"Thank you for making it to dinner." Luna Brie smiled warmly when they made their appearance.
It wasn't surprising to find that the table was huge, big enough to seat at least fifty, the Pack House seemed like it was filled with a lot of tight-knit individuals.
Alpha Noah had kept seats for them close to where he sat as the head, making small talk as they settled in to the food piled down the beautiful table.
The entire scene was a little familiar to Jaxon and Leon who were accustomed to eating with the rest of the Pack which were a much larger number than this.
Darian was a bit caught off guard because he had only ever eaten on the Alpha's floor where there had been no more than ten people at a time.
The meal began peacefully enough, quiet conversation simmering through the room, conversation at the dining table was limited to the people closest to a person.
By some stroke of luck or perhaps the Alpha arranged it that way, the people around them were all warriors, as they made themselves known to be.
Darian and Leon had made a show of making him sit in between them and with the way some of the warriors were eyeing him up, he wasn't against it.
They played nice while their Alpha still paid attention to their conversation but as soon as he turned away, a burly werewolf pinned them with a dark look.
"Yo Head Warrior." He called snidely in their general direction, he was sitting across the table from them.
"Chase." Theo, the Head Warrior from Midnight Pack called in a warning tone, it was no surprise when the buff werewolf outright ignored him. There was a reason that the Alpha had to request Leon and Darian's presence afterall.
"Head Warrior?" He repeated in a drab voice staring straight at Darian who calmly ignored him, engrossed in his meal, he wasn't the Head Warrior after all, Leon was.
"Need something?" Leon finally granted him his attention, looking up from his meal with a raised brow.
"I don't remember talking to the lackey." He brushed Leon off, focusing his attention back on Darian. "Think you're too good to talk to me?" Chase continued rudely.
Jaxon immediately placed a hand on Leon's leg because uh oh
Did meat head over there not have even a vague sense of self preservation?
Darian as expected didn't even pay him any mind, calmly eating, he had been that way since and it was a bit startling to see exactly how Darian was to other people, especially people he didn't give a hoot about.
Jaxon and Leon had been the ones holding the conversations, well mostly Jaxon but that was merely because it was the best course of action.
"Chase, quit it, right now." Theo repeated, getting pissed, the annoying were didn't even give a fuck that the Alpha was sitting just a number of seats away.
"Keep it down, boss." Chase smirked, an evil light in his eyes. "You don't want the Alpha to find out, do you?"
Theo glared across the table at him with cold anger in his eyes but swallowed back his retort.
Leon had been calmly studying Chase the entire time, his expression unreadable.
This just gave Jaxon heart palpitations because he couldn't predict his next move, it wouldn't reflect well on his report back to Virgil if Leo started an all out brawl on the first day.
Thankfully, Leon looked down and continued his meal, ignoring the obnoxious werewolf as well.
Jaxon's sigh of relief was so heavy, he needed to say his thanks to the goddess for this.
Darian and Leon didn't fit in social situations at all and for wildly different reasons, he was actually relieved he had suggested to tag along, it would have been disastrous if the two of them just went alone without Jaxon.
When the air was cleared up of tension and Jaxon could now breathe freely, he tried taking his hand back from where it was placed comfortingly on Leon's leg.
Huge mistake.
Leon immediately caught his wrist, reflexes quick, forcing his hand to remain where it was.
It might have not been so bad if it didn't attract Darian's attention.
Oh, of course, an asshole took multiple jabs at him and he didn't even flinch but godforbid Leon held his hand.
A muscle ticked dangerously on his jaw and quickly Jaxon placed his other hand on Darian's leg before the Warrior went off.
It was almost cute the way he deflated, a twinkle in his eyes the closest he would ever come to smiling.
Oh fuck, he absolutely did not think this through, how was he supposed to eat now?
Like Darian had read his mind, he used his free hand that wasn't holding Jaxon's hand down to feed him, offering him food which he could not refuse.
Immediately he allowed himself to be fed by Darian, he spun around with wide eyes to stare at Leon, expecting the worst but instead Leon was just waiting with his own spoonful.
That was how he ended up getting spoon-fed for the rest of the meal.
Red crawled up his face, accentuating his freckles but he humoured them.
It distracted the entire table from much darker themes anyway, he could take one for the team.
Theo shot him a grateful look and he tried not to smile too nicely at him, there was no need to put the already stressed Head Warrior on their blacklist.
Thankfully, the horror of a dinner finally came to an end and Jaxon had never gotten out of a chair so fast.
He didn't care that he was leaving a tad too early, making a break for it, he was already so red that it would take bleach to get all the color out.
He also didn't care that he was leaving Leon and Darian behind, if they managed to get into trouble in the few minutes that Jaxon left them alone then that was on them.
It was admirable how he managed to remember the way back to the apartment in the frenzied state that he was in.
That reminded him, he hadn't caught a glimpse of Joe since Darian and Leon chased him away.
He couldn't blame him.
He hurried straight for his room after getting back to the apartment, quickly splashing water on his face and staring at himself in the mirror.