Page 31

“When you said a bar, this is not what I was imagining.”

Emilio glanced over at his mate, his eyes drifting down his leather jacket and tight, ripped jeans.

“It’s not just the lake that gives the Silverlake Pack their name. They’re old mining money. Born with a literal silver spoon in their mouths.”

“This is a fucking country club,” Rocco grumbled. “You could’ve warned me.”

But then he wouldn’t be standing there looking like all of Emilio’s wet dreams in one perfect package. Fuck. He was so gone for this man. A shimmering heat haze surrounded Rocco, and a moment later, he appeared to be in a button-up and slacks just like Emilio.

“You’re drooling a little, puppy,” Rocco teased, brushing his thumb over Emilio’s lip.

It wasn’t his fault that competence was so damn hot. Shaking off the urge to bend Rocco over his bike this time, Emilio strode over to the entrance of the manor house, tilting his chin in greeting to the butler.

“Mr Lunetti, Mr Silverlake is expecting you. Right this way,” the butler said.

He was a wolf shifter, of course. All the staff here were, but the members of the club were a mix of human and supernatural, which meant no one could let their guard down.

The butler led them through the ostentatious building and out the back to a formal garden where some kind of party or reception was in progress.

Or maybe this was just a standard day at the country club.

Guests in formalwear stood in small groups on brick paving, the lake the pack was named for stretching out ahead of them.

To their left, a tall hedge maze formed a wall of greenery in the space.

Interestingly, despite the air of celebration and laughter, none of the guests lingered near its entrance.

All of them ignoring it as if by silent agreement.

“Emmy, it’s been too long,” Charles, the Alpha of the Silverlake Pack, called out as he strode toward them.

“Charlie, darling. You haven’t aged a day,” Emilio shot back with a smirk, putting on a show for the human ears around them who they couldn’t risk revealing either their true nature or the true nature of their business to.

The job he’d completed for the Silverlake Pack had had him faking a short dalliance with their Alpha as cover. There was a chance some of the folks around them would remember him, so he’d reverted to that persona.

A low growl rumbled from Rocco to his left, and Emilio hesitated. Okay, maybe he should’ve warned his mate in advance. Charles’ gaze snapped to his husband, his eyes narrowing with threat.

As Emilio opened his mouth to smooth things over, Rocco stepped into his side, wrapping a hand around his nape and pulling him in close to nuzzle under his ear. The scent of sex that Rocco’s magic had been masking drifted into the air around them like a flower blooming in the winter afternoon.

“Ah, I see,” Charles said, his gaze flicking down to the wedding ring on one of the fingers wrapped around Emilio’s throat.

“Rocco, quit it,” Emilio growled under his breath, too quiet for the humans to hear but making several shifters around them glance over with knowing smiles.

The scent faded a little as Rocco re-established the magic that had been keeping it hidden, but its trace lingered in the air. Rocco didn’t remove his hand from his neck even when Charles leaned in to clasp his hand.

“Thank you for stopping by. Can I tempt you with a stroll through our maze while you’re here?” Charles asked, eyes glittering with amusement and something darker as he gestured to the tall hedges nearby.

Emilio raised a single eyebrow and shook his head. He wasn’t touching that invitation. “We can’t stay long. I was just hoping to get a recommendation from you on country walks to take my new husband on.”

Rocco huffed a breath of amusement behind them, and the air filled with the thrum of his magic. “I’ve cast a shield over us. The humans will only hear ridiculous small talk like that if they try to listen. Say what you need to say so we can leave already.”

Charles looked over at Rocco with eyes that had turned appraising. “A useful skill. Perhaps I need an air witch on staff.”

“He’s not available,” Emilio said, his words a low rumble he knew he needed to rein in before the Silverlake Alpha decided he was being disrespectful.

“I can see that, Emmy.”

“ Emilio. He’s Emilio to you,” Rocco snapped .

This time, the glittering in Charles’ eyes was definitely dangerous as he stared down the air witch.

“Emilio, you need to bond him already before one of you gets in trouble with this posturing,” Charles said.

“I was told you’d found the group we’re looking for?” Emilio asked. He needed to get this conversation back on business terms before Charles decided he really did want them playing in the maze. It had quite the reputation.

