Pack Dynamics

by Julie Frost

  “I’m glad one of us has faith in my ability to cope.” He snorted, and she’d never heard anyone make such a despairing sound. “Because I’ve done such a bang-up job of it so far.”

  He was cracking, and if she waited any longer he’d break wide open. She bit her lip. “Come on, Ben, let’s go?”

  “Yeah.” He didn’t move, and she couldn’t ask him if he was okay, because she knew he wasn’t. He holds a lot inside, Janni had said. Megan was starting to see just how true this was.

  She let him sit and breathe for a few minutes before briskly patting his back. “A hundred yards to the house. You can do that.”

  “Yeah,” he said again. He squeezed his eyes shut briefly, squared his shoulders, and stood up.

  Time to face the music.

  O O O

  Ben let Megan enter first through the door he’d demolished on his way out. He was new to all this, but his wolf had decided—without consulting him—that she was the alpha, and he tended to agree, since she’d kicked his ass without even trying very hard and was twice his size as a wolf anyway.

  Alex and Doc Allen hovered over the bed he’d vacated. Janni lay there, still and unconscious, a pallor on her normally dusky skin. His stomach lurched as he smelled her blood, and his wolf bristled and wanted to kill something. A smear of red on the floor, ending with a sheet-covered bundle the size and shape of a person, reminded him that he had. He swallowed hard. Reed. They’d dragged his body away from the bed to give themselves room to work.

  “Is … is she—” He couldn’t finish.

  Their heads jerked up with his words; they’d been so intent on Janni that they apparently hadn’t heard him and Megan come back in. Alex laid into Megan. “What in the hell were you thinking, going after him that way?”

  “Well, someone with their head on straight needed to go.” She crossed her arms. “All you were doing was standing around, and I’m used to cleaning up messes, so I elected myself. Good thing, too. I brought him back, didn’t I?”

  “Someone with their head on straight wouldn’t have followed a fucking werewolf out a door he’d just turned into matchsticks after he’d ripped a man’s throat out!” Alex was terrified, Ben realized through the haze in his mind, terrified for Megan’s safety. It would have been funny under other circumstances. “Even I’ve got my head on straight enough that if there’d been werewolves in Pamplona, I wouldn’t have gone! He killed Mike and put Janni in a hospital bed. Going after him was less than smart!”

  Ben felt poleaxed, and he collapsed to his knees, rather abruptly. Rack his brain as he might, he couldn’t remember … well, much of anything. Fur sprouted on his back and stood on end, and Megan knelt in front of him, murmuring soothing nothings and smoothing the hair down. He was vaguely aware of Alex approaching, and of Megan raising her hand in warning.

  “I’ve got this, okay, Alex? He’s in shock, and afraid, and he has no idea what’s going on or how to deal with it.”

  Alex sputtered. “He’s afraid? Megan, seriously—”

  She cut him off. “No. This isn’t negotiable, Alex. Back the hell off. Or do something useful and bring me a blanket.” She stroked Ben’s shoulders, still trying to smooth the hair down. “Breathe, Ben.”

  Usually it was Janni reminding him to do that. Except she couldn’t because he’d hurt her. And that sucked the air from his lungs no matter how much he tried to inhale, and blackness encroached on the edges of his much-too-acute vision. His hands fisted on his thighs, claws digging through his palms and sending blood soaking into the pajama pants.

  “Stay with me,” Megan said, but she sounded far away and he wasn’t sure he could stay with her in any case. The wolf was fighting to get out, and he wanted to let it go and disappear and never return, just stay up in the hills by his wild lone so he’d never hurt Janni or anyone else ever again.…

  “Don’t,” Megan said firmly. Holding him here, keeping him mostly human. She was alpha. And, “Breathe.”

  Still having a hard time with that. The smells in the room overwhelmed him, not just Janni’s blood but Mike’s, too, and the scents of fear and rage and rubbing alcohol underlay the coppery stench.

  Someone put a blanket over his back, and he leaned forward and rested his forehead on Megan’s shoulder while she tugged it tighter around him. “Sorry.” His voice cracked.

  “Shh. Relax.”

  “Can’t …”

  “Come lie down on the couch. Alex! A little help here.”

