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Janine
I can’t say I’m surprised when Cinzia knocks on my door.
“I’ve been expecting you.” I’ve just emerged out of a hot bath, and steam floats into the room from behind me. I’m towel-drying my hair as I invite her to move away from the door and come closer.
“I, I wanted to apologize.” She wrings her hands in front of her lap.
“For what?” I throw the towel on the bed, and strip off the bathrobe in front of her, reaching for the satin nightgown. “Betraying both Conan and me, or for wanting to watch me being humiliated in front of multiple men.”
“I—”
“You know what?” I turn around, sliding the nightgown over my head. I let her have a good view of my naked body as I do it, the body that Conan loves. “I can’t understand how come you’re still alive. Conan killed Lorenzo without even blinking, and yet he let you live.”
“I’m a woman, that’s my only advantage,” she says. “That’s why he didn’t kill me.”
“Well, I don’t share his sensitivity to women. I could still have your head.”
“You have every reason to hate me, Queen of the Werewolves, and I understand that you do.”
“Queen of the... Never mind.” I walk to the table on the balcony—we’re at Lorenzo’s palazzo, now that his werewolves are basically my subjects—and pour myself some tea. The breeze is pleasant, the cozily lit gondolas and the lovers’ bridge make for an exquisite atmosphere, but I can’t enjoy them as I normally would. I still have to recover from the shock.
“But please understand,” Cinzia says, following me to the balcony, “Lorenzo Piovra didn’t leave me a choice.”
“I’m sorry, but I don’t buy that.” I lean against the wrought iron banister with a cup of tea in my hand. “You told Conan something completely different. That you did it out of spite, for revenge because he preferred me to you.”
“But Lorenzo had also discovered the establishment. He would have killed me and all of my Witch Eyed Sisters if I didn’t help him. Now circumstances have changed, and if you choose to kill me, that’s fine. But please spare the rest of the Order.”
“You surely understand that I can never trust the Witch Eyed Sisters again.”
She doesn’t reply, just keeps her head down. I narrow my eyes, trying to read her motives.
“You and your sisters, you don’t really know loyalty, do you? You’re just going along with the most powerful.”
“With all due respect, the most powerful could easily destroy us. What would you have had the Order do when Lorenzo came? What do you think would have happened if we refused to help?”
She has a point, I must admit. I stand here regarding her, trying to put myself in her shoes. The only man who ever showed her some measure of respect was Conan—or so I gathered from what I’ve been told. She knew this man could never love her, but she thought she could love enough for both of them. When he imprinted on me, even though he’d always professed he’d never imprint on anyone, she felt betrayed. Then Lorenzo came and put her and her Order sisters under pressure. Maybe this really wasn’t entirely about personal vendetta or hatred.
“Cinzia, I didn’t mean to fall in love with Conan, and I never expected he’d fall for me either. I’m sure that, had you been a Fated Female, he would have fallen for you instead of me. I really wish that you get the love that you desire as much as you desired Conan.”
“Actually,” she whispers as if she barely has the guts to admit it, “I don’t think I’m made for being with just one man.”
“Oh...” I use the new abilities that came with Conan’s gift in order to read into her chemistry. I stumble upon something, something that I can respect on a deep level.
“How many men took you back in the dungeons?”
Her cheeks are bright like dark peaches.
“How many?” I encourage her when she hesitates.
“Four, my queen.”
“You seemed to enjoy it—otherwise, believe me, I would have done something about it.”
“I did enjoy it more than I expected.” Her whole face goes an even deeper shade of red. Just like I sensed in her chemistry—this woman isn’t simply a hooker. She is a free spirit, and she can love multiple men at the same time.
“Would you like to see them again? Maybe a harem becomes you.”
“How do you mean that?” Her eyes snap up at me, full of surprise.
“I mean...” I look out at the canal, not sure how to go about this. “Would you like to, like, get to know them better?”
“I’m not sure. I don’t think they have a very good opinion about me.”
“Why do you think that?”
She snorts. “Are you kidding? I’m a hooker by profession, and I did it with the four of them at the same time.”
“When we returned to the palazzo, I noticed four men very close to you. It seemed to me they were protecting you.”
She looks at me full of surprise.
