“Get your wolf in check,” I bark out.
His jaw tightens and his nostrils flare, but he nods and after taking a deep breath, he visibly shakes loose the tension locking his muscles.
“You good?” I ask.
“Yeah. I’m good.”
We both turn back to Des and wave, silently telling him to continue. He huffs out a breath but complies. “We need to be one hundred percent certain of who attacked her before we can do anything.” I nod, aware of the consequences of getting this wrong. Hell, there were going to be consequences even if we got it right. “And we need to convince her to join the Pack.”
I still, muscles locking as Des’s words sink in. My wolf perks up, sudden interest flaring. Up until this moment, I’ve never given thought to Isa joining the Southwest Pack. And thinking about it now, I have no idea why that is.
“Yeah. Yeah.” Jordy mutters. “If Isa is Pack, that solves our biggest problem. It makes her untouchable. No one would dare go after her if she was really one of us.”
Des nods his head but his face is still pulled tight, his brows furrowed in concentration. “Do you know what her situation is? Why she left her Pack and wound up here?”
I shake my head. “Only parts of it.” I suck on my bottom lip debating how much to tell them. A visceral part of me wants to keep Isa’s confidence but the more primal side of me is willing to bare it all if that’s what it takes to keep her safe.
“All I know is that her mom died.”
Jordy curses.
“And her father is Brian Kline.”
“The Human Alliance Corporation asshat?” Des asks.
I nod. “Yeah. When her mom died, I guess he was called. No clue on the details of why or who made the call, but he claimed her and here we are. I don’t know why or if her Pack even wanted to release her. I do know she barely knows the guy though. He wasn’t around growing up.
Des and Jordy both mull the information over before it’s Des who finally speaks. “Kline isn’t going to let her join the Pack. Not while she’s still a minor. He hates our kind too much.” He shakes his head. “Damn. It makes sense now.”
“What does?” I ask, not following.
“Why your dad is pretending he doesn’t know about her. Why he hasn’t demanded she present herself to the Pack or at the very least to Clan Wolf. This has got to be some sort of deal between him and Kline. You know your dad. He’d never let an unaffiliated wolf this close to his territory. Hell, she’s already crossed into it when she went to Suzy’s. You know he knows about it. That man has eyes and ears everywhere. It’s part of what makes him such a good Alpha.”
He’s not wrong. I’ve wondered why my pops hasn’t made mention of her, but I’ve been so busy lately, I haven’t bothered finding the time to ask him about it.
“So what do we do?” Jordy asks.
“We wait,” I say, my resolve settling in me. “She’ll be eighteen in a matter of months. Convincing her she needs to stay instead of running back to whatever Pack she came from is going to be challenging enough. We’ll use the time between now and her birthday to find out who’s responsible for hurting her, and to give her enough reason to want to stay.” We’re wolves and we can be patient hunters when the need arises. “Once we find out who did this, we’ll start planning our next move. But we need to bring her into the fold first. She needs to be under the Pack’s protection or this will all blow up in our faces.”
Both guys nod. “Is there a chance your pops would extend friend-of-the-Pack status to her?” Des asks.
I grimace. It’s doubtful if he’s willfully ignoring her very existence in his territory. “I don’t know. I’ll feel him out before the game and we’ll go from there.”
We head out to find Isa but she’s elusive. She isn’t in the lunchroom and she’s not in her next class either. After searching for twenty minutes straight, I find out from the front office that she’s signed herself out for the day. Some of the tension riding me releases. At least with her home, I don’t have to worry about someone else coming after her.
I fill the guys in when we meet up later after school and we come up with a plan to shadow her during school the next day. I’ve got her covered before school and during first. I’ll walk her to second and Des will follow her after second to third. Jordy’s next to her fourth period class so he’ll have eyes on her until she makes it to class and then I’ll catch her as soon as she’s done for the day.
We shouldn’t have to worry about anything happening to her during classes. No one is that stupid. And fourth period she’s got class with Zheng. I don’t like the idea of relying on that fucker, but whatever his motives, he seems to care for her, and thankfully there aren’t any catty witches in that class for her to have to deal with.
It’s a solid plan and I should be cool with it, but I can’t get the idea of her shaking and injured body out of my head. Every time I close my eyes, I see her face. The bloodshot eyes. The quivering bottom lip. The heavy sense of resolve. It’s like a dagger to the stomach and thinking of her broken rib makes the blade twist inside me. Someone hurt her. If she wasn’t a shifter, if she didn’t have the Lycanthropy virus coursing through her system eager and willing to repair the damage inflicted, she
