Pack Dynamics by Julie Frost Page A

opened his eyes with a lazy smile, the one he had just for her. “Hey. Did I fall asleep?”
    She nearly choked, because he’d almost been taken from her twice in two days, and how could he be this cavalier about it? “Yeah.”
    “You all right, honey?”
    She swallowed. “Fine.” More breathing. “Okay, maybe not.”
    He sat up and reversed their positions, wrapping his arms around her and kissing the top of her head. “You wigging out?”
    Everyone else busied themselves doing other things.
    “A little.” Sniffles. Dammit. She hated crying in front of him, because it stressed him out, especially when he was the cause of it. On the other hand, she’d determined long ago that crying over physical issues rather than psychiatric ones was more permissible. So. Here she was. Sniffling.
    “Because it’s okay for you to wig out. If it was you, I’d be a basket case. More of a basket case,” he said into her hair, and her heart twisted at how very self-aware he was. “No lie. You don’t have to be my Hermia, little and fierce, all the time.” He exhaled a shaky laugh. “Although it’s awesome when you are.”
    “Just … please be more careful? Please?”
    “Trust me, my life isn’t usually this exciting.” He kissed her again and put his hand over his heart. “I solemnly swear that my life will go back to boring. No more shooting people. Or getting shot. See? All better.”
    Never had Janni simultaneously wanted to kiss and kill him at the same time as much as at this moment. She settled for a not-so-gentle hug. “I’ll hold you to that.”
    Alex’s cell phone rang. He looked at it before answering. “Yeah, Mike? What, no, he’s fine. You’re fine, right?” he said to Ben.
    “Considering everything? Yeah, better than fine,” Ben confirmed. Only Janni was close enough to notice the light tremor running through him, and she stroked his chest with the backs of her fingers in an attempt to soothe his always-unquiet nerves.
    “He’s fine. No funny side effects … should there be some? What did you use? I forgot to ask.…” He listened for a minute. “Really? Excellent … Sure, he can probably come by the lab in the next day or so … Okay, you could do that instead. Thanks, Mike, we owe you one.”
    “Funny side effects?” Janni asked warily.
    “Eh, Mike’s a worrywart. The stuff he used is perfectly safe. It was just a higher concentration than normal is all.” Alex shrugged. “He’s coming by later to check up on the results.”
    Janni snuggled into Ben’s side. “And you’re really okay, right, Ben? You wouldn’t shit me about it so I wouldn’t worry? Because I know you.”
    “Nah, honey.” He took his glasses off and waved them around. “Better by the minute. Seriously.” He dropped the pitch of his voice so only she could hear. “Physically, anyway. The other part—well.”
    She relaxed, somewhat, because the other part was old hat and routine and she could deal with that. “Okay, then.”
    O O O
    Megan wasn’t so sure, and she almost wished that Mike would show up sooner rather than later, because her wolf was more restless than usual and she didn’t know why. She noticed that Ben’s expression got pensive when he put the glasses back on, and he took them off and hooked them over the collar of his T-shirt, rubbing the bridge of his nose and grabbing another slice of all-the-meats pizza, which her inner wolf approved heartily.
    Or maybe he was just tired again. Tired still. Megan had never had occasion to be on the receiving end of the nanotech that had gotten her boss out of one wild scrape after another, but she’d seen how it made Alex alternately ravenous and exhausted. Whatever this new stuff was, it apparently worked the same way.
    In spades. Ben nodded off practically in mid-bite. Janni grabbed the pizza before he dropped it, set it aside, and smoothed his hair back. Exhaling a trembling breath, she hopped off the bed. “You got a little girl’s room down