“If those were the men who took you,” I continue, “I think they feel very differently about you than you might expect. I think a bond was formed there.”
She raises her eyebrows. “If it did, then it’s a very strange bond.”
“I will arrange for you to meet again.”
“Oh, God.” She shakes her head and smiles awkwardly. “I can’t imagine looking into their faces. The things they must think of me...”
“I told you, I saw them around you. They all stared at you in a particular way.”
“What way?”
“The way infatuated boys stare at the most popular girl in school.”
“Yes, but unlike the popular girl, I’m not someone you can take out to family dinners and introduce to your friends. All their friends here know who I am, and what I do for a living.”
“Used to. What you used to do for a living, because you won’t be doing it from now on.”
“Excuse me?”
I smile. “I want you in my service. You’ll be my own personal witch.”
“Actually, I don’t see how—”
“Think about it.” I pour her some tea and hand her the cup. “Now that the Wolves and the Piovras have united, we stand a good chance to defeat the serpents. Sadly, The Reaper’s weapon that both Conan and I now wield doesn’t help us in this war, because it’s only designed for us to annihilate each other. But you are a witch. I saw you erase a man’s memory and put him to sleep only with only words, and covering Conan and my scent with a perfume you designed. Cinzia, to be honest, I think your talents are too valuable for you to waste away in a brothel.”
“Wow.” She stares at me, leaning on the wrought iron banister across from me on the little balcony. “I think that’s the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me.”
“And you’ll hear much more if you accept. I’d like to have you close, which means I’d like you to come along to Darkwood Falls.”
“And leave Venice?”
“Only if you want you. I’d never dream of making you. You can work from here if you want, but I just think it would be better if we were close.”
She inspects me like I’ve just stepped out of an alien ship. “Conan was right to fall in love with you. You are queen material.”
I smile. “Thank you.”
“It makes me hate myself more for what happened in the dungeon. Even though, if I may confess something—it was a strange experience. It’s like it went straight into my blood and changed me.”
“I can smell that change in your body chemistry, Cinzia. That’s why I made you this offer.”
“An offer I wish you’d discussed with me first,” Conan’s deep voice fills the air. He leans with his back against the frame of the balcony door, which must be why I didn’t hear him, and why his huge figure didn’t block out the light, but I wonder how come I didn’t hear him.
Cinzia gasps and bends her head as if she’s seen the king.
“Leave us,” Conan commands. “We’ll talk about this in the morning, all of us. Now the queen needs rest before she makes other hasty decisions.”
Cinzia leaves, while I stay behind on the balcony, pouring myself another cup of tea. Conan made her insecure about the position I offered, and I don’t like it. She’d gotten her hopes high, and I want them to stay that way.
“I don’t appreciate you intervening when I’m discussing things with people,” I say, trying to avoid his gaze. “Or when I promise them something.”
He changes the subject, his gaze burning the side of my face. “You’ve been avoiding me since the dungeon. Why?”
“You have to ask?” I place the cup of tea on the saucer and turn with my back to him, looking out at the lovers’ bridge. I grip the banister with both hands, trying to control my emotions before they spin out of control. “I watched you rip a werewolf’s head off, Conan. I can’t get that image out of my head, it’s what I see every time I look at you.”
“But you are my bonded mate. Sooner or later you will have to look at me again.” He steps onto the little balcony and traps me between his powerful arms that he places on the banister on each side of mine, his muscular chest touching my shoulder blades. I close my eyes tightly, struggling to ignore the butterflies it stirs in my stomach.
“Why offer Cinzia a place so close to us? She betrayed us once, and she almost admitted she might do it again.”
“You were listening?”
“I was in the room next to yours.”
“The possibility of her betraying us again is one of the reasons I want to have her close. There’s more, actually. I would have her reinstated as head of the Witch Eyed Sisters, and named High Priestess.”
Conan laughs, the sound of it deep and dark, his chest vibrating against my back. “High Priestess is a rather paradoxical title, wouldn’t you say, considering what she does—or used to do?”
“First of all, I don’t like your tone regarding the woman’s choices. Those are hers alone and don’t make her any less of a great woman. Cinzia is a strong lady who wields witching power, and I think we can use that to our advantage. Besides, I want her to lead the Order because that way they won’t make a move without us knowing. In Darkwood Falls she’ll lead the kind of life she secretly craves, and that will strengthen her loyalty to us.”
