Lupo (The Immortals Book 8)

by La Porta, Monica

  “I’ll never get used to this.” Lupo pointed his chin up toward the rocky ceiling of the cave, tens of meters above. A clouded sky was now menacing a summer storm. Another gift from Magik Nation, Promenade’s ceiling had been transformed into a billboard, reflecting the weather and the time of day in Rome.

  “I love it. When you are stranded down here and you can’t leave the place, it makes a huge difference to see the sky, even if you know it isn’t real. It doesn’t matter.” Vera stepped closer to him.

  He knew she was expecting him to wind his arm around her shoulder and press her to his side, and he was tempted, because she was small and her soft body looked like it was made for cuddling. Before he could make himself close that gap of mere centimeters, his wolf growled, and she moved to the side.

  “Let’s get going. We have a bit of a jog before us.” Keeping her back to him, Vera skipped toward the left side of Promenade, the one opposite the busy riverwalk. She walked half a step ahead of Lupo, her gait stiff, and her whole demeanor forbidding.

  Lupo didn’t know what to say and chose to remain silent for several minutes, while Vera guided him through tunnels and caves.

  Carved into the rock sediment upon which Rome had been built, kilometers of corridors connected Promenade to Magik Nation, and also to various renegade settlements. The Den of Rejects was one of the most successful attempts at building a youth community outside of the long hand of the Immortal Council. Kids who came from troubled pasts, and whose future life choices would probably entail prostitution or crime, found shelter at the den. Not only were the reject kids safe, they were also nurtured and given the means to improve their lives.

  Lupo’s own choices had taken him far away from the den, but since having met Paride, he had wondered about what could have happened to him if instead of entering the Reds he had gone to the Den of Rejects. But then he wouldn’t have met Jasmine, and that he couldn’t bear.

  Fifteen minutes later, Vera was still leading him through an intricate maze of tunnels, and she hadn’t spoken more than ten words.

  “If it weren’t for my wolf senses, I don’t think I could ever find my way around a second time,” Lupo said, after she entered yet another tunnel that split into three different arms.

  Vera finally slowed her pace and tilted her chin toward him, her solitary curl bouncing on her cheek. With a shy smile, she tucked it behind her ear. “It’s your alpha senses. Us regular wolves can’t do that anyway, but rejects have been mapping this beehive for years, and there are marks on the rocks to aid us finding the correct tunnels.” She leaned closer to the wall and reached out for what looked like a red scratch on the rough surface. “See? We are on Red Street. All the passages are color-coded.”

  “Like subway lines.” Lupo passed his finger over the mark. “That’s clever.”

  “It would go unnoticed, unless you know what to look for.”

  They walked for another ten minutes, and Vera showed him all the spots where a few “streets” intersected.

  “Where does the Blue Street go?” Lupo asked when they encountered two scratches of different colors on a natural formation that resembled a column.

  “To my favorite place, a natural underground pool. It’s in warlock and witch territory, but Magik Nation gave the rejects permission to use it.” Vera looked up at him, then lowered her eyes and said, “Maybe I can show you the pool one day.” She resumed the stroll with haste.

  “I’d like that.” Lupo imagined Vera in a tiny bikini, and his wolf stomped his big paws on the short grass of a knoll.

  At his answer, her back stiffened again, and he wondered why she would react that way. This time, he was confident he had said the right thing. Yet, another bout of silence ensued.

  “We’ve arrived,” she announced two changes of tunnels later.

  Lupo silently thanked the Great Wolf.

  “This is the den’s main entrance.” She stood before a vertical wall of rock, but by now Lupo knew better than believe what he saw. And in fact, she walked to the side, and entered a passage hidden in between a boulder taller than him by a good head and the rock wall.

  The corridor was narrow, and Lupo had to flatten himself to pass through, but at the end the Den of Rejects was revealed.

  A village built from recycled materials, the den was a monument to human ingenuity. On both sides of a large street, there were one and two-story buildings made of bricks and sheet metal, but looked as quaint as any country cottage. Bicycles were everywhere, and people, very young people, swarmed the place. A large square ended the street on the opposite side, and one large and tall building towered over a gigantic sculpture of a tree.

