Winkler wasn’t pleased with having the rug pulled out from under her. “Don’t you consider having books slammed in front of you harassing? It was hostile and aggressive. I won’t have any woman in my department made uncomfortable.”
“I wasn’t uncomfortable,” Mel said agreeably. “I’m sorry if Mr. Duffy had that impression.”
Ben wasn’t used to having a woman defend him. It made him feel odd. Odder than it should. Wrong. Especially given that it was Mel defending him. It felt even odder than the impulse that had begun his game of keep the secretary safe from Duffy. It was so disconcerting that he didn’t say anything.
Winkler wasn’t ready to give up. Maybe she’d promised Duffy that she was going to fire him. “I’ve also had reports that Ben’s language is objectionable.”
Mel looked proud, and said, “He quit swearing two days ago. The whole DBA group has money on when he’ll break, but so far he’s doing really well, and we appreciate his effort to change his behavior. Ken Lincoln even promised that if Ben can quit swearing, he’ll agree to quit smoking.”
• • •
Adam laughed at his consternation as Ben told him the whole story later. “I’m so sorry,” his Alpha told him carefully, “that you’ve been used as a motivational force for good in your workplace.”
“It’s your fault,” Ben groused, sinking lower in Adam’s couch. “If I hadn’t been trying for that scotch, it wouldn’t have happened.”
He’d come to Adam because . . . He didn’t think of Adam as his father. He’d had one father, and that was enough for him. But Adam was good at sorting out people. This past month, Ben was starting not to recognize himself. He needed to know if that was a good thing or a bad thing.
“Do you know why I did it?” he asked, because he was bewildered by the need that had driven him to protect Mel—whom he didn’t even like.
“Because she’s your secretary,” Adam said, then grinned at Ben’s expression. “How long have you been working in the DBA group?”
“Something over two years.” If Adam was going somewhere with this, Ben didn’t know where it was.
“Ben,” Adam said, “are you a dominant wolf or a submissive wolf?”
“Dominant.” Not very. Bottom of the pack now that Peter was gone.
“What makes up a dominant personality?”
All of his life, Ben had always been considered brilliant—troubled, obnoxious, criminal, occasionally violent, but always brilliant. He didn’t like the feeling that he was missing something, and he liked the hint of patience in Adam’s voice that told him that Adam expected him to miss something even less. Ben’s first Alpha had been more beast than man, and he’d never explained anything about dominance other than the absolute rule that Ben had to obey everyone he couldn’t take down.
“Willingness to fight,” Ben said, trying not to sound belligerent as he tried to work out what Adam wanted from him. “Difficulty with authority.” He jerked his gaze up to his Alpha, who looked a little amused at Ben’s realization about how that last one sounded. “Most authority.”
“Anyone who hasn’t proved that he deserves respect,” Adam said tactfully.
“If they can’t thrash me, they are prey,” Ben said, trying to stretch the rule that had been forcibly explained to him when he’d become a werewolf into a shape that Adam would find acceptable.
Adam looked at him. “Okay. Are you my prey?”
Ben stood up abruptly and stalked to the window, his back to his Alpha because he didn’t have an expression he wanted to show him. “I’ve been a werewolf for long enough that I shouldn’t always feel like a bloody beginner.” Adam didn’t say anything, so Ben finally muttered, “I hope I am not prey to you.” Silence continued, somehow disapproving.
“Do you feel like my prey?” Adam asked, his voice quiet and a little hurt.
Ben threw away what he knew and tried to go with what he felt—which was difficult for him because facts had never failed him the way emotions had. “No.” That was right. “No.” Adam put all of his abilities, physical and mental, to protecting the pack from anything that would hurt them.
“Someone should write a book about how to be a werewolf,” Mercy, Adam’s mate, said, sailing in with a plate of brownies, which she set down on the table with a thunk and the burnt motor-oil smell that was a part of her. It used to irritate him—and now it irritated him that he associated the smell with pack and safety. “I sometimes feel like I know more about being a werewolf than all of you combined.” She sat next to Adam and looked up at Ben.
He’d asked for a minute alone with Adam, which she apparently thought she’d given them. He opened his mouth to ask her to leave, but when he spoke, it was to Adam. “So you think I’m looking at Mel as if she were part of my pack? That I’m feeling protective of that sniveling little—” He swallowed the descriptor that came to mind. “Annoying wimpy chit.”
“That’s what I’m saying,” agreed Adam. “The reason you are not more dominant has more to do with the other wolves than with you. Part of submitting to a more dominant wolf is the belief that they will protect you better than you can protect yourself. They don’t believe you’ll protect them, so they won’t yield to you.”
Ben turned back to the window and absorbed the information like a blow. He didn’t care how dominant he was, he didn’t, though he disliked obeying other wolves intensely.
Adam’s orders were the single exception because Adam would never hurt him or allow him to be hurt outside of the discipline needed to keep peace within the pack. Which sort of drove Adam’s previous point about what really made a dominant wolf right home, didn’t it?
Ben opened his mouth to swear, then closed it again.
“I didn’t know how much the willingness to protect the others beneath a wolf in the pack structure affected the position of a dominant wolf until you came to our pack,” Adam offered gently. “Until then, I was pretty convinced that dominance was about who was the better or more aggressive fighter. You are as willing as Darryl is when it comes to taking on an opponent, and not half-bad in a fight—and still Darryl is much, much more dominant because the other wolves trust him to take care of them.”