Max cursed silently. If Brooks had wanted to say the one thing that would make Max feel like crap, he’d done it.
“I screwed up,” Max said quietly.
“No shit.” Brooks’s mouth tightened. “What the hell has gotten into you? It’s like you’ve gone completely off the rails.”
“I don’t know,” he admitted. “It seems like my head is spinning lately. I can barely keep my shift under control at the best of times, and even when I do, I see myself doing stupid stuff without being able to stop it.”
Brooks regarded him silently, then sighed. “I guess I should probably cut you some slack. A werewolf can’t be held responsible for his actions while he’s an emotional train wreck. It’s happened with everyone else who found their One, so why not you?”
Max stared at his pack mate, surprised Brooks was letting up on him. “You think IA will be as understanding with my screw-ups as you are if I tell them my relationship status is complicated?”
Brooks let out a snort. “I don’t see that helping you out very much. But this time, trust Gage and Xander to watch out for you, huh?”
Max nodded. “You sticking around for a while”
“Nah. I’m meeting up with Diego and Zane at a sports bar for the Thursday night NFL game.”
Max snorted. “Zane? He doesn’t even understand the game of football.”
That wasn’t an exaggeration. Their British teammate was all about soccer.
Brooks chuckled. “I know. I’ve made it my mission to teach him. Listen, text me later and let me know what happens with IA, huh?”
Max told him he would, then headed for the main admin building and Gage’s office. The moment he opened the door, a trio of unfamiliar scents hit him. He found two women and a teenage boy sitting at one of the desks in the bullpen, eating barbecue pork, beans, and cornbread while they watched a home makeover show on the TV mounted on the wall on the other side of the room.
As Cooper got up from his desk and walked over to meet him, Max took a sniff. The two women were beta werewolves. One was in her thirties, while the other was a little older, midforties he guessed. The boy definitely wasn’t a werewolf, though his scent was similar to the younger of the two women, so he was probably her son. The women gave him a curious look, then went back to eating. Something told him they hadn’t seen food this good in a long time.
Max glanced at Gage’s office, and his heart sank. Even though the door was closed, he could pick up Vince Coletti’s scent. Of all the detectives from Internal Affairs, why did it have to be Coletti? The man had a hard-on for the SWAT team, for sure. He’d even forced Cooper to attend anger management sessions with a shrink. And Cooper was the most laid-back, in-control werewolf in the Pack.
Max was screwed.
Cooper motioned with his head, indicating Max should follow him outside.
“So, you went back and punched out that child-beating piece of shit Wallace, huh?” Cooper said, then added, “I overheard Coletti talking to Gage and Xander.” He grinned. “Good for you.”
“Yeah,” Max muttered. “Well, now I have to deal with the fallout.”
Cooper shrugged. “Put on your best I’m-horribly-sorry-and-promise-never-to-do-it-again face, and you’ll be out of here in time for dinner with that new babe of yours.”
Max wasn’t nearly as sure of the outcome with Coletti as Cooper seemed to be, but arguing with Cooper about anything was like chasing a greased pig. You ended up looking foolish and feeling all dirty.
“What’s with the two betas in there?” he asked instead. “They on the run from the hunters, too?”
“Yeah,” Cooper said. “Grace; her kid, Rudy; and her friend Kari have been moving around the country with an omega who’d been watching out for them. Four weeks ago, a group of hunters caught up with them outside of Norman. The omega sacrificed himself so they could get away, and they’ve been ducking and hiding ever since. They heard about our pack and headed this way. They rolled into here about an hour ago, and haven’t stopped eating since.”
Cooper may have dropped all that on him casually, but there was so much crazy in that story it was tough to figure out where to start. The fact that there were hunter packs operating so close to Dallas had to make Gage and the other senior pack members a little worried. Up until now, hunters had been this vague threat that hovered far enough away for people to be lulled into the belief they’d never come here at all. But Norman, Oklahoma, was barely a hundred miles north of the Texas line. That was damn close.
Then there was the weird part about the omega protecting two betas. From what they knew about werewolves, a protective omega was an oxymoron. When Max pointed that out, Cooper shrugged.
“I had a hard time believing it, too, but Kari said the omega showed up out of the blue and started taking care of them. He seemed as shocked by the behavior as they were. I’m trying to imagine an omega sacrificing himself for anyone, and I just can’t see it. But I think the rules are changing now that the hunter threat is growing.”
Max shook his head. The SWAT Pack still had no idea how word had trickled out that Dallas was a safe haven. All they knew was that scared werewolves had been showing up at the compound in ones and twos every few days since mid-August. Most of the new werewolves were betas, but there were also a surprising number of omegas and even a few alphas. They’d stop by to check-in and make sure it was okay for them to be in the Pack’s territory. Gage would welcome them in and make sure they had a place to stay along with work and enough to eat. Gage was doing his best to keep a head count, but staying on top of the incoming was getting harder by the day. There had to be at least forty new werewolves in Dallas at the moment. That was insane.
Inside the admin building, Max heard Gage’s office door open. He sighed. Might as well go in and get this over with.
Cooper must have heard, too, because he smiled. “Remember. Look really apologetic. And no matter what, refrain from telling Coletti you’ll probably end up doing the same thing all over again next week. People like him frown on that kind of honesty.”
Max lifted a brow. “So in other words, lie to him?”
