The Lonely Wolf

by Monica La Porta

  “Why?” Raphael asked, grabbing his girlfriend’s hand tight. “What do you want with him?”

  Renegade kids tended to stick together, even when they weren’t renegades anymore.

  Ludwig had only a marginal role in saving those two teenagers from a terrible death, but he knew their story and how Raphael had risked his life to free Luisa from slavery and had the utmost respect for those young werewolves. Yet, he still needed to find Lupo to save Quintilius from the public bloodbath that would follow if the truth came out about his clan being involved in the vampire murders.

  “He’s involved in an attempted murder I witnessed, and he’s in a gang. We were wondering if you know him from the Reds.” Mirroring Quintilius’s pose, Ludwig folded his arms, then crossed his legs at the ankles.

  “Will he end up at Regina Coeli?” Raphael asked.

  “I hope it won’t come to that.” Ludwig had no intention to send a kid barely eighteen to the adult correctional facility. Time and again, he had formally complained about the inmates’ precarious conditions. The damp cells of the nunnery-turned-prison for the paranormals were dark, freezing cold in the winter, oppressively hot in the summer, and always filled with mildew. If Lupo was tried as an adult and sent to Regina Coeli, his life would be over.

  “Okay.” Raphael nodded at Ludwig, then addressed Ravenna, “Are you looking for him too?”

  “Yes, I was asked to help with the investigation. The sooner we find this kid, the better for him.”

  “And you promise you’ll help him, alpha?” Raphael asked, without lowering his chin but looking straight at Quintilius instead.

  Quintilius’s eyes lit with an amused light. “I’ll try my best to rehabilitate him if he shows sign he wants to leave the gang behind.”

  Ludwig was always surprised at how Quintilius let the teenager dance the fine line between disrespectful and cocky. “You should never try to tame an alpha when he’s so young. And he went through so much already, he deserves nurturing, not punishment,” Quintilius had said once when Ludwig asked him about his patience with Raphael. Answers like that were one of the main reasons he had fallen in love with his werewolf. After the madness of the first years of their tumultuous relationship had lessened, and he could see beyond the physical attraction, Ludwig had realized Quintilius was so much more than a handsome man.

  “I’ll give you my word I’ll do everything I can to steer Lupo toward the right path,” Peter said, speaking in his official role as the only Renegade Controller in Rome.

  Tilting his head to the side to move the long bangs away from his eyes, Raphael scooted to the edge of his seat. “There’s a Red member called Lupo, big guy around my age.” He exchanged a glance with Luisa, then added, “I think he’s good, but we barely exchanged words while I was there.”

  “And he was still a member when you left, correct?” Ravenna asked.

  “Yes, he was.” Raphael paused for a moment, then a grin appeared on his youthful face. “Actually, thanks to a screw-up of his I wasn’t caught when I freed Luisa from the Red compound.”

  “What do you mean?” Ludwig asked.

  “Lupo used to work security, down in the basement where the monitor room is. The night Luisa fled, Lupo arrived late to relieve Rock who covered for him, and saw me on the monitors. Fortunately for us, Rock didn’t warn Tancredi, and the rest is history, more or less.” Raphael wound his arm over Luisa’s shoulder. “Hope it helps.”

  “Immensely. We now know where he is. Let’s have refreshments, while we discuss the best course of action.” Ravenna grabbed a pair of silver tongs and picked up croissants she distributed around.

  Ludwig politely refused the pastry, all his attention focused on the werewolf who hadn’t stopped looking at him since they had sat. Already late for his next meeting, he should have left, but he couldn’t. If seeing Quintilius among other people was the only way to see him from now on, Ludwig wouldn’t waste a moment of it.

  ****

  A few days had passed since Lupo had seen the Purist girl, but he couldn’t stop thinking of her. He didn’t know what kind of sorcery she had cast on him, but there was no other logical explanation for his wolf’s restlessness and his heartache. Like any wolf, his appetites ran on the extreme side, especially when it came to sexual attraction. He had liked girls before, and when his wolf hormones kicked in he had chased anything with a skirt. A few times, he went after the wrong girl and he had to deal with angry brothers and displeased fiancés. Fun times.

