by Calin, Ana
“The transformation wasn’t complete,” Lorenzo fills the silence that has fallen over the salon. Janine is staring with an open mouth at the picture. “Actually, doctors didn’t see much behind this except the change in the DNA that must conduce to slight modification of physiognomy, without causing any damage to his biochemistry or his organs, but we are werewolves.” I can feel his piercing blue gaze denting my forehead. “We recognize the process behind this picture—this man’s body is trying to shapeshift, but the DNA modification wasn’t complete. My theory is that he would have shifted completely if he had more nights with you, Janine.”
“I’ll be damned,” she breathes.
Silence fills the salon again, except for the slight shift of fabric when the men move.
Lorenzo laughs. “You should see your face, Conan. You look like a train has just run you over.”
“I guess you can say that,” I grunt, looking at Janine. “How many were there? How many men did you sleep with?”
Her cobalt blue eyes flash indignantly to mine, as if she can’t believe the audacity of my tone. “That’s none of your business.”
“It turns out you’re a Fated Female with a dangerous superpower, Janine. You can turn normal men into werewolves. I’ve been alive for five centuries and I’ve never seen anything like this. You’re a weapon, and I need to know how many people this weapon has been used on.”
“I, I...”
I arch an eyebrow, the scarred one. “What, you don’t remember?”
“Hey, don’t be a dick,” she protests.
“Then don’s act like wh—” Janine slaps me.
I’m still trying to understand what just happened when she squares her shoulders, seeming to darken the room. My jaw slackens. I’ve never seen a woman ooze so much inner strength, especially one as thin and delicate as Janine.
“Listen to me, both of you, because I’m only gonna say this once. I don’t owe any of you anything, not even explanations. I’ve had responsibility weighing on my shoulders since I was a girl, responsibility so heavy I often feared I’d crash, and there was never a man around for me to lean on.” She stares straight into my eyes, the hard cobalt in her irises nailing me to my seat. “You, Conan, weren’t there when I almost lost everything. You weren’t there to lend me a hand or a shoulder when my parents passed, both of them only months apart. When the business they left behind almost went bankrupt, and I desperately searched for a way to salvage what was left of their legacy. You weren’t there as I worked myself to exhaustion to numb the loneliness.” She points with her finger from me to Lorenzo. “Neither of you was there. I owe either of you nothing. You don’t get to demand answers from me, not in that tone, and sure as hell not with that contemptuous entitlement in your voice.”
She pushes back her chair, both Lorenzo and I staring up at her. She looks down at us like a crushing queen, and we can both feel the weight of her personality. I have to grab my cock under the table, make sure it doesn’t grow to full length, straining against my fly.
“I’ll retire to my chamber now, I need to rest and process all this. I’ll think of a way to help these men, because they’re living through pain and anguish because of me. But I don’t have to help you.” She juts her chin out at Lorenzo. “You, Lord Piovra, you know what? I don’t have to help you defeat The Reaper. If anything, I owe my help to the Wolf pack, because they battled Darkwood Falls from the serpents’ claws.” She glances at me, sharply as a queen. “But that doesn’t give you the right to demand answers of me like that, Mr. Wolf. I’m not your girlfriend, your property, or your employee. Mind your tone when you address me again, and when you do, you better start with an apology.”
She turns on her heel and leaves the salon, both Lorenzo and I staring after her like puppies.
“Wow,” Lorenzo says when she’s out of hearing range. “Hot temper.”
“Classy temper.”
“Well put. She didn’t go all bitchy or hysterical even though you almost called her a whore.” He grins, and I could fucking slit his throat. “Tell me the truth, Conan, were you jealous? Is that why you talked to her like that?”
I glare at him, both of us locked in a stare-down that expresses all of our bloodlust. “I hope you don’t have in mind what I think you do, Lorenzo. Because I’ll have your head, then stick it up on a spear right in front of your palazzo.”
