by Dannika Dark
“It doesn’t matter,” Jericho said under his breath. “She’ll never forgive me.” He pulled out his phone and dialed Isabelle, but she didn’t answer. Sickened by the turn of events, he sent a text.
Jericho: Isabelle, please talk to me.
Izzy: There’s nothing to say.
Jericho: It’s not what you think. Where are you?
Izzy: Hell.
He threw the phone across the table and reached for his pack of smokes, lighting one up and taking a long drag, his hand shaky.
“Not in here,” Austin said.
“Fuck you. Fuck this. Fuck it all.”
“That’s how it’s going to be? You’re getting fixated on something you can’t have; maybe she ain’t good for you.”
Jericho kicked back his chair and knocked it over. “You guys have it all wrong!” he shouted. “You keep talking like she was a bad influence in my life, but you didn’t know her. She was the best damn thing I ever lost! Twice I fucking lost her.”
He spun around, squeezing his eyes shut and taking another drag. Such an idiot. He’d blown it. Should have never let those women inside the house. Should have been a better man. Should have proposed to her before he lost her. Should have…
“I think you need to cool it and take a walk,” Wheeler said from the entrance to the dining room.
“Go to hell,” Jericho spat, pacing the floor, hair falling in his face as he stared at his shoes.
Wheeler gripped his shoulders. “Be chill. Take a long walk and…”
Jericho shoved him in the chest and knocked him back two feet. Wheeler stalked forward and gripped his shirt in a tight fist, and that’s when Jericho swung. Austin reached to pull him off while Jericho chanted, “Fuck it all!”
“You can get any damn woman you want!” Wheeler shouted.
Jericho struggled against Austin’s vise-like grip. “I don’t want another woman! Don’t you get it?”
“No, maybe you need to fill me in,” Wheeler snarled. “Look at all the trouble she’s brought. Look at what the hell she’s done to you. You’re throwing swings at your own pack brothers. No woman is worth all that.”
Jericho shoved Austin off him and staggered back, his voice cracking. Pain lanced through his chest—the worst kind of searing pain that only a broken heart can bring. “She was worth all that. She was worth everything! I never had a purpose in this world until Isabelle came along. She pushed me into doing the one thing I do well, and that’s music. She gave me a reason to live and I threw it all away,” he growled and shouted all at once. “Every good thing about me I owe to that woman. I fucked up my own life because I couldn’t appreciate what I had right in front of me. All those women—do you think they ever meant a damn thing? I’ve always loved her, I was just too damn scared to think she could love me back. What’s to love? I’m just a junkie, a singer who lets women use him—she should have left me long before she did. But Isabelle stuck it out and never gave up on me. She had faith when I didn’t.” He slid down the wall and covered his face with tight fists. Tears wet his lashes.
“Let’s leave him alone,” Austin murmured.
Isabelle had put her trust in him, hoping he was a changed man. Maybe Jericho hadn’t lain in bed with that woman by choice, but he’d put himself in that situation. He had become a ghost of a man over the years, going through the motions. The women had just become a way to forget how alone he felt.
He picked up his cigarette from the floor and put it between his lips, watching the tip glow orange and crackle as he pulled in a taste. Now he knew with absolute certainty that what he’d felt his entire life wasn’t just a figment of his imagination.
Isabelle was his life mate.
She was the woman he was born to love.
Shifters often talked about born life mates—couples who had an unbreakable connection. A man could sense when his woman was in danger, and Jericho had felt pangs of worry on several occasions, like restless insects crawling in his stomach. He’d felt it bad earlier that night when Isabelle was supposed to be with Wheeler. It was so powerful he almost shifted, but no one said anything had gone wrong, so he’d dismissed it. Maybe he was going crazy.
Wheeler swaggered in and took a seat on the floor to his right. He pulled up his knees and draped his arms over them, tipping his head back.
Jericho stayed silent, stoically watching his cigarette wasting away between his fingers.
