Chapter Seven

Dominic felt the gazes of the women in the sandwich shop sliding over his body, with the usual mix of fear and lust.  He ignored them.  There was only one woman whose attention he wanted these days, and she was doing her best to pull a disappearing act.  And it was driving his wolf crazy, which meant that he spent most of his time struggling not to bite people’s heads off.

Dominic grabbed his salami sub sandwich from the clerk behind the counter, who all but bowed and scraped as he handed it to him. He strode over to the table where Giuliana was waiting for him, sipping her iced coffee and ignoring him. 

As usual, Giuliana was way overdressed for their task.  She wore head to toe Dolce and Gabbana, down to her six-inch heels.  He and Giuliana were travelling around their territory picking up protection money from the local businesses.  Really, Arturo had sent his niece along with Dominic to keep her busy and out of trouble.  Babysitting detail.  Dominic knew it, Giuliana knew it, so she was acting like a sulky crabby brat.

An hour ago, he’d showed up to find that yet another neighborhood business had closed, and when Dominic tracked down the owner, the man sounded nervous and said that his mother was sick and he needed to devote all of his time to taking care of her.

 Dominic settled down into the too-small chair facing Giuliana.  “Hey, brat, I have a favor to ask of you.”

Giuliana didn’t look up from the latest copy of Fashion Magic Magazine, which apparently was a lot more interesting than Dominic.  “What’s in it for me?”

“I won’t tell your uncle that you never went to the mall yesterday like you said you did.”

Giuliana’s eyes widened.  “How did you – I mean – what are you talking about?”

“Please.” Dominic gave her a scornful look.  “I have eyes and ears everywhere.”

She stamped her foot.  Literally stamped her foot like a kindergartener being sent to take a nap. “I’m twenty! I’m not a baby!”

Dominic refrained from telling her that when she pouted like that, she sounded exactly like a baby - because he needed her advice. And he might not have been the savviest when it came to women, but he knew better than to insult a tantruming she-shifter before asking for her help – because he wouldn’t get anything other than a set of bleeding scratches so deep that they reached his internal organs.  He’d been there, done that, taken hours to heal.

He glanced around to make sure nobody was listening.  People who were sneaking glances at him – like all the high ranking Blood Oath pack members, he always drew attention - suddenly found themselves very, very busy looking away from him.  He cleared his throat, and spoke in a lowered voice.  “How do I romance a woman? Like, court her? What do women like?”

Giuliana set down her magazine and looked at him suspiciously.

“What do you mean? You’ve banged like a million bimbos.  Were they not satisfied? Nobody’s coming back for seconds?”

“My, aren’t we lady-like.  I have had brief encounters in the past, and the women were very clear it was a one-time thing.  That’s not what I’m talking about.”

 “So who are you romancing? That chick from the slums?”

Giuliana was really getting under his fur today. “Snobbery is beneath you.  And yes, although my wolf claimed her, she might need a little persuading.”

She lifted her skinny shoulders in a sullen shrug.  “Then pick someone else.”

He gave her a sidelong glance.  He hoped she didn’t mean ‘pick me’.  When her uncle had first suggested that he might want Dominic and Giuliana to be mates, she hadn’t argued.  He had assumed that was because she didn’t care less who she mated with, as long as it got her out from under her uncle’s oppressive paw.  But now he wasn’t so sure.  She had seemed a little disgruntled ever since the mate-biting, he realized.

“You know that’s not how it works,” he said.

She snorted, picking up her magazine again. “Fine. Take her out to dinner.”

“That’s all that you’ve got?  Sorry I asked.” 

“If she doesn’t appreciate what she’s got, she doesn’t deserve you.” Giuliana flipped a magazine page and made a big show of ignoring hm.

Dominic, annoyed and more than a little concerned, shoved his chair back.  Since when did Giuliana give a damn about who he mated with? He’d dated women over the years, and she’d never seemed to care.  Maybe she was upset because this, unlike his other dalliances, was permanent? Damn, he hoped not.  He liked Giuliana a lot as a person, he would hate to hurt her, and his life had enough complications right now.             

His wolf felt restless, pacing under his skin, itching for release.  He couldn’t sit still right now, he needed to move.