“A delicious prospect, fighting you again. We’ll come to that in due time, but I wouldn’t want to spoil it for any of us by starting it too soon.”
I push my chair back and stalk down the hall to my chamber.
“Don’t leave the palazzo, Conan,” Lorenzo calls behind me. “You and Janine are my guests until further notice.”
He means prisoners. I defy him by not even looking back, and slamming the door shut behind me. I push the cameras in the bathroom to the side, and rip the mirror off the wall, climbing into the hole and down the piping to the canal under the palazzo. I’m down in the basement and then out into Venice in only a matter of minutes. I slide the hood over my head and slither through the night toward the Wolves’ old outpost.
But in a dark corner, under a red light, women with masks and naked breasts pushing out of old-fashioned corsets giggle and beckon clients over. I stop in place. What if?
CHAPTER IV
Janine
I’m staring out the window in tears when there’s a knock on the door.
“Lord Piovra asking permission to enter,” a man with a thick voice announces. I wipe the tears from my face, and gather the silk robe tighter around me. I’ll be damned if I let him see the slightest sign of weakness.
“Let him in.”
Lorenzo enters the room, his hands clasped together hidden inside the loose black sleeves of his robe, looking like a young priest with a pretty face and the deranged eyes of a serial killer. I lift my chin to show that I’m not scared of him, but I wonder why Conan doesn’t make his appearance. He promised he wouldn’t ever leave me alone with Lorenzo Piovra.
“I wanted to apologize, Janine,” he says. “It was tactless of me, going about things the way I did. I thought maybe you’d like something warm to drink, help you relax and maybe forgive and forget.” He makes room for a man to enter carrying in a tray with a vintage tea kettle and two cups on saucers.
“I’ll have some tea with you, if you don’t mind my company.” He smiles, trying to look friendly. “That way you’ll be sure I haven’t put anything in your drink. Conan surely taught you not to accept anything from me, at least not when he’s not there.”
I glance to the inside door separating my room from Conan’s.
“Wondering why he’s not here, I presume,” Lorenzo says as he heads to the balcony, where the man sets his tray on the small round table with the wrought iron chairs. “He managed to sneak out of the palazzo, surely to defy me. I reminded him that you were both my guests when he left the dining salon, so I guess he’s making a point.” He stands by the balcony table fixing me with a Machiavellian grin. “I guess he didn’t foresee that I’d use the chance to speak to you alone, without him intruding all the time. Besides, there are things I think you should know about him. Please, take a seat.” He holds a chair for me, everything in his attitude showing I don’t have a choice.
With one glance behind me at his men that have flooded my chamber, I take the seat.
“These pretty little Venetian balconies make me think of Romeo and Juliet,” Lorenzo says as he pours tea in my cup before he pouring his. Even his voice has become a shade more cutting, hinting at an unstable personality. Makes me think this is a man given to bouts of rage that he glosses over like a psycho. “Have you ever been in love, Janine? Really now, between you and me. Was there ever someone you particularly liked?”
“Years ago, in college. But then...”
“Yes?”
I might as well tell him. “Then I grew up, Lorenzo. I realized that falling in love went hand in hand with low self-esteem. If I fall in love with someone it
means that person has traits that I admire, and I feel that I can make those traits mine if I merge with the person. An illusion, a mirage that disappears once you understand it.”
I sip. Lorenzo sits frozen with his own cup in his hand, lips slightly parted and eyebrows furrowed as if he’s pondering on what I just said.
“Huh,” he eventually says. “So you don’t believe in love.”
“I believe in love in its pure, godly form, if you will. In the love you can feel for any creature, the kind of love that doesn’t have to do with sex. To make it clearer, if the feeling is dependent on sexual closeness, then it’s one’s own complexes and bad self-image working. And hormones.”
“Aha. So then you’re not in love with Conan Wolf either?”
I burst into laughter, but only because he put his finger right on the wound. “Now why would you think that?”