  Vera walked all the way to the sculpture. “That’s the Art Tree. Every season we change its decorations.”

  Hundreds of paper lanterns dangled from the twisted limbs reaching for the sky. Origami flowers in red, oranges, and pink completed the scene.

  “Who does these?” Lupo brushed an orange flower hanging from one of the lower branches. At closer inspection, he realized the flowers were of different forms and shapes. Some of them had five petals, some of them were only circular disks, and others looked like orchids.

  “All of us. It’s an ongoing community project. We’ve just finished with the Halloween’s decorations and we’re starting on Christmas’s.” She picked up a pink flower that had fallen to the ground and rearranged it close to a red one. “We usually work in teams in the Recreation Hall.” She pointed a finger at the building’s glass doors behind the Art Tree.

  Lupo saw people sitting in a big room with lots of chairs and tables scattered everywhere. A few were gathered before a large canvas and took turns adding color to it. “That’s neat.”

  “Let’s pick up Martino.” She walked around the tree, and went straight to the building’s entrance.

  From the painters’ group, a tall teenager waved at Vera with a brush. “Just a minute,” he called, then dipped the brush into a jar, cleaned it, and afterwards dried it on a rug. He exchanged a few words with one of the boys, and finally headed out.

  “Hi, sis.” Martino smiled at Vera.

  She stood on tiptoe, reaching her hand to his head to mess up his shaggy hair. “Hi, bro. How was your day?”

  “Normal. How was yours?” Martino gave a sideways look at Lupo, who had remained a few steps behind the tree.

  “Great, as usual.” She followed her brother’s eyes and smiled at Lupo, beckoning him closer. “Martino, I’d like you to meet my boss, Lupo. Lupo, this is my little brother, Martino.”

  Lupo took Martino’s hand and gave it a good shake. “Nice meeting you, Martino.”

  “Nice meeting you…” Martino turned toward his sister, then back to Lupo. “I’m sorry, but what do I call you? Sir?”

  “Lupo. You just call me Lupo. Sir is my father, and I am an ex-convict, so I wouldn’t stand on ceremony around me.”

  Lupo’s words shocked the youth at first, but then Martino exploded in a loud laugh. “You’re nothing like I expected you to be.”

  “What did you expect?” Lupo asked.

  “Martino—” Vera hissed under her breath.

  Martino didn’t seem to notice his sister’s warning, because he proceeded to say, “I figured you’d be like that millionaire guy who likes to spank—”

  “Martino!” Vera cuffed him on his ear.

  Martino’s eyes widened in surprise, but a knowing grin spread on his face. “What did I say! It’s that book you were reading—”

  Vera choked on whatever she had been about to say.

  “Not that kind of guy.” Lupo couldn’t help but laugh.

  Mortified expression on her face, Vera reached a new shade of pink, bordering on red. “I can’t believe you just said that to my boss.”

  “Lupo. No boss,” Lupo said, enjoying the situation more and more.

  “Let’s go home.” Vera gave her brother one last slap that reached his neck and left a red mark behind.

  Among Lupo’s amusement, Ma
rtino’s smirk, and Vera’s embarrassment, they made it all the way to the other end of the street and to one of the smaller one-story buildings. She opened the door, which was unlocked, and let Lupo in, but only after warning her brother with a soft growl.

  It was the first time Vera’s wolf had made herself known, and Lupo’s greeted hers with a polite but detached nuzzle of her flank. Until now, her animal had kept by herself, and Lupo’s wolf had never contacted her. Vera’s wolf was as small as she was, and with a golden-tan fur that shone when she moved with a sensual gait. Vera’s softness was mirrored in her animal.

  Vera and her brother’s house was just a room on which two doors opened. Lupo assumed one led to the bathroom, and the other to a bedroom. The one room contained a kitchenette, a table with two chairs, a couch slightly bigger than a loveseat, and a stool. On the table, besides two laptops sitting atop each other, there were several sketchbooks littered with colored pencils.

  “Clean up this mess, please.” Vera pushed his brother toward the table, then turned to Lupo. “I prepared a lasagna this morning, it just needs to be reheated. It won’t take long.”

