Ottavio leapt to his feet, face going furry, and Dominic followed suit, waiting for an attack order.
“Enough!” Arturo barked, and they were blasted with a wave of energy which froze them on the spot. “I have enough to deal with. I don’t need to watch you assholes having a dick measuring contest.”
“Ow!” Giuliana squealed. The energy wasn’t directed at her, but anyone close to Arturo would feel the spillover.
Every muscle in Dominic’s body was locked in place, and his lungs were on fire. Spots swam in front of his eyes. Ottavio’s face turned purple.
Arturo, as Alpha, drew on the power of the entire pack and used it when he deemed necessary. He could force shifters to change to animal or human form, or freeze them in place, which was agonizing and could be deadly if he kept his hold on them long enough.
When Arturo released them, they both staggered back, gasping for breath.
Arturo’s voice battered them. “Ottavio, we don’t control the moon-bite of our wolves; it is one of our most sacred traditions. And Dominic, Ottavio is speaking out of loyalty to me and concern for the pack. This matter is settled. Let it go.”
Dominic and Ottavio nodded and inclined their heads to the side, exposing their throats. To appear submissive like this was excruciating. It shredded at Dominic’s wolf and made it howl with pain and rage inside. Arturo knew that, of course; it was part of their punishment.
He glared at them and finally nodded. They both raised their heads and took a step back.
Arturo’s cold gaze swept over them. “Both of you need to watch your backs. The Bianchi Pack is making it clear they’ll do anything to provoke a war. Put the word out.”
Dominic nodded, feeling a swell of frustration. Normally, he’d be chomping at the bit for a good pack war, but he needed time to woo Zoey and show her he could be a good mate.
Once he and Romano had left the room, he turned on his subordinate with a growl.
“You started going furry back there. Don’t,” Dominic bit out through gritted teeth.
“Just didn’t like the way he was talking to you.” Romano shot a dirty look over his shoulder.
“You think I need you to fight my battles for me? You think I need you to make me look weak?”
A look of shock crossed Romano’s face but vanished instantly.
“I know you have my back. I appreciate it,” Dominic said, tamping down his temper. His craving for Zoey was making him snappish. Now that his wolf had bitten her, it wanted her by his side immediately. The memory of her sweet scent tantalized his nostrils and flooded his brain with images of her soft, curvy body tangled up in his sheets. And in his arms.
Romano nodded, his face serious. “My wolf just reacts. That’s how we’re wired.” He grimaced. “I didn’t mean it like …”
Romano was a born wolf. He was closer to his animal than Dominic ever would be. If Dominic had pups—when Zoey gave him pups—they’d be like Romano in that way. Made wolves were considered lesser by some, lower in prestige. He didn’t want that for his pups.
“It’s fine.” Dominic shrugged. “I’ll be on edge until Zoey’s part of the pack.”
It wasn’t just his craving that had him ready to bite off heads. The fact his wolf was taking to Zoey so strongly was both a blessing and a source of guilt. His wolf had once craved another.
Is it wrong for me to want to feel something again?
A face from long ago swam in front of him, and he was ashamed because that face had blurred with time and he couldn’t bring it back into focus.
Chapter Four
W ith a few hours of sleep under her belt, Zoey marched over to the apartment of her neighbor Danielle, a water witch and friend of hers. Danielle was on the neighborhood improvement committee with Zoey, and she worked the night shift at the utilities department.
On a power scale of one to ten, she was about a two on a good day. She could cause extremely small areas of rain or widespread mist. “Too early,” Danielle groaned, standing in the doorway in her pajamas. Her pre-noon crankiness matched Zoey’s cheerfulness in equal measure. “Go away, Satan’s alarm clock.”
“Ooh, good one. But it’s late afternoon. We have to talk about Monday’s meeting. Everyone’s meeting us at Mary’s. I will coffee you until you’re human again.”
The local business owners and community leaders had agreed to meet with their committee to talk about the garbage problem.