He shrugs, sipping his tea, looking out at the canal as a gondola passes under the lovers’ bridge nearby. I would probably be completely taken with the atmosphere if I weren’t so tense about this discussion with this deranged-looking guy, feeling the glares of all his men.
“He’s a werewolf, our Conan,” he says. “A particularly sexy one, I must admit. Huge, dangerous, the bad-boy every woman would want to tame.”
“Women would want to tame him just to prove their own worth. Which is my point exactly.”
“So that’s why you’re so resilient to werewolf charm. Because you know the inner psychological workings of falling in love, and won’t fall prey to them?”
“I like to think so, yes.”
“That’s why I wasn’t successful in charming you, either—because, admittedly, I’ve tried.”
“I can’t say I haven’t noticed.”
Lorenzo laughs out loud, the people strolling on the bridge stopping short to place the sound.
“You’re a piece of work, Janine. I’ve never met a woman like you before.”
“You have centuries of life experience, and that is the best line you can come up with?”
He snaps at me over the table, making me flinch. Fuck, look at those eyes, his nose furrowing like that of an attacking dog. “You decided you were going to hate me since before you met me, didn’t you? And not because of the few books of psycho shit you read, but because Conan created a certain image of me.”
“I don’t hate you.” I clasp my hands on my lap under the table, my shoulders tense. “But I don’t trust you either. Please don’t take it personally. It’s not like I like or trust Conan, either. His brothers Nero and Drago, maybe, but not him.”
Lorenzo frowns, interested. I got him. “Why not Conan?”
“Nero and Drago are more, I don’t know, humane. Conan is a brute. His feelings are reduced to instinct. His sense of duty towards his family and his people is noble, and I can appreciate that about him, but that’s also instinctual.”
“So you think that, unlike his brothers, he’s more beast than man?”
“I don’t know if that’s the right way to put it. But he’s harder, much more difficult to move.”
“That’s because Conan has spent over half of his existence in wars, Janine. He’s a soldier, a killer. Drago was a gigolo and a cage fighter, Nero a strategist and a businessman, but Conan did the real dirty work. All his life he fought and killed, it’s all he’s ever known.”
“Wow. And I thought you hated his guts. If only he could hear you now, taking his side.”
“I hold no love for the man, I’ll tell you that, but I do respect him. Still, I think it’s a good idea for you to keep emotionally clear of him. It’s actually what I’ve been wanting to talk to you about.”
“Oh.”
“I’m sorry I exposed you like that in front of Conan, regarding the men in your life.”
I look down at my hands. I feel guilty for what happened to those men.
“Is there any way I can help them?”
“If there is, that isn’t the reason I invited you here.”
I snort. “Finally, you’re painfully honest.”
“And I’m only just starting.” He reaches over the small round table and grabs my arm. I glance from his grip to his face with an outraged look on mine, but it doesn’t impress him.
“Janine, Fated Females are special in themselves, but I believe you’re even more special than most because you have a superpower—You. Can. Make. Werewolves. I don’t know if you realize how huge that is.”
For a few moments I just stare at him, wrapping my mind around his point.
“If I had that effect on those men it was because I slept with them, Lorenzo. What are you saying, that you want me to sleep with more, make more of them?”
“I want you to sleep with more, and I want you to do it often, because apparently once isn’t enough to finalize the process.”
I jump up from the chair, grabbing its wrought iron back, ready to throw it at this monster. “You son of a bitch. You want to make a whore out of me?”
“Calm down, please, I haven’t told you everything yet.”
“What could you possibly still have to say?”
“Before we even think about making werewolves, I want to imprint on you, Janine.”
“What the fuck!” Blood burns my cheeks. “Really, how far can you go?”
“If I imprint on you,” he continues, “then all the werewolves that you make will be members of my pack, they would listen to my orders.”
“Because, as your mate, I would be under your command, right?”
“I suppose you can say that.”
