When she had been relocated to Encantado, she’d organized some of the other neighborhood residents and formed an unofficial neighborhood improvement committee. And since, through her catering job, she actually had access to the leaders of the Blood Oath pack, she had decided to very politely ask Arturo Moretti about it. He’d been drinking, and he seemed to be in a good mood, or less murderous than usual anyway.
She’d walked over to one of his men, Ottavio, and asked if she could be granted an audience to address issues in the Northern Warehouse District. She had been told that was the proper way to approach Arturo – through one of his men, and only after asking in a very deferential tone.
And Ottavio had nodded gravely, and stood up, towering over her, and started to answer – when Dominic bit her on the butt.
But she didn’t see how the two could be related. She really didn’t think she had offended anyone. She had spoken with the utmost respect, and Ottavio hadn’t looked angry. And she’d been speaking to him, not Dominic. Also – now that she thought of it – if Dominic had been angry at her, he wouldn’t have just nipped her. He’d have torn her in half.
Kalinda hurried back in, shoving a cracked mug of coffee into Zoey’s hands, and then leaned on her desk. “It’s instant. We save the good stuff for the customers,” Kalinda said. Zoey took a long swig of it and made a face.
“Yeah, you do,” she said.
“So talk. How did you bring the wrath of the wolf done on you? What have you done, Zoey?”
“Nothing,” she said, with an expression of wounded dignity, and took another sip, grimacing at the bitterness.
In hindsight, she shouldn’t have used the party as an excuse to try talk to Arturo. She’d risked getting Kalinda in trouble and that wasn’t fair.
“OK, you wanted a recap,” she said quickly. “I showed up at the event, nothing seemed out of the ordinary. Dominic was in human form. He did glance my way once, but most of the night, he was talking with just a few people and pretty much ignoring me. One of them was a tall, good-looking guy with a scarred face, I think his name’s Romano, and he’s always with Dominic at all the parties. I think he’s an enforcer. One of them was Giuliana, she’s Arturo’s secretary and also his niece, and one was a dark-haired girl who kept following him around and petting his arm.” She tried to keep the snarkiness out of her voice when she said that, and felt like she’d mostly succeeded.
Dominic had acted like he was just casual friends with the blonde, and looked bored with the dark-haired girl, which had made Zoey happier than it should have.
Kalinda frowned in thought. “For some reason that makes me nervous.”
“Everything makes you nervous,” Zoey pointed out.
Kalinda made a skeptical “psssht” noise, and glanced out the window. A day-walker in a black cape was strolling by – that was a rich-as-hell vampire who’d paid good money for powerful charms that would make him temporarily immune to sunlight. The wards that were affixed to the window glowed as he walked by. It cost Kalinda a small dragon’s hoard to keep those wards charged. Kalinda’s wards were a lot stronger than those on Zoey’s apartment building. Hers could keep out level 7 and below magic. Zoey’s apartment building was a level two; it kept out uninvited vampires and mild curses from slightly irritated witches, but that was about it.
A lion shifter jostled by – she could tell because of the rounded furry ears and flowing golden mane – and accidentally jostled the vampire, and the vampire swung to face him with a snarl. A long, tense moment stretched out between them before they finally strolled off in opposite directions.
“Of course everything makes me nervous,” Kalinda said irritably. “Anyone who lives in Encantado, and isn’t nervous, has their head up their ass.”
Zoey shrugged. Yes, living in a Portal City was fairly terrifying on a regular basis, given that the portals tended to burp out scary hostile creatures at random, and they never knew if the Mages would be able to hold them off, but she just didn’t see the point in being afraid all the time. She did her best to enjoy life wherever she was and whatever the circumstances.
“I dunno,” she said. “What good does it do to stress all the time? If I’m fated to hexed or dragon-roasted, I might as well enjoy my life up until the last moment. And try to make sure that everyone around me is too. And if I’m not fated for a terrible death, then I’d have spent a lot of time worrying about nothing.”
“Fine, Perky Pollyanna, nothing scares you. That’ll be huge comfort when you end up getting eaten by a troll. Now finish telling me what happened.” Kalinda fixed Zoey with her fierce dark glare.
Zoey nodded, trying to remember. “Well, the rest of the night, he just ignored me. After the moon rose, they all started getting louder and friskier and a couple of older guys pinched my butt, and I ‘accidentally’ spilled a drink on one of them and stepped on the other one’s foot.” Kalinda had told her to do that. Those kinds of macho guys would run right over the girls if they didn’t stand up for themselves. And it worked; the guys yelped, their friends laughed at them, and they didn’t try anything else that night.
“And then?”
She sighed. “And I was standing there with a tray of hors d’oeuvres when I felt a sharp pain in my butt. My right cheek, in case that matters.”
“It doesn’t,” Kalinda assured her, with a look of annoyance.
“I screamed and spun around and there was this huge, beautiful white wolf staring at me intensely. I recognized it as Dominic because he had the same blue-green eyes and…and I don’t know, I could just tell it was him. Everyone turned and stared at me. I was so shocked that I just dropped my tray and ran.” She finished the rest of the coffee and set the cup down on a small side table. “So…that shifting potion…”
“I already told you. I’ve never heard of it failing.”
Well, that wasn’t super reassuring, given that, from what she’d heard, being bitten by a Warrior Class shifter would be just about 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 that she could do was wait for 28 days and hope not to die at the next full moon. Fun!
Kalinda was about 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
