by Lori Drake
“Jenny was attacked at the party, and—”
Itsuo didn’t wait for the rest. He spun on his heel and marched for the hallway. Joey exchanged glances with Chris and Ben, then they all headed off after him.
“She’s okay. I mean, she’s not okay, but she should be okay. Ben stitched her up and she’s awake now,” Joey said while she trailed along after the quiet shadow of a man. He stopped at Jenny’s door and pushed it open, but stopped dead in the doorway. The room was exactly as they’d left it, bloody message and all.
Itsuo did an about face, rounding on Joey. “Where is she?” he asked, but when she opened her mouth to answer, he held up a silencing hand and tilted his head as if listening. Then he turned and walked a few feet down the hall, stopping in front of Kate’s door.
“She’s in there,” Joey offered helpfully, though she suspected he already knew. She too could hear the faint sounds of weeping and moaning coming from the other side. Poor Jenny.
Itsuo tried the door and found it locked. His expression was grim as he stepped back, then calmly kicked the door in. The doorframe splintered with a loud crack and the door swung inward, impacting noisily with the wall behind it.
Wide-eyed, Joey gaped for a moment before glancing over her shoulder to find Chris and Ben wearing equally surprised expressions.
Itsuo was already through the door.
“What the hell?” Eric exclaimed, his voice ringing loud and clear through the open doorway.
Joey moved into the doorway for a look, with Chris and Ben crowding in behind her. She had no idea what was about to happen, but had a feeling it would be awesome.
Itsuo ignored his Alpha and strode purposefully to the bedside, but Eric stepped in the way.
“Get out of my way,” Itsuo said, a hint of steel underlying his normally soft voice.
“You have no right to barge in here like that,” Eric said, getting in the other man’s face. He had to lean down to do it, such was the height difference between them.
“Get. Out. Of. My. Way.”
Jenny moaned from the bed, and it must have distracted Itsuo, because he clearly didn’t see Eric’s fist coming. His head snapped back as it slammed into his face, but he turned the movement into a spin and dropped low, sweeping Eric’s legs out from under him with a low kick. Eric went sprawling to hit the floor with a noisy thud. Itsuo dropped to one knee and gripped Eric’s neck with one hand. It was hard to imagine him holding Eric down with one hand but Eric twisted and writhed, unable to escape. His face turned red and he clawed at the fingers holding his neck to no avail.
“Stop.” The voice from the bed was weak, but clear. “Please.” Jenny had pulled herself to the edge of the bed to look down.
“Fuck, she’s going to pop a stitch,” Ben whispered, but didn’t move. None of them did.
Joey mentally crossed her fingers and watched as Itsuo lifted his head to look up at Jenny, then looked back down at Eric, muttered something in Japanese, and released him.
Eric scrambled to his feet while Itsuo knee-walked to the bedside and caught Jenny’s small hand in both of his. He bowed over it, touching her hand to his forehead. Jessica moved around from the other side of the bed to reach Eric, but he shrugged off the hand she put on his shoulder and turned to face the Grants in the doorway. His expression was stormy as he regarded them, as if they were clearly to blame for his semi-public embarrassment.
Joey smirked and folded her arms. “Don’t look at me, I didn’t poke the bear. That was aaall you.”
Eric made a sound that was part growl, part snarl, and strode toward her with a menacing stride.
Joey held her ground, unimpressed. Now that Itsuo had established dominance, Eric was eager to assert his own. He stopped in front of her, chest heaving as he glared down at her.
“You’ll pay for that,” he said through gritted teeth.
Joey snorted. “I don’t know how many of us it’d take to kick your ass, but I know how many of us are going to do it if you lay a hand on me.”
“Now you threaten me in my own house?” Eric’s eyes remained locked with hers.
“Technically, it’s my house,” Chris said.
Joey grinned and slid past Eric into the room. Ben and Chris followed suit. Eric stood there with impotent fists clenched at his sides for a long moment before exiting the room. Jessica watched him go but lingered behind. When Chris closed the door and leaned against it for good measure, she leaned against the wall beside him. Seeing them in proximity left a bitter taste on Joey’s tongue. She turned away before her high spirits fled entirely.
