by V Vee
“Look, whether I am Joi’s sister’s mate or not, I am still Joi’s friend. I am sure you told her about you being a shifter and that’s why she ran, but I still don’t think you told her everything. You need to tell her,” he warned.
Angelo snarled and wrenched his arm from the other man’s grasp. He stepped close to Hendrix, and let the wolf see his own wolf’s eyes flash. This errant pup had forgotten his place. Whether their packs were enemies or not, Angelo was still the Alpha of their region, of their continent. He outranked Hendrix in every sense of the word. He could have the shifter put down, or he could simply do it himself.
With that thought in his mind, he wrapped his hand around Hendrix’s thick neck and squeezed, delighting in the way the shifter’s face turned red and he began to gasp for breath. Angelo tightened his grip, his sensitive hearing picking up on the sound of Hendrix’s heartbeat beginning to slow. Knowing he’d gotten his point across, Angelo tossed the man aside, casting him down into the sand.
He walked over to where Hendrix lay gasping and panting for breath on the beach and stood over him. He placed his hands on his hips and glared down into Hendrix’s eyes.
“Do not ever presume to tell me what I should or should not tell my mate. She. Is. Mine. Not yours, do you understand me?” he growled.
Without waiting for a reply, Angelo marched away from the coughing man who was hastily pulling in air. Guilt tugged on his conscience, but Angelo shoved it away. He was trying to get out of his connection with the mafia, and besides, he could protect his mate from any danger. No one even knew about her yet.
Everything would be fine.
* * *
Howl turned his head and spit the blood and saliva that had collected in his mouth from the last blow to his jaw, in the face of his kidnappers.
“I told you: I. Don’t. Know. Where. He. Is!” he snarled.
Don Alpha Fernando Bianchi shook his head. “Tsk. Tsk. Tsk. I didn’t think your father raised you to be a liar, Harold. Or wait…” he tilted his head and gave Howl a mocking look of concern. “Is it… Harry?”
Icy tendrils of dread crawled their way up his spine at that nickname. There was only one person he knew who called him that…
Talia.
His mate. He’d been so stunned to meet her at the Woodland Pack Incorporated building. Once Angelo had taken off, Howl had taken her hand and practically dragged her to his office. He’d stumbled and stammered through what could only be described as a: #conversationfail about shifters and mates. When he’d finished the stunned and fearful look on his mate’s face had caused Howl’s heart to sink. How in the hell was he supposed to explain such a thing to a human?
Talia had eased up from the chair, hastily said goodbye and left. It had taken every ounce of willpower he possessed to not chase after her. He wasn’t sure how his brother, Angelo was still alive and breathing after Joi had run off, Howl had barely been able to take a step or think after Talia took off.
That hadn’t prevented him from finding her at work and sitting out in the parking lot until she’d come out. He’d finally introduced himself and asked for a second chance to make a first impression.
“Sure, Harry. I’ll give you a second chance to not be a crazy person. Though it should probably be a third chance. Your second one was wasted on you sitting out here like a stalker waiting for me,” Talia said with a shy smile.
Howl blushed and rubbed the back of his neck. “Yeah, sorry about that, I just…” he shrugged.
He trembled as Talia’s hand touched his hand. “I understand…” she glanced away for a moment and muttered. “More than you realize.” She looked back at him and winked.
“Call me, Harry,” she’d told him before slipping him her business card.
Howl had waited until she’d gotten in her car and had driven away, before he’d sniffed the card and imprinted her scent on his brain.
It was his being enamored with his new mate, her shyness that intrigued him and her beauty that took his breath away, that caused him to not notice the shifters in the area until they’d grabbed him and dragged him away.
Another reason to not have a mate.
But now, these ugly fucks had Talia? Howl would rip each of them apart if they’d harmed a single hair on her head. Hell, he might do it if they’d even scared her.
“Aahh, I see that name rings a bell,” Alpha Bianchi chuckled. He snapped his fingers and the door behind him opened.