“You still got the ring?” Wheeler asked. “You should hang on to it. You might find another girl to give it to.”
As if that were an option.
“What happened with you two last night?” Jericho asked in a cracked voice.
“We found what Delgado’s been looking for. Hawk kept it stashed in a safe in the house where you two were held prisoner. Some asshole was there—one of Delgado’s men. Good thing we found the money and drugs. Now we can get that moron off our ass. These damn humans are nothing but trouble.”
“Wait, hit rewind. Someone was there with you?”
Wheeler touched his cheek and stared at the drop of blood on his finger, smearing it between his fingers. “Yeah. Some asshole tried shoving Izzy in the Jacuzzi. I would have caught him if her hair hadn’t gotten stuck in the jets.”
Jericho’s muscles tensed. “What? Austin didn’t tell me this.”
Wheeler kept dabbing his finger on the small cut. “No, and he wouldn’t have. He was a little preoccupied holding your hair while you puked in the toilet like a little—”
“Get on with your story,” Jericho bit out.
“I had to cut off a chunk of her hair with my knife or she would have drowned in that damn thing. It got tangled up in one of those little…” He twirled his finger in a circle. “Anyhow, now I have to go back and drain the tub. If someone gets nosy and finds a chunk of red hair floating around in there, it’s going to raise eyebrows.”
“And the body won’t?”
Wheeler sniffed out a laugh and then groaned. “I have to clean up his house of pain so we can keep our noses clean. Might have to torch it. We should have called cleaners.”
“Don’t even think about it,” Jericho growled.
Reputable cleaners would open an investigation, so usually the shady cleaners were called when someone didn’t want the authorities sniffing around. But it wasn’t a good idea to involve those guys in too much of your business; some were corrupt and not above a little blackmail. Jericho couldn’t risk anyone finding out. Even though Hawk had taken them into captivity, there was an off chance Jericho could receive a jail or death sentence. The mess he’d left in that basement left no question that Jericho’s wolf had carried the matter beyond self-defense.
“Has Izzy ever told you she loves you?”
Jericho shook his head.
Wheeler stretched out his legs and crossed them at the ankle. “And you would have proposed to a woman without knowing how she felt about you? Jesus. You’ve got big balls.”
Jericho wearily pushed himself off the floor to go to his room. He still had a throbbing headache from the drugs, but the thought of someone trying to hurt Isabelle when he wasn’t there to protect her made him sick to his stomach.
He stopped at the door and spoke without looking down. “Sometimes you just have to take a leap of faith. I don’t need to hear what I feel in my heart.”
Chapter 24
“I’m so sorry, Rosie. I wish I knew how long I’m going to be away from work, but the last time I was in heat it went on for two weeks.”
I heard her curse in Spanish.
“Usually it’s just a couple of days,” I assured her.
Which was a lie. I’d always gone through my heat cycle alone, so it lasted longer than those who were mated.
I switched on the light in my motel room and sat on the bed. I had requested the last room on the second floor. While I wasn’t on the Breed side of town, I didn’t want to risk a Shifter with a strong nose walking by. There were many rogues on the streets, most of whom didn’t abide by
the laws.
“Rosie, if Jake’s mad and wants to fire me, it’s all gravy. I can hardly blame him after everything that’s been going on these past few weeks. Just let me know ahead of time so I can start searching for another job. I swear I’m usually one of the most dependable girls you could ever meet. I won’t—” I breathed a sigh of relief to hear the understanding in Rosie’s voice rather than anger. “Yes, okay. I’ll call you later when I know more. Bye, Rosie.”
Three days had passed since I’d left Jericho. He’d given up calling me after one attempt. No surprise there. Once again, I’d bailed on him. I wanted to sock myself over the head, but getting over my heat cycle quickly became a bigger priority. It struck me that morning like a tsunami—tingles surging between my legs and my muscles clenching with need.
Biology at its finest.
