Luis appeared around the corner and made his way down the hallway. When he came into the room, I could see the suspicion in the woman’s eyes darkening. I left the door open to make things seem a little less closed in. The last thing I wanted was for her to think we were ganging up on her with no escape. That was the exact thing that had happened to her the night before.
“This is my friend, Luis Ruiz. He’s cool. One of my best friends and my second-in-command in the pack. I’m the alpha, he’s the beta. Are we good?” I asked with a raised eyebrow.
She chewed at the inside of her lip, glancing between me, Luis, and the open door. After a few seconds, she nodded. “Yeah, sure. It’s fine.”
“Okay, can you describe what these dudes looked like? We’re trying to figure out if we know them.”
She thought for a second before starting. “The main guy was…younger? Maybe early to mid-twenties. Dark hair.” She absently tugged at her earlobe. “He had an earring. Like a gold stud. He also had a tattoo-I think it was a crow-across his forearm.”
She described the other guys in less detail, but she didn’t need to. I glanced over at Luis as she spoke. He caught my eye and nodded almost imperceptibly. His shoulders tensed as the realization hit him. My own body was probably reacting the same way. The description matched some of Javi’s guys.
“Does that help?” she asked when she finished. “Do you know those guys?”
I nodded. “I think we do know the wolves who attacked you.”
Her eyes brightened. Not in excitement, but in relief. “Then what the hell is going on? Is it some kind of, I don’t know, shifter gang war? Something like that?”
I winced. “It doesn’t really work that way. Well, at least not usually. What else did they say when they came back?”
“That’s the weirdest part. It made no sense. Maybe you guys know what it’s supposed to mean. It could be some sort of shifter thing. He told me-and he was freaking pissed when he said this-he said I shouldn’t exist. That my bloodline was supposed to have been wiped out. Whatever that means.”
After she was done, she shivered. Her mind was obviously dragging the memory back up. My instinct was to step forward, sit on the bed, and wrap her in my arms. I wanted to protect her. My wolf was actually egging me on, trying to get me to do exactly that. I had to clamp my hands into fists to stop myself. I’d only met her five minutes ago, and she’d been attacked by shifters less than a day ago. That type of close contact wouldn’t go over well.
“So, you have no idea what they meant?” I asked. “Do you have any other girls who work for you who are shifters? Could they have you confused with someone else? A case of mistaken identity?”
She shook her head. “No. They for sure wanted me. They even, like, sniffed the air, like I smelled funny or something. They definitely wanted me for some reason.”
The hairs on my arms stood on end, and I could see Luis taking a slight step back. She did have a smell unlike anything I’d ever encountered. Shifter noses were just as good as the animals we shifted into. I smelled millions of different pheromones, odors, and chemicals each day. As soon as I caught a whiff of something new, my brain stored it away for later.
And she was something totally new. Not just a new person, but something I’d never encountered before in my entire life, which was pretty difficult to find.
Luis caught my eye and his brows knitted together, his eyes flickering with unspoken question. I wasn’t sure what he was trying to get across. I’d have to ask him when we got back into the waiting room.
“Listen…shit, I don’t even know your name.” The realization made me feel like an asshole.
“Maddy Sutton. Maddison, but I go by Maddy,” she said.
“Okay. Listen, Maddy. We’re certain these guys belong to a different pack. It’s run by a guy named Javi. He’s…” I looked at Luis, who gave me a lopsided, humorless grin. “He’s not a very good dude, let’s put it that way. If his guys attacked you and didn’t finish the job, then there’s a pretty good chance they’ll come back to…try and finish.”
She stared at me for several seconds, her face impassive and emotionless. Then her eyes grew moist and her lower lip started to tremble. Her whole body began to shake, and she pulled the blanket tighter around her. “Why is this happening?”
She wasn’t asking me, just whispering the question to herself as she cried, but I stepped closer to the bed, wanting to console her. “It’ll be okay. I’m not sure why it’s happening, but I promise I’ll help you figure this thing out.”
Her teary eyes flicked up to me warily. “Why? Why do you even care?”
That was a good question. One I couldn’t answer. Whatever I said in response had to sound logical. No matter what, I didn’t want to scare Maddy off. I had to figure out what was going on with this weird attraction I felt to her, and I couldn’t do that if she was on the run. “Javi and I are rivals of a sort, if that makes sense. Now that I’ve involved myself, he’ll be gunning for me. I’m sure his guys saw my pack. He’ll know I stopped the attack. We’re connected now. In a sense,” I added quickly. “So I’m offering you the protection of the Lorenzo pack.”
“So, you have no idea why? This is a mystery to you, too?” She looked equally confused and irritated.
I shrugged a shoulder. “No clue. But like I said, Javi’s pack is after you for some reason. Whatever plan he has, he’ll want to see it through. I fucked those plans up, so now there’s going to be trouble for me. He’ll assume I’m involved somehow. It’s a long story, but we’ve got a bit of history. I need you safe until I can figure out what Javi’s planning, and I can put a stop to it.”
Her eyes went cold, and I could almost feel the chill in the room. Luis seemed to notice it as well and took a second step back, his eyes growing wary of Maddy.
“So, you’re just going to use me? Furthering your own agenda? Am I bait or something?”
“It might seem that way, depending on how you look at it,” I said. “Though, are you really going to refuse help when it’s clear that Javi’s crew is trying to kill you? Don’t you want to know why you’ve been targeted? You could call the cops, sure, but what are they really going to do? Maybe get the few guys who attacked you, if they’re really lucky. Then Javi sends more guys after you. Not a great plan, from where I’m sitting.”
Her lips pinched together, and I was certain she was making the same connections in her mind. She slumped back against the pillows, huffing out a pissed-off sigh. “Fine,” she said to the ceiling, then tilted her eyes toward me. “What does protection imply?”
Luis cleared his throat, holding up a hand to get her attention. “Two options, really. The first is that you’ll come stay with the pack. I’m head of Nico’s security, and we have a plot of land on the outskirts of the city. We’ve turned it into our own little gated community. If you choose that option, you’ll always have someone around to keep an eye on you and protect you. We’ve got incredible security there, and there’s almost no way anything will happen to you there.
“Option two is we have an around the clock guard tail you. Sounds less intrusive, but for it to be real protection, the guy would have to live with you. Crash on your couch or whatever.”
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