“Hmmm, I hear sass behind those words.” He pushes his body into mine, bending his knees enough for me to feel his rock-hard cock against my buttocks. I grip tighter to the banister, but manage to resist my arousal. His scent and the warmth of his body are enough to get me wet, and it drives me crazy because he’s irresistible.
“I think four of the Piovra werewolves are infatuated with her. If we take them along, she will be thoroughly entertained, and constantly satisfied. Still, I don’t appreciate eavesdropping either. If you wanted to take part in our conversation, you should have stepped in from the beginning.”
“I wasn’t interested in your conversation,” he says in my ear, his lips brushing my earlobe. “Actually, I wasn’t even actively listening. I was too busy doing something else.”
“Namely what?”
“Imagining what it would feel like to make you mine on this little romantic balcony overlooking Venice.” He grinds himself slowly against my buttocks as he talks, his voice a deep drawl.
I can’t fight this, I’m helpless against his touch. I push myself against his rock hard dick, letting it rub between my buttocks though the satin. My eyes roll back as I take in the sensation.
I don’t know at what point he freed his erection, but when I feel him naked and hot through the satin, my heart jumps—he’s really going to fuck me, right here, on this balcony.
His rough warrior hand grazes its way up my leg, and sinks in my panties. We both hiss as he pushes two fingers between my soaked folds, sliding through my cream over my clit, while he lifts my gown off my butt with the other hand.
“Conan, people are watching,” I manage hoarsely, looking at the couples on the lovers’ bridge.
“Seems it’s become a motif in our love story,” he says in my ear, sliding his cock from behind through my cream, then guiding it between my buttocks. “And to be honest, I find it to my liking.”
I release an, “Ah,” full of delight, even though I’ve never done this before.
“Soon,” he says, his voice gruff with anticipation, “I will do you on that bridge, and I won’t care how many people stroll on it and stare.”
“Can’t they punish us by law for having sex in public?”
“Only if they catch us.”
He pushes the large head of his cock into my hole, and I wince. “You’re big, Conan.” But that’s all the protest I manage. We are bonded mates now, I love him to the point of insanity, and I think he feels the same. That means that I want him in all ways and at all times, even if it’s anal sex, and the first time I ever try it.
“I’ll be gentle,” he whispers. He’s already panting, his muscles tight with restrained desire, but he keeps making me wet with his hand inside my pussy, and dipping his cock in my cream to make it more comfortable between my buttocks.
Soon he’s sliding easily inside my ass, while his fingers pump my pussy. I white-knuckle the banister, my breasts swaying until they emerge from the satin. Soon, people are taking snapshots of a couple fucking like horny beasts on a Venetian balcony. A woman in what looks like a satin toga that doesn’t do anything to hide her swaying breasts, being fucked in the ass by a muscular beast, while he’s also pumping her pussy with his hand. She’s got a foot up on a wrought iron chair to enable easier access for him.
I’m not surprised to find those pictures on the internet the next day, nor bothered—Conan has kept a grip on my jaw and my head tilted backwards, to him, so that no one could take a picture of my face, while also hiding his in my hair. By the time we land on obscure porn sites we’re already on a plane over the ocean, heading back to Darkwood Falls. And looking forward to watching the videos.
***
Conan
NERO PULLS ME IN A bear hug while the others slap my back.
“So good to have you home, Big Brozzer,” Achilles says with his rowdy grin. Right next to the boys, Arianna and Princess are opening their arms to receive Janine.
“Who would have thought a little over a year ago,” Nero says as he invites me inside Princess’s huge manor, their home since they came together. “That three women from Darkwood Falls who grew up as sisters would marry three werewolf brothers.”
“You asked her, right?” Achilles chimes in. “To marry you?”
“Yes, of course I have.” On a balcony in Venice, right after we put on a porn show for the tourists, but I keep that part to myself.
“Maybe we can have a double wedding,” Nero says. “I’m sure Princess wouldn’t mind.”
“Plus that it would really fit,” Drago puts in. “Nero the Alpha marrying his secretary, double wedding alongside Janine Queen of the Werewolves, marrying her bodyguard.”