Shifters didn’t have to guess when they were their most fertile; the scent attracted Shifter males within a certain proximity. Other Breeds were oblivious to the change in our scent, although Chitahs were sensitive enough to detect our amorous emotions. Jericho once told me the scent of a woman in heat was comparable to the most heavenly nectar settling on his tongue, thick and sweet.
I lay down and took a deep breath as I shoved my face into a musty pillow. The last wave had hit two hours ago. It usually began slow and steady, desire flooding my senses until it reached a crescendo. The only way to abate the discomfort and decrease the duration was to have orgasms, and I won’t deny that I’d always felt guilty doing that on my own. Not that there was anything wrong with it, but when in heat, it felt mechanical—a means to an end. One year, I ignored my needs to see if it really made a difference. The yearning became relentless, and it was one of the longest cycles I’d ever spent in heat.
I moaned against the pillow in frustration when a knock at the door startled me. My heart raced, and I hopped out of bed and peered through the peephole. Relief swam through me at the sight of a familiar face, and I quickly unlocked the door. “Thank you so much for doing this, Ivy.”
She gracefully breezed around me, her braid swishing behind her back. Ivy set down two bags of groceries on the table.
When I closed the door, she tossed her purse in the chair.
“I’ll pay you as soon as I get back to work. I’m a little short right now; the guy wanted every dime in my wallet to put down on the room.”
“Don’t worry about it,” she said with a wave of her hand. “It’s inconsequential. These are things you need, and I’m more than happy to help.”
I’d only asked for a few staples, but much to my delight, she had brought fresh fruit. I didn’t have a fridge in the room, so most of my meals were going to be peanut-butter sandwiches and microwave soup.
“Here, we can just put it all on the dresser,” I said. “That way I can eat at the table and enjoy my magnificent view.”
Ivy laughed softly and shook her head. She had a warm complexion with dark eyes and lush lips, but she didn’t doll herself up like most women. Her lashes were elegantly long and black, and her high cheekbones created contours in her face to be admired. Mascara and lipstick would have detracted from her natural beauty.
“Nice mirror,” she said, glancing at the sliding closet doors next to the bed.
It felt a little sleazy because it was right beside the bed, and it took no stretch of the imagination to realize what it was put there for. A long dresser filled the right wall with a microwave on the left side. The television wasn’t just mounted on the wall; it looked like it had been screwed in there to prevent someone from stealing it.
“I’d make you some coffee, but the machine doesn’t work,” I said.
Ivy lined up the little plastic cups of soup on the heavy dresser and put the snacks to the right. I guessed she was health conscious, because most of the foods were labeled as whole wheat or organic.
“How do you go through your cycle while living in a pack?” I asked out of curiosity. “Austin’s mated. Is he really able to keep all the men away?”
Ivy handed me a green apple, and I sat on the bed while she folded up the paper bag. “As crazy as it seems, they’re really respectful. I haven’t gone through my heat spell yet, so I don’t know what that’s like. When I went through the change for the first time, Austin could sense it. He made sure I had privacy, and Lexi was the first one to see my wolf.”
“Wow, you’re younger than I thought.” Ivy seemed like such an old soul that it came as a surprise to find out she was a new wolf.
Ivy tipped her head and smiled. She had a lovely tan that complemented her mahogany hair, which was the richest shade of brown I’d ever seen. A glint of her lavender nail polish caught my eye, and she held her hands out for me to see. “April likes to do my nails. Isn’t that a beautiful shade?”
“She has a keen eye with picking the right colors,” I said, remembering her suggestions in the store when we’d first met.
“I like April a lot. She’s quiet and thoughtful, although young.”
“You’re young.”
“Yes,” she replied, a hint of sadness in her voice. “But I had to grow up fast. It’s not the numbers that age us in life.”
“Where did you come from?”
“The Kizer pack up in Oklahoma. My father traded me off because… Well, he didn’t think I was a good influence on his pack. I’m grateful. Sometimes family isn’t where we really belong.”
“And you belong with the Weston pack?”
