hard trying not to stare—Eric was seriously buff. Broad shoulders, thick chest and arm muscles, and abs so ripped she had a crazy desire to nip at them with her fangs.

  In addition to all those captivating muscles, there were a couple other things about Eric’s body that drew her attention. One was the big wolf head tattoo with the letters SWAT under it that dominated the left side of his chest. Clearly he wouldn’t be taking his shirt off anywhere near the Albanians or the omegas—their loss.

  The other thing that stood out were the scars. All werewolves had a scar or two, including her pack mates. But Eric had more than a few. There was a big one with what appeared to be stitch marks on either side of it on the right side of his chest. There were two more just above his belly button, both bearing tiny marks on either side, like he’d been cut into, then stitched up again.

  Beyond those three big scars, he had half a dozen smaller ones—at least compared to the others—and some of them looked relatively fresh. Compared to all the other damage Eric had obviously sustained in his life, the scratches Caleb and Brandon had given him looked like paper cuts. Still, she wanted to clean them a little.

  “Stay put,” she said. “I’ll be right back.”

  Taking his shirt, she went into the small kitchen and got it wet in the sink, then went back over to where Eric was waiting.

  “You know you don’t have to do that, right?” he said as she carefully cleaned the blood out of each and every scratch.

  She glanced up at him. “I haven’t seen Caleb or Brandon wash their hands the entire time they’ve been here. They could be carrying some kind of nasty biological crud under their nails for all you know.”

  Eric’s mouth twitched, but he didn’t make a fuss as she continued tending to his wounds. He simply stood there patiently and let her work. She quickly lost herself in the simple task of cleaning the scratches, enjoying the feeling of his warm skin under her fingers. The fact that he smelled so damn good this close up may have had something to do with that. His scent was rather hypnotizing.

  She knew she was taking longer to tend his wounds than absolutely necessary. But hey, it had been a long time since she’d enjoyed touching a man’s body. It seemed like another life the last time she’d done something like this, and she’d been nothing but a hormonal teenager back then. After what happened the night she’d left home for good, she’d feared she’d lost the ability to enjoy something like this.

  Jayna was so caught up in the moment, she almost didn’t realize Eric was talking to her. “What?”

  Maybe it was the midday sun coming through the window, but for a moment, it seemed like his eyes were glowing a beautiful, golden yellow. Then the color disappeared and he smiled at her.

  “I asked if your alpha is always such an ass,” he said. “I think he was really hoping Brandon and Caleb would kill me.”

  Jayna had to actually shake her head a little to clear it and get herself to focus on anything other than the broad expanse of muscles in front of her.

  “Liam wasn’t always like that,” she said. “When I first joined the pack, I thought he was amazing. He seemed to go out of his way to find betas who needed his help, and he did whatever it took to get them to a better place. But lately, he’s changed. Suddenly, it all seems to be about power and money and respect. I don’t know where the old Liam went, but the werewolf who took his place is an ass. And yes, I’m guessing he hoped Caleb would go nuts and kill you. It’s almost certainly why he picked Caleb in the first place. The guy has major control issues.”

  Eric didn’t say anything for a while. And when he did, it wasn’t the disparaging comment about Liam that she expected.

  “It must be rough,” he said quietly, “seeing the alpha you used to respect disappear like that.”

  Jayna felt her throat tighten up, surprised at how accurately Eric had pegged exactly how she was feeling. Just thinking about it made tears gather in her eyes. She lowered her head so he couldn’t see, busying herself with some of the scratches that trailed down toward his stomach.

  “So what’s your alpha like?” she asked suddenly, feeling his eyes on her and wanting more than anything to change the subject. She didn’t like the idea of Eric seeing her cry or feeling sorry for her. “He must be pretty tough to keep a whole pack full of other alphas in line.”

  Eric chuckled, and Jayna had the pleasure of watching his abs flex.

  “Sergeant Dixon? Yeah, I suppose at first he might come off as tough if you didn’t really know him. He’s stronger than just about anyone else in the Pack and absolutely fearless under fire. But more than that, he’s the man who brought us all together, and he’s risked his life for us more times than any of us can count. He’s not that much older than the rest of us, but in all the ways that matter, he’s more of a father than an alpha. There isn’t anything we wouldn’t do for him.”

  Jayna almost felt jealous. At his best, Liam had inspired that kind of devotion in his pack, but that had been a long time ago. Then again, she had to wonder if she and the other betas in her pack would have responded as well to a leader who was so obviously alpha. Maybe Sergeant Dixon was a perfect fit for Eric’s pack, but would he have been for hers?

