7

Her distrust towards me was coming off in waves. There was something else there as well, though. A look I couldn’t quite put my finger on. My throat felt dry, and even though I was putting on a brave front, she was making me feel strange. I needed to figure out what the hell was going on, but that was going to be tough. Just being in the same room as her, and smelling that scent? It was almost too much. It was worse now that she was looking at me with those eyes.

“You still haven’t answered me,” she said. I realized I’d been standing there for several beats, not saying anything.

“Did you know the shifters who attacked you?” I asked.

She let out a heavy sigh and shook her head. “No. We get them in pretty frequently. Not those exact guys, but shifters. That night was the first time I’d ever seen any of those guys.”

“Okay. Were they…I don’t know…rowdy? Causing trouble? Did they threaten you during the night before coming back after closing?”

“No. Honestly, the guy in charge was”—she rolled her eyes—“kinda hitting on me most of the night. Or at least I thought he was.”

“Do you think that’s why they jumped you? Pissed off they got shot down?”

The look she gave me could have peeled paint off a wall. “I don’t think six dudes would try to murder me just because I didn’t want to bang one of them.”

I held my hands up in an attempt to ward off her fury. “I get it. Okay. Can you describe them?”

“Probably. Yeah. At least a little bit.”

“All right, hang on a second.” I turned and pulled the door open. “Luis, I need you to hear this.”

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?”