In the Company of Wolves (SWAT, #3)(19)

“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?”

She nodded. “Betas aren’t as strong and fast as alphas or omegas. But on the upside, we typically have fewer issues with control than you guys do.”

He gave her an appraising look. “You seem pretty fast to me. In fact, you could probably outrun most of my pack. And you look like you’re strong too.”

Jayna had no idea why his words made her feel so ridiculously good, but they did. “Maybe,” she conceded. “I’m a little faster and stronger than the other betas in my pack, but in general, a beta’s true strength isn’t in their muscles or their agility. It’s in their loyalty to each other. Our pack bonds are the strongest of the three types of werewolves because they’re the only thing that keeps us safe from rogue omegas. They know that whatever beta they come after, they’ll always have to face the whole pack. Betas are linked in a way alphas and omegas never can be.”

“Wow. I’ve never heard of any of that,” he said with something close to boyish wonder. “But then again, I didn’t know female werewolves even existed until about two months ago when Khaki joined the team. So apparently there’s a lot I don’t know about werewolves.”

Jayna didn’t have to ask who Khaki was. There couldn’t be two female alpha werewolves running around Dallas. “Yeah, well, if we’re being honest, I have to admit I didn’t know female alphas existed until I saw your pack mate in the warehouse. That threw me for a loop. I didn’t know women could be alphas. I also didn’t know alphas could form a pack.”

His eyes twinkled. “I guess there’s a lot of stuff we can learn from each other.”

She studied him over the rim of her cup, trying to figure out if he was playing her. Was he looking to trick her into giving up information about her pack? But every instinct she had told her that wasn’t what was going on here. Eric seemed like he was genuinely interested in talking to her. There was only one way to find out if he was toying with her: ask him a question that might pose a threat to his pack and see how he responded.

“How many alphas are in your pack?”

He didn’t even hesitate. “Seventeen now that Khaki joined the team. And every one of us would bleed and die for each other.”

Jayna’s eyes widened. Seventeen alphas all in one place bonding with each other? Liam had said that wasn’t even possible. Eric’s pack alpha must be one fierce beast to keep all of them in line.

Across from her, Eric leaned in a little closer. “Not counting the omegas, how many members are in your pack?”

She was so distracted by his scent that she almost didn’t hear the question. Why did he smell so different—and so much more delicious—than every other werewolf? She wanted to bury her nose in his neck and breathe in even more of him.

Jayna quickly sat back before she did.

She’d promised herself she wouldn’t tell him anything that would put her pack in danger, but telling him how many of them there were wouldn’t pose a threat. It wasn’t like he and his alpha buddies had anything to fear from five betas. Besides, he’d been so open with her. It seemed wrong not to answer him.

“There are four other betas besides me. And our alpha.”

“How long have you been with them?”

“Four years,” she said. “I changed about a year before that.”

She expected him to ask why she’d changed and what she’d done for that year on her own. But instead, he took the conversation in a totally different direction.

“How did you and your pack get mixed up with a gang of Albanian mobsters?”

When Jayna had gotten on the back of his bike, she hadn’t intended to tell Eric anything at all, but she’d already revealed how many members were in her pack and now she found herself confiding in him about things she shouldn’t be, including how her pack had been forced to steal stuff over the years just to survive.