She pointed listlessly and Lex put an arm about her shoulders and led her inside. Taking care of her like that, protecting her, felt so right that he realized just how wrong everything had been until that moment. Lex sat her down on the bed and stood back, frowning as he took in the split lip and the beginnings of a bruise on her neck. If he hadn’t already killed the wolf who’d done that to her, he’d be out there right now tracking him. Lex’s wolf paced inside of his body, anxious to lash out and hurt anyone who’d harm his woman.

He got a wet washcloth and she held still while he dabbed at her lip, looking carefully at the marks on her neck to be sure the skin hadn’t broken. Satisfied, he moved to toss the cloth into the sink while Cade rustled around.

Nina took the glass of water Cade offered, grateful to have something to do with her hands. Drinking, she closed her eyes, trying to hold herself together. She had to fight against the numbness that threatened. At the same time, all she wanted to do was bury her face in Lex Warden’s neck and hold on until he made everything all right. That freaked her out almost as much as losing Gabriel did.

Oh, Gabriel, it shouldn’t have been this way! All her life she’d been the strong one. She’d taken care of Gabriel from the time she was twelve and he was eight. Their parents had died in a hotel fire and they’d gone to live with distant cousins who couldn’t have cared less about either one of them. They’d let Gabriel run wild and he’d gotten in with the wrong crowd. Soon they’d gotten kicked out of the house and Nina’d had to hustle to make sure they were able to survive. She learned and ran all manner of street cons to pay rent while she made sure that Gabriel got an education.

She discovered hacking accidentally while taking a computer programming class in the local adult education program. She’d had an innate skill and knowledge of computers and programming, and started hacking for fun when she was working for a woman who’d helped them out and taken them in. She’d realized that she could make money more safely and quickly through hacking than out on the street dodging not only the cops, but the pimps and drug dealers too.

Over the next several years she’d become one of the best. She developed a reputation for quick, clean jobs that were high risk. She had to be good, Gabriel was constantly in trouble and she had to bail him out. They’d moved dozens of times, staying one step ahead of the law. She’d promised Gabriel the day they walked away from their cousins’ house that there was no way she was going to let the authorities break them up.

Her reputation grew to be legendary, as such things go anyway. Shiningstarr was a name revered by fellow hackers and tech geeks. It was also a name that attracted the attention of the authorities.

As her skills grew, she got to the point where she worked on spec for a few people and made enough money to save. Nina wasn’t greedy but she’d wanted money in case she needed it. She took the jobs until it became too risky to continue. She also got tired of being on the run and feeling guilty over breaking the law. When the offer came for a big and very risky job, she took it. It was a big payoff, enough to give them both a new start, and she’d promised herself and Gabriel that she’d go straight when it was over.

She’d taken her money and she and Gabriel had fled Ohio for Seattle. It had been too big a risk to choose a path that had anything to do with computers. She had gotten close to getting caught a few times and hadn’t wanted to chance it. She’d been so tired of running and living on the margins. She’d wanted a normal life, a real job. Security. So she’d enrolled in a floral design program and some business courses at the local community college and then she’d taken part of her nest egg and opened her florist shop. She discovered that working with flowers and plants was something she not only loved, but was good at. It wasn’t the big money game that hacking had been but it wasn’t illegal either. She could relax finally, for the first time since she’d been twelve. While she tinkered around as a hobby with her computer skills, she’d ruthlessly tamped down any use of the internet for anything other than her business.

Things had been going really well until Gabriel had gotten infected with the lycanthropy virus during a bar fight. He’d hit on some guy’s girlfriend and the guy, being a total jerk, had infected him on purpose in the fight. Gabriel very nearly didn’t make it then. Instead of pressing charges against the wolf for intentionally infecting him, instead of turning his life around, he joined the local Pack and became a runner, a man-of-all-work essentially, and had dropped off her radar.

She was so tired. She’d given up running years ago. She had built a life for herself in Seattle. She had friends and her business. Granted she hadn’t had a date in four years, but there never seemed to be much time for that anyway.

Her house was gone, her stuff was gone and her brother, the last bit of family she had any feelings for, was gone. She wasn’t going to leave town, damn it! Her business was her life—the only thing she had left. She wasn’t going to allow some punks to run her off.

“You really can trust me,” Lex said, pushing his brother out of the way. “Me and Cade. If we were planning on hurting you, we could have done so already. Not that you’re not a tough customer, I know you can handle yourself,” he added quickly when her eyes narrowed.

“I’m going to have one of my men take your car and hide it. You can come back with us, our house is safe.”

“Of course it isn’t safe! Someone high up in your Pack hierarchy is the one who shot what’s-his-face,” she hissed, leaning back from Lex Warden’s body. She had this awful compulsion to rub her cheek along his chest, to tug his bottom lip between her teeth. His cologne was obviously doing something to her.