Chapter One
“You know you’ve lost your mind, right?
Adonis DeLuna, Alpha of the Moonstone Pack, smiled, the sardonic curl to his lips more like a visual growl than enjoyment. “It is what it is."
Raphael shook his head, strands of his sable hair dancing into his eyes with the movement. “She’s … broken.”
Weren’t they all? But it didn’t matter. Without a shadow of a doubt, Adonis knew the mouse of a woman who’d walked in behind Pasquale at the big meeting about Skuld was his mate.
“You didn’t see what I saw, Raph. She’s a lioness, a fucking lioness trapped inside the small mouse because she’s been made to feel that’s where she belongs.”
Raphael scoffed. “I saw a woman cowering with fear. I smelled it a mile away before she even came into the room. Besides,” he shrugged, “wolves don’t like pussies.”
“Oh, the better to eat them.”
The men of the Moonstone Pack were, for lack of a better term, animals. Everyone saw a blissful image of casinos and bright lights, dancing girls putting on performances and easy smiles while they made all your dreams come true.
But underneath it all …
“You’ll ruin her.”
And that was it. Adonis couldn’t really argue with hiscapitán. To the wolves, they knew Raphael Reta as Adonis’s beta, but he was more—so much fucking more.
“I won’t … well, at least not in the end. Sometimes, you have to break things to build them.”
“You better hope she survives.”
Adonis snorted. “She’s meant to be my mate. My wolf wouldn’t choose a woman who couldn’t handle me.”
Raphael sighed and slid his tall form into a chair. For such a large man, he moved in silence. Learning to live in the quiet spaces between breaths could save a man’s life??or end it. He was asicariofirst,capitánsecond, and a wolf third.
His gray gaze met Adonis’s hazel eyes. “I’ve called Dominic already.”
Of course he had. Raphael may argue with the Alpha within the four walls of this office, but to everyone else, he always stood in solidarity with Adonis. Getting Fabiana wasn’t a choice; it was a direct order, and there were no other options.
Adonis grunted. “Have they given clearance?”
“You’ll have to deal with her brother.”
Adonis’s eyebrows disappeared into his hair line. That was a surprise. “Why the fuck for?”
“What. You’re supposed to say ‘whatthe fuck for.’”
Adonis growled at Raph. The Alpha had a particular turn of phrase, always had since he was young, growing up outside the States. Learning English had been a necessity rather than a given. He couldn’t operate his business and not speak the lingo of the country he planned to dominate. Now, at nearly thirty-five, he was one of the youngest leaders to create his own faction of Zetas,La Casa Sangre, when he was only eighteen. Having a stronghold in Encantado was only his launching pad and base of operations.
“It seems Pasquale is Alpha himself the defunct pack his father ran. They are under the Lombardi, but as it’s his younger sister …” Raphael shrugged as his voice trailed off.
“He’s giving Pasquale the Alpha honor of vetting the mate,” Adonis finished. “It won’t matter. She’s mine, and no one will stop me. Wheels up indiez.”
Raphael was on his feet and striding out the door before Adonis could turn away from his desk to stand. Complete loyalty was hard to come by, but Adonis knew Raphael was solid, he’d always be. But for now, putting aside thoughts of hiscapitán, Adonis turned his attention to the woman he was prepared to take if necessary.
Dios, but the woman was spectacular. All long legs, dark hair pelting the small of her back, and deep-indigo eyes that swallowed a man whole. Those pert breasts were made to be worshiped, that mouth a thing for silken sheets and hot nights, and her hips a place he wanted to explore.
But the fear she wore like a shield—the same fear that wrapped around her shoulders and pinched tightly around her neck—had a stranglehold on who he saw she could be. Her eyes didn’t snap with power, but instead permission and trepidation. She didn’t claim the room and demand attention, but rather slunk in, hiding in the darkened corners where no one could find her. Adonis had, though, and he’d enjoy ripping her from that shell and pounding it into so many pieces she’d never find her way back in.
It was his way, and he wouldn’t be denied.
He stalked after Raphael, leaving his massive, dark-paneled office with soundproof walls and bolted-down furniture. He never knew when he’d have to utterly destroy someone in his space, and it was better for him not to have to sit a passed-out hunk of flesh back up when the chair fell over.
