Arturo wasn’t at his desk today. He was at the far right end of the room, seated in a throne-like chair in front of a hand-carved table with paws for legs – the paws of a rival mob boss. Arturo’s cousins Carlo and Ottavio were sitting next to him on the right, and Giuliana sat next to him on his left. Reclining in a chair to the right of them was a dark-haired, narrow faced man who looked vaguely familiar, and smelled of powerful magic.
Arturo wore an exquisitely hand-cut raw silk suit, the color of gun metal, tailored to fit his 6’5 height. His shiny black loafers were Italian, custom made for him in Milan. He had thick dark hair with a silver streak through it, and a smile that made wolf cubs cry, and never seemed to reach his amber eyes.
Giuliana nodded at Dominic and Romano as they walked up. She had her usual frown stamped on her pretty forehead. Recently turned 20, she was growing restless, chafing because her uncle Arturo was so overprotective. She was a med-mage, with strong healing powers, and her wolf was a large, vicious bitch who loved a good scrap, but Arturo never let her go into the thick of battle. She was allowed to treat people at the pack’s clinic, but never in the field. Most of the time, she worked as Arturo’s secretary, and when she wasn’t doing that, she was accompanying Dominic and Romano on their non-dangerous jobs, which let her see just enough action that she didn’t openly rebel. Yet.
Ottavio and Carlo, two brothers, look a little like Arturo but with more squared off faces. They had strong jaws and thick dark brows and bristled with brute strength.
Arturo had turned them himself, back in the 1950s. Ottavio was a Capo, and Carlo was his loyal guard dog. The turn had gone wrong with Carlo, and now the seven foot tall murder machine was childlike and dumb as a rock, but still deadly. Ottavio fawned over Arturo to a degree that Dominic found by turns amusing and sickening.
The dark haired man, Dominic realized, was Benedict, a member of the Council of Mages. That didn’t bode well. The mages didn’t get involved with minor pack issues, so something big must be brewing.
Arturo was eating from a sterling silver tray of antipasti. As Dominic and Romano settled into chairs facing him, he nodded his head at Giuliana. She handed a pair of golden tongs to Benedict, because he was a guest, and he politely took a small salami roll and ate it. Then she offered the tongs to Ottavio and Carlo, because they were senior to Dominic, and also related to Arturo by blood.
Finally, she offered the tongs to Dominic. Formalities had to be observed. Giuliana poured them each a glass of excellent red wine from Arturo’s personal vineyard in Italy, and they spent several minutes eating and drinking and remarking on the food and wine – it was truly superb - before they got started.
Arturo nodded at Mage Benedict.
“I’ll cut right to the chase. We have received a complaint from the Bianchi pack,” Mage Benedict said to Dominic. “Primo Bianchi states that you formally agreed to a mating contract with Fabiana Bianchi, which was intended to help unite your packs and act as a peace offering.”Peace offering, my furry ass, Dominic thought, his face impassive. The Bianchi pack were the ones who had restarted the hostilities in the first place. They’d been staging raids on the Blood Oath Pack’s cash delivery trucks. “And they say that after agreeing to this, you deliberately humiliated her by mate-biting another female right in front of her.”
Dominic snorted with contempt. “They’re lying. Arturo, you know I would never agree to a mating contract without first seeking your approval and your blessing.” Arturo nodded slightly, and Ottavio echoed the gesture with a fierce nod of his own.
“And you know that after the Bianchi pack approached us about Fabiana, and you told me that you would consider it, I made no further moves because I was awaiting your word,” Dominic said. He turned and addressed Benedict. “That was three weeks ago. Since then, when she texted me asking to meet up, I told her I was busy. I have not contacted her, and I was not the one to invite her to the party last night, either. I thought we weren’t inviting her to any more functions until the decision had been made, so I’m not sure why she was even there.”
“Neither am I,” Arturo said, with a hint of steel in his voice. “Her name was on the guest list and we are not sure how it got there.” That wasn’t good. The party was at the Royal Palms Casino, where they usually held it; had their security there been compromised?