  Somehow Ben was up, supported on either side, one person warm and comforting, the other stiff and frightened. The old leather couch was soft and smelled of spilled scotch and chocolate chip cookie crumbs. Ben sank onto it and wrapped his head in his arms. Hiding.

  Megan put her hand on his hair for a second before moving away with Alex. They pitched their voices low, but his hearing had become preternaturally acute, and he picked up their conversation whether he wanted to or not.

  “How hurt is she?” Megan asked.

  “When he swung his arm and ripped the railing off? It hit her in the head. Just a glancing blow, but it knocked her out and opened a fairly nasty gash.”

  Ben burrowed further into the blanket at that news. His gorge rose, and he swallowed it convulsively. He’d hurt Janni.…

  “The railing she told us not to tie him to, that railing? Alex, we are so stupid.”

  “We didn’t know—”

  “We should have known.”

  “That he’s a werewolf? So sorry that’s not the first thing that crossed my mind!”

  “Should have known that tying someone like Ben down was a horrendous idea. I can’t even imagine what it would have done to him if he hadn’t been able to get away. It’s a shame that the only person who knew that right off the bat is paying the price.”

  “Doc Allen says she’ll be okay.” Ben’s chest unclenched, just a little. “What are we going to do, Megan?”

  “You are going to reverse-engineer whatever the hell Mike injected him with and figure out how to fix it. I am going to hold his hand and try to stop him from shattering into a million pieces until Janni wakes up.”

  Ben had to remind himself to breathe again.

  “Megan, you might … you might be too late for that. He looks—”

  She interrupted Alex and shut him down. “I know how he looks.”

  Alex waited a beat. “Would you like some pants? Maybe a shirt without the pretty blood-spatter?”

  “Uh,” she said. “Yeah. I loaned Ben my pajamas.”

  “So I saw. Be right back.”

  Megan came over to the couch and sat on the floor next to Ben’s head. “She’s going to be okay.”

  He gulped. “I heard.”

  She inhaled. “Of course you did. It was an accident, Ben.”

  “Yeah? How often do you have accidents that hurt people?” His gaze slid over to the sheet-covered bundle across the room. “That kill people.”

  She glanced at the bed, where Doc Allen still hovered over Janni, and pitched her voice so he wouldn’t hear. “The first time it happened to me, I was driving.” She squeezed her eyes shut at the memory. “I’m just lucky no one died. Ben, with what you’ve been through in the last couple of days, I’m surprised you didn’t go insane and eat us all. Your self-restraint was amazing.”

  “It didn’t feel amazing. Or like self-restraint.” He burrowed back into the blanket, hiding again. Footsteps, and the sound of cloth hitting the floor.

  “Sweat pants and a clean shirt,” said Alex.

  “Thank you, Mr. Jarrett,” answered Megan.

  “You’re welcome, Miss Graham.”

  A soft moan from the direction of the bed made Ben cringe and pull farther into the blanket. He couldn’t face Janni right now, not after—

  “Breathe,” Megan reminded him.

  That breath caught in his lungs at Janni’s first word. “Ben?” How in the world was her first thought for him after something like that?

  He heard the protective she
et on the bed crinkling as Janni struggled upright, and inwardly cursed his enhanced hearing.

  “Where’s Ben?” Janni demanded.

  “He’s fine—” Doc Allen started.

  “Like hell he is. I told you not to tie him down, but does anyone listen to the person who’s lived with him for the last year and a half? Noooo!” She was in fine form, pure Hermia mode, and he thought his heart would crack out of his chest. “Where is he, dammit?”

  “On the couch.” Ben could picture Doc Allen throwing his hands up in the air. “But you shouldn’t get up,” the physician protested.

  “What, are you gonna tie me down, too?” Her voice was tart. “Because it worked so well the last time you geniuses did that.”

  Ben heard her feet hit the floor, and a pause. He whined down in his throat, and Megan’s hand firmed on his hair.

  “Oog. That left a mark, didn’t it? No, I’m fine, I’m fine, go away. Jeez.” Janni’s footsteps came around the couch and stopped in front of him. “I’ve got him now, Megan. Thanks.”

