Tied With a Bow

again. The gift from her grandmother just hours before her uncle had called her to the hotel had surprised Isabelle. The scents of them were even more surprising.
    Lavender, sandalwood and a darker, elusive scent that reminded her of dark sexuality and the Breed she had walked away from earlier.
    The candles themselves weren’t surprising. Her grandmother was always creating distinctive scents with individuals and their emotions or troubles in mind. That underlying scent of sexuality was surprising, though. She just wished she could put her finger on exactly what it was.
    “What are you going to do, Isabelle?” It was rare her sister called her by her full name, as everyone else did. Chelsea usually used the shortened version of Isa, despite the fact that Isabelle didn’t care much for the nickname.
    “How long was he there?” Isabelle whispered as she watched the door. She could sense the nervousness raging through the other two as Isabelle felt fear tugging at her.
    “He came in just before you walked over to the Breed,” Chelsea said quietly.
    “I should have told you the instant I saw his brother Harlen on his cell phone,” Chelsea sighed. “I should have done more than just suggest we leave.”
    Well, that answered the question of who could have called Holden.
    She distantly remembered Chelsea saying something about leaving, had recognized the concern in her sister’s voice at the time, but she had ignored it. Nothing had mattered but the Breed and connecting with him. Nothing and no one else had mattered. Her fascination with him was something so unusual for her that she had thought the concern her sister had felt had been because of her actions, not the man who had entered minutes later.
    “And he saw me?” she whispered.
    “He didn’t take his eyes off you until you left the bar with us,” Chelsea told her, anger beginning to tighten her voice. “The bastard. You should tell Dad, Isabelle. You can’t let him keep doing this.”
    “This” being the steady harassment and stalking of her. He refused to accept the fact that Isabelle hated him.
    Pushing her fingers through the long strands of her hair, Isabelle rose from the chair she had thrown herself in moments earlier and paced to the other side of the room.
    She didn’t need this. She didn’t want to face it. She had hoped she could escape the nightmare Holden Mayhew had begun in her life, but it seemed he was determined to make certain she never escaped it.
    Or him.
    For a moment the surge of terror and fury she had felt that night raced through her again. The feel of his hands, painful in their cruel insistence, holding her down. The sound of his voice as he sneered down at her, determined to take what she was unwilling to give him. The ease with which he had torn her clothes from her was humiliating. The knowledge that he had nearly carried through with his intent to molest her was as terrifying as it was enraging.
    She couldn’t forget the fact that he had almost raped her. He had almost taken from her the one thing she had wanted to save for the man she would one day give her heart to. The gift she knew she had been so ready to give to an unknown Breed tonight.
    Her virginity.
    He hadn’t completed the rape, but the terror was now such a part of her that she was shocked she had escaped the memory of it for those few minutes she had dared the undarable. A Coyote Breed.
    “I say go back downstairs and bring that big, badassed Breed back to your bed. They may not be forever material, but he looked damned interested, Isabelle. He might take care of this little problem for you too, if you asked him. Hell, from what I know about Breeds, all you would have to do is tell him about it. He would take care of it,” Liza suggested, her gray eyes filled with anger.
    Isabelle shook her head as she paced to the window. Silent, still, she stared out at the dark landscape that surrounded the back of the hotel, five stories down. In her reflection she could see the pale, drawn features of her own face, and she hated it.
    God, she wished she had killed him when she had the chance. She wished she had simply pushed Liza aside and pulled the trigger. There was a chance she could have escaped jail. She had been bruised, bloody, naked. It would have been so easy to prove the attempted rape.
    If she had been strong enough to pull the trigger. If she weren’t so terrified her father would pull the trigger after the fact, then she would go ahead and