“Fiiiiine. Give me five minutes to get dressed, horrible wench-face,” Danielle mumbled, and Zoey waited at the door until Danielle returned wearing jeans, calf-high boots, and a light-blue sweater. She grumbled all the way to Mary’s Diner, so Zoey kept up a line of cheerful patter about the lovely weather, just to annoy her.
Stewart and Andrea—other members of the committee—were waiting for them as they rounded the corner to Mary’s Meetinghouse. Andrea’s tall, skinny, and sullen teenaged son Lorenzo stood next to his mother with his hands shoved in the pockets of his jeans.
Stewart was a carpenter who owned a small shop down the block from Zoey’s apartment building. His white mop of hair and round, gold-rimmed glasses made him look older than his fifty-something years. Andrea, a gawky brunette in her forties, was a graphic designer. She’d moved with her son to Encantado when they’d discovered Lorenzo was a fire wizard with just enough power to light candles. Her husband had reacted differently—he’d promptly filed for divorce.
The windows to the building were boarded up, the magical anti-burglar runes nailed over the doorway were no longer glowing, and there was a “closed for business” sign on the front door.
“Seriously,” Danielle said, staring at the shop. “This can’t be, and yet it is. You know what fuels my perky Pollyanna personality?”
Zoey gave her a sidelong glance. “Say what?” She looked at Andrea. “Have I missed something?”
“Caffeine,” Danielle said miserably. “That’s what makes me human. Do you see what I see? A caffeine desert.”
“Perky Pollyanna personality. That’s a lot of Ps in one sentence,” Zoey said to Danielle. “So are you now a crabby, caffeine-deprived crumpet?”
“Nothing is funny until I get coffee. What gives? Why does this keep happening to me? I mean, to us,” Danielle groaned. “But mostly me.”
Zoey shook her head. “No idea. I was in there two days ago and they didn’t say anything about closing up.”
Another one. A ghost of uneasiness whispered through her. Why were so many businesses in her neighborhood folding? Did they know something she didn’t?
“Maybe it’s the trash?” Stewart shrugged.
“We live in a trashy neighborhood, all right,” Stewart said.
Zoey and Dominique let out obligatory groans. Stewart prided himself on his painfully bad puns. Andrea giggled. Lorenzo rolled his eyes and started to walk away.
Andrea’s smiled faded. “Where are you going?” she called out after him.
“Home!”
“Don’t go anywhere else! Go straight home, and don’t stop off anywhere!” Andrea yelled as he vanished around the corner.
Zoey felt a twinge of sympathy. Being a single mom with a surly teenaged son would be challenging enough. In a city where hanging out with the wrong crowd might end up with being reduced to spare parts for a witch’s brew, it would have to be a twenty on a stress-scale of one to ten.
“It’s not like there are no customers for these businesses. People still need to eat,” Andrea pointed out, looking at the closed-up café and shaking her head. “They still need to shop.”
“Yeah, that’s true. All right, the closest coffee shop is Big Betty’s. Twenty blocks,” Danielle moaned. “Screw everything in the world.”
They trooped off down the block, heading west.
“At least it’s a nice day,” Zoey said. “Sunny, no clouds, and the breeze is currently carrying the scent of garbage away from us.”
“Thanks for the weather report. By the way, why are you walking funny?” Danielle ya
wned. “Hot date last night?”
A blush burned Zoey’s cheeks. “Ha ha, you’re hilarious. I had a catering gig.”
“Oh, right. So you didn’t end up romping with any of the party guests?”
Zoey summoned an expression of outrage. “I am a professional!”
“That doesn’t really answer my question. And your face is turning kinda red. Why are you walking like that?” Danielle persisted.
Stewart and Andrea were looking at her with interest now.
There is no easy way to say “A werewolf bit me on the ass last night, and now he says I’m going to be his mate at the next full moon. But then he didn’t like the way I kissed, so he left me. I think.”
“Pulled a muscle,” Zoey lied.
“You should get that looked at,” Andrea said. “The witch doctor over on Twelfth is open weekends.”
Can a witch doctor treat a werewolf bite?
Anyway, Zahara the witch doctor was ungodly expensive, so it would have to wait.
