She knew he was an awful person, from a pack of awful people, but she couldn’t stop staring. So much pretty.
She cleared her throat. “Hello, person who bit me in 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 hard to do when she had to tip her head back because he stood a good foot taller than her.
Romano and Giuliana came trotting down the alley. Giuliana, hair stylishly waved, dressed from head to toe in this season’s Versace, looked her up and down appraisingly, and, Zoey thought, with considerable suspicion.
“Your boss is a liar. How shall I kill her?” Dominic said.
Well, that was a bucket of ice water dumped right on her libido. She spluttered with fury. “Excuse me. That’s your idea of flirting with me?”
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.”
“Youmight.” 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 said, and 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 a furious glare. “Giuliana. Apologize.”
“Sorry.” Giuliana’s tone was conciliatory but her expression was not.
Dominic returned his attention to Zoey. “The potion that Kalinda uses has never failed. You will survive to be my mate.”
She 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. “Ok, 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.” Then he 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, a big, brutally handsome wolf with a scarred face, let out a disappointed groan. “But she smelled so good. And I haven’t had lunch.”
“You and your stomach!” Dominic said, sounding exasperated. “Go grab a sandwich. I need to talk to my mate.”
Giuliana scowled. “We’re letting someone get away with lying to us? This sets a bad precedent for the pack.”
“Last I checked, I outranked you,” Dominic said with a hint of a snarl in his voice. “Unless you’re going to try to play the ‘my uncle is theCapo di tutti Capo’s’card.”
“You can kiss my ass!” Giuliana spit the words out, 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 expressed what she thought about this offer by saluting Dominic and Romano with both middle fingers and then storming off. Romano trotted after her – thankfully, in the opposite direction from Kalinda’s office.
“You were seriously going to kill my boss?” Zoey was appalled. The Blood Oath pack were every bit as awful as their reputation, then. She’d seen a couple of fights to the death at Blood Oath parties that she’d catered, but that was between street soldiers who’d gotten into brawls and hadn’t been able to rein their wolves back in, not the casual murder of an innocent.
“I guess we’ll never know.” He took another step forward, so Zoey took a step back, but his stride was longer than mine, 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 Blood Oath Capo. You could have anyone.”
“Thank you!” He 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, and you can stop inching backwards 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.”