All laugh, but when we reach the cozy sitting room full of old books, secret doors behind wooden bookcases, and good old scotch, Hercules makes his entrance hungry for answers.
“Queen of the Werewolves,” he says, dropping his tattooed bulk that’s even larger than mine into the nearest armchair. “Doesn’t that basically mean that she can wipe out all of us? She can suck the power out of werewolves, am I right?”
“Nothing to be afraid of, Hercules,” I explain. “She can drain any werewolf that’s not of the Wolf pack—because she’s mated to one of us. But there’s more—she can also make werewolves.”
“I was a bit taken aback when I first heard that,” Nero says. “And a bit frustrated. I wished I would have thought of investigating the girls’ one night stands after we became protectors of Darkwood Falls.”
“Don’t sweat it, Nero,” I appease him. “You have to be a deranged bastard like Lorenzo to think of stuff like that.”
Nero smiles. “You’re changed, brother.”
I smile back. “I’m in love.”
“But one thing I don’t understand,” Hercules insists, breaking the special moment of honesty in which I declared my love for our Queen. “If you transferred your power to Janine, and she’s now Queen of the Werewolves, then why weren’t you King of the Werewolves when you wielded it?”
“It’s the special superpower that she had even before all of this happened,” Nero explains in my place.
“She could practically make werewolves by—” I bite my lip because I really hate saying this, which I can tell two of my brothers can understand. “Exchanging body fluids with them. Can I have a drink, Nero?”
“Sure.” He hurries over to make me one, because he knows what it’s like to think about your bonded mate doing it with other men. The rage and hurt that shoots through me, I could demolish the whole house.
“That means that she can now unmake wolves, wielding The Reaper’s weapon,” I explain after I down my drink. “And easily, because her chemistry transformed the gift when I transferred it over.”
“And that’s not even the most interesting part,” Nero tells our brothers as he takes a seat on the couch. “But the fact that Conan still retains his power. He can drain werewolves of their strength.”
“Smart of you, Big Brozzer.” Achilles slaps my back. “To give over your power to your bonded mate. You basically shared it instead of giving it over completely.”
“It wasn’t my intention. I would have given Janine everything—my power, my life, my soul.”
“I’ll be honest.” Achilles relaxes back in his chair, resting an ankle on his knee. He’s an audacious young fuck. “I wouldn’t want to be in any of your guys’ place. Falling in love like that, to the point of losing your minds.”
“It’s what I used to think,” I admit. “But it’s the most delicious thing that’s ever happened to me.”
“Yes, what can I say, but that I wish you a happy eternity of bondage,” Achilles mocks, running a hand though his long wild hair. “But on the other hand I have to say, I really like the woman. I feel a special bond with her, like with a blood sister.”
“That’s because I became a shape shifter,” Janine says as she walks into the room. “Sorry for crashing your boy talk, but dinner is ready, and Princess’s mom organized it herself, which means she doesn’t tolerate delays.”
Nero jumps off of his chair. “What, Princess’s mother is here?”
“You’ve never met her?” Janine inquires as she takes her rightful place on my lap.
“No, actually, just her dad, who still spends all his time in his chambers, in the dark. I would have taken Princess away to avoid the situation, but she insisted that we stayed and watched over him.”
“I think that’s why her mom came back today—the way I know Melanthe, she wanted to bring the family together, and force her husband to accept you.”
“He doesn’t really have a choice,” Nero blocks.
“Melanthe,” Achilles says. “An interesting name. Almost as eccentric as Princess.”
“And a twice as eccentric woman,” Janine assures him. “She locked herself in her room after she arrived, surely because she wants to make a grand entrance this evening. Let us head to the dining room already. The girls are already there.”
Nero and Drago lead the way, eager to be close to their mates again. I hang behind, hand in hand with my Janine.
Princess’s mother takes her sweet time, being late to her own party like the diva we all expect her to be, so Janine and I tell the story of what happened in detail without waiting for her, leaving only the graphic description of our love-making out.
“You killed Lorenzo Piovra and gained control over his entire pack,” Achilles sums it up appreciatively. “But the Piovra pack are like a nuke. You need someone you can trust on site, make sure they don’t do anything stupid.”
“I left my best man there,” I tell him, “But he expects backup in a couple of days.”
“I’ll see to it,” Nero says.