“All right, we need a proposal for the neighborhood meeting Monday night,” Zoey announced, changing the subject.
Danielle looked gloomy. “I don’t know. Sometimes it feels like it’s pointless.”
“That’s the lack of caffeine speaking,” Zoey assured her. “Fine, I won’t ask you again until after I’ve poured a double-shot latte down your throat.”
They made it to the coffee shop. Andrea ordered pastry for everyone because that was what she did—she fed people. She and Zoey were a good team. When they held neighborhood meetings, Zoey cheered everyone up, and Andrea worried about people and fussed over them like she was everyone’s mom, not just Lorenzo’s. Danielle was actually a hard worker who hustled a lot, despite her constant grumbling.
They settled down at a round table painted like a Ouija board, and then nobody talked until Danielle had finished her second cup of coffee. Except for Stewart mildly mentioning the coffee shop was full of “has-beans.” He had to spell it out to explain what he meant, and everyone groaned except for Andrea who laughed kindly because she always had to encourage people, even the world’s worst punner.
“Okay, guys,” Danielle finally said, “we have no way to get mass amounts of garbage out of this neighborhood. What are we gonna do, take little baggies of it to the business district and drop it in the public trash cans on the street? That would take a million years; we’d never get ahead. I mean, it’s hopeless, right?”
Zoey was the kind of person who heard “hopeless” and made it into a personal challenge. Leaning back in her chair, her eyes traveled the room and landed on the three garbage cans in the corner.
“Compost,” Zoey said suddenly. “How did I not think of that before?’
Danielle looked at her in confusion. “Compost?”
“Compost, and community vegetable gardens.” Zoey started warming to the idea. “There are so many empty lots. We can start organizing volunteer teams to bring the trash to designated lots and use some of the overflowing dumpsters as compost bins. Yes, it’s going to be a gross job, but no worse than walking down our streets these days. If I spend some time in the community vegetable gardens, they’ll grow like crazy. I’m like fertilizer.”
Danielle went to fetch herself more coffee. “You realize you just basically called yourself a pile of manure?” she said when she returned.
“Yes, but let’s run with it.”
“I think it’s a brilliant idea,” Andrea said enthusiastically. “Don’t you, Stewart?”
“Absolutely.” He bobbed his head. If Andrea had said the sky was purple and the streets were made of taffy, he’d have agreed with that too.
They all looked at Danielle. Danielle took a very long, dramatic sip of coffee, paused for effect, and finally set her mug on the table. “It’s not completely crazy,” she replied grudgingly.
“Woot! Coming from you, that’s high praise, cranky witch.” Zoey smiled.
“And Danielle could make sure the gardens got enough water since she’s a wet blanket. Get it, wet blanket? Because she’s cranky and also a water witch?” Stewart threw back his head and laughed. Andrea joined him, and Stewart beamed with delight.
Danielle narrowed her eyes. “He’s lucky I don’t waste good caffeine, or he’d be wearing this,” she said to Zoey, holding up her mug. “Give me strength.”
Andrea rubbed her hands together happily. “All right, we can present this to the committee on Monday. I’ll find out what empty lots we can use.”
Andrea went to use the bathroom, and Stewart watched her with a wistful expression.
“You could ask her out, you know,” Zoey said.
Stewart’s ever-present smile faded. “I have. I guess the timing’s not right.”
Probably because of Lorenzo. He was about all Andrea could handle right now.
A few minutes later, they were all finished with their coffee and Zoey headed back to her apartment. Suddenly, her map sense flared and a big, blaring “obstacle” warning pounded in her head. The obstacle’s sudden appearance almost certainly meant something, or someone, had just spotted her and planned to intercept her. Otherwise, her map magic would have warned her about it earlier.
They were in her neighborhood’s business district, on a street lined with shops and restaurants. She glanced around but didn’t see any obvious threats. Had one of the Moretti Pack come to grab her?
She elbowed her way through a knot of warlock hipsters on a corner, earning her dirty looks from skinny men with tight jeans and man buns. Ignoring them, she hurried down the next block and quickly dodged down an alleyway, but the pounding of footsteps told her that her pursuer was on her heels.