“And you think you could share me like that? If what the Wolf brothers told me is true, imprinting on a woman means you fall madly in love with her. You can’t even think about another man merely looking at her naked, let alone touch her.”
“Yes, but this is the greater good that’s at stake. Taking down The Reaper, creating an army so great and so powerful that he won’t stand a chance against it.”
“Jesus, then how many men do you want me to sleep with?”
“As many as necessary.” The coldness in his eyes and in his voice is alarming, the man is deranged. Standing here on this little Venetian balcony, feeling those cold, madman’s eyes on me, my skin crawls. I realize the kind of danger I’m in, and how this man could destroy my body and my soul.
“Go to hell,” I throw in his face, and turn to the room, pushing his men aside. Surprisingly, they let me pass and stomp to my luggage that’s lying open by the wardrobe.
“What are you doing, Janine?” Lorenzo asks half amused as he steps inside after me, moving slowly as if he doesn’t have a care in the world. I fear he may have ways in place to keep me here against my will. Actually, what did I expect? Conan warned me, didn’t he?
“I’m getting Conan. We’re getting out of here.”
“I told you, Conan isn’t at the palazzo. He’s gone out.”
“He’ll find me, no matter where I am in Venice. He’ll catch my scent.”
“If you do that, you’d be placing yourself in the hands of a bigger monster than me.”
“Maybe. But he would never ask me to become his whore to pass around.”
“No, he would probably rip those men’s flesh off of their bones and eat it. And it wouldn’t even be the first time he’d be doing it.”
“What the hell do you mean?”
“You really don’t know much about him, do you? He hasn’t told you much about himself.”
“Just get to the point already.” I stand to face him, exasperated. The amusement in his face drives fear into my bones. This man can hurt me with information alone, he doesn’t even need to get physical. He’s diabolical.
“It’s true, what you sensed. Conan is more animalistic than his brothers, more beastly. And that’s because of all his war experience. He’s a werewolf, strong and resilient, but even werewolves can get PTSD, especially after witnessing so much pain and misery, after losing comrades in battle, seeing them split open right before their eyes and not be
ing able to do anything about it. Centuries ago, Conan was part of a particularly vicious war that led to famine. Stuck in the ruins of a prison town in the cold plains of Russia, Conan and a few others had to survive without food for weeks. In the end, they had no choice but to eat the dead bodies of their comrades, wolves and men. Can you imagine that, Janine? Can you imagine your protector, Conan Wolf, tearing the flesh of his comrades off of their bones with his fangs, a huge brown monster crouched over massacred bodies.”
“Stop.” I whip around, hiding my face, but Lorenzo continues to advance until I can feel his breath on the side of my face as he brushes my hair behind my ear.
“Do you think a man like that can still have feelings, Janine? To be honest, I don’t think there’s a human bone left inside him—well, metaphorically speaking.”
I remember the intimacy Conan and I shared a few nights ago.
“There was warmth in him,” I whisper. “It was there, radiating from his heart to mine, I felt it, even if only for a moment.”
“Ah, there it is,” Lorenzo whispers satisfied in my ear. “That thing you claimed didn’t exist, at least not for you—infatuation.”
“I’m not infatuated with him.”
“Then why do you insist on seeing the good in him? Why plead for the warmth in his heart?” He pauses, and I realize he must be putting two and two together. “I see. You desire him, and you like to believe he desires you back. Well, I’m sorry I have to disappoint you in this respect as well, Janine.”
His arms circle me from behind, bringing the tablet from before between us. My skin crawls at his touch, as I feel his body pressed against my back, but then something worse happens. He shows me a picture that wrenches my heart.
It’s Conan, I recognize him by his big muscular back, even though he’s wearing a hoodie. He has on the same dark jeans from earlier this evening, tight on his muscular thighs, and the same boots. He’s talking to a masked prostitute who’s exposing her tits to him under a red light. The next few pictures show frames of the same scene.
“This was taken less than an hour ago.”