“Wait … back up two sentences.” I set my werelock cocktail—that smelled like straight-up gasoline—down and raised a skeptical, mildly unsteady palm at Tiago. “Did you say werelocks can heal from anything? Even cancer?”

He grinned, showing off his adorable dimples. “I did. In truth, Bethany, they can’t get cancer to begin with. Not even werewolves can.”

Werewolves were definitely the lesser species between the two, from what I’d learned. Yet even they were disease-proof it seemed—immune to more than merely STDs, as Raul had informed me the night before in the Hummer.

“Shut the door.”

“No,” he said with a laugh. “I won’t shut it. It’s true. Ask any of the guys. They’ll tell you.”

Tiago was the accented manny from the club the night before—the one who’d cradled my head against his shoulder and reassured me I hadn’t been stabbed when Raul had bitten my thigh.

Tiago spoke fluent English, Spanish, Italian, and Portuguese, but Italian had been his first language. He’d confided in me earlier—with a sense of embarrassment about it that was even more endearing than his dimples—that he spoke with a slight Italian accent no matter what language he was conversing in.

Tiago was hands-down the sweetest of all the Salvatella pack killer mannies I’d met on the plane. I couldn’t help but think he’d be perfect for Jessie. If he wasn’t a killer and all. Or a werelock.

Ten more minutes of Tiago explaining how virtually impossible it was to kill a werelock unless you used serious magic or removed vital organs for an extended length of time had me picking my glass of gasoline back up again to take several burning gulps, despite the hideous smell and taste of it.

I was on a private plane with nearly two dozen indestructible beings who looked like exotic male dancers and models. Some of them—such as Tiago—were so sweet and polite I had to keep reminding myself they inevitably morphed into big scary dogs. Whereas others immediately gave off that natural-born predator vibe and seemed one shot of whisky or a single wrong glance away from sprouting full-on fur and fangs and attacking.

Although I’d been introduced to all of them, I could barely remember half their names now, distracted as I was trying to absorb everything else that I could about them as a species. The more I gleaned, the more unnerved I was becoming.

The alcohol, as awful as it tasted, was helping somewhat to keep my nerves in check. Goodness knows my emotions had been volleying all over the place.

Earlier, after locating the plane’s master suite—which Mike had designated as my bedroom—I had been stunned to find half the clothes I owned neatly hung up in the walk-in closet. This had comforted me more than Raul’s repeated assurances that no one would harm me. Because who would bother hanging someone’s clothes up for a ten-hour flight if they planned on killing them, right? None of these guys wore my size.

So I’d changed out of my pj’s, put my best big-girl game face on, and bravely sought out the party of supernaturals hanging out in the bar/dining area of the luxury aircraft. Mike had made initial introductions on my behalf. But then Stephen had returned—without Raul—and he’d pulled Mike away to discuss some sort of urgent “pack business.” Mike had advised me to have a drink, socialize, and try and relax.

Easier said than done. I found my eyes constantly drifting toward the open-arched doorway to the dining area, hoping to see Raul appear. No explanation had been provided as to why Stephen had returned without him, and I was still too angry—and too proud—to inquire after his whereabouts.

I started taking more frequent sips of my petrol on ice as Tiago gave me the lowdown on werewolves mating for life.

“So it’s kinda like penguins, only the ‘awww’ aspect is made morbid by the fact they die together? No matter what?”

“I know, right?” he agreed, showing me those dimples of his again. “I feel the same way about it. Of course, I haven’t found my true mate yet, so it’s hard to relate. Once you change into a wolf and your mating bond with Raul solidifies, I think you’ll start to feel differently.”

“Say what?”

“You and Raul.” His dimples vanished at what could only have been a look of staggered confusion on my face. “He claimed you last night. You know—the biting? He marked you. You two are mated now. For eternity.”

I’d always considered myself a serial monogamist, but eternity sounded like an awfully long time. Longer than a life sentence. “I’m mated? For eternity?”