  But this single-minded, fully-encompassing madness was new to him.

  “Earth to Lupo. Are you with us?” Rock rapped his knuckles on his desk.

  “What were you saying?” Lupo had entered his big brother’s office for his delivery schedule, but his mind had wandered toward the enigmatic girl with the mesmerizing eyes.

  “I said that you can actually relax today. Martino is feeling better and he’s up for a few runs.”

  Lupo glanced at the list Rock had given to him. “Good—” With increasing excitement, he noted that four out of the six locations on the paper were close to Trieste neighborhood, while the remaining two were around Vatican City. “Why don’t you send Martino to the Vatican, and you add to my docket two more drop-offs in Trieste? So, for once, I’ll get back in time for dinner. I hate to eat alone.”

  Rock shrugged. “Sure. I’ll call Martino.” He reached for Lupo’s list and after striking with his pen the two locations in the middle, he scribbled at the end two new addresses.

  “Thanks.” Lupo stood and exited the office, and only when in the hallway he studied his new delivery list. Disappointment hit him hard when he saw the girl’s address wasn’t in it.

  Even with the lighter schedule, the day proved to be a long one for Lupo. His mood darkened as the hours progressed and he skirted around the girl’s building several times. If he hadn’t known any better, he would have thought his big brother had done it on purpose. More than once, Rock had shown an uncanny ability to anticipate Lupo’s next move.

  By dinner time, Lupo was mad at the whole world and decided to eat in his room after all. Passing by the dining hall, he grabbed two plates of carbonara pasta, then ran upstairs to the dormitories before someone could stop him.

  That night, he barely slept. His thoughts entirely focused on those dark eyes he would have done anything to see again.

  The next day, he came up with a plan he immediately put in action. Instead of taking a lunch break as he usually did, he drove to the girl’s place and waited the whole hour on the opposite sidewalk.

  She had come out of it once, she would do it again.

  ****

  “The cargo has reached Civitavecchia,” Iris said from the door of Quintilius’s office.

  He looked up from the contract he had been studying for the last hour. “Thanks.”

  His secretary lingered. “Do you want me to call the chauffer?”

  “No need for it. I’ll drive.” Lowering his head, Quintilius resumed his reading.

  “I can accompany you—”

  “I’d rather have you here to deal with the phone calls. Mr. Zanetti should give us an answer by tonight.” He dismissed her with a wave of his hand. In truth, Quintilius wanted to drive his Jaguar alone. The hour-long ride would do some good for his frayed nerves.

  His mind had been in tatters since the day he met Ludwig at Drako’s. Quintilius had gone to such length to avoid having to call the angel, and there he was in all his beauty, looking at him with a possessiveness he had no right to show. His hunger mirrored in Ludwig’s eyes.

  Maybe taking a lover would help, he thought once again.

  It had worked in the past. Not for long, but enough to heal the wounds Ludwig always seemed to inflict in his wake. His angel never hurt him on purpose, but the end result was always the same. They would be exclusive for a few months—the longest stretch lasted a whole year—then Ludwig would remember his duty toward his brethren and would leave Quintilius.

  Not that Quint
ilius could afford his clan to know of his unnatural love for a non-wolf. Although the elders hadn’t pressed the matter again, his wolves were disappointed he hadn’t mated yet. No one had ever confronted him about it, but, if nothing else, he owed them to look for a suitable she-wolf. Yet, every time he thought about the whole process, his stomach churned. Camelia would have to leave the house. No alpha she-wolf would accept another woman in her domain. Especially not someone like Camelia who was venerated by the entire household and who had reigned over the casale for almost two centuries.

  And finally, he couldn’t envision a life without Camelia by his side. The house wouldn’t be the same.

  He also couldn’t imagine mating with someone who wasn’t Ludwig. His marriage would be a sham. A necessary one, but a sham nonetheless. His wolf had bound him to Ludovicus that day in the Baths so long ago, and a wolf’s binding was forever.