“My wolf needs a quick run.  You stay here and wait for me, or you go straight home,” he told her.  He headed outside, crossing the street to Greenwald Park, the giant rectangular green space that ran through both the east and west sides. There was a long iron fence dividing the pack territory in half. He’d eat his sandwich quickly, shift, go for a brief run, and then resume his collecting activities. Giuliana would still be waiting for him.  She didn’t want to have to go back home and do secretary duty for her uncle.

As Dominic strolled, he took enormous chomps of the sandwich, barely tasting it.  But his senses were still sharp enough – he was heading deeper into the park, and he heard something rustling in the bushes.  And he smelled unfamiliar wolf. And he smiled.

Enemy.

The packs kept to their own territories.  If any pack member wanted to travel through another pack’s territory, they formally notified the pack headquarters and requested permission.  If they failed to do that, then they were a soldier in enemy territory. A female would be taken prisoner and held for ransom, a male would be killed.

He kept walking, and chewing.  There wasn’t a single wolf in the entire city of Encantado who worried him enough to make him put his sandwich down – and furthermore, he was irritable and itching for a fight.

As if the universe were answering his prayers, a wolf exploded from the bushes. The gray wolf was enormous, as were all warrior class wolf shifters.  Its eyes glowed yellow with fury, ropes of saliva dribbled from its black lips.  It blocked his path, tail lashing.  He shoved the last of his sandwich in his mouth and brushed his hands off on his shirt, his bored expression unchanging.

The wolf paused for a moment, as if confused.

“I’m going to give you a freebie,” Dominic said, grinning fiercely.  “Roll over and expose your belly, and I’ll just maim you, not kill you.  You can live another day as a member of the world’s lamest pack.  You’ll just be a gimp, that’s all.”

The wolf threw back its head and howled in rage.  The last howl of its life. It crouched low and then leapt, aiming for his throat. Dominic shifted in a blur of motion; nobody but Arturo could shift as quickly as he did. A disappointing twenty seconds after that, the wolf was bleeding out at his feet, its throat ripped open and spinal column nearly severed.

Dominic shook himself and forced his angry wolf back inside the cage of his humanity, his fur melting into smooth skin, tail shrinking into his spine, fangs sinking back into his gums.  Passers-by who’d been strolling by stood frozen, staring in shock, and then edging away.  It had happened so quickly that they barely had time to react – damn it.  He’d been hoping for a good round or two, at least. 

Dominic’s clothes had fallen off him when he shifted.  A slender young woman in a business suit caught his eye and then let her eyes rove over him. His lip curled back and he growled at her, letting fur ripple over his face.  She stifled a shriek and hurried off.  Good.  The only woman who should be admiring his naked body was Zoey.

He dressed quickly, scowling down at the dead wolf, which had melted back into its human form.  Looked like a Bianchi, with that strong Roman nose and too much hair product.  Also the gallons of cologne.  Was that a Bianchi pack requirement, or what? His sensitive shifter’s nostrils flared, offended.

His phone rang, with the tone indicating that it was Arturo calling.  He snatched it from his jacket pocket.

“Let me guess,” Dominic said, nudging the dead wolf with the toe of his boot. “The mage’s board ruled in the Bianchi pack’s favor?”

“Close.  The mage’s board has decided to abstain,” Arturo said. “They feel the law is unclear in this case, so they’re not weighing in on either side.”

Dominic felt a snap of anger.  He hadn’t expected that at all. “The law is clearly on our side.  Can we appeal to the National Council?”

“It won’t help.  A full out war between packs benefits the Mages.  Both of our packs are getting too powerful, and this will thin our ranks and possibly eliminate one of our packs altogether,” Arturo said.  “This was coming sooner or later anyway.  The Bianchi pack is just using this as an excuse.”

“Well, that explains why one of the Bianchis is taking a dirt nap right now,” Dominic mused. “He tried to jump me about sixty seconds ago.”

“Huh.  That was fast,” Arturo said.  “The ruling came down mere minutes ago.  It’s almost like he was lying in wait, just in case the ruling favored them. He’s in our territory, then? Where are you?”