He nodded.

Don’t panic. Nothing good will come of freaking out in a roomful of wolves.

I went to take another sip and realized my glass held nothing but ice.

“May I freshen your drink?” Tiago offered.

“Yes, please.”

“She’s cut off, T.” Mike intercepted my glass before I could pass it to Tiago. Then he made it vanish and handed me a glass of water instead.

“Aw—why you gonna regulate like that, cuz?” I whined. I needed that gasoline now more than ever.

“I said to have a drink to relax, not pass out,” he lectured. To Tiago, Mike ordered, “Bring her something to eat.”

Tiago left and Mike took his place next to me.

“I’m socializing, Mike. Becoming one with the pack connected by Raul’s will … erm, whatever you said. Why’re you sniffing at me?” Why hasn’t Raul come back?

“What’d they give you to drink?”

“Unleaded gasoline, I think. But they pour it over ice, add a little sugar around the rim, and call it ‘Nahuel’s Blunder’—or something like that. They said it’s a new drink the pack doctor Rafe came up with recently that’s become all the rage in—”

“C’mon, guys!” Mike complained, his voice carrying above the noise in the crowded dining area as he aimed a glare around the room. “Who gave her the Nahuel special?”

Laughter and high-fives spread through the gathering of wolfmen.

Great. I was missing the joke—and likely the butt of it.

“Don’t worry,” Jorge called out to Mike. “I watered it down.” Jorge gave me a smirk and a thumbs-up. “Just strong enough to take the edge off.”

I finger-waved weakly back at him. Jorge was totally the natural-born predator-looking type. He’d probably just poisoned me. “Who’s Nahuel?” I asked Mike.

“Nahuel Salvatella was the former Alpha’s younger brother,” Mike explained, scrubbing a hand over his eyes. “Over sixty years ago, his alleged true mate got him black-out drunk on moonshine and managed to chop his idiot supernatural head off.”

Jesus. So Jorge was plotting to decapitate me then? I automatically took a sip from the glass of water Mike had given me and was disappointed to find that it was … water.

“Wait, wouldn’t chopping his head off have gotten her killed, too? Tiago said when werewolves are joined with their true, predestined mate, a mated werewolf’s death will trigger the death of his or her true mate as well.”

“Yes, but she was still human.” Mike raised his hand, signaling to Klaus, who was behind the bar pouring himself another drink.

So there was still an out for me while I remained human—if I was willing to take Raul’s head off. I wondered if it required a special ornamental sword …

“Nahuel hadn’t turned or marked her yet,” Mike continued as Klaus handed him a tall glass of diesel fuel on the rocks.

There went my out.

I smiled faintly back at Klaus when he flashed me a toothy grin. Klaus ranked right after Tiago in my book as the second sweetest werelock I’d encountered on the plane. Or was Klaus only a werewolf? I couldn’t recall which exact species he’d been introduced to me as. Mike had said that as long as I was human and lacked the ability to scent the difference, it would be hard for me to distinguish between the two.

“The initial mating bond isn’t felt as strongly for humans as it is for werewolves,” Mike went on to say. “And human mates are supposed to be given a choice before they’re claimed. In theory,” he muttered under his breath.

“And Nahuel’s mate wasn’t given one?”

Mike raised a sardonic brow, his drink suspended on its way to his mouth. “She got him sauced and took his head off, Bethany.”

“Right.” I nodded. “Guess not.” I hadn’t been given a choice either. Clearly the choice part for humans was more in theory than practice around here.

Mike consumed half his drink before adding, “He had murdered her parents hours earlier. Probably didn’t help him in winning her affection.”

Tiago showed up with a plate of food then—an assortment of cured meats and cheeses. “Charcuterie?” he offered, setting it on the bar next to me. “Some nibbles to hold you over. Got a steak coming momentarily.”

Great timing. I smiled politely as my stomach turned in protest.

