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Chapter Forty-Two

CARMINE

Thrall cannot touch the mind. There’s a physical barrier between blood and the brain that prevents it. If the thralled can find a mental way around their master’s commands, they can defy them. Domenico Scanga found a way to betray me outright by being explicit with me but vague with his family.

That’s not what’s happening here. Nunzio was given the order to go home. She was told to do what I say. That was my first mistake. The second was not taking control of her voice.

I should do that. But I won’t. I can’t. She would never forgive me.

I take Luna’s arm, bending so I can look right into her rich brown eyes, where her need to please and her strength do battle. “It is not safe here.”

“I am truly sorry I came,” she says. “I don’t know how I did it, but whatever I had to do with it, I regret it. I shouldn’t have come. But I’m here now and I’m not letting you do whatever you’re doing with Serafina.”

She’s not letting me ? Is her mind so strong it can overrule my ownership of her heart?

“This is bigger than you.” My growl is frustration with myself, launched at her, pulling her closer to make sure she understands it.

“You’re hurting me.” She’s stating a fact without trying to wriggle away from it. That’s the thrall. She is deep inside it and capable of thinking outside it at the same time. “I know that if you want to hurt me, I’ll hurt. But you don’t have to.”

Her eyes seem bigger, her lashes longer, her freckled cheeks pinker. She’s the same. I am changing. I hate it, but cannot deny it.

“You can be scented,” I say.

“I could be scented in Naples, right?”

“Not by the same people who can scent you here. You will go back now.”

“I need to be with you. Please.”

“I’ll take her home,” Tommy Lugano says with a quick suck on his teeth.

It’s a threat he won’t keep. He won’t touch her. No other creature or human will ever touch her. But I let Luna go so I can rip his face off with my dominant hand and hold him down with the other.

“As collateral,” Tommy adds before I can move in his direction. “You need to put up collateral against the safety of my niece.”

“I don’t think so.” Serafina puts her finger right in Tommy Lugano’s face. The courage of that woman plumbs new depths of recklessness every day. “You’re not turning her into merchandise the way you did to me.”

“You want to lose that finger, little miss?” He’s so joyfully confident that he can dismember her that she folds her pointer into the rest of her raised fist.

Luna bends ever so slightly. I recognize that stance. It’s meant to hide aggression inside femininity. It accentuates the curves and prepares a warrior for launch.

Her mother would recognize it too. It’s in her genes.

Nazario Corragio sighs and leans on his cane to sit with an oof. All attention shifts to him and Sam, who stands behind the throne-like leather chair with his hands folded in front of him.

Luna straightens when she notices the seraph’s gender change, glancing at me for the correct reaction to it. I nod. It’s fine. There’s no need to react at all.

“First of all,” Nazario says, “Sam, get the snake out of here.”

“Nunzio will stay with me,” I say as Sam escorts the made man out. “And my wife will not stay with the Luganos as collateral or anything else.”

“What do you think we’re going to do?” Tommy says. “Rip out her throat worse than you already did?” Luna touches the scar on her neck, and I am suddenly, inexplicably, deeply ashamed for creating it. “You could give her a turtleneck or something. You call us messy.”

When did I lose control of this conversation? How long after she appeared? I am twisted inside at the thought of her in the weres’ house in Williamsburg, at the insinuation that I’m treating her poorly, at the strength of her mind to overcome my thrall. It’s all slipping through my fingers.

So when Luna steps away from me, out of arm’s reach, to get closer to Tommy, I am a breath away from exploding.

“I can read your emotions,” she says to him. “I can’t see what you did or who you did it to… yet.”

Orlando stares at Tommy with knotted brows, as if wondering what Luna’s talking about. I’m sure she doesn’t know the source of the alpha’s shame, but by his posture and fidgeting, I am also sure he no longer wants her in his house.

Without a fight or compromise, my will is done. He doesn’t even have to admit it.

She is truly perfect.

“Carmine, control your little thrall-baby.” The insult is thrown with a broken arm. The pressure of Luna’s attention is such that the alpha leans away from her.

“Enough!” Nazario taps his cane on the floor.

“Raven, you seek the knife under the Colonia Dome to repair what you brought on yourself. Wolves.” He turns to Tommy.

“You require your pack to be complete.” He looks at Luna, about to tell her what she wants, and I’m aware that she may want to be away from me and he may know it. “Luna?—”

“She has no problems you can solve,” I interrupt.