  “No worries, I’m not in a hurry.” After all that awkward silence during their walk, now Lupo felt very much at ease. “Here, let me help you,” he said to Martino who was trying to remove all the items from the table at once.

  “But you are the guest—” Martino’s eyes went to his sister, who shook her head with a suffered sigh.

  “I’m used to working for my dinner.” Lupo smiled first at Martino, then at Vera who he caught staring at him with an unreadable expression. He sensed her uneasiness, but it was gone a moment later when she returned the smile.

  As promised, it didn’t take long for the food to be on the table.

  “This lasagna smells delicious.” Lupo accepted a big plate filled with creamy pasta smothered in tomato sauce and mozzarella cheese.

  “Sis’s lasagna is the best. Nobody else knows how to make it like her.” Sitting on the stool, Martino gave Vera two thumbs up.

  “Now you understand why he’s still alive,” Vera said to Lupo, while serving her brother.

  Lupo waited for her to finally sit, then he forked a generous amount of lasagna and brought it to his mouth. “Hmmm,” he moaned. “This is heaven on a dish.”

  “Told you.” Martino started eating in earnest, making all sorts of appreciative sounds.

  “Stop acting like a pig.” Vera threw a napkin at Martino, but he dodged it and it ended on the floor.

  Lupo reached down as she did, and they both grabbed the napkin at the same time, the back of their hands brushing for a moment. Vera jumped as if he had shocked her.

  “Sis, you’re awfully jumpy tonight.” Martino was the one who got hold of the napkin and threw it back at Vera. “Were you really in prison?” he asked Lupo, hopping from one thought to the next in the span of a heartbeat.

  “You got to be kidding me.” Vera threw her hands in the air. “Lupo, don’t answer him, and please, forgive my brother. I dropped him on his head when he was a toddler. He hasn’t recovered since.”

  “It’s okay.” Lupo leaned against the chair. “I don’t mind answering. Besides, if I weren’t comfortable talking about my stint in prison I wouldn’t have mentioned it.”

  For the rest of the dinner, Martino shot question after question, seemingly wanting to know everything there was to know about Lupo. Vera grew progressively more annoyed by her brother’s curiosity, but, in between bites of lasagna, Lupo reassured her it really was fine with him, and he answered as best as he could. After all, he respected the youth’s desire to be territorial and protect his sister by getting to know the foreign wolf at their table.

  After the dessert, a delicate chocolate mousse Vera had prepared the day before and refrigerated so that it had the right consistency, Martino declared, “I’ll retire to my apartments.” He used the ostentatious tone some of the upper class paranormals used.

  “He’s a clown, but he’s my clown,” Vera said with affection as her brother disappeared behind one of the doors.

  “You’re lucky to have a brother. I always wanted one.” Strange how, despite being raised in an orphanage, Lupo had never thought of the other kids as his brothers and sisters.

  “I live for him. When our parents died in an accident, I was fourteen and he had just turned ten. The social services arrived and took us to a temporary shelter. We were there for a week before they told us they had found two good families for us. The same night, I took him from the boys’ dormitory and we left.” Vera moved to the couch.

  “How did you end up here?” Lupo followed her, but sat as far away as possible, which wasn’t that much, and even with his legs closed he still touched hers.

  “During that week at the shelter, one of the other transiting kids told me about this place for renegades like us.”

  “You were very brave,” Lupo said.

  “I was desperate and reckless.” Vera laughed, and the act brought her closer to him.

  Her warmth radiated from her leg, covered by the flimsy cotton of her sundress, to Lupo’s jean-clad thigh.

  “Not everyone would have done what you did.” Lupo could only see her blue eyes changing to a darker tinge. Her lips opened like petals of a blossoming flower, inviting him to taste them. His body reacted to her pheromones, and he blinked, suddenly dizzy.

  “For love, we’d do anything.” She leaned toward him. An imperceptible shift of her torso at first. “Lupo—”

  Her chest was pressed against his arm, and her ragged breath blew warm air toward his ear and jaw, sending his senses into a frenzy. Yet, even though his basic instincts told him to take what was being offered, his hands didn’t leave his side.