“Greenwald Park.  He came at me from behind a bush.  Primo was strategic about it, I’ll give him that.  You know about the rumors that Jimmy was angling for Primo’s position? And then Primo sent him to kill me.  Whatever the results, it would have been a win for Primo.”  If Jimmy had succeeded, he would have made the Blood Oath pack look weak, and by taking out Dominic, he also would have taken out one of Arturo’s strongest warriors. 

“Wait a minute.” Arturo’s voice suddenly went sharp.  “Isn’t Giuliana with you right now? Oh, never mind, I see she’s still at the sandwich shop.”

“They wouldn’t mess with a non-combatant female unless they want every shifter pack in the country to declare war on them,” Dominic said.  “Wait – do you have a tracker on your niece?”

Silence.

“So, something in her phone, or on her clothing,” Dominic mused.  “Nahh, she’d know it was on her phone and if she wanted to sneak off anywhere she’d leave her phone behind.  Maybe something on a piece of jewelry?”

There was a long pause. Arturo’s voice sounded surprisingly mild – for him.  “Don’t tell her.”

“Of course not, sir.” 

Not just because it was a direct order from his boss.  Also, because Giuliana would rip her uncle’s face off or die trying.  Or she’d try to run away, and Arturo would catch her and lock her up for a month and Giuliana would make everyone’s life hell.

Arturo’s voice turned brisk and business-like. “Right.  Attack on a pack member.  We’ll have to answer.” By which he meant, kill someone from the Bianchi pack or sabotage their property.  “Meet me at my office in forty-five minutes.  Don’t bother fetching Giuliana, I’ll text her.”

Dominic headed straight for the Arena. Giuliana was already there, with Otto and Arturo, sitting in chairs arranged in front of Arturo’s desk.  They were skipping the socializing today; Arturo was pissed.  His ears had gone pointy and furry, and he didn’t even bother smoothing them out.

“Are you all right?” Giuliana asked Dominic, with genuine concern.  “I’m sorry I wasn’t there, I’d have -”

“You’d have stayed out of it or I’d have grounded you until you were dead,” Arturo snapped.

“You can’t treat me like I’m a damned cub,” she muttered rebelliously.  Arturo twisted to the side to fix her with his icy gaze and the temperature all around them dropped several degrees. He wasn’t a weather wizard; how did he do that?

“What was that?” He snapped.

“Nothing,” she said stiffly, and inclined her head to the left, exposing her throat in a show of submission.

“Yes, that’s what I thought you said.  Nothing.” Then he addressed Dominic – making a big show of ignoring his niece, which Dominic knew infuriated her.

“We’re going to hijack one of their armored trucks tomorrow morning,” Arturo said.  “Hit those bastards where it hurts – in the wallet.”

Dominic nodded.  “I’m going to suggest that if possible, we take his men prisoner rather than kill them. That way we -”

“Bullshit!” Ottavio barked, interrupting him.

“Let him finish.”

Dominic continued as if Ottavio hadn’t said a word. “We actually make ourselves look better this way.  We’re not just fighting the Bianchi’s, we’re fighting a war of perception.  Right now, the Bianchis are presenting themselves as the aggrieved party.  To the Council of Mages, by choosing not to kill, we look as if we’re showing restraint. But we take the men hostage, we hold them for ransom, and that’s double humiliation for the Bianchis.  And if they don’t ransom their men, then their pack members start to question their leadership.”

Zoey would like that, he thought.  He didn’t know why thoughts of her were popping into his head at a time like this, but he remembered the look on her face when he told her he had to go kill a man.  And he hadn’t liked the way it made him feel.

“Can I suggest another option?” Ottavio was vibrating with anger.

“No.” Arturo dismissed him and turned away.  “You will be in charge of this,” he said to Dominic.

“Sir?” Ottavio’s voice went up in scale and his face went furry with the effort to restrain his wolf.  His clenched fists turned into paws.

“This is a situation that calls for diplomacy,” Arturo said curtly. “You tend to kill first and ask questions afterwards.” 

Poor, simple Carlo sounded confused.  “But Ott, how else would we do it? Ouch,” he added, as his brother punched him in the head. Then he let out a giggle. “That tickled.”