  Cloth rustled as Megan got up and moved away, and Janni took her place on the floor. He’d always loved her scent, but it was more distinct, now, something that was uniquely Janni and mate. The weight of her arms and head rested on the couch. She pulled the blanket away from his face and caressed his cheek with the backs of her fingers.

  “Hey,” she said softly.

  His eyes were drawn to the stitched-up gash on her forehead, and he closed them. Getting used to being able to see without glasses was going to take some time, and colors were far brighter than they ever had been—the red where they’d missed a spot cleaning her up leaped out at him like a beacon, and he couldn’t bear it.

  “Hey,” he whispered back.

  “Are you okay?” Her hand found his, under the cover, and grasped it in a surprisingly strong grip.

  He hardly ever lied to her about stuff like this, and she had to know it was a ridiculous question. “No.”

  “Wanna talk about it?”

  “No.”

  “Then I’ll just sit here with you.” Her other hand stroked his hair. “See if you can go to sleep.”

  He hadn’t realized until just that moment how exhausted he was. “Don’t let me hurt you again. Please.”

  “I’ll keep the nightmares away this time.”

  “I know.” Dammit, he could not keep his voice from breaking, and she increased the grip of the one hand and the pressure on his hair of the other.

  “Breathe, Ben.”

  And that undid him. He buried his face in her shoulder, shaking, the wolf pushed so far into the background that it might as well not exist at this point.

  He loved her so much. And he thought that maybe she loved him, too. Neither of them ever said the words, but they didn’t have to—it was a shining unstated thing between them that happily went without saying because it was so obvious.

  He’d injured her once today. If he did it again, ever, his tenuous hold on sanity would be lost for good. And in order to avoid hurting her physically, he was going to have to hurt her emotionally. He didn’t want to do it—he might go mad either way, he knew this, but the cost to both of them would be far less if he left her now. He didn’t have a choice.

  And that was why he was soaking her shirt with his tears.

  O O O

  After a long while, Ben fell asleep. Janni laid his head on the sofa and brushed his hair out of his face. She rubbed the aching space between her eyes, trying not to lose it because Ben never, ever cried, not ever, even during the worst of his worst flashbacks. “Someone want to tell me what’s really going on?” she said to the room at large.

  Silence greeted the question.

  “Anyone? Don’t all speak up at once.”

  Alex came over and sat beside her on the floor. “Mike was working on something off the books. And when we called him in, after Ben was shot, he used it on him. I don’t know why, and now we can’t ask.” He nodded at the sheet-covered bundle in the corner of the lab.

  A tendril of fear crawled up her back and tickled the nape of her neck. “What did it do to him? Because I’ve never seen Ben like this. Not even when we met again that first night.”

  “Well. It healed him.”

  “Super quick,” she agreed. The cuts and bruises on his face were gone, and that was just the obvious damage. “What else?”

  “It—” He stopped, and swallowed. When the hell was Alex Jarrett ever at a loss for words? She steeled herself. “He’s—” He stopped again. “Shit.”

  “What, Alex? Spit it out.”

  “He’s a werewolf.”

  The sentence tumbled out like one word, and for a second she couldn’t process it. Then, “He’s a were-what?”

  “He tore the railings off the bed, ripped Mike’s throat out with his claws, turned into a wolf, and bolted.” Alex ran his hand through his hair. “I don’t know how, but that’s what happened. And Megan brought him back.”

  She’d been hit on the head, and it was clearly making her hear impossible things. She stared, mouth gaping.

  He shrugged. “There it is.”

  “That’s crazy.” She looked around. No one denied what Alex had just said. “This is crazy.” She should get Ben away from the crazy people.…

  Ben, who was twitching in his sleep already. She heaved herself onto the couch and lifted his head onto her legs, compulsively stroking his hair.

  Alex jerked his chin. “Janni. Look at his hands.”

  “What the …” She caught a brief glimpse of claws tipping his fingers, before he relaxed into her lap and dropped into a deeper sleep. “Oh, Ben, what did he do to you?” She rounded on Alex. “You said it was safe! And tested! What happened to your ethics?”