Tense silence follows. They’re waiting for Luna to speak. She swallows hard. I want to know what she’s pushing down her throat. Is it shaped like me?

It doesn’t matter. She’s mine. She can bury the facts, but that won’t make them false.

“I won’t be away from him,” she says. “Not again.”

“That’s so sweet,” Tommy says. “It almost smells real.”

“Quiet,” I snap. “If you can’t conduct business without howling, you can go outside where you belong.”

“ Basta , please,” the lawyer says, hand up. “You need to work together. None of you can do this alone.” He stands with a groan, leaning heavily on his cane. “This one needs to find her power. Come here, Strega.”

She looks at me for permission and I give it with a nod. She’s safe to stand in front of Nazario.

He puts his gnarled, unsteady hand on her head and closes his eyes, as if listening. When his hand slips down and his eyes open, he says, “Each of your senses has a power. Five are open. Three are developed.”

“Okay?” she says.

“You see things.”

“People’s emotions.”

“We saw that.” He tips his head toward Tommy.

“I taste them too.”

“What do you perceive through your skin?” He waits, and she swallows. “I already know.” He lowers his hand. “I want to know what you know.”

“I feel attention through my skin. The…” She shrugs, looking for words. “The consciousness of matter?”

“Did your mother teach you that?”

“Yes. I’m not very good.”

“Show me what you learned.”

She looks at me for permission again, but it’s not the thrall. This is a sharper ask. She wants to know if this is a trick.

“Up to you,” I answer.

“Okay. I’ll try.” She bites her lip and scans the room, landing on the younger werewolf, standing in the corner with his arms folded over his chest. She gets a faraway look as if she’s seeing inside herself, then raises her hand.

Orlando shifts slightly, then takes a quick breath as an object flies from his waist, beneath his jacket, moves across the room so fast it blurs, before it lands in Luna’s outstretched hand.

“Holy—” Serafina doesn’t finish.

Luna squeaks and drops the knife, opening her bloody palm.

My body tightens and my focus narrows onto her nectar. Nothing else exists. The need to put my mouth on it is overwhelming.

“I told you I’m not very good!” she says.

My blood screams for hers, but if I jump quickly to suck her wound closed, I will not look in control. My hand shakes as I remove a handkerchief from my pocket.

“You are very good,” I say, pressing the linen to her cut. I kiss her forehead. “Better than the best.”

She notices my hand’s tremors. “Thank you.”

She fists the handkerchief, eyes glazed with a thick sheen of tears. She’s the one who feels vulnerable in all this, and she deserves to feel as formidable as she is. When this is over, I will make her understand her power.

For now, the situation demands I ensure her safety.

“She has nothing to prove to anyone.” I pick up the knife and do what I must. I lick her blood from the blade.

It is mine, and too precious to streak a werewolf’s belt.

No woman has ever tasted so sweet. Barely a drop touches my tongue, and I am drunk with her.

I don’t breathe as long as any of her remains.

The edge cuts my tongue and my venom heals it.

I finish the job. Not one cell will be abandoned.

I open my eyes. They look at me in horror. I have become every insult they hurl at me, right in front of them. I don’t care. She is sweetness and power and darkness, and there is no horror in her gaze. Her lips are parted, her cheeks are damp, and her breath is held hard.

I pass the knife to Orlando by the handle. He takes it with a nod of respect to Luna.

“Give me that.” Tommy snaps it away. “Until you learn to hang onto it.” He jams it in his waistband.

Her blood streaks my palm. I don’t have a handkerchief to wipe it off, and I am only so strong. I suck it from the heel of my hand, daring anyone in this room to say a word about it. The older werewolf is disgusted but keeps his mouth closed. Nazario smiles.

“Never change, Raven King,” the old man says. “Let’s get to work.”

I put my arm around Luna and pull her to sit next to me on a hard sofa.

She leans on me. That tiny drop of her blood has quelled my shaking hand for the moment, but her trust steadies more than my body.

As for her, she may be impressive, but she is new at this, and pulling Orlando’s weapon drained her energy.

“The vampire wants his knife,” Nazario announces. “The wolves want their kin.”

“What do you want?” Serafina drops back into a chair.

“Yeah,” Luna whispers with her face smushed against my jacket. Her eyes are wide open. She’s not that depleted.

“My needs aren’t your concern, but meeting them will be to your benefit.”

He waits for an argument. Thankfully, neither woman gives him one. I’m surprised and grateful. Two copper coins I have nowhere to spend.