“I already told you. I’ve never heard of it failing.”
Well, that wasn’t super reassuring. From what she’d heard, being bitten by a warrior-class shifter would be a guaranteed ticket to the nearest mortuary if the potion didn’t work. To survive their bite, a person had to have a large physique and the constitution of a world-class athlete.
At this point, though, all she could do was wait twenty-eight days and hope not to die at the next full moon. Fun!
Kalinda opened her mouth to ask her something else when she looked out her window and sucked in her breath.
“Go to the kitchen,” Kalinda said in a low, urgent tone. “Now.”
Chapter Two
Z oey followed Kalinda’s gaze, and her heart stuttered in her chest. Dominic, Romano, and Giuliana were climbing out of a van that had just pulled up to the curb in front of Kalinda’s building. She shot out of the office, closing the door behind her.
Kalinda’s legendary kitchen of deliciousness was fortunately close enough to the office that Zoey could eavesdrop. The air was rich with the aroma of a thousand ingredients, which should help disguise her scent in case the wolves tried to sniff her out.
She closed the door, her stomach churning with worry. If anything happened, she had no power to defend herself. Like the vast majority of magic-bloods, her magic was just strong enough to be detectible by the authorities—and it was utterly useless. She had earth magic; her houseplants were super healthy, and she could make flowers bloom faster. Give her a handful of buds and she could make them burst into blossom if she concentrated hard enough. Woo hoo!
It had completely upended her life. She’d been living in San Francisco when her magic talent was discovered during a random sweep by the Federal Bureau of Magical Containment. Thanks to FBMC, she’d been ripped away from her home and her job at an internet startup and had been given her choice of portal cities. She’d picked Encantado because Nevada was reasonably near her family who lived in Marin County.
She also had map magic—she could find her way anywhere. It was a form of earth magic, the same as her green thumb. She was like a human GPS, but with electronic GPS available, her power was more useless than a screen door on a submarine. She’d have given up her powers in a heartbeat if she could.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t an option, and neither was leaving Encantado. Ever.
Magic-bloods weren’t allowed to live outside of the Enchanted Zones. Non-magics tended to get very nervous about magical folk living among them. They were afraid the magic-bloods would cast spells on them or bite them.
That was only sometimes true.
And from what Zoey had heard, most of the other portal cities weren’t any safer. The Pendulum Swing of the 1950s had caused all this mess. Magic had torn through the areas where the veil between universes was thin. The cities and towns in the affected zones were rife with danger. High-level mages, vampires, and shifters battled for power, and the low-level mages and human population—approximately seventy-five percent—were frequently caught in the crossfire.
But right now, Zoey had more pressing concerns than her reluctant relocation to Encantado.
Like, had Dominic decided she was irresistibly tasty and come to finish what he’d started?
The front door banged open, and the thud of footsteps filled the silence.
“We’re looking for a waitress named Zoey Monroe,” Dominic announced, his voice loud and booming.
“Ah, yes, I heard something about one of your men biting her,” Kalinda said. “I’m sorry, she isn’t here. It was very distressing to hear of her being bitten. Were you displeased with her services?” She kept her voice respectful but firm.
“My wolf bit her, and I was not displeased. We call it a moon-bite, or a moon-claim.”
Say what now? Zoey’s knees wobbled.
“Excuse me?” Kalinda’s voice rose to a pitch Zoey had never heard before.
“My wolf has chosen her as a mate.”
“That doesn’t make sense. If she’s your mate, why wouldn’t your wolf have bitten her before?”
“Are you hard of hearing?” Dominic snapped. “I spoke clearly enough. Full moon. My wolf never encountered her on a full moon before.”
“But … she’s not a shifter!” Kalinda protested.
“It doesn’t matter. She can bear my pups as long as she’s a magic-blood, and I smelled the magic in her.”
Ewww. Rude.
Zoey lifted her arm and surreptitiously sniffed. Her lilac deodorant was still working. What exactly did magic smell like? Did it smell bad?
