Doc stepped over and put a hand on my arm, stopping me. “Take it easy, Nico. She’s been through a lot. She doesn’t need an alpha scaring her,” he said with a grin.
I knew he was trying to sound calm, but I could see something in his eyes. I must have had a strange look on my face. The look on his face told me I must have been radiating an aura of menace or anger. The problem was, that wasn’t what I felt. I truly had no idea what had come over me since I first saw the woman.
I swallowed and took a breath as I nodded. I wasn’t trying to scare her.
I gave my wolf a mental scolding, then patted Doc on the shoulder. “All good, Doc. I just want to make sure the patient is okay.”
The woman, who was sitting up in bed, watched me as I crossed the room. Her eyes were taking in my every movement. Part of me thought she kind of looked like a prey animal, scared of the big bad wolf coming toward her. On second look? She was no prey animal. Her look was so intense that I had the feeling she was trying to dissect me with her eyes.
“Who are you? What the hell is going on here?” she asked.
I grinned and bobbed my eyebrows up. “I was hoping you’d help me with that. By the way, my name is Nicolas Lorenzo. Call me Nico.”
“What do you mean, you hoped I could help? I was attacked by shifters. You’re a shifter. Shouldn’t you know more about all this than me?”
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.”
