In the Company of Wolves(21)
“You did all that—hacking into computer systems, watching endless hours of video, hanging around a coffee shop half the morning—just to find me? Why?”
He stopped smiling, his blue eyes suddenly serious. “It seemed like you were in a lot of trouble back in that warehouse. I thought I should find you and try to help.”
Since going through her change almost five years ago, Jayna had gotten freaky good at figuring out when people were lying to her, and right now, those instincts were telling her that Eric wasn’t being completely honest. But those same instincts told her that she could trust him in spite of that. Whatever he was hiding, it didn’t involve arresting her.
“What makes you think I’m in trouble?” She broke off a piece of the coffee cake he’d bought her and nibbled on it. “Maybe I’m the kind of girl who robs warehouses all the time.”
His mouth curved into a half smile. “You’re a lot of amazing things, Jayna, but you’re not that kind of girl. Your heart was thumping a thousand miles an hour when you saw me in that warehouse, even more when you heard over my radio that the other members of your pack had abandoned you.”
She snorted. “Trust me, those guys aren’t my pack.”
“Then why were you running with them?”
Jayna didn’t know why she was hesitating, especially after the omegas had left her to fend for herself. She didn’t owe them anything.
“It’s not by choice,” she finally admitted. “They’re a group of omegas my alpha brought in to serve as muscle for the Albanian mobsters my real pack and I are stuck working for.”
His mouth twitched. “That sounds like something out of a James Bond movie, you know that, right?”
That was way funnier than it should have been given the situation, and she had to bite her lip to keep from laughing. “I’ve never been a really big fan of James Bond movies.”
“Really? I’ll have to see what I can do to change your position on them, then.” He leaned forward, resting his forearms on the table. “But right now, I’m more interested in what an omega is.”
Jayna almost choked on her latte. He was an alpha and he didn’t know what an omega was? “You don’t know?”
Eric shook his head.
He really didn’t. “An omega is a big, strong werewolf like an alpha, but they don’t have the natural pack instincts you do. That’s why those guys bolted and left me the moment the crap hit the fan at the warehouse. They don’t care about anyone but themselves.”
“Huh.” Eric took a swallow of coffee. “That explains why they didn’t fight as a team.”
“They’re more likely to throw each other to the wolves,” she said, then added, “No pun intended. That’s why werewolves like me don’t like to hang out with them. They don’t have any loyalty to anyone.”
Eric studied her for a long time, and she wondered if she’d said something wrong. Then he tilted his head to the side, a cute, quizzical look on his face.
“Okay, I’ll bite,” he said. “What do you mean, werewolves like you?”
She’d met her share of werewolves over the last five years and none of them had been this clueless. Eric must be even newer to this whole werewolf thing than she’d thought.
“Betas,” she said.
She’d hoped for a spark of recognition, but he just sat there with an interested look on his gorgeous face, obviously waiting for her to continue.
“You don’t know what a beta is either?” She narrowed her eyes at him. “Exactly how long have you been a werewolf?”
He flushed beneath his tan. “A little over two years, but I was in the police academy for some of that before I joined the Pack, so I’m still learning a lot about werewolves.”
Which meant he wasn’t much further along than Moe when it came to being a werewolf. But Eric seemed so mature and in charge, she’d assumed he was more experienced. He was an alpha, though, and if half of what Liam had told her about being an alpha was true, Eric had probably spent most of that first year after the change trying to figure out how to control his inner beast. And he had to do it while going through the police academy. When she looked at it that way, he had a good excuse for not knowing what a beta was.
“Sorry,” she said. “I thought you’d been a werewolf a lot longer than I have.”
He flashed her that megawatt smile. “No big deal. I don’t have a problem with you being smarter than I am. I find smart women to be very sexy.”
She was the one who blushed this time.
“So…a beta,” he continued. “I’m guessing that’s halfway between an alpha and an omega?”