“Why her?” Kalinda demanded. “There are plenty of other girls who are more …”
“More what?” Dominic snapped with a hint of danger in his voice.
Yes, more what? Zoey wanted to know too. More attractive? That seemed to be the only possible answer, and it stung. Yes, she was a little on the full-figured side. Her mother always said that just meant there was more of her to love. As for her freckles, her mother used to call them angel kisses.
“More, ah, willing!” Kalinda said brightly. “She’s the independent type. I happen to know for a fact she’s not looking for a relationship right now.”
“Too bad. That will change.” Dominic’s voice turned rough and impatient. “My wolf chose Zoey, and Zoey I will have. Now, you know I can scent her. And the scent is fresh. You can bring her out here, or I can tear the place apart.”
“Go ahead and look around,” Kalinda offered loudly. “She stopped by here to pick up her pay and left a few minutes ago. That’s why you’re scenting her.”
Kalinda clearly meant for her to overhear that.
Zoey opened the door to the alley. One way led to the parking lot in front of Kalinda’s office—bad idea because the shifters had parked there—and the other led to another alleyway between two rows of buildings.
She dashed toward the other alleyway and raced around the corner.
His mate? Is he serious?
She had to find some way to convince him he didn’t really want to claim her. Heck, given her past dating history, that shouldn’t be too hard. Apparently, one night out with her was enough to do it for most guys.
Zoey stopped and stood still, picturing her apartment, her magic searching for the clearest, safest path.
Her map magic not only guided her to any destination she could visualize in her head, it also sensed obstacles between her and her destination.
Of course, knowing obstacles were there didn’t help much if she was surrounded.
Her magic froze up, twisting in indecision, as a man leaped over a six-foot chain-link fence in a single bound, clearing it easily and landing with a resounding thud a few feet in front of her.
Dominic—the man who’d chomped her cheek the night before and now thought he was her husband. Mate. Whatever. He was sexy as hell, yeah, but she barely knew the guy. He was also the Capo of one of the most violent and corrupt mafia shifter packs on the entire West Coast. She kind of had issues with how his pack ran things.
He didn’t seem to care what she thought about the whole claiming thing. He looked down at her, his mouth curled in cruel amusement and his blue eyes glinting. “Hello … mate.”
Her foolish heart fluttered in her chest, and her lady-bits dampened.
Dominic was a criminal, from a pack of criminals. They were killers. Arsonists. Extortionists. She’d seen the burned-out shells of businesses that had refused to pay protection. She’d watched the police haul away the bodies of their victims and toss them into the middle of the street to deliver a message: anyone who crossed them would come to a swift, brutal end.
Hell, she was paying their lousy protection money and not getting a thing in return. They weren’t even honest thugs.
Yet she couldn’t stop staring. So much pretty.
She cleared her throat. “Hello, person who bit me on the ass last night. It still hurts, by the way.” She folded her arms across her chest and gave him her best intimidating scowl. That was har
d to do when she had to tip her head back because he stood a good foot taller than her.
He just stood there smirking as Romano and Giuliana came trotting down the alley. Giuliana, delicate looking and deceptively elegant in her designer jeans and spike-heeled pumps, looked her up and down with narrow-eyed suspicion. Romano, tall and burly and handsome despite severe scarring on one side of his face, just looked amused.
Dominic flicked a glance at them, and then his gaze settled on Zoe again, his eyes glowing with that strange shifter light. Zoe fought not to drop her gaze because then her eyes would drift to the area below his belt, which had an alarmingly large bulge. She knew because she’d sneaked a peek or two when delivering his drinks.
“Hello, Zoey. You’re looking positively delicious. By the way, you were in the kitchen hiding from us, which means that your boss is a liar. How shall I kill her?”
Well, that was a bucket of ice water dumped right on her libido. “Excuse me. That’s your idea of flirting with me?” she spluttered with fury.
He cocked his head to one side. “I don’t have to flirt with you. You’re my mate. Well, you will be at the next full moon.”
