He backed up, pulling me to a sitting position. There wasn’t much room on the bed, so he hopped on the floor and sat down. Thankfully, someone had dressed me in a long nightgown.

“Austin!” I called out.

The wolf barked.

“Austin!”

Then he howled. The door cracked open and Denver peered in. “What the fuck is going on in here?”

The wolf reared around and snapped at him, causing Denver to swing the door closed to just a crack.

“Denver, where’s Austin? Why am I locked up in here with a wolf?”

The animal delivered a death threat with a low, thrumming growl.

“Damn, girl. You really were knocked in the head. Austin won’t let anyone near you.”

“Where is he?”

“In front of you.”

The door slammed and my mouth opened. Austin had warned me about his wolf—how dangerous he was. I didn’t doubt it, either. He was always a tough guy growing up, but the past seven years had changed him from the person I once knew. He had a fierce animal with thick shoulders, sharp canines, and savage eyes.

“Uh, Austin?”

He lifted his eyes to mine and I blinked, looking away. Raw power emanated from his gaze, and while I’d never felt submissive in Austin’s presence before, I now understood why his brothers were so obedient. He truly was born to lead, in all forms.

I touched my throat and felt the back of my head. There wasn’t any bruising or pain, so I must have shifted to heal. I couldn’t remember.

A series of knocks sounded at the door and it swung open. “Lexi, honey, Denver told me you were awake,” Mom said, squeezing inside.

“Mom, no!”

She held a small plate of food and my eyes went wide.

“Oh, it’s okay, honey.”

Mom reached down and patted Austin on the head and I almost rolled right out of the bed when she walked past him and set the plate on my lap.

“Mom?” I asked in disbelief, having expected her to get mauled due to her careless behavior.

She smiled and kissed my forehead. “I don’t believe it, I don’t really understand it, but you’re still my daughter. It took them a while to pull me off you and then I had a long talk with Austin. Ivy made the most sense and I really like that young lady; she has a good head on her shoulders. I’ve seen it with my own eyes, so I can’t deny who you are.”

“You got near my wolf?”

My mother was truly a fearless woman.

She sighed and patted my leg, as if I had just asked the dumbest question on the planet. “Eat up and if you don’t feel like getting out of bed, then you stay here all day.” Her face tightened and she looked down. “I actually liked Beckett; I thought he was a nice young man. Obviously I have no sense when it comes to men.”

“It’s not your fault, Mom.”

Jericho slipped into the room and looked down at the wolf. “Austin, you need to come see this. Someone brought you a present.”

The way he said it rattled me, but Austin didn’t shift. I followed Jericho down the hall, the black wolf never leaving my side. He walked with the same stride, keeping his body pressed against mine.

Jericho and Denver were in the hall by the front door with their arms folded. I walked around them and to my left, two dead wolves lay side by side on the front porch.

“It’s a message,” Denver said. “A warning.”

Parked out front was Lorenzo, leaning against the grill of his truck with one hand tucked in his pocket and the other holding a cigarette. He took a long drag, watching me as I stood there in an ankle-length gown that belonged to my mom.

Austin growled when I got too close, but I knelt down and got a good look at one of the wolves. “It’s not a warning,” I said. “It’s an offering.” I didn’t know if Austin could understand me or not, but I turned and looked at him as if he could. “This was the dog that treed me in the cemetery. I don’t know who the other one is though. The warning is for Lorenzo’s pack, not yours. But this is a gift… for me.”

The message being that anyone who thought about hurting me would answer to him. I wondered who the second wolf was—maybe the one who was supposed to have been watching me that night. Lorenzo said he had a man following me at all times.

Somehow, a dead body was not a romantic gesture.

“Come away from there, Lexi,” Jericho said, stepping forward with his arm outstretched.

Austin snapped at him. Jericho turned his head and sighed through his nose in frustration. “Is he ever going to shift back?” he asked Denver. “’Cause that biting shit is starting to piss me off.”

“How long was I out? What time is it?”

“Two days,” Denver said. “Ivy and your mom took care of you; they were the only ones who could get near Austin.”

“He hasn’t shifted back?”

Denver strolled out of the room, hiking up his sweats. The motor fired up on Lorenzo’s truck and he slowly backed out.

