by Calin, Ana
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in
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including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage
and retrieval system, without permission in writing
from the author except in the case of brief quotations
embodied in reviews.
Publisher’s Note:
This is a work of fiction,
the work of the author’s imagination.
Any resemblance to real persons or events is
coincidental.
Copyright July 2019 – Ana Calin
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
CHAPTER I
CHAPTER II
CHAPTER III
CHAPTER III
CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER V
CHAPTER VI
CHAPTER I
Janine
I’VE SEEN THE HUGE beast Conan Wolf around Darkwood Falls quite a few times since the werewolves settled in, but I only saw him up close earlier today. He pulled up in the driveway of my hotel deep in the woods, stepped out of his SUV, came to my office and stated that, starting today, he would be my bodyguard.
“The serpent shifters are out to impregnate the Fated Females of Darkwood Falls,” he said in a deep gritty voice. “We sealed the town, but you live outside its borders, and you travel a lot. You either give that up and move back into town, or you’ll have me around at all times. Just so that we’re understood, I will install cameras in all your private chambers, including your bathroom, because serpents can infiltrate through pipes and holes. You’ll have no privacy at all. So what will it be?”
I squared my shoulders, mustering all of my businesswoman confidence.
“I won’t be able to run a chain of hotels and keep an active public image by sealing myself off from the world.”
“Then I’ll settle in,” he decreed. “I’ll take a room next to yours.”
He turned around and stalked off, without asking my opinion, hell, without even asking whether a room next to mine was even available or not. He ignored the elevators where a group of guests waited, and started up the stairs, a backpack worthy of a professional assassin slung over one shoulder. Everybody stared, staff and guests, but they all kept clear of him.
And who could blame them? Conan Wolf is an enormous beast with muscles bulging through the sleeves of his black V-neck, the cleft between his pectorals so starkly defined he seems made of boulders. A scar cuts through his eyebrow and runs down to his hard mouth, and it wouldn’t surprise me if he could splinter rocks with his jaw. My bff Arianna saw him shift once, and she said he turns into a huge brown wolf with eyes like fire. She saw him break through the outer brick wall of her bedroom, and now that I’ve seen him up close, I wonder how come her house is still standing.
I spent all day thinking about how Conan Wolf is similar to and yet different from his brothers. While his looks are just as striking, it’s his size and the brutality of his face that strike instead of his beauty. Actually, I didn’t dare look him in the face long enough to know whether he’s as handsome as his brothers or not. I’m looking for an online profile of him as we speak, wanting to see more of his face and analyze it, but he knocks on my door again—I know it’s him by the power of his knuckles.
I desperately click the x in the tab. Too late, Conan Wolf is still in italics and bold in the search bar when he enters. Luckily he can only see the metallic grey back of my computer from where he stands, and I manage to click it away before he strides to my desk.
I swallow hard as I stare at him. The man is so big he seems to fill the room. He holds out what looks like a fancy letter, some kind of invitation like the one I got a few years ago, inviting me to give a TEDx talk.
“You opened it.” I can’t keep the edge from my voice as I take the envelope from his hand. “Bodyguard or not, you don’t get to open my mail or go through my—”
“Get used to it, Miss Kovesi,” he cuts me off. “I will be violating your privacy on a regular basis in order to protect you. And your personal mail is the first thing I’ll check daily.”
Oh, God, there it is—the electrifying sensation up my back. It turns me on, when men become domineering, and coming from this wild specimen, I cream instantly. I cross my legs under the desk and squirm against my own thighs, my eyes cast down on the open envelope to avoid Conan seeing the blush on my face. I open the invitation, my eyes widening as I read the lines carved into the classy cardstock paper.
“Lord Lorenzo Piovra,” Conan begins explaining as I read the Lord’s words, “is one of the most powerful alphas in Europe. He runs the werewolf pack in Venice, and his tentacles spread out to the whole of Italy—the center of werewolf power in Europe. Actually, Piovra isn’t his real name, it’s a name that developed over the centuries. It means octopus, and it describes what that pack truly is. An octopus that is quickly grabbing the whole of Europe in its tentacles.”
“Why does he want to see me of all people?” I lower the invitation.
Conan’s reddish eyes narrow like a cunning beast’s. Fuck, it makes me even hornier. “I don’t know yet, but I will find out. One thing is clear, though—if Lorenzo Piovra wants to meet you, it’s because you’re special.”
“What, me, special?” I squeak, then I clear my throat and resume my businesswoman attitude. “All of Darkwood Falls is special.”
“Damn serpents,” Conan grunts under his breath, his eyes flashing blood red in the evening light as he re-reads Lord Piovra’s invitation. “They made too much noise, and now the entire Hidden World found out about Darkwood Falls. This place was supposed to remain secret, safe, a haven.”
“The Hidden World?”
“The supernatural world,” he explains. “Now the more werewolf packs find out about this town, the more they’ll want to take it over.”
“But that means more help against the serpents.”
“Yes, but it also means more power-mongering alphas fighting over control.”
I narrow my eyes. “When your brother Nero came to this town as interim mayor, he said he wasn’t interested in controlling the town, but in protecting it.”