She slid behind a dumpster, praying she wouldn’t be spotted—the alley was a dead end.
Chapter Five
L oud, thudding footsteps were headed toward Zoey. Anger and fear swirled inside her, rising up and making her reckless. Someone—or something—wanted a piece of her? Fine, she’d make sure they choked on it.
She stomped out from behind the dumpster, fists clenched and ready to punch a hole in something.
And then she grimaced in disgust. The man who’d been following her was Jordan.
He served as the neighborhood liaison for the Moretti Pack since none of the pack members would be caught dead in a run-down neighborhood like this. Jordan made a very nice living working for them. He dressed his short, rotund form in silvery sharkskin suits that were so shiny they looked like tinfoil, and he liked to flash his Rolex.
For some reason, that made Zoey think of Dominic. Like the other high-ranking members of the pack, he was always dressed to the nines. His suits were exquisitely tailored to his muscular body, but they didn’t shout for attention the way Jordan’s did. They didn’t need to. Dominic commanded attention just by strolling into a room with his animal grace and his piercing blue eyes.
Why was she even thinking of him? He’d changed his mind and she didn’t have to worry about him anymore, right?
“Zoey!” Jordan leered, sliding in front of her. “Trying to avoid me?”
“Why would I ever?” she said drily. She quickly sidestepped him so he was no longer between her and the end of the alley.
“You haven’t paid your share this week.” That’s what they called the extortion money.
She dug into her purse and reluctantly handed over almost all the tips she’d earned the night before. She’d left forty dollars tucked in her sock. He needed to see her empty her wallet before he’d be satisfied, the greedy bastard. He seemed to get a sick thrill out of separating people from the last of their money.
“Seriously,” Zoey said irritably, gesturing at the trash, “What are we paying for? We can’t go on like this.”
“You got a problem with the way I run things? Maybe you’d like to move to another neighborhood,” he snapped.
She glowered at him. He knew she wouldn’t. She’d taken on responsibilities here, and she prided herself on being someone who followed through with her promises.
“Thought so,” he gloated. “Now, show me your tits and I’ll knock a hundred off next week’s share.” He flashed his big teeth in a loathsome smile.
Zoey instinctively recoiled. She could actually feel her lady-bits shriveling up and trying to tuck themselves inside her body. “Say that again, I’ll knock your veneers down your throat.”
His face scrunched up like an angry baby’s. “Just for that, a hundred-dollar fine for the noise complaint.”
“Noise complaint?” Like anybody could hear anything from her apartment with the nightclub pounding away downstairs. “From whom?”
“Me. From the noise you make when you flap your gums.” His mouth twisted in an ugly snarl.
“Worth it,” she taunted him. “And I have thirty days to appeal the complaint.” Zoey walked away as quickly as she could with her butt-cheek still aching. She could feel Jordan’s gaze slithering over her backside, and it made her want to take another shower.
As she made her way down the sidewalk, her spell phone rang, the ringtone indicating it was her mother. She sighed. She’d need to stop at the spellectricity store to recharge soon.
She sent a text saying she was at work and she’d call her mother back later, and no, she had not been crisped by a dragon or eaten by a troll.
She was still kind of worried about the Moretti Pack problem, and she wasn’t great at lying to her mother over the phone. Her mother would definitely have heard the stress in her voice. Her parents were already completely freaked that their oldest daughter now lived in a portal city.
Of course, they could have moved to Encantado if they chose.
Zoey would never have asked that of them though. She had three brothers and a sister, the youngest of whom was twelve. Life in a portal city was too volatile.
Her parents worried from a distance while Zoey tried to play up the positive aspects of being in Encantado.
She sent them spell phone pictures of fairies flittering in gardens and phoenixes flying overhead, trailing fire, and made it sound as if she lived in a magical wonderland. Often enough, that was true, although she made sure she only snapped those photos when she was in the nicer neighborhoods so her parents wouldn’t see the backdrop of graffiti, smashed windows, and trash.
Mated to the Capo (Mafia Wolf Shifters) (Encantado Shifters Book 1) Page 4