She shifted her eyes pensively. “I don’t know that belong is the right word. I feel protected and cared for, and I guess that’s all a woman needs to draw strength.” She tapped a can on the dresser with the tip of her finger. “Anyhow, I was getting too old, and it was time for me to change hands. A woman must break from the pack she’s raised in; it’s not safe. You know how it is.”
No, I didn’t know. All I knew about packs was what I’d overheard in conversations at work. I turned the apple in my hand, twisting at the stem. “I didn’t grow up in a pack.”
Ivy looked at me contemplatively, tracing her finger over the dimpled surface of an orange. “Maybe you were lucky. Not all packs are like Austin’s.”
My brows stitched together. “What was so wrong with the pack you were raised in?”
Her face heated and she folded up the second paper bag, setting them both on the floor. “I came from a different world.” When she finally stood upright, a quiet sigh blew past her lips. “My father called me Poison Ivy—that was his name for me. My mother died years ago, and I had no siblings to turn to. I mostly kept to myself in the later years. My father believes in ruling a pack with an iron fist, and that’s not always a good thing. Things were different when my mother was alive.”
“Do you still talk to your father?”
“I haven’t heard from him since the day I left, but Austin mentioned he’s called and asked about how I’m fitting in with the pack. It’s been just under a year. I was his only child, and you can imagine his disappointment that I wasn’t a boy.”
“Firstborn a woman?” I asked in surprise.
“Yes. It’s not unheard of. Looking back, some of the men must have seen me as a female who might be able to produce an alpha male child. The Kizer pack treats their women like breeding machines, and most of that was my father’s fault for bringing in old blood. It’s refreshing to live in a house where I can play horseshoes with Denver or listen to music with Jericho and not have to worry about ulterior motives. Just to be treated as an equal—it’s something I’ve never known.”
My eyes lowered to the floor at the mention of Jericho’s name.
I lifted a swath of my hair and studied the ends where Wheeler had sliced off a chunk to free me in the hot tub. She stepped forward and touched a few wavy strands. “Do you want me to trim this up for you?”
“I thought about lopping it all off,” I said jokingly.
“No, don’t do that. You have exquisite hair. It’s such a unique shade of light red. I’ll get some scissors and c
ome back this afternoon. How does that sound?”
“Better you than me, I suppose. I’d make a mess of it. Thanks, Ivy. I’m so sorry for all this trouble; I swear this isn’t who I am. There’s no way I can repay your family for what they’ve done. Did Wheeler tell you what we found?”
She sat on the bed beside me and pulled her braided hair around front, brushing her fingers over the ends. “They had a difficult time getting in touch with Delgado, but Reno arranged a meeting with one of his men and performed the exchange. I don’t think that’s the last we’ve heard of him though, and Austin’s worried about his pack getting involved with someone as unscrupulous as Delgado. This guy is big-time—even my father avoided drug lords. I’m relieved they handled this the right way.”
The elephant in the room was stomping around and swinging his trunk, but neither of us brought up Jericho. As much as I wondered how devastated he might be, I also had visions of him packing up his guitar and heading off to another gig, buying drinks for a girl sitting on his lap, and wondering what crazy Izzy’s up to. There’s a time in every broken relationship when you face the ugly question of wondering how much you really meant to a person, if you’ll be the only one with the broken heart.
“What happens if you find a mate?” I asked. “Who’s not in the Weston pack, I mean.”
“Then I go with him. This living situation is only temporary, unless I choose not to mate. It would break tradition to have my mate move in with my pack. He would not acclimate to a house full of men who already feel protective of me.”
“Are you looking?”
Ivy stood up, and her long braid draped exquisitely down the center of her curved back. “I’m optimistic, but I don’t know if there is a man who is capable of giving me the love I require.”
My smile withered when I noticed the sullen expression on her face as she looked at her reflection in the mirror. Ivy had a romantic heart, and I felt a kinship to her more than the other girls because of it. Her free spirit inspired me to desire more for myself, and yet something about her was broken.