  Jayna had cleaned off as much blood as she was going to and set aside Eric’s messy shirt, letting her fingers explore his stomach and trail across his muscular chest to his equally well-muscled shoulder. She told herself that she was simply checking to make sure there wasn’t any foreign debris in the deeper slashes near the top of his deltoids, but that was bogus. She liked
touching him. It made her fingers tingle.

  That’s when she realized it wasn’t just her fingers that were tingling. Crap. What the heck was going on? It was like she was sixteen again, getting a chance to make out with the hot guy at school. She licked her lips and surreptitiously glanced at Eric, hoping he hadn’t noticed her less-than-casual interest in his muscles.

  But apparently he had noticed. That gold flare was back in his eyes, and for a second, they stood there face-to-face, so close that Jayna could feel the warmth of his breath on her cheek.

  She licked her lips again, and she saw Eric’s sharp eyes follow the path her tongue made with the intensity of a predator. For a moment, she half expected him to lean forward and kiss her. She wasn’t sure she would have stopped him. Her lips were tingling now along with the rest of her body. The urge to lean into the kiss she thought was coming was so powerful, it was hard to ignore—and more than a little scary.

  Jayna mentally shook herself and took a step back. She’d never liked feeling out of control or scared, even if those feelings were the result of a sexual response stronger than she’d felt in a really long time.

  The golden glow immediately dimmed in Eric’s eyes. Giving her a small smile, he unzipped his backpack and took out a shirt and dragged it on. Even if she knew it was for the best, it was still hard watching him hide those muscles from sight. She could have gazed at them all day.

  “I couldn’t help but notice how close you and Megan are,” Eric said, casually leaning back against the kitchen counter. “If you didn’t look so completely different from each other, I would have guessed you were sisters.”

  Jayna was surprised by the change in topic, but grateful. It was like Eric had somehow realized she was having a momentary emotional crisis and was trying to help—another point in the big guy’s favor.

  “In a lot of ways, she is my sister,” Jayna admitted. “When we first took Megan into our pack two years ago, she was in pretty bad shape.”

  “What happened to her? Before she joined your pack, I mean,” Eric said, then added, “If you don’t mind me asking.”

  Jayna didn’t answer right away. “Megan’s house caught on fire a few days after she turned eighteen. She woke up when she smelled smoke, but by then the whole place was already burning. She tried to get the rest of her family out, but they’d already succumbed to smoke inhalation and she wasn’t strong enough to carry them.”

  “Shit,” Eric whispered. “Did any of them make it?”

  Jayna shook her head. “No. A firefighter found Megan on the stairs beside her little brother. The guy got them out, but it was too late for her brother. Her parents and her older sister died in the fire too.”

  “That had to be hard to deal with.”

  “Yeah,” Jayna agreed. “When she woke up in the hospital a few days later and they told her, she didn’t handle it well. She blamed herself for being too weak to save them. She threw a chair through her hospital window and jumped out—from six floors up, onto the parking lot pavement.”

  “Damn,” Eric hissed.

  “Yeah. Damn.” Tears filled Jayna’s eyes like they did every time she thought about what had happened to Megan. “Megan should have died immediately, but the fire had brought on her change and the werewolf inside wouldn’t let her die. She was hobbling her way onto the freeway when Liam picked up her scent. I don’t know how he used to do it, but he could tell there was a werewolf in trouble. Somehow he realized that he couldn’t save her though—that I was the only one who could.”

  Eric frowned. “What do you mean?”

  Jayna shrugged. “Megan wanted to die, and she would have kept trying until she found something that worked. So Liam had me stay with her 24-7 for weeks. That was when our bond formed, and with it, she somehow found the will to live again.”

  Jayna wiped away the tears, remembering those long, dark days, when suddenly Eric was there at her side and his arms were going around her. She didn’t stiffen or feel the sense of panic that usually came when a guy got in her space. She just felt warmth.

  She relaxed against him, wrapping her arms around him and resting her head on his chest. A few more tears slipped out, but she decided to ignore those in the comfort of the moment.

  But on the heels of that warm, comfortable feeling, another sensation crept in, and Jayna’s heart started beating faster as her jaws and fingers started tingling—like she was on the verge of shifting. She wasn’t stupid. She knew what was happening. She was aroused—so aroused it was almost bringing on an involuntary shift. The intensity of it scared her.

  She tried to breathe through it and get herself under control. She’d had sex in the years following Darren’s attempted rape—more to convince herself that she was normal than because she wanted it. The sex had been mechanical and meaningless, a way of assuring herself that Darren hadn’t broken her.