I had no intention of eating anything now, and I pushed the plate aside once Tiago had walked off.

When my eyes returned to Mike, it was to find him giving me a hard look. “Don’t make me force-feed you.”

I bit the immediate retort on my tongue and calmly took another sip of water before reminding him, “Didn’t Raul say not to threaten me?”

“He told me to look after you, Bethany. I choose my methods.”

I kept my tone nonchalant, and hoped that he couldn’t hear the pounding of my heart above the noisy banter around us as I challenged, “But isn’t Raul your Alpha? Don’t you have to listen to him?”

He smiled—barely—as he leaned closer. “Yes. And he never said I couldn’t discipline you in the process of looking after you.”

Nice. “So it’s all a matter of clever wordplay and loopholes?”

“Not exactly. But I think you’ll find that within our pack, intent carries more weight than words often do. Raul’s primary intention is that I keep you safe. If I see you making choices that could harm you, your well-being takes precedence over his directive that I refrain from threatening you.”

“That doesn’t make sense.”

“Sure it does.” He shifted in his seat. “Think of it this way: if you were holding a gun to your own head and I had to threaten to kill your parents or blow up the hospital you work at in order to prevent you from harming yourself, don’t you think Raul would be in full support of me threatening you in order to save your life?”

“I would never in a million years. Talk about an extreme, outrageous examp—”

“Just eat your fucking meats and cheeses, Bethany.” He pushed the plate at me. “I don’t feel like arguing right now.”

Okay, then.

We sat in silence as I forced a few bites of meat down. Mike was definitely in a worse mood than he’d been in earlier, before he’d gone off to talk with Stephen.

“You seem upset about something,” I broached after I’d muscled down a fourth bite of meat and had gotten my game face back in place. “Wanna talk about it?”

He huffed like I’d made a ludicrous suggestion.

I tried to remember his mother had been violently murdered in front of him as a child.

“Hey, what do you have to lose? You’re stuck babysitting me anyhow.” I lowered my volume and said, “And for the record, being bossy and dismissive with me will get you nowhere. I’m the impossible-to-ignore type who’ll alternately nag and charm you to death until I get what I’m after.”

“Right,” he dismissed me. “I’m fine. A little tired is all. So, what have you learned thus far about our pack?”

Grateful for the change in conversation and the fact he was at least feigning civility with me again, I swiveled in my bar seat to face him. There were quite a few takeaways from the conversations I’d had with some of the twenty-two werelocks and werewolves I’d met aboard the Salvatella pack’s tricked-out 747-8.

“Um, let’s see … the last Alpha, Gabe, was pretty much universally hated, from what I’ve gathered.”

“For the most part.” Mike’s eyes skated about the room. “We’re still weeding out and killing off any quiet remaining supporters.”

“Awesome.” Just like a mafia family would do.

Mike pinched the bridge of his nose. “What else did the guys tell you?”

“Werewolf saliva has magical healing properties, werewolves can’t get cancer or other diseases, and they live longer than humans. But werelocks live crazy long, are essentially ageless, and are virtually indestructible unless serious magic or vital organ removal is involved in killing them.”

Mike nodded and prompted me to continue while he polished off the rest of his drink.

“Nobody will talk to me about the initial transition into a werewolf. They said Raul ordered them not to.”

“That’s correct,” Mike confirmed. To my annoyance, he offered no further information either. “Anything else?”

I hesitated a moment before leaning in and whispering, “I think the guys see me as a threat.” I pulled back to find Mike’s brow crumpled. There was an awareness in his eyes, however, that belied his mask of confusion.

“How so?”

I rolled one shoulder. “Dunno, really. It doesn’t make sense to me … it’s just a feeling I get.”

He looked away, crunching on one of the ice cubes from his otherwise empty glass as he stared through the crowd of werewolves and werelocks laughing and chatting around the bar.

“I’ll let you in on a secret, Bethany.” Turning back to me, he drew nearer and confessed, “I see you as a threat.”