“Well, either that or I’ll be dead.” She shrugged with forced casualness. “Or shifted, but from what I’ve heard, most people don’t survive a bite from the warrior class.”
“You might.” Giuliana’s lip curled slightly. Only physically large humans had the slightest chance of surviving the change.
“Oh, was that a size joke? So very original,” Zoey fake-clapped. “Unfortunately, you’ll have to try harder. That barely ranked a one on the ‘ouch, my poor feelings’ scale.”
Dominic pinned the petite blonde with an ice-cold glare. “Giuliana. Apologize.”
“Sorry.” Giuliana lifted one skinny shoulder in a shrug. Her tone was conciliatory but her expression was not.
Dominic returned his attention to Zoey. “The potion Kalinda uses has never failed. You will survive to be my mate.”
Zoey took a step back, and he took a step forward. She held up her hands in a “stop” motion. “Whoa there! You’re entering my personal space bubble. Now, let’s start with Kalinda. If you kill her, I will hate you forever and either murder you in your sleep or die trying.” His lips curled in an amused grin. “Okay, let’s be realistic, definitely the latter. But Kalinda was trying to protect me. You protect your pack-mates, don’t you?”
“You’re human, so she’s not your pack.” Dominic shrugged. “But point taken. I will grant her an exemption this one time.” He glanced at one of his pack-mates. “Romano, don’t kill the tasty morsel.”
Romano let out a disappointed groan. “But she smelled so good, and I haven’t had lunch.”
“You and your stomach!” Dominic said, exasperated. “Go grab a sandwich. I need to talk to my mate.”
Giuliana scowled. “We’re letting her get away with lying to us? This sets a bad precedent for the pack.”
“Last I checked, I outrank you,” Dominic said with a hint of a snarl in his voice. “Unless you’re going to try to play the ‘my uncle is the Capo di tutti Capi’ card.”
“You can kiss my ass!” Giuliana spat, her face flushing red with anger.
“I could, but now I have a mate. So actually, I can’t. Romano’s still single, though, unless something’s changed since last night.”
“Still on the market. And quite a catch,” Romano leered at Giuliana.
Giuliana saluted Dominic and Romano with both middle fingers and stormed off. Romano jogged after her—thankfully, in the opposite direction from Kalinda’s office.
“You were seriously going to kill my boss?” Zoey was appalled. That was a new low. Killing rival pack members was bad enough, but murdering a woman for trying to protect her employee and friend?
“I guess we’ll never know.” He took another step forward, so Zoey took a step back, but his stride was longer than hers, so he was gaining on her.
“You don’t actually want to be mated to me,” she argued.
He cocked his head to the side. “Now, what makes you think that? I came for you, didn’t I?”
“You … well …” she gestured at her soft, curvy body, “you’re handsome as sin and you’re a Moretti Capo. You could have anyone.”
“Thank you!” Dominic beamed at her and gave a deep, theatrical bow. “I’m glad you agree. And since you qualify as ‘anyone’, that means I can have you. You can stop inching backward now. Yes, I noticed.”
She stopped moving. Damned predator vision. “I meant you could have someone more suitable! More … uh … skinnier!”
“More skinnier?” His eyes gleamed with fierce mockery. “Bad grammar? Now that’s just beneath you.”
She tried to make him burst into flames with the power of her glare and failed. Damn her useless magic. She knew a witch who could raise blisters. That would come in handy right about now.
“You know what I meant.”
“Not really. Why would I want less woman when I could have more?”
That temporarily threw her for a loop. Why, indeed? Zoey actually liked that answer. No, she loved it. She couldn’t find a single thing wrong with it.
She refused to give in just because he suddenly was being charming and funny. He was a vicious murdering criminal. A hot, sexy, but vicious, but charismatic … Wait, where was she going with this?
“We don’t even know each other!”
“My wolf selected you. He has impeccable taste.” His eyes glowed briefly as he mentioned his wolf. That eye glow thing happened a lot with shifters, especially when they got excited. It never failed to freak her the hell out.
