“You want something to eat?” Eric asked, tossing his keys on the table inside the door of his apartment.
Jayna started to say no, then stopped. She’d eaten a huge breakfast just a few hours ago, so she shouldn’t be hungry, but she was famished again. She’d been eating like a bear since yesterday. Eric and Cooper said it was because she needed the extra energy to heal the damage her body had sustained during the fight with Brandon. She supposed that made sense, considering Trey had told her she’d broken four ribs and fractured several bones in her back bouncing off that column. What didn’t make sense was how fast she’d healed. As a beta, it should have taken days to recover, but she was feeling almost back to normal already.
Eric must have taken her silence for consent and jerked his head at the couch as he headed toward the kitchen. “I’ll dig us up something to eat. You can turn on the TV if you want.”
She curled up on his big, comfy couch, but ignored the TV remote. She didn’t feel like watching television, and she definitely had no interest in what the news channels were saying about yesterday’s shoot-out at the loft. So instead, she leaned back into the cushions, trying furiously to figure out what she should do with the pack she had become responsible for overnight.
She barely felt capable of taking care of herself on most days, much less four other werewolves. For one horrible minute back in the SWAT operations vehicle yesterday, she’d almost considered walking away from Eric. She hadn’t wanted to do it, but being responsible for the rest of her pack meant she had to put other people’s needs ahead of her own, especially if it meant keeping them safe from Liam.
But fortunately, Sergeant Dixon, the very large and very intimidating alpha of Eric’s pack, had come up with a solution—staying with his future in-laws, Ethan and Kathryn Stone. Jayna still couldn’t believe the couple had opened up their beautiful home to people they didn’t know, but they had, and for that, she was extremely grateful.
She and Eric had talked about her pack staying at the compound instead, but quickly decided against it. Living in close proximity to seventeen extremely alpha werewolves would have made her pack jumpy as hell. And if Liam and Kos were still in Dallas, there was no way they’d find them down near College Station.
Jayna didn’t realize she’d zoned out until Eric walked into the living room carrying two plates piled high with sandwiches. He set them on the coffee table, then went back to the kitchen to grab a monster-sized bag of Doritos and two sodas. She was about to tell him that a single sandwich would have been enough, but then her stomach growled and she decided that maybe she could eat the entire plate of sandwiches.
They didn’t talk much as they ate, but that just gave Jayna more time to worry. Was Chris resting like he was supposed to? Were Megan, Moe, and Joseph sticking close to the Stones’ place like she’d asked them to? Did she have to worry about Liam or Kos finding them?
God, had her former alpha agonized over everything like this? Something told her he probably hadn’t.
Eric must have picked up on her anxiety because he frowned as he reached into the bag for another handful of Doritos. “Still worried about your pack?”
“My pack? Do you have any idea how ridiculous that sounds? I’m not even an alpha.”
“Aren’t you?”
“No,” she said quickly. “I’m a beta like the rest of them.”
“I wouldn’t be too sure of that. You’re eating like an alpha. You’re healing like an alpha. Your claws and fangs are longer and sharper than anyone else’s in your pack, and all of them naturally turn to you for answers when anything goes wrong.” He grinned. “Sounds like an alpha to me.”
Jayna placed her empty plate on the coffee table, then stared hard at it as she considered that. “But if I’m an alpha, why don’t I know what to do? They’re worried and scared, and they’re looking to me to tell them what we should do next, and I don’t know what to tell them.”
Eric set his plate on the table beside hers, then moved closer and put his arm around her shoulders. She leaned her weight into him, resting her head on his muscular chest and letting herself be weak for just a little while.
“You’re going to figure this out,” he said softly, kissing the top of her head and pulling her even closer. “We’re going to figure this out. We just need to find a place for you and your pack to live and work you’ll enjoy doing.”
“I don’t know if that will be enough,” she said softly. “We’ve never lived in one place more than three or four months, less if there was trouble of any kind. And even though Moe is new to the pack, running from problems is already what he’s used to doing. It’s what all of us are used to doing.”