He could have meant romantically, but equally he could have meant doing her harm. Like this. Like the last time. And now both Jo’s and my people were suffering at the hands of the Bane’s Night pack.
I couldn’t prove any of this was him yet. Not conclusively.
I turned to pace back in the other direction, and Jo came rushing out of the door.
“Patrick.” She didn’t stop when she saw me. Just barreled straight into my arms and let me catch her.
I held her tight, wrapping my arms around her, both protective of her and glad of the opportunity to hold her so close. I bent my neck, touching my nose to her hair, and breathed her scent in.
Something about her scent always calmed me.
“How’s Wesley?” I asked. He was the only one still here.
Ames had already been released and he was back at Lycan Heights, healing faster than any person had a right to, shifter or not. He mostly had cuts and bruises, although he’d have to take it easy at Lycan Heights while some of his internal injuries healed. If humans were jealous of shifters for any reason, it was of our ability to heal, not for anything else connected to our mythology. We were decidedly hard to put down, unless our enemies knew what they were doing.
Jo nodded, which didn’t answer my question about her friend, and she didn’t step back. She just stayed resting against me. “He has three broken ribs that they want to keep positioned right while they heal, a black eye — although what should have been a spectacular bruise is already fading — and a concussion that they’re watching.” She shook her head now instead. “He shouldn’t have stayed human. He put himself in so much danger.”
“Yeah.” I stroked her hair. “I wondered about that. What stopped him shifting to wolf?” It was an almost instinctive urge for all of us. If we were in any danger, we became wolf. It was the easiest way to protect ourselves, even if protecting ourselves meant running away. Our wolves were fast and nimble, and they could make it over obstacles we couldn’t manage when human. Being wolves gave us multiple natural advantages over our human forms.
“He said that he wanted to get everything on our call so I could record it. He couldn’t do that as his wolf.” She laughed, the sound a slightly hysterical bubble. “I guess it’s hard to control a phone with paws. But that wasn’t even important, you know? I need my friends safe far more than I need video footage.” She looked at me, and I brushed some of her hair from where it was clinging to her cheek. “They caught him and beat him, until they threw him in that van and drove away.”
“They put Ames out of action, too. They could have caught you as well.” The more I said, the more the words trapped inside me fought to get out. “What were you thinking?” I could have lost her. “Why the hell did you run off like a group of amateur detectives without taking law enforcement with you? I didn’t hand you that business card so you could start a collection, you know.” Frustration tensed all of my muscles.
A tear leaked from the corner of her eye and tracked slowly down the side of her nose. “I know,” she whispered. “I just didn’t have anything concrete to tell law enforcement. But I didn’t mean to put anyone in danger.”
I groaned and held her even tighter. “I know.” The lecture was over. I couldn’t bear to make her feel any guiltier than she already did. “I’m just frustrated that I can’t protect you as well as I want to. I can’t predict whoever is after you, and I can’t predict you. It’s really not your fault. You couldn’t have known they would be there, or what they’d do to your friend.” I breathed out slowly through my nose. I believed what I’d just told her.
It really wasn’t her fault. But I did need her to be more careful in the future, or next time, it could be her.
She drew away from me and met my gaze. “You know what? You’re right.”
I bit back a grin. Any other time, I’d have asked her to repeat those words. Maybe have even recorded them, but now wasn’t the time for that.
She spoke some more, clarifying what she’d meant. “The people responsible for the missing and lost shipments and all the illegal goings-on are the ones to blame for Wes’s injuries and hurting Ames. I mean, surely it’s no coincidence that as soon as my dad started looking into it, he got Lycan Flu and died? Such amysteriousdeath on way too many levels.”
I nodded. “It’s a lot of coincidence, that’s for sure.”
She scoffed. “I’m starting to think it’s way too much. Too many people involved with the Gold Moon investigations are getting hurt.”
“Right.” I stroked my hand down her cheek. It was hard to stand this close and not touch her. “Right. More people are getting hurt. So do you think maybe now’s the time to involve the police? Maybe we should call Seth.”
But she shook her head. “Can’t.”
“What do you mean you can’t? The police are there to serve and protect. That’s what they do.”
“I already talked to them.” She sighed. “Wes already talked to them, too.” Then she grimaced. “More like they talked to Wes, actually. They questioned him like he was a common criminal.”
“They questioned him? What? Why?” That didn’t make any sense when he was so clearly the victim of a brutal attack.
She shrugged and walked away a little, like she was thinking. Then she looked like she was about to stamp her foot, but she curled her fist instead. No, she wasn’t thinking. She was just frustrated.
“Technically, Wes was apparently trespassing.”
“Trespassing? I thought that was a Gold Moon Inc. warehouse.”
She paused and rubbed her hands over her face. “Wait, was ittrespassing? Or was it more to do with the packages no longer being the property of Gold Moon now that they were technically the responsibility of the shipping company Gold Moon had handed them off to? I’ll have to look it up. Either way, they were more concerned that he was after a shipment when he shouldn’t have been, not the fact that he got attacked.”
I blew out a sigh of my own. Really, those kinds of rules, or at least being told those kind of rules, made a mockery of law enforcement.