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happening.”
    Jacyn smiled before growing sober again. “Seriously, though. You need to take care of yourself better. You’re not doing anybody any good by burning yourself out this way.”
    “You’d be amazed at how much I can take before I crash.”
    Jacyn pulled up a chair. “You had it pretty rough before you came here, didn’t you?”
    “You have no idea. First, I got banned from my pack because I refused to go along with their plan to attack humans, then I found myself the leader of a pack of strays. A pack that had no place to call home, no money, no food…nothing.”
    “Yet, you managed to survive.”
    Kallen snorted. “Barely. And not exactly by staying on the legal side of things. Besides, you saw the condition we were in when we first came here. Would you call that surviving?”
    “You may have all been on the thin side, but at least you were all alive. That says something in this world,” Jacyn pointed out. “Usually, the weak are picked off right away. You managed to keep your pack alive. That shows a lot about you.”
    “It says that I know how to fight dirty if I have to,” Kallen said, feeling sick to his stomach as he recalled some of the things he’d done in the past in order to keep his pack safe and fed. How he’d almost betrayed Gage in the worst way possible.
    “We all do what we have to in order to survive. I’m sure even Mitchell has regrets.”
    “You think so?” Kallen glanced up at Jacyn.
    “I know so,” Jacyn replied with dead on certainty.
    “No offense to your brother, but I like being a follower much better than a leader.”
    Jacyn nodded. “Me, too. I’ve seen him up and pacing too many nights.”
    While it really shouldn’t have, it gave Kallen some comfort to know that he wasn’t the only one who had struggled with the heavy mantle of leadership. It made him feel less of a failure.
    “Do you ever wish that you had been born human?” Kallen asked.
    “Nearly every day,” Jacyn admitted. “Then I remind myself that I would have never met Logan, and that wish goes away.”
    Almost on its own accord, Kallen’s gaze fell back to Drake. Would he exchange everything bad he’d gone through, even if it meant never meeting Drake? The answer came through loud and clear…no. In the short amount of time that Kallen had gotten to know the Tiger, Drake had begun to mean a lot to Kallen. So much so that Kallen would do anything for Drake. Even if it meant staying with the coalition and going through all the shit that went along with it.
    “He means a lot to you, doesn’t he?” Jacyn asked.
    “I think he does,” Kallen answered.
    Kallen reached out and tentatively ran his finger over Drake’s cheek. There was more than a little bit of stubble there, and the touch sent jolts of electricity up Kallen’s arm. It then came to him that this was the first time that he’d ever initiated any contact between the two of them, and Drake wasn’t even awake to witness it. How sad.
    “Are you sure I can’t convince you to go back to your quarters to get some sleep?” Jacyn urged.
    Kallen shook his head. “Not until Drake wakes up.”
    “Gage is really worried about you.”
    “I know he is.”
    It felt good to have somebody that finally gave a damn about him, too, but that didn’t mean that Kallen was going to change his mind. The only time he was going to leave Drake’s side was when he was training, and that was that. Everybody would just have to get used to it.
    Jacyn finally let out a sigh. “Okay, if you need anything, just ask me. I’m working for a few more hours.”
    “Thanks, and I mean for everything.”
    Jacyn gave Kallen’s arm a squeeze before finally moving on. Once alone, Kallen grabbed a hold of Drake’s hand and rested his forehead on the bed. He just needed to close his eyes for a few minutes. That’s all. Just for a second or two.
    * * * *
    The first thing Drake grew aware of as he became alert was that his chest hurt like hell. The second was that