“That could come back to bite us in the ass,” Ben muttered, then detached himself from Joey’s side to head for Jenny. Those stitches wouldn’t check themselves.
Joey followed him, but hung back at the foot of the bed where Lucy still sat. She’d witnessed everything, silent as a statue. Joey had all but forgotten she was there. Now, she gazed at Joey with wide, worried eyes. Joey gave her shoulder a gentle squeeze and offered her a smile.
“Alphas will be alphas. Don’t sweat it,” Joey said, and winked.
Lucy’s eyes slid toward the door, then back to Joey. She seemed to relax some, but kept her own counsel.
A groan from the bed drew Joey’s gaze to Jenny again as Ben eased her onto her back once more. Itsuo lifted his head, but still held fast to her hand. Joey felt like she was looking at an assembled puzzle with a few key pieces missing. She hadn’t known Jenny and Itsuo to be particularly close, but he’d clearly taken the news of her injury hard. Now he hovered by her bedside like a worried lover. Was there something between them?
While Ben peeled back the bandage to check Jenny’s stitches, Joey watched the older wolf’s face. She didn’t know how much older, but she suspected he was at least a century old. His hair was still thick and predominantly dark, but there were a few gray hairs peppered in.
Itsuo’s expression darkened as he took in the extent of the damage. “Jennifer-chan… what happened?” His quiet words held a tone of shock.
Jenny lifted her head from the pillow and looked down at the wound, then at Itsuo. “He came back,” she whispered, almost too quietly for Joey to hear.
“What? Who?” Itsuo asked, his gaze focused. “Who did this to you? Tell me so I may kill him.”
Jenny tightened her grip on Itsuo’s hand, the muscles in her arm standing out as she pulled herself up off the bed a few inches. Ben objected, loudly, and rushed to support her shoulders.
“He… came back!” Jenny pushed the words past gritted teeth, and then her eyes rolled back in her head and she went limp. Ben carefully lowered her back down.
Joey glanced between the pair, but Jenny’s words didn’t seem to make any more sense to Itsuo than they had to her. She cast a wider net, and her eyes fell on Lucy. The color had drained from her face; she was practically as white as the bed linens.
“You know who it was,” Joey said.
Lucy’s eyes darted to Joey, but she didn’t quite meet her gaze. She said nothing, just gave her head a small shake and lowered her eyes again.
“It’s okay. You can tell us. We just want to help. Jess, tell her.” Joey looked over at Jessica, but got no help from that corner. Jessica just stood there, staring at the wall, giving no indication that she’d heard anything. It was an all-too-familiar stance when this pack and their business were concerned. Joey had been trying to crack this nut for the better part of two months, and was starting to feel it’d take a sledgehammer to do it. Her eyes slid past Jessica to Chris, finding him studying Jessica with a faint frown.
“You,” Itsuo said, calling Joey’s attention away again. His eyes were fastened on Ben. “You did this to her?” He motioned at the bandage Ben was gently taping back down.
Ben paused, eyeing Itsuo uncertainly. “Yes. I mean, I didn’t do the cutting. I just sewed her back up.”
Itsuo gently laid Jenny’s hand on the bed and stood to bow formally. “I owe you a great debt, Benjamin-san. One I may never be ab
le to repay. A life for a life.”
The curiosity was killing Joey. “I didn’t realize you and Jenny were close, Itsuo.”
“We are not,” Itsuo admitted, lowering his eyes to the bed once more, but there was no mistaking the tenderness in his expression. He was quiet for a long moment, then said, “She is my granddaughter.”
Lucy gasped.
“Your granddaughter?” Joey said, blinking.
Itsuo turned toward Joey and nodded. “Yes. My daughter’s daughter. She—Lillian—asked me to watch over Jennifer when she moved here for school.”
Several pieces of the puzzle locked into place all at once. Itsuo’s reaction to Jenny’s assault was only one of them. Joey also reached a new understanding of Itsuo’s interactions with Eric, his unwillingness to take Eric’s shit but his lack of interest in formally challenging him for pack leadership.