  On his way to the harbor of Civitavecchia, he listened to his favorite opera, one of Alessandro Scarlatti’s earlier pieces, aptly named L’onestà Negli Amori, the honesty of love. Since the seventeen hundreds, after attending a soiree at Teatro Capranica where the maestro’s best operas were produced, Quintilius had always had a soft spot for Scarlatti’s work.

  What had started like patronage, soon became a friendship that lasted several decades. Even after three centuries, Quintilius still missed the composer’s wit and good nature. Scarlatti wrote L’Onesta’ Negli Amori after Quintilius confided his love pains to him. The only mortal Quintilius had ever befriended and one of the few people he trusted with the truth about his love for Ludwig. The rest about him, his being a werewolf he could never share, and although his friend must have wondered a time or two about Quintilius’s never-changing appearance, Alessandro never asked.

  The Palermitan composer accepted Quintilius for what he was, without judging him. When he died in Naples—Scarlatti moved from court to court throughout his whole life—Quintilius traveled to the south and mourned him with such grief, people wondered about the nature of their friendship.

  Quintilius tended to listen to Scarlatti when he was in a dark mood and needed the comfort of his friend’s soothing music.

  Without meaning to do so, Quintilius pushed his Jaguar to the limit and entered the port half an hour later—a full thirty minutes earlier than expected. Despite the right music, the drive hadn’t helped him relax. The phone call from Peter reached him when he was about to park.

  “We positively identified the boy. Lupo Solis belongs to the Reds and he was at Castel Gandolfo. Ravenna and I will approach him tomorrow.” Peter sounded happy.

  “Thanks for keeping me in the loop. Let me know if I can do anything for him.” Hopefully, the boy was redeemable. After dealing with Raphael’s situation, Quintilius couldn’t bear the idea of another teenager lost to a bloodthirsty gang like the Reds.

  Chapter Seven

  At the corner of Via Condotti and the Spanish Steps, Lupo realized he was being followed. Stranded on foot—he had left his bike down at the Metro garage—he briefly wondered if he could get away by entering one of the posh shops dotting the street. One look at his leather jacket, dirty black jeans, and scuffed combat boots, and he dismissed the idea; he would stand out like a sore thumb and draw attention to himself rather than disappear among the elegant shoppers.

  Glancing over his shoulder, he recognized his pursuers and swore out loud. The two most powerful watchdogs of the paranormal world were after him. After skirting the Immortal Council’s justice for so long, he should have known they were just waiting for him to do something stupid. From escaping the orphanage, breaking and entering the same institution, to assaulting a bloodsucker, he had done plenty lately to be on the Council’s radar, but for them to send the demon and Ravenna Del Sarto to retrieve him seemed excessive. Rock’s words came back to him and he couldn’t help but find the whole situation ironic. “Even if they send the Enforcer…”

  Tired from several sleepless nights, poor dietary habits, a week of full days of delivering all over Rome, a fruitless lunch break where he had stared at the girl’s building for a whole hour, and now this, Lupo’s mood was foul. To top it all, he had just turned eighteen, which meant that whatever he was accused of he would be tried as an adult.

  It was happy-hour time and Via Condotti was crowded with people. Tourists hurried to buy one more item of clothing from one of the many high couture stores before the buses came to pick them up. Romans converged to the city center for an aperitif before dinner. The din of scooters, honking horns, laughter, clinking glasses, assailed Lupo’s wolf and made him howl in frustration.

  To run away at the speed he needed to lose his shadows would attract attention. Wolf-fast was way faster than any human gold medalist runner, and Lupo couldn’t use his enhanced abilities among the unaware crowd. The only rule all paranormals—renegades, criminals, and upstanding citizen alike—followed was to never, under any circumstance, let the mortals know about them. And even if he could outrun the enforcer, the controller would be on him in a matter of minutes. As much as he hated admitting it, demons were stronger than wolves.

  Better to get it over with and let his Red brothers take care of the consequences. His family would help him out of this one.

  With a grin on his face, Lupo turned and faced the duo hurrying toward him. He leaned against the doorjamb of a perfumery and waited for them to catch up with him.