  “Mike lied to me, too, Janni.” Alex looked frustrated and helpless. “He told me it was just a mega-dose of what we were already using. I have no idea what he actually—” He thwacked his forehead. “Shit, I am such an idiot. Megan, get Phelps to take you to the office, grab Mike’s laptop and desktop computers and bring them back here, along with any hardcopy notes. Janni, Ben’s resting comfortably now, so I need you to go to Mike’s house and do the same. Computers, thumb drives, discs, anything you guys can find. Yesterday would be good.” He was in full general mode, and now Janni knew how he’d risen so far so fast. “Doc, come draw some blood, let’s put it under a microscope and see what the hell we’re dealing with.”

  “Wait,” Janni said. She wanted to make sure that Ben was thoroughly out, so he wouldn’t wake up and come unglued again over the blood draw. She smoothed his unruly hair back from his face and shook him a little, but the stresses of the day had apparently knocked him enough for a loop that his brain had given up for the moment. His breathing didn’t even change.

  The room echoed with a flurry of activity. And now Janni had to remind herself to breathe as Doc Allen stuck a needle in Ben’s arm and began the process of figuring out exactly what had been done to him.

  Chapter Eight

  Working for her mom at the PI firm, Janni had seen some weird shit, participated in some weirder shit, and made sure the perpetrators of the weirdest shit either went to jail or at least faced a divorce attorney.

  This? Made all the weird shit she’d seen before seem like an ordinary cat turd that missed the litter box.

  And to put her life back in the orderly order she preferred, she was breaking into the house of the dead guy who’d turned her boyfriend into a werewolf. While Alex Jarrett’s butler did … something … to dispose of said dead guy. And hadn’t that been an interesting conversation?

  “Sir, let me take care of that for you,” Chambliss had said.

  “What? No, I don’t pay you for that,” Alex had answered. “Go upstairs and do butler stuff.”

  “I’ve not always been a butler, sir. I’m not even actually English.”

  “Yeah?” Alex had rubbed his forehead. “Peachy. We’ll have to have a conversation about that sometime.”

  “
No, sir, we won’t.” And then Chambliss had gone out. With the body. While they used some sort of nanotech things to clean up the leftover blood. It made Janni’s head hurt.

  “I want to be an actor,” she muttered, shutting the front door behind her. She hadn’t technically needed to break in; Reed’s keys had been in his pocket. “But noooo.”

  Janni started at the back of the house, in the bedroom, and worked her way forward. Mike had been a rather fastidious bachelor. Everything had a place, no socks were strewn on the floor, and only a couple of breakfast dishes were stacked neatly in the sink. His computer was in his office, and she stuck it in the box she’d brought for the purpose, along with a couple of thumb drives, an external backup drive, some hardcopy files, and a bunch of DVD- and CD-R’s.

  She opened a door that looked like just another closet, and was surprised to find steps leading downward to a basement. She found the light switch, flicked it on, and heard … scurrying, like softly-furred feet moving across wire mesh. A cold chill skittered up her spine. Placing the box on the floor, she drew her little .380 Ruger Raspberry, thumbed the safety off, and crept down the stairs.

  “You have got to be kidding me,” she said, when she saw what Reed had in his basement, which was just as clean as the rest of the house—nothing out of place, squared papers on desks, pens in holders, and color-coded jewel cases labeled and filed alphabetically. That just made the weird shit she was now faced with all the more surreal, and the contrast with the controlled chaos in Alex’s basement was striking. She holstered the gun and pulled out her phone instead. “Alex? You need to get over here. You won’t believe this.”

  “Believe what?”

  Janni aimed the camera in the phone, fired off a shot, and sent it to him. Dead silence on the other end for a five-count, then he said, “I’ll be right over. Don’t touch anything.”

  “Don’t worry, I won’t. Bring a panel truck, if you’ve got such a thing lying around.” She decided to wait for him upstairs, away from the creepiness.

  Half an hour later, the door opened. “Alex, that better be you,” she said from the living room.

  “Yeah,” he answered, walking in with Jeremy. Figured that his Chief of Security wouldn’t let him go out alone. Considering that someone had set up with a sniper rifle right on Alex’s property and then others had basically broken into his house, having someone watch his back was a damn fine idea.