Austin sat forward with his elbows on his thighs. “You’ve got connections, Ivan, and I’ve got a situation. We have a woman missing—kidnapped—and I know you got men who can find her.”
Ivan listened to the details, including the fact my mother was human, which rubbed him the wrong way. Then Austin said he would be indebted to him and Ivan’s cloudy eyes lit up with interest.
He took another small puff from his pipe and set it down in a holder. “As it so happens, you can even out that debt today. I got a female I need you to take off my hands, and I’ve been knowing your family long enough that I trust she’ll be in good care with you. If she chooses to go with another pack, then you let her, but I want you to look out for her as one of your own.”
Austin rubbed his jaw and I listened to the bristly sound of his whiskers. “Who is she?”
“My daughter.”
I gasped. Just a little bit. Ivan looked up at me and I dropped my eyes to the floor.
“She’s going through the change soon and I need fresh blood in the pack. I can’t have my own flesh and blood mating with any of these sons of bitches. You know pack rules—can’t keep our girls, and she hasn’t met anyone to take her off my hands.”
“Why not one of the local packs?”
Ivan shrugged and tapped his boot heel on the floor with an outstretched leg. “I made a promise to her mother before she died I’d get her the hell out of Oklahoma. She never was fond of the packs in this territory and I guess I can’t blame her. We’re not like you city boys,” he said, scraping Austin up and down with his eyes.
“Do you have a bathroom?” I interrupted, doing the embarrassing dance on my tiptoes.
“Lexi, no,” Austin said.
“Tight little leash he’s got on you, honey. ’Round the corner to the right.”
Austin caught my hand and I jerked it free. “Sorry, Austin. I refuse to stand in here like a three-year-old holding it in. My bladder has needs.”
Ivan rocked with laughter, but it was a silent laugh with a bit of a wheeze. His chest shook merrily until he wrapped it up with a long snarl and snort. “She’s a keeper, that one. I think she’ll get along well with my little girl.”
I sprinted down the hall and opened three doors before I found the bathroom. It took a good five minutes before I was ready to come out. When I finished drying off my hands and opened the door, three men blocked my exit.
Their pupils were dilated and their nostrils flared. They shared the same look men possessed who watched Naya dancing on stage in her leather thong.
“Beep, beep,” I said in a panicked moment as I tried to cut through the wall of muscle.
They weren’t yielding, reversing, or allowing me to merge into traffic. Their bodies formed a roadblock and began walking me back into the bathroom. I stepped to the side nervously and one of them shut the door.
A hand slid across my thigh and I slapped it away.
“Don’t touch me,” I ground out through my clenched jaw. I’d had enough and snatched a bottle of shampoo and lathered it in my hands. Had there been a razor within sight I might have grabbed it, but Prell seemed good enough. If I didn’t blind them, they’d at least have fresh-smelling hair.
When the tall guy in front of me yanked my shirt down so hard my boob popped free, I Prelled him in the eyes.
And then I blacked out.
Chapter 17
Cold tile numbed my ass and when my surroundings became clear, I was sitting in the center of Ivan’s bathroom with a black robe draped over my back.
“Jesus, Lexi,” I heard Austin gripe. “Feeling better?”
The door was closed and he was sitting on the toilet with the lid down. I tightened the front of the robe and glanced around at a torn curtain, bottles strewn across the floor and bathtub, a flipped over bathmat, and tiny blood spatters across the mirror, cabinet, and floor.
“What happened?”
He sighed. “I’m not letting you out of my sight. If you gotta pee again, I’m going with you.”
“Over my dead body. Where did those guys go?”
Austin straightened up and stretched out his legs, crossing them at the ankle. “Two of them are shifting to heal; I’ve never seen anything like it. A female taking down three men—that’s just fucking wild,” he almost said to himself. “Your wolf can hold her own, that’s for sure.” Then his chuckle evolved into a laugh. “One of them came running out with shampoo in his eyes and the ass-end of his jeans hanging open like a flap.” He palmed away the tears and I sat up, staring at my clothes piled on the floor.