A scream tears through the room like the chill of a ghost. We all throw back our chairs and run up the main stairs, following the echo of the scream. Nero tears down the door to Charles Skye’s dark chamber, searching for the scene using his werewolf vision. Janine gasps by my side, because she can see it as well with her new senses. But Princess and Arianna can’t.
So Princess hits the lights, inhales sharply, and sways on her feet. Luckily Nero is right behind her when her eyes rolls back, and she loses consciousness, and falls limp into his arms.
Charles Skye sits in his wheelchair, his head tilted grotesquely back, his throat a gaping wound. I can understand it’s a shocking sight to both Princess and her mother, Melanthe—because I suppose that’s who the woman in the eccentric green dress is—but it’s what Janine does that shocks me.
She starts to breathe heavily. I put my hands around her to steady her, talking to her to calm her down, but her skin begins morphing into that of the Queen—the sleek, smooth leather-like skin, her fingernails transforming into black bone claws. In only a few moments the Queen springs out the open window, chasing something in the night.
I shift, my wolf shattering my skin and my clothes, rolling out of my human skin, and jumping after her. The entire pack follows, save for Nero.
When we return, half an hour later, we find Nero and the two women in the drawing room where my brothers and I talked earlier. Melanthe’s hands are full of blood, and she stares at them in shock. Her elegant face is blank, expressing nothing. It strikes me there isn’t much of Princess in her. I guess my brother’s mate took a lot from her father—her now dead father.
“Did you find him?” Princess cries with pain in her voice. Her face is hot, her eyes puffy, her red locks messy from all the times she’s pulled at them. Nero stands behind her, hands on her shoulders. If he weren’t here, exerting the power of his love on her, I’m sure she’d collapse and drown in her pain.
“We caught the trail of a wolf, but the scent mixed with that of a serpent,” I explain as Janine laces her fingers with mine. She’s retaken her human form easily, somewhere in the middle of the forest. “But I had to abandon the chase because of Janine. She shape-shifted automatically when she sensed the trail of the killer, but when she lost it she couldn’t keep her Queen form. I had to return and protect her.”
“I might have something,” Achilles’s voice reaches us from the front door, which he’s just thrown open. He comes into the room, still in the process of shifting back from a handsome white wolf into the athletic young man with long wild hair.
What he holds up raises more questions than it does answers. The killer could be anyone—or, better said, anything. A werewolf, a serpent, or a human. Only that the wound in the victim’s throat seems to have been produced by a wolf. It looked like someone bit his throat bones off.
Many had a reason to kill him. The serpents, because he’d betrayed them. In the end, he was the alpha’s father-in-law. An alpha he didn’t actually fully accept, so Nero could theoretically have had him killed as well, but all of us know he would have never done that to Princess. Or it could be the new wolves that we brought from Italy, Cinzia’s willing and happy servants.
“No,” Janine intervenes for the woman. “I’d put my hand in fire for her.”
“After everything she’s done to you, how can you trust her?” Princess protests, hungry for a suspect.
“After what happened in those dungeons a bond formed between us, a special one.” Janine says. “It’s hard to explain.”
“Am I missing something here? Why are we leaving out our main suspect?” Achilles intervenes, and we all follow his gaze to Melanthe. The woman is still staring at her hands, saying nothing. I doubt she’s even aware of us.
“We all waited for her to come down the entire evening, haven’t we? We were all downstairs dining when this happened—except for her.”
The eccentric woman doesn’t react. She keeps staring down.
“The main suspect indeed,” Janine whispers, intelligent eyes fixed on Melanthe. “It was so obviously her, that it can’t be true. If you ask me, only one thing is obvious—whoever did it, they wanted it to look like it was Melanthe.” She looks up at me. “I think I have an idea how to solve this mystery, but we can’t do it without this woman, and we need someone to monitor her at all times.”
“Are you saying she needs a bodyguard?”
“Yes, but not quite the kind of bodyguard you were for me. It must be a secret bodyguard. A ghost, a shadow.” She looks at the mentally absent woman. “Not even she needs to know about him. Whoever is trying to set her up is gonna try again when they see it didn’t work the first time, and when they do, we have to be prepared.”
“I like that idea,” Princess says. She looks around. “Any volunteers?”
THE END
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