“She doesn’t know, does she?” Joey asked.
Itsuo shook his head. “No one did, until now.”
“Why?” Lucy asked, but Joey was curious about that too.
“That is a long story, perhaps for another time,” Itsuo replied. “For now, it might be best if we withdraw and let her rest.”
Everyone seemed to be in agreement on that point except for Lucy, who rather reluctantly climbed down from the bed. Itsuo ushered her ahead of him and they all began filing out of the room. However, at the last moment, Lucy turned to face him.
“I want to stay with her.”
In the hallway, Joey could see the corners of Itsuo’s mouth twitch slightly upward. He bowed his head and moved around Lucy, laying a hand on her shoulder in passing. He said something quietly in Japanese that made Lucy smile. She murmured something in reply and slipped back into the room, closing the door behind her.
“What’d you tell her?” Joey asked, curiosity getting the better of her. The others had already moved off down the hall.
“That I was proud of her for speaking up for herself,” Itsuo said.
“I didn’t even know she could speak Japanese.” Joey turned to walk down the hall with him.
He nodded quietly, but said no more. He really was a man of few words. She wondered how many more surprises were in store for her before the night was over.
10
Chris caught Jessica’s hand and pulled her into the first open doorway along the hall. It turned out to be a bathroom. Jessica turned toward him with an impish smile.
“It’s a little late for a shower, but I’m game if you are.”
Chris flicked on the light and shut the door. “I just want to talk. What’s going on?”
“You’re the one that’s cornered me in a bathroom. You tell me.”
“Quit playing games. You know what I mean.”
She leaned against the sink and folded her arms. “You’re going to have to be more specific. I’m not a mind reader.”
Chris’s patience shredded like tissue paper in the wind. He prowled closer, eyes locked with hers. “Who attacked Jenny?”
“I don’t know.”
He leaned down until his face was inches from hers. “Bullshit.”
Jessica’s pupils shrank and she ran the tip of her tongue over her lips. Given her predilection for domineering assholes, it shouldn’t have surprised him that any effort to intimidate her would just turn her on.
“I wasn’t there.” She lifted herself up to sit on the edge of the counter.
“What happened in the woods, then? You were there for that.”
“I was.”
“Come on, Jess, talk to me. I just want to help.”
She hesitated, glancing toward the door. “There’s nothing you can do.”
Chris followed the direction of her glance with a frown, then broke off and walked back to the door. He flipped the other switch on the wall, turning on the fan. It rattled noisily as he walked back to her.
“Talk to me,” he said, keeping his voice low. Even a wolf-eared eavesdropper would have difficulty making out their words over the interference of the fan. “What do I need to do to prove you can trust me?”
Jessica still hesitated, but then said, “A favor. To be named later.”
Chris frowned. “I’m not having sex with you.”
She smirked. “A non-sexual favor.”
Still, Chris hesitated. “Non-sexual favor” covered a lot of territory. A lot of territory. “You’re asking for a pretty big leap of faith here.”
“You’re asking me to trust you. Trust me in return.”
“Okay, a favor. One favor. But I draw the line at anything illegal or immoral.”
“What kind of girl do you think I am?”
“I have no idea what kind of girl you are, other than the ‘pot brownie baking, crawl into bed with strangers’ kind. That’s the whole point.”
She laughed, eyes twinkling. “Okay, fair enough.”
He did not laugh, or even smile. “Spill.”
Her expression sobered quickly. “I don’t know who attacked Jenny for certain, but my money’s on the man in the woods. We’ve encountered him before.”
“Encountered how?”
“He killed two wolves in this area last year.”
Chris rocked back on his heels and whistled through his teeth. “A hunter?”
She nodded. “We thought he was gone, but he’s clearly back.”
“But you had him outnumbered in the woods, with all of you in wolf form… why not press the advantage?”
Jessica shrugged and looked away. “He caught us by surprise. After what happened to Jenny, I guess we just panicked.”
