“She needs to go home,” Rosie insisted. “Even if she shifts, she hit her head pretty hard, and I wouldn’t feel right about making her wait tables.”
The man with the long mustache stumbled off, quickly leaving the building. Denver leaned over the bar and grabbed a stack of paper napkins, wiping the blood from his nose. “Jackass.”
“Who was that?” Jericho asked, still looking down at Isabelle.
Denver knelt down in front of the redhead and wiped his nose again. “A human who walked into the wrong bar to start shit. What’s her address, Rosie? We’ll call a cab.”
“I don’t know, honey. Jake pays us in cash; you know that. He doesn’t like to be in everyone’s business, and it’s not as if he has to file taxes,” Rosie said with a shake of her head. “He just needs your name and number, and that’s all she wrote. And you can’t put her in a cab while she’s still unconscious!”
Denver laughed. “Why not? I see people leaving here like that all the time.”
“Move out of the way,” Jericho said gruffly, kneeling down and cradling the back of her neck. “I said move!”
Rosie stood up and ushered a few waitresses back to their tables. His bass player took over singing, and it made Jericho cringe to hear him off-key.
“Why don’t you just leave her unconscious on the floor?” Denver suggested. “Like she did you.”
Jericho snapped his head around. “Shut the hell up. You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You’re a bag of nuts. Don’t forget who showed up to save your sorry ass.”
With careful ease, Jericho lifted Isabelle into his arms.
“Mmm… no,” she mumbled as her eyelids fluttered. “I don’t know what a Zipper is.”
Man, did she look stunning. She always did, but time and experience had worked a beautiful magic on this girl. Isabelle had amazing lips—the kind that made a guy lose his train of thought. His train jumped the track and derailed when she licked them.
“That how you like ’em, Mr. Rockstar? Comatose?” a man heckled.
In a smooth voice, Jericho walked by him and said, “That’s how I got your old lady.”
The guy’s face tightened, but no way would a Shifter take a swing while Jericho was holding an injured girl in his arms.
As soon as he found a private spot in the field next to the parking lot, he gently laid her down in the soft grass. Isabelle needed to shift in order to heal that nasty bump on her head.
Jericho softly stroked the nape of her neck and whispered, “Shift.”
Hopefully her wolf was inside and paying attention. He remembered the old tricks—Isabelle always had a fondness for having the back of her neck touched. It was a technique her wolf also responded to, so he continued stroking and calling to her.
Her eyes began to open, but before she looked up, Isabelle shifted in a fluid motion. He fell back when her wolf bared her teeth at him. She’d always been a badass bitch, but never to him.
“Easy, Isabelle,” he soothed, scooting away and creating distance between them. “You hit your head and you’re confused.” Some Shifters remembered the first few seconds or even minutes into their shift, but she might have blacked out and let her animal spirit take over.
Her wolf was smaller than most. Fur just as white as snow, and her feet were black, as if she’d run through a tar pit.
“Come on, Isabelle. We’re in the middle of the goddamn city. Shift back.”
He glanced over his shoulder when a horn blared. Headlights briefly shone on them before the sedan drove through the parking lot. When Jericho looked back, Isabelle was gone. Only a pile of clothes and her heels remained.
“Isabelle!” he shouted, standing up and scanning the property. The city was no place for a wolf to be wandering. It was too easy to get hit by a car, shot, or taken in by animal control.
“Fffuck.”
He jumped when Denver slapped his arm around his shoulders and gave him a tight squeeze.
“She ditched you again, huh?”
He shrugged Denver off and faced him, stepping close and curling his lips. “What’s your deal with Isabelle?”
“You mean Izzy, right? The name of your band. The name of the girl who left you overdosing in a hotel. You almost died,” Denver yelled, shoving Jericho in the chest. “You were lucky I only lived an hour away and they called me on time. It took me for-fucking-ever to get you to shift. You said some shit—”
“What shit?” Jericho demanded, shoving at Denver’s chest. “I don’t remember saying a damn thing.”
“No, because you’re Mr. Fucking Rockstar who can shoot up heroin and doesn’t need anyone. You were crying, Jericho. I went back to the hotel to find out what had happened. A maid said she went in to do housecleaning and found you facedown in your own vomit. That little redhead was digging in your back pocket and stealing money out of your wallet. She didn’t care if the maid saw her. She cleaned you out, stole your guitar, and left you there to die.”