In the Company of Wolves(36)

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.