“I admit I think differently.” Conan squares his shoulders, looking even bigger. “Nero is our alpha, and a very capable one, but there are things he doesn’t understand or refuses to accept. He’s a strategist, a superbrain, I’m a soldier. I’ve seen enough to know that powerful beasts always huger for more power, and they’ll stop at nothing to get it. Nero likes to see the good in all werewolves, and he sometimes underestimates our beastly drives. He thinks all werewolves are as well developed spiritually as him, but that’s simply not the case.”
He looks out the window, as if assessing a distant danger. “And now that of all the alphas Lorenzo Piovra has found out about Darkwood Falls, things are going to get especially ugly. This town holds a much desired resource in the werewolf world—Fated Females. There’s a shortage all over the globe, so Piovra must have already decided he’ll take over.”
I get up from my chair, heading over to Conan. I place one foot in front of the other carefully, imagining myself prancing on a catwalk. Damn, I don’t think I ever wanted to impress a man more in my life than I want to impress Conan Wolf now. The closer I come to him, the harder my heart beats. I lean with my shoulder against the window on the side opposite to him.
“Would the lives of the town’s people be any worse under Lorenzo Piovra than under Nero? Why should we care who gets to control the town if the werewolves will protect us a
nyway?” I won’t get into a feminist rage about women being seen as commodities, not right now.
Conan looks into my face. The evening light falls on those hard fighter features, and stirs me in my core. I shift my weight from one foot to the other and cross my arms, hoping to hide the way he makes me feel. I take the chance to explore his face, which is indeed as handsome as his brothers’, but more brutish. He may not be every girl’s dream husband, but I’m sure he’s every girl’s secret wet dream.
“Not all werewolf alphas are like Nero, Miss Kovesi. Kind and human-loving, I mean. They would protect the Fated Females, yes, and maybe all of the town’s people in the hope that they’ll produce more of those females, but it would be a regime of terror.”
I motion with my chin to Lorenzo’s invitation between his hands.
“Okay, so Lorenzo Piovra found out about Darkwood Falls and Fated Females. Why do you suppose he wrote to me of all people? I don’t even know for sure I’m a Fated Female.”
“Like I said, I don’t know for sure. All I have right now is theories. But it could be because of your position in Darkwood Falls.”
“My position?” I snort. “Don’t be fooled by my successful business. I’m not an aristocrat, like Arianna and Princess. My family worked their way to power and money, and I built this chain of hotels using loans from my family like I would have used the loans of a bank. Business runs in my blood, some even joke that’s because I’m ten percent Jewish, but I’m no aristocrat. I’m not even a decision maker in this town, none of my family are members of the Council, so what could someone like Lorenzo Piovra have to gain from me?”
Conan folds his big arms across his chest. The man is a freaking colossus, making me feel like an anorexic little fairy compared to him.
“We need to find out in what way you’re special. Maybe if you take more time and think about it you’ll find a lead. You’ve already proven your detective skills.”
I lift an eyebrow. “Good to see you value other qualities in a woman, other than her being a Fated Female.”
“I wasn’t talking about how I or any members of my pack view you. But how other werewolves will, especially ones as greedy for power as Lorenzo Piovra.”
I stare at this big beast, thinking. “Maybe we should get Nero here.”
Conan
“IT COULD BE MANY THINGS,” Nero says, pacing Janine’s office. The blonde businesswoman with the shiny bob is sitting at her desk, watching him, circling her stilettoed foot in the air. Her cobalt blue irises ooze so much intelligence that I can’t look away.
“Maybe he wants to know more about Janine’s mystery solving talents, those are something special,” Nero argues.
But I’m not longer listening, not actively anyways. I’m looking at Janine, trying to understand what it is that I’m sensing about her.
If I were a normal man, a human, the first thing I’d notice would be her powerful-woman kind of attractiveness. I wonder if she even knows how sexy she is. I think not. She dresses much too somber for that. I mean look at her now in the cream two-piece suit with the pencil skirt, her shiny blonde bob and the perfectly arched eyebrows she dyed from blonde to chocolate. She has a delicate heart-shaped face, but cobalt blue eyes that demand respect, and rather thin lips—not the kind of woman you imagine lustfully sucking you off. My cock twitches, and I shake the thought away.
I’m sure Janine Kovesi scares men, especially because she’s so interesting. No doubt she has many admirers from afar who prefer to jerk off thinking about her than actually making a move on her. But there’s more about this woman than her powerful kind of attractiveness. Something I sniffed when I assessed her body chemistry, something that told me she was special. Maybe she has a hidden superpower that she doesn’t know about.
“Well, there’s only one way to find out why Lorenzo Piovra invited me to Venice,” Janine says when Nero is done talking, standing up from her desk. “Asking him personally. I’m accepting his invitation.”
“No way,” I react. “It could be a trap. And more than just dangerous for you, Miss Kovesi, it could be deadly.”
Janine’s eyes shoot to me. Clearly, the woman isn’t used to restrictions, and that makes my cock twitch again. I can barely keep from grabbing it to tame myself.