The cold, barren room, with its grey walls, dirty floor, a single bucket in the corner and a ratty, tattered blanket tossed on the floor, suddenly brightened when Talia stepped into it. Unharmed. Her eyes sad and remorseful as she looked at Howl. Howl inhaled deeply, she still smelled as delicious as the first time he’d met her. But wait… there was something else in her scent. Something that caused her scent to have the slightest aroma of burning paper.
Guilt.
Why did Talia feel guilty? It wasn’t her fault he was here. It was his fault that she was there.
“Harold Marconi, can I introduce you to Talia Henderson, or rather, the name she was born with: Talia Bianchi, my daughter.”
Howl turned widened eyes to his mate, the one created for him by The Great Spirit and the expression on her face made nausea gurgle in his gut. He turned his head and vomited as Alpha Bianchi laughed behind him.
Chapter 18
Joi sat on the couch in the living room and waited for Angelo. When he finally walked through the door, she let her eyes roam over his delicious form. He’d pulled on a pair of boxers before chasing her out onto the beach, but the thin fabric did very little to hide the long, thick shaft of man-meat he carried around between his legs.
He’s carrying a baseball bat between his legs. I wonder if it get uncomfortable?
Angelo stumbled slightly, before he shook his head and chuckled. “No, I’ve been carrying around this big piece of machinery since I was a teenager, I’ve gotten used to it,” he said with an arrogant smirk.
Joi smacked a hand to her forehead.
“For fuck’s sake!” she cursed. “Tell me how to block you from my thoughts. I would like to be able to think in private. To have some secrets?”
Angelo smiled and came to sit next to her.
“Okay, it’s quite simple. When you want to block our link for whatever reason, just think of a brick wall and put that wall in front of me, make sure you make the wall high. And once you do that, you’ll block your thoughts from me. Though I hope you don’t do it often. I like being able to speak to you this way,” he admitted.
“Yeah, well, you’re not the one embarrassing yourself every few minutes,” Joi muttered.
She inhaled deeply and imagined herself building a wall made of brick. She placed brick upon brick until it was all she could see. Then she imagined Angelo and placed the wall in front of him.
Can you hear me? She thought. She held her breath as she stared at him tensely. When she didn’t hear anything back, she let out a whoop of happiness.
Angelo chuckled. Joi shivered when she felt a caress against her mental brick wall, and she stared at him with wide eyes.
“What was that?” she asked breathlessly.
“That was me asking if you can remove the wall because I want to give you access to my thoughts and I want access to yours,” Angelo told her.
Joi panted, desire coiling like a snake waiting to strike within her. “And it feels like that?”
Angelo nodded and leaned close to her. “The fates designed it so that almost everything mates do with each other is guaranteed to turn the other on. It’s to ensure that we solidify our bond as often as possible. And also to make sure that we procreate as often as possible.”
Joi’s eyes widened. “Pr-pr-procreate?”
Angelo chuckled and ran the tip of his nose up the side of her neck. “Hmmm yes.”
“Y-you want to have a baby with me?” she stammered. Her mind was starting to melt and get hazy as the tendrils of passion’s fire began to spread through h
er.
“Babies,” Angelo corrected her. “I want to have babies with you. More than one.”
Joi gasped as she suddenly found herself on her back, her coat spread wide open and her naked body bare to Angelo’s hungry gaze.
“And I will have them,” he told her, before he took her lips in a deeply passionate kiss.
Joi wrapped her arms around his neck and offered her body up to him without hesitation. They could talk about the rest of the whole mate, shifter, company-business thing later. Right then, all she wanted was to feel Angelo slamming his cock inside her until they both cried out in blissful satisfaction.
* * *
The buzz from a cellphone disturbed Angelo’s peaceful sleep. He inhaled deeply, taking in the scent of his mate, who rested on his chest, exhausted from all of their lovemaking, but something was wrong… Joi’s scent had changed. Angelo frowned and lowered his head to sniff again.
Yes, it was different. It was sweeter, headier. Much more intoxicating. It filled Angelo with the urge to shift into his wolf form and stand over Joi’s body, protecting her from anyone and anything.
Strange.
His eyes flew open as awareness slammed into him like a linebacker into a quarterback.
