“Spoilsport.” He flashed her a charming grin, and before she could stop herself she replied with a smile of her own. Then she quickly rearranged her facial features into an indifferent mask, but it was too late, he looked entirely too smug and self satisfied.
They walked back to her apartment without another word. Halfway there, he slid his arm around her shoulders, and it felt so natural that she didn’t notice for several blocks. He was so big, so warm, and she found herself letting him pull her up against him so her hip pressed against his. As they walked, they fell into a rhythm somehow, his stride matching hers even though he was easily a foot taller than her.
Warmth rolled over her, and a pulsing arousal.
Was he proportionally big all over?
She choked down a mortified laugh at the thought, and he gave her a bemused glance but didn’t say anything.
They paused in her doorway. The protection wards glowed, and the door clicked open.
Romano stood half a block away from them, pretending not to watch. She thought Dominic would insist on coming in, but instead, he slid a finger under her chin and tipped her head back to receive a soft, feather light kiss that sent a jolt of desire rushing through her. Then, he turned and walked away.
Zoey swallowed a moan of frustration and hurried into her apartment. She was dying to ask him why he wasn’t just grabbing her and dragging her home with him, if he was so sure that she was meant to be his. But she didn’t, because she was afraid that he might take her up on it. And she was even more afraid that she wouldn’t have the strength to say no.
Chapter Nine
Early Tuesday morning, the wind had a crisp chill to it as two hostile groups of wolf shifters stood by the roadside in the rural area just north of Encantado city limits. Primo Bianchi’s dull black eyes fixed on Arturo as if he hoped to make him burst into flames with his gaze alone. Primo’s men crowded around him, bristling with aggression and peeling their lips back to show that they’d let their fangs descend.
Ooh, so scary – to a human, maybe.
Arturo was supremely calm and amused. He stood with Romano, Dominic, Ottavio and Carlo, sipping coffee from a mug and making idle conversation. His lack of response to Primo seemed to aggravate the man even more – which was entirely the point.
There had been a ghoul attack nearby, hours earlier. A man had been killed while he was mowing his lawn. His neighbor had called the police and sirens had alerted all of the residents to take shelter indoors, and a police squadron had arrived and quickly killed two ghouls, who were tearing at the door of a small ranch house.
The Council of Mages had decreed that the Bianchi pack and the Blood Oath pack temporarily set aside their feud. Both packs had been summoned there to send out their best scenters to find out where the ghouls had come from. Benedict stood by the roadside, sipping hot tea from a cardboard cup and watching silently. If either pack attacked the other during the search, they would be punished.
The scenters and foot soldiers were searching the woods, following the ghouls’ trail.
Where could they have come from? It didn’t make any sense. There was only the one portal, and it was constantly guarded.
The last time ghouls had erupted from the main portal was a year ago. They’d overwhelmed the guards by their sheer numbers and swarmed through the woods and into the suburbs, killing thirty-seven people before they were hunted down, and since then, the number of guards assigned to the portal had been increased five fold.
Occasionally lesser portals opened, but they only stayed open for a few hours. And this was the second recent ghoul sighting.
“What if it’s a new larger portal?” Dominic mused. “A permanent one?”
“That wouldn’t happen in our territory!” Ottavio growled. “We’ve got it under control!”
“Yeah, we’ve got it unner a troll!” Carlo echoed, always loyal to his brother. “Wait, there’s a troll?”
Ottavio shot him a look of disgust.
Dominic snorted, quietly enough that Ottavio could just barely hear him. Ottavio believed that brute force was the answer to everything. He was an idiot. Sheer numbers and physical strength of their pack had no more to do with a portal opening than it had to do with a volcano erupting. They were forces of nature. They just happened.
“We have to consider all possibilities,” Arturo said in a calm voice.
“Of course we do,” Ottavio agreed instantly.
Carlo looked at him in confusion. “That’s not what you just said.”
Ottavio bunched up his fist to punch his brother in the head, but Arturo said, in an icy voice, “Stop.” He flicked a glance over at Primo. Primo glared back at them with dull hatred. “Do you want him to see us as divided?”
“Of course not.” Ottavio shifted his weight from one foot to another. “I just get antsy, seeing them over there looking at us like that. We should be able to challenge them right here. All this politics? This crap isn’t natural. It goes against our nature. We’re wolves, damn it!”
“We’re men too, Ottavio.” Arturo’s voice was calm but firm. “If we want to live among men, we need to live by their rules.”
Dominic strolled off to make a phone call, to check in with one of the men he had watching Zoey. The answer he got made him growl, low and long. She was working her bike messenger job today, and she kept managing to shake his people and disappear for long stretches of time. It frustrated him to no end; he couldn’t wait until the month was up and he could claim her for his own. He loved the chase, but his wolf wanted to know where she was at all times.