“That doesn’t make sense. I know your pack has arranged matings. I catered a wedding for one. Their mating had been arranged since birth, in fact.”
“True,” he acknowledged. “Arturo has been searching for an appropriate mate for me for some time now. Giuliana was a possibility, but then the Bianchi Pack approached us about arranging a mating with Fabiana, the dark-haired woman at the party last night.”
For some reason, that statement made her feel prickly all over, as if she’d rolled in a nettle bush.
Dominic shrugged. “My wolf never really took to either one of them, but for the good of the pack, I would have paired with whomever Arturo decreed.” He grinned fiercely at her. “But then you came along and my wolf had other ideas. How lucky for me.”
“No wonder Giuliana doesn’t like me.”
“Oh, she’s not jealous. She didn’t want the mating. She would have obeyed her uncle because nobody says no to Arturo, but when Arturo revealed he was considering Fabiana, she said, and I quote, ‘Thank fuck.’” He smirked, seemingly amused.
She frowned. “But … what if you went through the arranged mating and then met me on a full moon?”
“You want to know how things work with shifters?” He snorted. “We don’t reveal all of our secrets to outsiders. Come home with me, and I’ll be happy to enlighten you.”
“Home, with you?” She couldn’t believe he was even bothering to ask, rather than just kidnapping her. “I’d rather French-kiss a bridge troll that hadn’t gargled in a month.”
“Since they gargle with human blood, that’s probably wise.”
He took another step toward her. She tried to jump back, but he lunged forward and grabbed her by the arm. The touch of his hand sent a shock through her body.
“Here’s what’s going to happen. I am going to court you. You are going to give me a really hard time, which is just going to make the chase that much more fun. And then you’re going to give in and we’ll have amazingly hot sex. You’ll be mine on the next full moon, and some day you’ll be asking yourself why you ever thought it would be a good idea to try to run from a Moretti wolf.”
Zoey’s heart hammered in her chest, and she swallowed hard. He smelled of musk and some kind of delicious spicy cologne, and his nearness was scrambling her senses.
She cleared her throat. “I’m sorry, I don’
t speak lunatic, so I zoned out for a few seconds. Are we finished? I’ve got things to do. Wolves to hide from.”
He smiled at her kindly, as if talking to someone who was very simple. “Here’s a question for you. Why are you fighting this? You’re very attracted to me. I can scent it on you.”
“Eww! Stop saying you can smell things on me!” she protested, jerking at her arm. He tightened his fingers until she stopped resisting. She kicked him in the shin, which made him laugh. Damned mafia cave-wolf ass-face.
“I’m a wolf, sweetheart, get used to it. It’s not as if it’s unpleasant. Do you hear me complaining? It’s delightful, actually. And it’s getting stronger. You like to wrestle, don’t you?” His grin was the sexiest thing she’d ever seen. It wrapped around her and melted her defenses, stroking secret parts of her deep inside. Why did evil have to be so attractive? “We like that too. Our men are pretty rough with our women, but in a good way. I promise, you won’t hear any complaints.”
Her cheeks flamed hot with embarrassment, and she wished the cracks in the sidewalk would open up to swallow her.
“I’m not your sweetheart.”
Dominic maneuvered her toward the alley wall. She stumbled as he backed her up, and he steadied her easily.
“Darling, then? Babe?” His smirk stretched wider.
“You want to know why I’m resisting? Because you’re a member of the Moretti Pack, and …”
His eyes darkened from the color of a summer sky to the color of a stormy sea.
“Watch yourself,” he growled, and Zoey felt an icy shiver of fear. His loyalty to his pack and his boss would be absolute.
“I wouldn’t fit in with that lifestyle,” she said carefully. Because you’re a corrupt, thieving, murdering, blackmailing bunch of assholes. “I’m a goody two shoes. I’m the law-and-order type. I return my library books on time, and I wait for the light to change before I cross.”
He looked at her skeptically. “Not from Encantado, are you?”
Mated to the Capo (Mafia Wolf Shifters) (Encantado Shifters Book 1) Page 2