Joi was pregnant.
Holy. Fucking. Shit.
“Angelo? Can you answer your phone please? I’m trying to sleep,” Joi muttered from where she rested against him, not opening her eyes as she spoke.
Angelo nodded, then realized she couldn’t see him. “Of course, comes animae,” he told her as he reached out for his phone.
“Growl,” he barked into the phone.
“Aahh, Alpha Growl Marconi,” a slimy voice came through the phone line and Angelo stiffened. He knew that voice.
“I do hope I haven’t disturbed you. I know that you and the missus must be sleeping, but I’m afraid that you and I have urgent business to discuss,” Don Alpha Bianchi’s voice slithered into his ear and Angelo frowned.
“Anything you and I have to talk about can wait until I am back in my office. I’m afraid I’m busy at the moment,” Angelo said through gritted teeth.
“Ah yes, your mate’s home is lovely,” Alpha Bianchi said in a considering tone. His implication made Angelo stiffen. How did Alpha Bianchi know what Joi’s home looked like? “I must say, I was surprised to hear that she’d run off to Barbados to escape you, so shortly after you began the bonding process, but I knew you would track her down and mate with her fully.” Alpha Bianchi chuckled darkly, and the sound made Angelo nauseated.
This fucker was here. In the Caribbean. Somewhere on Barbados where he could see Joi’s home. How the fuck had he found them? Her?
“I can tell that you’re wracking your brain trying to figure out how I found you, but you see, I have no problem whatsoever telling you. Your brother Howl told me. Once I gave him a little… incentive.”
Growl—because he was no longer Angelo, the rational human—growled, partially shifted, and leapt from the bed, ignoring Joi’s gasp as she fell to the bed, woke up, and saw his much larger, partially shifted form.
“A-Angelo?” she called out to him cautiously.
“What have you done to my brother?” he snarled into the phone.
Alpha Bianchi gasped. “Me?” he asked with false incredulity in his tone. “I have done nothing to your brother. Some of my pack members may have been a little too… enthusiastic when trying to obtain information about whether or not you’d actually gone and found your runaway mate in Barbados, but I assure you Alpha, they have been thoroughly punished for their… exuberance.”
Growl sneered, squeezing the phone in his hand. “Where. Is. My. Brother?” he asked.
“Why, he’s with his mate, Talia… the very bit of incentive he needed to sell you out,” Alpha Bianchi laughed as if he was privy to a secret.
Growl stomped around the room and snatched up his scattered clothing, jerking them on. He knew that Joi would freak out when she found out that her friend, Talia, had been taken as well. He couldn’t keep something like this from her. He knew Alpha Bianchi. The man was playing his end game here. To come and confront Growl while he was with his mate? That meant he was prepared to die and take Growl and Joi with him.
Over my dead body, he thought to himself.
What? Who’s dying? Angelo, talk to me! Joi begged.
“I am coming out. Do not touch my brother or his mate, Talia, do you hear me?” he snarled.
“Talia?” Joi gasped. “Who has Talia and your brother? Angelo!”
Not wanting to take another minute to explain things to Joi, or to give Alpha Bianchi a moment longer to play with him, Growl opened his mind fully to Joi. He allowed her to see the interactions, deals, and choices he’d made that had brought him, his family, his pack, and essentially… her, under the corrupt alpha’s heel. He expected to hear her gasp again, instead he was startled out of the haze of anger that surrounded his mind, by her slap to his face.
He stared at her in surprise.
“Why you do keep hiding shit from me? The wolf shifter thing, the fact that you knew we were mates when you offered me one billion dollars, money that would essentially still be yours once we bonded, and now this? You’re involved with a mob boss?” She shook her head and walked over to her dresser. Now, calm and rational, Angelo, who had returned to his human form, watched his mate as she got dressed in a grey sports bra, a black half-shirt, a pair of turquoise cotton underwear, and a pair of black basketball shorts. She pulled out a pair of black socks, then stomped over to the edge of the bed, where she sat down and pulled them on.