Charles met his eyes for a moment before Emilio dropped his in respect, tipping his head to the side just enough to show he knew whose territory he was in. Although the effect was somewhat lost by the continued protection of Rocco’s hand warming his skin.

“They’re middlemen operating without my permission, crossing our territory with the weapons to hand them off in yours.

They had some unexpected engineering difficulties last night, courtesy of my people.

They’re holed up on a farm just north of here.

We’re going in to finish them off tonight and send a message to whoever they’re working for.

If you come with us, you can question one. ”

“Thanks for waiting. Marco appreciates the gesture,” Emilio said, inclining his head.

“I didn’t do it for Marco. I did it for you,” Charles said, sparking a huff of annoyance from Rocco behind him.

“It was Marco who sent me here to help before,” Emilio reminded him.

Charles smiled. “I know you were the one who told him we needed it. And there’s no way your cousin approved your methods. We owe you .”

Emilio resisted the urge to object, knowing it would do no good.

“So, what’s the plan?”

Later that night, as icy winter winds seared across their faces with the promise of a looming snowstorm they would need to outrun home, Emilio and Rocco waited on the outskirts of a dilapidated farmhouse.

Cracks of light shone out of boarded-up windows as the Silverlake Pack descended on the sentries standing guard, swift and silent in their wolf forms.

The group who’d been transporting the weapons, nothing but glorified couriers, if Charles was to be believed, were a rag-tag bunch of supernaturals and humans.

Rocco had offered to help screen their scents from the two vampires and some kind of wildcat shifter who were keeping watch.

All of them showed signs of poverty. They weren’t getting rich from this.

They were just surviving. It was no excuse.

The silver shrapnel bomb that had taken out the nightclub back when Vin met Angelo had killed eight people and injured dozens.

Another bomb had almost killed his cousin Luca.

Charles’ people had been ordered to incapacitate rather than kill.

At least for now. The Silverlake Alpha intended to send a message, and no one in that farmhouse was going to walk out of this undamaged.

If Emilio were to guess, Charles would pick only one to live and deliver his message to whoever they were playing go-between for.

Whoever he picked was unlikely to count themself lucky to be alive by the time the pack was through with them.

Sure enough, when silence fell and they made their way inside, most of the group had been collected up to be held somewhere. Only one guy was left lying in the dirt just outside the back door of the farmhouse. He had a large lump on his temple and blood dripping down his face.

“What kind of witch is he?” Emilio asked.

The Silverlake enforcer standing nearby shrugged as Charles sauntered up, wiping gore off his fingers. It looked like he’d eviscerated someone with his bare hands. He probably had.

“He’s an air witch,” Rocco replied.

“Can you contain him?” Charles asked.

“Of course,” Rocco said. “He’s nowhere near my power. He likely helps misdirect human attention, but he wouldn’t fool shifter senses. That’s why you could still find them.”

“Does he have one of those death spells on him?” Emilio asked.

Every time Marco had captured one of the D-2S terrorist lackeys, they’d lost them to magic before they had a chance to talk. The most spectacular death spell had become a magical bomb right in the Lunetti packhouse’s basement.

Rocco stepped forward and crouched next to the body, hovering a hand over the man’s face as the familiar faint scent of his magic drifted in the air.

“I can’t sense anything on him. From what I know of the other death spells, they were earth magic. Likely one of Ethan’s specialities. When he died, the spell would’ve faded. Especially on a witch who could help it unravel with his own power.”

The witch in question groaned at their feet.

Emilio watched on, curious, as Charles dragged him over to the nearest wall before lifting him like he weighed nothing at all and pinning him to it with a sword through his shoulder, of all things.

The Silverlake Pack was something else with their trappings of wealth.

A scream of agony rent the air as the newly impaled witch tuned back in to the world of the conscious.

The bracelet on Emilio’s wrist vibrated with the lightest of movements before Rocco’s stern voice cut through the noise.

“Don’t even think about it. If you try to so much as ruffle my husband’s hair with a breeze, I’ll flood so much magic through your system that you’ll burn out in an instant. You’ll be nothing more than human for the rest of your life.”

“The Council would kill you for that,” the air witch gasped.

“I didn’t say your life would be long enough to tell anyone.”

Emilio smiled as what little colour was left in the man’s face drained away. His mate was so fucking hot when he got protective.