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Her adaptability to her environment had to be a coping mechanism of hers. She learned that the moment she entered a new territory, she had to gather everything she needed to have an advantage.
Find every escape route, know every individual in the room, and ensure she never lacked.
She'd project her innocence by using the simple fact she was a slim, fit girl with the looks to match. No one ever expected such a beauty could be the sole daughter of Roberto De Luca - business extraordinaire by day and lethal Mafia leader and Alpha of the De Luca pack at night.
Surely Roberto's mafia background guaranteed that Willow would have witnessed some things, but what Neo was currently doing was something I felt almost no one else in this world did.
It was the oddest yet most satisfying way of killing someone, the essence of their life being used to paint masterpieces worth billions. That surely had to be enough to send her to the hills, but there she was, fully immersed while she kicked her legs up and down like this was some school presentation.
Her wolf was clearly observing because I could tell from the flickering of her eye color that she had to be close to the surface, but not enough to trigger her shift.
I was itching for us to go on another run. We'd been delaying it because of all this shit being brought up, but fuck, I wanted to run with her and frolick in the fields without a care in the world.
It was weird to accept in my mind, but I missed Willow. It was my fault for basically distancing myself as of late for my own sanity, but the longer I tried to quietly mourn this time of the year, the more this ache within my heart grew.
Being in the same room as Willow made that very ache disappear - that pulsing force that reminded me I was alone and the ultimate culprit of stealing the burning light my mate carried vanished.
I could think straight without getting irritated, and though I still had my anger issues, I felt completely calm at this moment.
No thoughts of ridicule were assaulting my mind.
Willow had something in her that tamed each of us. Dimitris was normally cold-hearted, focused, and couldn't be persuaded to do anything unless there was a good damn reason or benefit to it, but he'd easily agreed for Milo to be saved.
Neo was normally one of few words, and his emotions never surfaced unless he was in his element - like right now - yet he'd been happier and more affectionate.
Saint was always playful, to begin with, but with Willow around, you couldn't deny the heightened protectiveness he carried for her. It was the little actions of checking on her here and there while wanting to do things that would aid in giving her a sense of balance.
The brief conversation of how deeply rooted we each were to our endangered sides of power was probably the rawest conversation we'd had as a pack. I may have known what Saint was, but Neo didn't. Just like how Saint and I knew nothing about Neo's royal heritage or how deeply rooted he was in his blood abilities.
Onyx always carried a mysterious darkness around him, one that mimicked the shadows, but we all could tell he was a lot calmer internally than before. Since becoming Willow's official mate, that bubbling anxiety within him that would leak into the wolf bond from time to time had lessened drastically, though he was still a stalking psycho - as Willow liked to call his “watching” tactics.
Not to forget he was royalty as well, though we'd yet to find out anything regarding that.
I was sure Dimitris was trying to aid in that department without telling Onyx about it - one of the many roles an Alpha would take upon themselves to help a member of their pack. I was sure if he did find anything, we'd be the last to know, and with how everything was going as of late, we were barely getting time to sleep.
"An hour is almost up," Neo announced as he finished with the fine brush he was using and dropped it into a special clear liquid all the other used brushes were currently soaking in.
The brushes were extremely expensive. The set from France had been gifted to Neo a while back. They performed marvellously according to Neo's standards, so he soaked them in an expensive clear liquid that got blood out of the bristles far quicker.
Those concoctions help clean shifter blood from crime scenes.
Only shifters really knew that blood carried a special scent that could linger for months, if not years depending on the shifter. It was one of the reasons why Neo always had to use a special layering coat on his creations to ensure the scent was a rich cologne fragrance that overpowered the scent of blood.
Some of his clients liked the bloody scent, so he'd use the layer of cover-up to a lesser degree, but he'd only had a few clients want the full scale of the aroma on their paintings.
They wished to smell the scent of their slain enemy hanging on the wall.
"You have anything else to say, Ronald? This is your last chance."
The poor man had probably lost his soul in the crossfire - his eyes were practically lifeless. His body was ripped open, his organs all visible, while his heart seemed to be the last functioning thing. His lungs barely expanded and deflated.
It was like opening the hood of a car and watching the engine work, only we were witnessing how a shifter functioned in their last minutes of life.
When I was still new to this world of bloodshed, I wondered what Mother Moon would think of us. Would she disdain our actions of torture, or approve of them because we delivered punishment to those who purposely sought to destroy our own kind?
Those thoughts faded with age and experience, but once in a while, I wondered if she'd love us when we returned home one day.
Would she give us salvation for living a lifestyle of justice through the act of bloodshed?
