As he tucked his phone back in his pocket, he saw a van pull up. Giuliana hopped out and hurried over to them, her small face already set in a defensive pout. Great. This should go well.
Arturo gave her a narrow-eyed look of annoyance. “What are you doing? It’s far too dangerous. There may be ghouls near here,” he snapped.
“Gee, it sure would help to have a med-mage handy if that were the case, wouldn’t it?”
“We have one.” Arturo glanced over at their med-mage Dante, who was pacing by the roadside, his attention focused on the woods.
“And I’m better than him. Easily twice as powerful. You know that.” Her voice rose and her face flushed with frustration.
“No. Go home, Giuliana.”
Giuliana glared at him, stalked back to her truck. She slammed the door and drove off with a screech of tires. Her tantrum wasn’t lost on Primo and his men; they made a big show of laughing much harder than the situation called for, doubling over and slapping their knees. For a brief moment, Arturo actually looked annoyed, then his face smoothed again.
Dominic cleared his throat.
Arturo glanced at Dominic, his face deceptively mild. “What?”
Dominic kept his voice diplomatic. “Her safety is your greatest concern. I understand that. We’ve both suffered the pain of loss. But I worry that she will chafe at her restraints to the point where she might lash out and do something that puts her in danger.”
“If she were so foolish, I’d confine her to my property.”
“Of course,” Dominic nodded. And Giuliana would absolutely explode. This was one of the rare cases where Arturo was wrong, but he had a blind spot where his niece was concerned. Dominic had heard that Giuliana looked a little like Arturo’s late daughter – unlucky for her.
“Here comes someone – oh, it’s just Fabiana,” Romano said.
Annoyingly enough, Fabiana was a scenter, so she’d been included in the search party. She came trotting out of the woods, and walked towards the Blood Oath pack instead of her own.
She shifted and stood there, naked, blinking her big brown eyes. Then she arched her back and made a huge show of tossing her shining black hair back over her shoulder, looking right at Dominic as he did so.
Then she trotted over to Dominic and Romano.
“Romano, leave us.” She flipped a slim hand in dismissal. Disdain dripped from every word. “I need to speak to my future mate.”
Romano’s lip wrinkled back in a snarl. Fabiana had no idea how close she was to becoming lunch.
Dominic spun on her and snapped “Don’t ever give orders to my enforcer. While we’re at it, don’t call me a liar, because I never, at any time, committed to a mating to you.”
She stepped back and burst into tears. “Don’t hurt me!” she cried out loudly. She adopted a falsely cringing posture, throwing up her hands in front of her face. As if. She-shifters were vicious as hell when cornered; if he’d made a move to hurt her, she’d have shifted and gone straight for a vital organ. Probably the one between his legs.
Primo, hisCapoLuigi, and his enforcer Salvatore came barreling towards them. Arturo, Ottavio and his men rushed to Dominic’s side.
And Benedict stood back and sipped his tea and watched, with an expression of mild interest.
“You threaten my female?” Primo bellowed. “That is a new low, even for you!”
“You really are spoiling for a showdown, which we are happy to provide, right here,” Arturo drawled in a bored voice. “Your hearing every bit as good as ours, and you know exactly what your female just did to provoke myCapo. What would your men do if one of your females came up barking orders at a high-ranking enforcer?”
“Bite her face off!” Luigi snapped furiously. Primo spun around him and punched him in the head so hard he fell to his knees.
“You do not ever speak for me!” he howled.
He sent a wave of force so intense that they all felt it, and Luigi clawed at his throat, eyes wide and panicked. Luigi had just made his boss look like a fool, by acknowledging that their pack’s female had spoken out of turn.
Fabiana’s gaze shuttled nervously back and forth between her pack and our pack’s. She was one of those women who got through life by manipulating men with her sexuality – either seducing them or stirring up trouble by flirting with mated men. When she couldn’t do that, she had no idea what to do with herself, so she stood there, fluttering her hands and looking pathetic.
Finally Primo released Luigi, who fell to his hands and knees, his face grape-purple. He gasped and wheezed, desperately sucking in air.
“You are aware that when a wolf makes a claim, that decision is final,” Arturo said. “Your parents’ pairing was a moon-bite.”