Mage Benedict arched an eyebrow. “Who wrote out the list?” he asked Arturo.
“I am in charge of the guest list,” Giuliana said with a frown. “The guest list was printed out from the computer. It is possible that it was an error because Fabiana was at the last two parties. Her name has now been removed. I did go over the list myself before the party, and she wasn’t on it. Perhaps somehow an old list was printed out, instead.” Dominic thought that an error sounded unlikely, and hecould see it in Arturo’s face too.
The question was – what would somebody have to gain by sneaking her into the party? But Dominic wouldn’t discuss that in front of the Mage, who was an outsider.
Instead, Dominic continued, addressing Benedict. “Furthermore, even if I had agreed to the mating, a mate bite on a full moon supersedes that – unless I had already bitten and bonded with Fabiana, which would eradicate my ability to sense my true mate. When a mate spots his female on the full moon, and marks her as his own, any prior agreements are nullified. It has been this way throughout history. This is understood by all shifter packs, including the Bianchis. We honor the instincts of our wolves.”
Arturo nodded in agreement.
Dominic had only been a shifter for ten years, but before that, when he decided to make the transition to wolf, he had studied the rules and customs. Shifters had only been out in the open since the 1950s, when the chaos realm re-aligned with the magical universe, but there had been small packs living in secret, scattered around the world, left over from the last magic waves.
Benedict inclined his head. “I will verify that with Jeremiah.” That was the mage council’s shifter consultant. He was a member of the Moonstone pack. They owned the family entertainment area in the south side of Encantado and were considered neutral when it came to the fight between the Bianchi’s and the Blood Oath pack. They liked to present themselves out as respectable businessmen. They would never have lowered themselves to take over any of the businesses owned by the Bianchi’s or the Blood Oath pack, so they weren’t in competition.
“The Bianchi pack knows this perfectly well,” Arturo said calmly. “In fact, Primo Bianchi’s father claimed his mate on a full moon with a mate bite. It is also accepted custom that a mating is not formally agreed to until the male has made it official by shifting into his wolf form and publicly biting his female, to announce his intentions. That is the practice among all packs. They appear to be using this as an excuse to declare war on us without sanctions. It’s no secret that they want our territory.” Dominic had been thinking the same thing, but as an underboss, it was not his place to speak for the pack. It was his place to follow his Capo’s rules without question, and put the fear of wolf into any of their enemies.
“We are aware of the territorial dispute, and we will take it into account. The Bianchi pack has requested that I deliver a message to you. Primo Bianchi is saying that to make up for the violation of your verbal agreement and the deliberate insult to their honor, they demand an immediate payment of ten million dollars and 50 percent of your territory in perpetuity.”
A deliberately outrageous and insulting demand, which the Bianchi Pack knew would be rejected.
Arturo barked a laugh. “No wonder they didn’t dare to come to this meeting.”
Benedict turned his attention to Dominic.
“So the mating claim is official, then? You have brought her back to the pack territory?”
Dominic shook his head. “No, tradition states that she does not have to return here until the next full moon.” Arturo nodded in agreement at this.
What he didn’t add was that the tradition sprang from the fact that in the past, before the development of the protective serum, if a Warrior class shifter bit a non-wolf, she would very likely not survive the bite. So she would be given time to say farewell to her friends and family, and would not be considered part of the pack until the next full moon had passed. At that point, she would either successfully shift – a small percentage of the time – or not shift and remain human – also a small percentage – or shift into a madwoman, and be put down.
Dominic’s fur prickled under his skin at the thought. That won’t happen to Zoey. His little, fierce adorable Zoey, who amusingly thought she could escape him – even though she didn’t really want to. His wolf itched to be with her already. It didn’t understand why he couldn’t just grab her and drag her back home with him.
“In that case, you could still marry Fabiana, and unite the two packs?” Benedict mused. “It would avoid a potential war.”