  “Controller, Enforcer. What an honor.” He bowed.

  The demon walked up to him. “Lupo Solis, you are under arrest on attempted murder charges.”

  Lupo had to tilt his chin to look the controller in the eyes. “I don’t know what you are talking about.” Rock had instructed him to never confess to anything if caught.

  “Drop the act, boy.” The Enforcer shook her head. “It’s going to be much easier for you if you just tell us the truth.”

  “I’ve done nothing wrong and I want my phone call,” Lupo recited the words Rock had taught him.

  “There’s someone who wants to talk to you first, then you’ll have your phone call.” The demon grabbed Lupo by his elbow. “Don’t make a fuss.”

  Lupo’s wolf stood at attention, but not in reaction to the controller’s handling of him. As if a magnet was calling to him, his eyes went to the other side of the street, where the Bulgari store was. His heartbeat sped in anticipation. The elegant, albeit bulletproof door opened, and a well-dressed girl escorted three hooded figures out.

  Happiness bubbled inside him as he recognized the small form in the middle. A black city car with tinted windows slowed to a halt before Bulgari, and a tall, beefy man came out of it and opened the passenger door.

  The controller tightened his hold on Lupo’s elbow to make him move.

  Lupo jerked back. “Wait.”

  Look at me.

  “We don’t have time to waste. Let’s go,” the demon said.

  Look at me. Without averting his eyes from the small figure, Lupo answered, “I said wait.”

  “What’s the matter?” the Enforcer asked.

  “Give me just a sec.” Lupo’s wolf growled as the demon propelled him forward.

  Throwing a glance over his shoulder, he stubbornly pressed his heels down.

  “Stop.” The demon squeezed his gloved hand over Lupo’s elbow, then immediately loosened his hold without letting him go. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

  Pain radiated throughout Lupo's arm. “What the—?” Then he remembered the demon’s power was to amplify sensations through his touch, and thanked the Great Wolf the man was wearing gloves. His eyes filled with unwanted tears, and he blinked them away.

  When he opened them, the girl was entering the car. But before lowering her head to clear the passenger door, she looked up. Dark, liquid eyes stared into his. Surprise, then happiness passed through her expressive gaze. Even though he couldn’t see the rest of her face, Lupo knew she was smiling. His wolf reached out for her panther, and the black beauty entered their field of vision. Sleek and
elegant, the animal circled his wolf, sniffing the air and tilting her head. Then she approached his wolf and bowed before him. With a growl of pleasure, his wolf licked her muzzle with slow strokes and she purred low. The joy Lupo felt in return was such he forgot about the pain.

  You are mine.

  The words formed in his mind, but weren’t his. Startled, he watched as the girl disappeared inside the car that left the curb and was out of sight in a matter of seconds.

  ****

  The boy had been sitting in the same position for the last thirty minutes, and Ludwig didn’t know what to make of him. Neither did Ravenna nor Peter who had escorted Lupo to Ludwig’s apartment two hours earlier. If the Immortal Council discovered about all the infractions he was committing to help Quintilius, he would pay dearly.

  “Lupo, I need to know if the pin belongs to you.” Ludwig had asked the question already, but he was hoping the boy would eventually answer him. “Would you like something to drink? Are you hungry?”

  When the werewolf’s lips remained sealed, Ludwig pushed himself up and exited the living room. In the kitchen, he found Ravenna and Peter exactly in the same position he had left them. The demon working with his cell phone, and the enforcer pacing from one end of the room to the other, her heels clicking on the marble flooring and giving away her anxious mood.

  “Has he said anything at all?” Peter raised his head from his phone.

  Ludwig sighed. “No, he’s giving me the silent treatment.” There was also something ineffable about the werewolf that kept Ludwig on edge. Like a déjà vu effect or an afterthought that remained at the periphery of his mind. Familiar and foreign at the same time.

  “We can’t keep him here any longer.” Ravenna stopped at the table and placed her hands on the back of a chair. “We need to take him to Castel Sant’ Angelo. I’ve already left a message for Martina. She’ll represent him and he’ll have a fair trial.”