  But she wasn’t feeling anything mechanical or meaningless now. Right then, she wanted to have sex with Eric. She wanted it with a hunger that literally had her shaking.

  She shouldn’t have even been thinking about something like that after telling him Megan’s story.

  Jayna took a step back. Then another. Eric didn’t follow. He simply walked back over to the counter he’d been leaning against before, giving her space to collect herself. Her mind raced to find words that would fill the silence dominating the large, open space around them and the sudden cool gulf that separated her from Eric.

  She ran her hand through her long hair. “So, um, what’s your plan now that you’ve gotten yourself into the building?”

  It was a lame segue out of the uncomfortable situation, but her mind wasn’t working at full efficiency just then.

  “It’s simple really,” Eric said, as if the elephant in the room didn’t even exist. “Every time we figure out where the Albanians are planning to strike, we get a tip to my pack mate, Cooper. He’ll make sure the info gets to my alpha, who will make life damn hard on Frasheri, Kos, and their pet omegas.”

  She frowned. “That might work once or twice, but don’t you think they’ll figure out someone in this building is ratting them out at some point?”

  “The fact that there’s a gang of mobsters trying to take over control of organized crime in Dallas is about the worst-kept secret in town,” Eric said. “Frasheri and Kos have to know every rival gang and thug in the city is watching this place, waiting for them to make another move. We just have to make sure it looks like one of their rivals is tipping off the cops. It shouldn’t be too hard since we were waiting for you at the warehouse the other day.”

  Jayna wondered how SWAT had known they’d hit the warehouse, but she didn’t ask.

  “How do we make sure that none of my pack gets caught in the crossfire between the cops and the Albanians?”

  “I’m going to personally make sure that none of your pack is there when the shooting starts,” Eric promised. “You have my word on that.”

  Coming from anyone else, those words would have been hollow, but Jayna believed them from Eric.

  * * *

  After working out a few more details of their plan to bring the Albanians down, which included Eric giving her Cooper’s contact info, Jayna headed back to her room with her head spinning. What a freaking day.

  Megan yanked open the door the minute she knocked. “Finally! You’ve been up there showing the new omega his room for an hour. Since when do you hang around with omegas?”

  Jayna felt terrible for worrying Megan, but she couldn’t tell her who Eric really was. Not yet.

  “I don’t hang around with them.” Jayna locked the door and wedged the chair underneath the knob. “I was just being polite and making sure he got comfortably settled in.”

  She didn’t look at Megan as she walked into the tiny kitchen and grabbed the bag of Doritos sitting on the table. She opened it and reached in for a handful of chips.

  “You were just being polite,” Megan said. “And I suppose being polite required you to clean his scra
tches for him?”

  Jayna almost choked on a chip. She turned to look at Megan “What?”

  Megan pointed at her hand. “There’s blood on the back of your hand. Don’t even bother denying it belongs to him. His scent is very unique.”

  Jayna twisted her hand around until she saw the tiny smear. She scrubbed it off with a paper towel. “Um, yeah, I helped him clean up. I thought it’d be a good idea to be friendly to him. We might have to go out on a job together, and it would be nice to have an omega covering our backs and not stabbing us in them.”

  That line sounded suitably dramatic to her, but Megan didn’t look like she was buying it. “Uh-huh. Whatever you say. Will you be helping Brandon and Caleb clean up next?”

  Jayna shoved a handful of pointy Doritos in her mouth and crunched loudly.

  Megan laughed and waved her hand. “Okay. Go ahead and keep your secrets for now. But if you come up here with Eric’s scent all over your clothes again, I’m going to think you’ve been getting busy with the new guy.”

  Jayna watched in disbelief as Megan wandered over to her bed and thumbed through an old issue of Cosmo. She hadn’t even thought about anyone smelling Eric’s scent on her. Now that he was going to be living at the loft, it wouldn’t be as much of an issue, but she still had to be careful.

  But while Megan might be smiling, Jayna knew there were some hurt feelings there too. There had never been secrets between the two of them. Jayna felt crappy about keeping her friend in the dark, but there was simply too much at risk.

  There was something Jayna needed to tell Megan though. She walked over to her own bed and sat down, facing her friend.

  “Megan, I have to tell you something, and I need you to promise that you won’t breathe a word of what I say to anyone else, not even the guys.”

  That got Megan’s attention. She lowered the magazine and looked at Jayna with alarm. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing,” Jayna assured her. “I just need to tell you something.”

  “Okay,” Megan said hesitantly.

  Jayna took a deep breath, hoping Megan wouldn’t ask a lot of questions she wasn’t ready to answer. “If something goes wrong, find Eric. He’ll get you and the guys out of here.”