Angelo frowned and ran his fingers through his hair. “Gorgeous? What are you doing?” he asked her.
Joi looked at him incredulous. “Really?! I’m going with you. That fucking maniac has my friend and your brother. I’m going to help you get them back.” She shoved her feet into a pair of motorcycle boots and Angelo took in her appearance. She’d pulled her hair up into a bun at the back of her head, had taken out her earrings and she stood before him, clad in all black, looking as if she was about to go out and kick someone’s ass… or play a really weird game of basketball.
Angelo shook his head. “No. No fucking way are you coming,” he told her.
Joi tilted her head to the side. “Did I ask you?” she questioned in a mocking tone. “I don’t remember asking your goddamn permission if I could go or not. I believe I told you I was going. It’s just a matter of if I go before or after I kick. Your. Ass,” she hissed at him.
Without another word, Joi turned and walked out of the room. Realizing she would leave him behind, Angelo strode after her. He grabbed her wrist before she could open the front door and swung her around until she could look at him. Taking her face in his hands he looked down at her.
“You can’t go,” he told her.
“Why the fuck not?” she asked.
Angelo shook his head. He couldn’t be the one to tell her. He wanted her to have the experience of discovering it for herself and coming to tell him.
He winced when she poked her finger into his chest.
“Fucking tell me right now Angelo or I swear to God I will march out there and leave you here by yourself.”
“Yourepregnant,” he muttered.
Joi frowned, then shook her head. “What?”
“You’re. Pregnant,” Angelo informed her.
Joi blinked at him in surprise, taking a tiny step back. She shook her head for a minute, then after standing in absolute stillness for a long moment, she squared her shoulders and tilted her head up at him.
“Well, if God, or The Great Spirit, made me pregnant, then he’ll protect the baby, or He’ll take it, it’s His will. But either way? I’m going out there. Now,” she said pointing to the door, before she pushed him and swung it wide, causing it to hit the sideboard.
Too many people needed him, most of all, there was no way Angelo was going to let his pregnant mate fight without him. He stepped out after her and hesitated for a s
econd at the sight of his brother and Joi’s friend Talia on their knees, bound, gagged, and surrounded by at least twelve members of Alpha Bianchi’s pack. He locked eyes with his brother and lifting his eyes, he silently asked if the younger man was okay. When Howl gave the barest nod to him, Angelo knew his brother was okay. He looked over each man present, and a few women, and catalogued their stances and possible weaknesses.
“They brought women with them,” Joi whispered, surprise and confusion evident in her tone.
“Most people don’t realize that women are by far the most vicious and deadliest gender of the wolf species. They are our hunters and our guards… for good reason,” Angelo told her.
“Well, go ahead female wolf shifters,” Joi muttered.
“Well! If you two are quite done discussing gender equality,” Alpha Bianchi called out as he stepped from the center of the gathered throng, the lights from the SUVs behind him illuminated him for a moment, before he stepped beyond the circle of light.
It was then that Angelo realized that the insects that had been a soundtrack to his time in Barbados had grown quiet. In fact, no wind blew, the sky was the blackest he’d ever seen it, and very few stars shone in the sky, as if they too had hidden themselves away from the massacre about to occur.
Didn’t know you could be so dramatic, Joi’s voice sounded in his head and Angelo snorted.
“Alpha Marconi, I have come to you today with a bit of a conundrum,” Alpha Bianchi started. “You see, you and I had an agreement. One that I entered into with complete trust and faith that you would uphold your end of the deal until such time as we decided to come to a mutual parting of ways.” He pulled out a gun from the back of his pants with his right hand. Angelo noticed the glove on the alpha’s left hand and wondered at it for only a moment, before he scented silver.
His wolf whined within him. Shifters could live to be a thousand years old, sometimes longer, sometimes shorter. They healed quickly, only having their throats ripped out, a bullet to the head, or… being shot or cut enough times, with silver, could kill them before The Great Spirit called them home. That Alpha Bianchi would even handle silver, much less load his gun with silver bullets as he was doing then with his gloved hand, meant he’d definitely come to kill Angelo, his brother, and their mates.
