“Kids?” he finished. “No, a boy didn’t leave you that note. Were you in the store at the time? Was Melody or anyone else there?”
“It was just me.”
“Then it was meant for just you.” He turned away and muttered something in his native tongue. Tak must have shifted after reading the threat.
A million things raced through my head, and I stared at the dark television in front of me as the details unfolded like a bad late-night movie. “When we first opened the store, we were prepared for a backlash. There’s not much retail real estate left in the Breed district, and most of the owners around here are men. The pranks were juvenile compared to what others had experienced, so we just shrugged them off. There was nothing we could do about a little writing on the windows. They probably thought we’d be embarrassed by it, but it’ll take a lot more than name-calling to scare us off.” I gazed at the note on the table. “I plan to tell Melody and Lakota when they get back, but I’m not sure there’s much we can do about it. I don’t have the money to hire a personal bodyguard, and how long can I live my life like that?”
“They broke your window. You’re in danger.”
“We don’t know if it was the same person. A lot of people are jealous of our success.” Frustrated, I crawled up the bed and fell to my side, giving him my back. “What should I do?”
“Being a lone wolf makes you an easy target. If you had a Packmaster, this wouldn’t be an issue.”
“But as it stands, I don’t. Nor do I have any desire to join a pack just for protection.”
He snorted. “That’s what a packis. Protection.”
I dipped my nose inside the collar of my shirt, smelling Tak’s scent buried in the threads. “Well, my chances of finding a respectable pack just dwindled after that fiasco back there.”
Tak circled the room and sat on the edge of the bed. I had a strange compulsion to reach out and touch his hair, but I admired it instead.
“Do you think that bear left the note?”
I thought about it. “No. I found it before the incident in the shop. I’ll talk to Lakota about it when he returns. He’ll know what to do.”
Maybe I didn’t have a bodyguard, but Lakota had spent years as a bounty hunter, and that offered me a small measure of comfort.
Tak peered over his shoulder at me with those warm brown eyes. “What about that man you were with tonight?”
“Dutch? He didn’t mention murdering me on our date, but who knows what he might have revealed by the time we ordered dessert,” I said, hiding a grin.
“I wouldn’t put it past a guy like him. Smooth talkers are the ones you have to watch out for.”
My smile withered. Tak was right about that one.
His eyes settled on me for a long time. “Where did you get your scars?”
I instinctively reached up and traced my finger across the ones on my jaw. “When I was a girl, a rogue attacked me.”
He jerked his neck back. “A wolf did that to you?”
I nodded.
“What happened to him?”
I tucked my hand underneath the pillow. “Ask Wheeler. He’s the one who killed him.”
“I owe him a beer.” Tak furrowed his brow. “Had the wolf gone mad? Sometimes rogues who wander the woods for years lose all sense of morality.”
“It happened just before the war started. Mel and I were walking in the field when he came upon us. At first, we thought he belonged to one of the neighboring packs. I don’t know why he singled me out, but he knocked me down and…” My eyes squeezed shut, the memories so vivid that it seemed like only yesterday when it happened. I could still feel his front paws punching the air out of my lungs as he knocked me down. I could hear Mel’s bloodcurdling scream when his jaws locked around my head. I could still smell the stench of his hot breath and feel the cut of his sharp canines. Unable to look at Tak, I continued. “I was frozen with fear, afraid that if I moved he would rip off my face. I have little memory after that. Mel somehow scared him off, and someone carried me back. That part’s a blur, but the attack is so fresh in my mind that sometimes I think my heart will stop beating.”
“A crime that unspeakable should have never happened to a child. It makes little ones fear their own kind or even themselves.” Tak’s hand smoothed my hair, and he kept petting me that way until I felt calm again. “Is that when your panic attacks began?”
I nodded.
“Have you ever talked to anyone about it?”
“My family understands how it changed me, but they don’t know how to help. They’ve done their best to give me advice, but forgetting doesn’t stop the nightmares. It doesn’t stop the episodes. And it certainly doesn’t stop me from becoming a paralyzed mess when my life is in danger.”