Chris gently turned her face back toward his, meeting her eyes when she lifted them. “What do you know about him?”
“Um, his name’s Ted and he lives out in Redwood.” She smirked.
“Be serious.”
“They call him the Butcher. He’s been stomping around the Pacific Northwest for the last five years, leaving a trail of dead, dismembered wolves in his wake.”
Chris felt the color drain from his face. “That’s… serious.”
“Yeah. Eric called a hunt after we lost Micah last year, but the Butcher gave us the slip. We didn’t know he knew where we lived, but…”
“He knows, obviously. So now what?”
“Eric wants to go after him, but the others are too afraid.”
“I’d go. Joey’d go. Hell, probably Ben too. All he has to do is ask.”
Jessica snorted. “This is Eric we’re talking about.”
She had a point. “He won’t ask, and taking matters into our own hands would just piss him off.”
“Exactly.”
Chris stepped back and rubbed his face. “We can’t let his ego get in the way. Lives are at stake. Hell, our lives are at stake just as much as yours are.”
“They don’t have to be.”
“What?”
Jessica hopped down from her perch on the counter. “Go home. Take Joey and Ben with you. This isn’t your fight.”
Chris shook his head. “What do you mean, ‘not my fight’? The man’s a hunter. It doesn’t matter which pack we belong to. He’ll take out whoever he can get his… silver bullets on.”
“I had a feeling you’d say something like that.” She sighed and leaned down to snag the plunger from where it stood by the toilet. He watched her in confusion as she turned back toward him, moving so swiftly that her arm—not to mention the plunger—blurred. The wooden handle cracked him upside the head.
Pain exploded behind his eyes. The world went gray and fuzzy around the edges. Jessica stood with the plunger still gripped in one hand, an air of sadness clinging to her like cheap perfume. Her eyes lowered. It took him a moment to realize why. She was looking down at him. Or, rather, at his body where it lay on the tiled bathroom floor.
Joey stepped out of the hall into the living room and found Ben leaning against the back of the couch.
“Now what?” he asked.
A quick glance around revealed no one else in the room. “Wher
e’s Chris? And Jess?”
Ben shrugged. “Dunno. They were already gone when I got into the hall.”
The memory of interrupting them upstairs flashed through Joey’s mind. She shoved it aside and swallowed the knot in her throat. If they wanted to run off and canoodle, far be it from her to stop them. No matter how inappropriate the timing.
“Something wrong?” Ben tilted his head, a thoughtful expression on his face.
“Yes. This whole fucked-up situation is what is wrong.” She turned toward Itsuo and caught his eyes. “What the hell is going on?”
Itsuo spread his hands. “I do not know, Josephine-san. I just got here myself. But I intend to find out, if you’ll excuse me. I will come find you shortly.” He bowed and waited for her nod before turning to go.
Joey sighed and flopped into a chair. “This is ridiculous. Maybe we should just go. They clearly don’t want our help. Remind me why we’re still here?”
“Because there’s a man in the woods taking potshots at us?”
Joey held up her index finger. “Correction. There’s a man in the woods that took a potshot at them. A pack of wolves. What man with a gun wouldn’t defend himself against that?”
“What man goes wandering in the woods at night with a gun?” Ben countered.
“It’s an open carry state,” Joey grumbled, but he did have a point. She sighed and rubbed her temples. It was late, and she was beyond tired. She’d been up since first light, anxious about Chris’s homecoming. What a homecoming it’d turned out to be. “What about Brandon? He must know something. Maybe he’d open up to you.”
“I was working on that when you came to get me.”
Joey glanced toward the hallway. “I can try Lucy again. Maybe she’d be more forthcoming without Jess in the room.” Mentioning her was a stark reminder of what Joey was trying not to think about. She sighed and rubbed her temples some more.
Ben straightened and walked over to her. “Why don’t you find an out-of-the-way spot to grab a little nap? You look beat.”
“If I close my eyes now, I might not be able to wake up again until morning.”
“So?” He leaned down and put a hand on her shoulder, giving it a squeeze. “I promise I’ll wake you up for any new developments.”