“He’s been that way since he brought you in,” Jericho said, putting an unlit cigarette into his mouth. “All hell broke loose when your mom jumped on top of you. We tried to get her off and Austin suddenly shifted and guarded you two like his life depended on it. Between you and me, Austin’s wolf is one badass alpha.”

“Where’s Ivy?”

Jericho stuffed his hands in the pockets of his black jeans, shredded from thigh to knee, biting down on the cigarette as if he hadn’t decided whether to light it or not. “Helping your friend at the store.”

“Do what?”

“The power is on and the shipments are due to arrive today. The twins are unloading while the girls set up.”

I tucked my hands under my arms. “Lorenzo paid for all that?”

His brows knitted and he tucked the smoke behind his ear. “No. Austin did.”

I took a moment to process that, because I had never asked him for any help in that regard. It wasn’t even his problem, and yet he took money out of his own pocket to keep the store running. A store that only paid me a mediocre salary.

“I can’t believe it,” I whispered. Jericho shook his head a little to get his hair out of his eyes and I lowered my voice. “What happened to Beckett?”

Jericho made a slicing motion across his throat and I shuddered. “Austin took care of that problem, and your friend took care of his.”

“Which friend?”

The wolf’s toenails clicked on the tile as he turned in circles and sat in front of me.

Jericho combed his fingers through his hair. “Your neighbor. I guess she knows some cleaners and instead of waiting for the cops, she had the body removed like nothing had happened.”

“Are you sure you don’t mean Lorenzo?”

“Nope,” he said, shaking his head. “Shifters have connections, and I guess she’s got the hookup for taking care of dead bodies.”

“Naya is a Shifter?”

My legs weakened and I closed the door.

“Mmm. We went to check on things and she was in there picking up roses. Nice tits on that one.” Then he looked at the shock plastered across my face. “You didn’t know she was a Shifter? Our kind tends to gravitate toward one another, even if we don’t know it. We also look out for those we bond with, so if you two were tight, then that explains why she went the extra mile. Believe it or not, this city is teeming with Shifters. Not sure what her animal is, but I’d be willing to bet it’s a cat,” he said, rolling his tongue over his bottom lip. “Afraid I’m not into cats; too much maintenance. But they’re prettylicious to look at.”

“I think I’m going to throw up now,” I declared, walking around him and into the living room. Naya was a Shifter? It made sense, but I still couldn’t believe it. “Where’s Maizy?”

“Denver’s keeping an eye on her in the study across from the atrium. When I last checked, she was looking at the pictures in some old World Almanac we’ve had around for about fifty years. He took her outside to play ‘slay the dragon’ this morning. They were trying to kill the snake Reno saw under the house.”

“What?” My question was more of a declaration I would kill him if he was serious. “Can you trust him with her?”

I was beginning to have second thoughts about Denver if snake hunting was on his daily agenda.

Jericho waltzed by me and lifted a box of matches from the bar. “Emphatically. It’s his wolf I don’t trust. Denver has control over his animal and doesn’t shift on emotions, so she’s safe with him. But don’t ever let that child near his wolf. He’s loco.”

* * *

I decompressed in the shower and allowed the hot water to rinse away my salty tears. While I had no physical marks from the attack, the emotional ones left behind became fingerprints that would never wash away.

I’d never seen it coming.

I kept analyzing our relationship to see if there were any signs that Beckett was capable of that level of violence, but he’d only been aggressive with other men. He obsessed over professional wrestling, and sometimes I wondered if he took the job as a bouncer just to push people around and feel superior. Off the clock is when he got in the most fights, and usually it was after a few beers if he spotted some guy talking to me. But he never actually pushed me around, quite the opposite, in fact. Outside of his infidelity, I thought Beckett loved me.

Maybe too much.

His behavior had started to change after we split, with phone calls and confrontations. Losing me didn’t seem to push him over the edge as much as the thought of another man in my life. And being as drunk as he was…

Then the memory of his death slammed into me like a train. I shouldn’t have felt guilty for someone who tried to choke me on a blanket of rose petals and glass, but I did. Then I got angry and threw a bottle of shampoo against the wall, hating him with every fiber of my being. Rage poured through me as I shut the water off and tore down the shower curtain—the rod clamoring on the tile. I growled, sobbed, and made guttural noises—gripping the edge of the tub and letting the pain consume me.