“Mr. Wolf,” she stresses. “The first thing you told me when you walked into my office earlier today was that I would be able to keep travelling if I accepted you as my bodyguard. So come along as my protector, it’s that simple.”
“No, it’s not,” Nero counters. “Conan is the most experienced fighter of our pack, but he can’t take the entire Piovra pack down by himself if things get nasty.”
“Why would things get nasty?” Princess, Nero’s soon-to-be wife, says. By the ravished way they both look it’s clear my message got to them just when they were getting it on, so they came together. “The Piovras wouldn’t want to start a war with the Wolf pack, would they? Because that’s what would happen if they attacked you, Conan.”
“A reason to start a war might be exactly what they’re after,” Nero says with narrow eyes as he ponders. “And what better way than to make us attack first.”
“But if I refuse the invitation, they could use that as a reason as well,” Janine puts in, and she’s right. “Maybe I’m not special at all, maybe they just chose me randomly, knowing you wouldn’t expose any human from Darkwood Falls to danger, especially not a Fated Female, if I am one.”
“Still, it wouldn’t be reason enough,” Nero argues, but I’ve made my decision.
“I’ll go with you, Miss Kovesi. So debate closed.”
“What the hell, Conan?” Nero reacts, ready to decree against my decision, but luckily that’s not how it works between us.
“If the Piovras are looking for trouble with us, they’re going to find it one way or the other,” I remind Nero. “I’ll do my best to avoid conflict while I’m there and, if they cross the line, I’ll sneak Miss Kovesi and myself out, and ignore my impulses to break their bones.” Then I will keep her hidden somewhere else instead of bringing her back to Darkwood Falls, but I don’t need to speak that out loud. Nero understands without words.
“Besides,” I continue, “This might be the only way for us to find out in what way Miss Kovesi is special.” Because she is, and you sniffed it out just like I did, but I don’t tell Nero that out loud either.
“There’s one other question that won’t let me be,” Janine says, eyes like slits as she sifts through her thoughts. “Why did I get this letter on the very day that Conan Wolf becomes my bodyguard?”
Nero’s face tenses as he thinks. Normally he has at least a theory or two in place in a matter of minutes, but this puzzles him thoroughly.
“Quite a few mysteries,” Princess whispers.
“And I have a hunch there is only one answer to them all,” Janine puts in. “Mr. Wolf.” She points her chin at me, so we all know which one of us she means. “Have you ever met this Lorenzo before face to face? Do you have old grudges?”
“Why do you ask?” Princess wants to know. Janine’s eyes narrow on me, intelligence shining out of them.
“The inflections in his voice when he talked about it. I know a grudge when I hear one.”
Memories crawl up from the back of my mind, and the anger along with them. “As a matter of fact, we do.”
Janine
CONAN WOLF ISN’T A man of many words. He offers information as sparsely as a grumpy army general. But at least he gave us the short version of his and Lorenzo’s history, and I’m still hanging out here with an open mouth thinking about it.
Conan Wolf and Lorenzo Piovra fought side by side in a serpent ambush that the Brigade of the Wolves—something like a defense department of the Hidden World—organized in the Alps two centuries ago. They managed to infiltrate The Reaper’s very lair and, while the great Reaper escaped, they found his secret weapon hidden in the cave he’d left in haste, under what was left of an altar of the Serpent God.
; It was a weapon that could “only be earned or given,” that’s how Conan put it. Conan and Lorenzo ended up fighting each other over it, and Conan won, thus ‘earning’ the weapon, but Lorenzo never came to terms with that. Over the past two centuries, Lorenzo kept trying to challenge Conan, picking fights so that he could reclaim the weapon. But neither of them ever told anyone what exactly that infamous weapon was. Conan never even told his brothers, who always understood, because that is the level of depth, wisdom and understanding in their family.
It’s late at night now, and I’m still turning the story around in my head. Princess stayed with me, while Nero and Conan went to prepare a strategy with their brothers at Drago’s house. They left a whole squad of werewolves undercover to protect the hotel, which makes me feel like a little princess in an ivory tower. Can’t say I mind, but—
“They should have taken us along,” I tell Princess as I stare out the window. “I proved a good asset to them in matters of research and strategy last time, didn’t I?”
“Yes, love, but the five brothers have been a compact cell for many centuries. They’re used to discussing matters amongst themselves at first and, while Nero and Drago would take their bonded mates with them everywhere, the other three haven’t imprinted yet, and they’re different that way.”
I wish I could bring a counter-argument, but I know she’s right.
“I hope he comes back soon,” I say, staring out into the night. “Conan, I mean. The werewolves hide well, but still. I don’t want them around the hotel too much, the guests might notice something is wrong.”
“The guests have always known something isn’t quite right about Darkwood Falls, Janine, it’s what draws them here,” Princess says close behind me. “I think it’s what really brings the tourists to this town. I mean, the landscape with the mountains, woods and falls are as if taken from a fairy tale, but then again, there are other places like this in the States, especially in North Carolina. People come here for the sense of mystery, of timelessness, of....”