  Meanwhile, Lupo’s wolf was utterly pissed and wouldn’t stop snarling at him.

  It was Vera who decided for both of them by closing the gap and taking his mouth in a searing kiss. Her arms went around his back, and she pulled him down as she lowered herself to the cushion. Her hands went to his jeans’ belt.

  “Stop.” Lupo took her small hands and moved them to the side, then he pushed himself up and stepped away from the couch. “This isn’t going to happen. Not tonight. Not ever. I apologize if I gave you the wrong impression.”

  Vera hugged herself, raising her legs to the couch. “Why?”

  “Because we can only be friends.” Lupo walked to the door. “What happened doesn’t have to affect our relationship at work. Thank you for the dinner.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  The moment Lupo closed Vera’s door behind, he placed one hand over the wall and the other on his mouth. A bout of violent shivering possessed him.

  He had seen Jasmine instead of the she-wolf. The soft lips that had pushed against his were Jasmine’s. The curves pressing against his eager body were Jasmine’s. The fingers fumbling with his jeans’ belt were Jasmine’s.

  Still shaking, he ran away from the den, and as soon as he was in the tunnels, he changed into his wolf. Without recollection of his animal’s actions, he found his naked-self staring at the wooden door exiting into the human world. The situation brought him back to the time when Jasmine had saved him the embarrassment of being caught sans-clothes in the middle of Rome by making him wear one of her chitons.

  With no angelic superpowers to make himself invisible or fly, he stood tall and reentered Rome with not a stitch on him. In hindsight, he should have removed his clothes before changing and have the wolf carry them in his mouth, but he wasn’t known for thinking ahead.

  People stared at him as he walked to his bike as if nothing was out of place. A few women, and also a man or two, whistled in appreciation. Cell phones filmed him, and he made a mental note to grovel before his parents the next morning and beg their forgiveness for his nocturnal exploit.

  Finally, he reached his bike and the change of clothes he kept in the storage compartment. After putting on a pair of jeans and a black shirt full of holes and smeared with engine oil, he donned his
helmet and hit the gas. He couldn’t go home yet and drove his bike away from Rome to Reserve, the place he considered sacred, but he hadn’t had the courage to visit yet.

  As it had happened with his wolf run, he arrived before Reserve’s main gate in a state of detachment, as if someone else had been driving in his stead. He skirted along the fenced perimeter of the shifters’ playground, and retraced the path he had once taken with a stolen BMW. Once he reached the spot where he and Jasmine had jumped the gate to enter the field, he parked. In a bitter-sweet sense of déjà vu, he made easy work of the metal barrier of the gate, then walked among the high grass toward the meadow where they had made love.

  It was a pilgrimage, and both he and his wolf rejoiced, feeling their connection to her and her panther rekindle.

  “I miss you and it still hurts so much I bleed for you.” Kneeling on the warm grass, Lupo pressed a hand over his heart when it skipped a beat. The pain was real, and he wouldn’t have been surprised if blood would have started trickling between his fingers clutching at his shirt.

  In the sky, a half-moon illuminated the plane, while the slow flow of the nearby creek lulled him into a calmer state. His wolf whined and left his side to run through the fields in the astral plane.

  Tears streaming down his face, Lupo lay on the ground, his eyes on the starry night above. “I’ll never stop loving you. I’ll never stop wanting you. Now and forever, I’m yours.”

  Now and forever, I’m yours, my beloved wolf.

  His heart rose, and his nose filled with her flowery scent. Summoned by his feverish desire, Jasmine was above him, filling his sight.

  Jasmine—

  I’m here.

  Thank you for coming back to me. He raised one hand to touch her. She tilted her chin and leaned into his palm. He blinked, then reopened his eyes, and sighed in relief. She was still there. He cupped her jaw in a possessive hold.

  I’ve never left you. Her lips, as warm and fleshy as he remembered, descended upon his.

  I’m dying for want of you. I need you. He cradled her against him, and found too much fabric between them. Her curvaceous body was swathed in her chiton. I can’t believe it. Not even in my fantasies do you remove this circus tent.