Chapter 5 Cal
CHAPTER 5: CAL
Clock’s ticking, Cal.
The message from Wyatt did nothing for the shitty mood he was in thanks to Luca’s intel. He’d only checked the text because he’d sent one of his staff home sick earlier and told them to message when they got there. How the fuck was he going to figure out how to get the MC off his back in less than a week with the distraction Luca was becoming?
“Your boy’s getting into trouble,” Eve, one of Cal’s longest serving bartenders, called over to him from the other end of the bar he was serving behind.
Of course he was. Cal scowled and looked where she was pointing before swearing under his breath. “What the fuck is he doing?”
Luca was taking a photo of the bar—of him—while standing on one of the dance platforms the club’s patrons were definitely not allowed to climb up onto. He was also drawing a lot of attention. Attention they really didn’t need when they still didn’t know who was trying to kill him. Sure, there were security staff and wards around the club, but there were plenty of non-magical ways to hurt someone that his wards might not pick up.
Jumping over the bar, Cal kept his eyes firmly on his errant shifter as he made his way through the crowds. Shit. Luca wasn’t his. Whatever. Someone needed to take the man in hand because he’d just grasped the transparent pole and launched his body up in a controlled motion that had him hanging upside down, his body arched in a way that screamed carnal passion. The muscles of his arms strained against the shirt he was wearing until he gripped the pole between strong thighs to hang from them instead.
Raw, possessive desire burned through Cal. Maybe he could set off the fire alarm to get all those other eyes off Luca. Damn this wolf and his mixed messages. Why was he making a spectacle of himself after making it so obvious he wasn’t looking for that kind of attention?
Using the controls in his phone, Cal started lowering the platform to the dancefloor, grateful for the barricades that kept the space underneath clear so no one would get accidentally crushed. A gasp had his attention snapping back to Luca. His wolf had dropped down to crouch next to the pole, swaying slightly. The descent of the platform shouldn’t have made any difference to him. Did he have vertigo? Cal was pretty sure shifters didn’t suffer from it.
As the platform reached the height of Cal’s shoulders, his confusion turned to concern. Luca’s eyes were glazed and his pupils were so dilated Cal couldn’t make out any of the beautiful grey of his irises. Fuck. He was high. And there wasn’t a lot that could make a shifter high. Certainly nothing easily accessible in the club.
Cal had just enough time to brace himself before Luca’s solid, muscled form toppled into his arms, his head lolling against his arm.
“Dammit, Luca. What did you take?” Cal growled .
The genuine panic his words elicited in Luca told him far more than his unintelligible mumbled response. He hadn’t picked the shifter for someone who would voluntarily lose control in a crowd like this, and it looked like his suspicion had been correct. Shifting Luca’s weight in his arms, Cal pressed his earpiece to get a line to his security team, already striding toward the safety of the door to his penthouse and the extra warding there. He waited until he passed the sound barriers before speaking, not wanting any casual observers to learn more than they already had.
“Someone spiked Luca’s drink. Ben, find the glass and search the bathrooms in case they ditched anything there. He was at table seven. I need to know what the fuck they gave him. Iris, get on the security feeds and figure out who did it and where they are now. Don’t let anyone leave until we have a description.”
“What do you want me to tell the punters, boss? We can’t force them to stay,” his doorman replied over the comms.
“I don’t give a fuck. Whatever works. Give them a free drink voucher,” Cal growled, cradling Luca’s limp body in his arms as he raced up the stairs to his penthouse.
“You realise whoever it was is probably long gone already?” Iris said.
“Depends if they were trying to grab him or kill him,” Cal said, which meant they were fucked because they already knew whoever it was definitely wanted to kill Luca.
Shoving his door open, he raced through his living area to his bedroom, placing Luca gently on his bed. Would the guest room have been closer? Yes. But he needed Luca in his space while he fought against whatever this poison was.
Grabbing his cell phone, he steeled himself as he called Marco, putting the phone on speaker so he could start working. It barely rang before the alpha answered.
“What’s wrong?” the Alpha said .
“Luca came down to the club and someone spiked his drink. He’s barely conscious,” Cal said.
“You’re supposed to be keeping him safe!” Marco all but shouted.
Cal reached for his water magic and let it roll over Luca’s prone form, flowing through his sluggish veins as it searched for the liquid that didn’t belong in his beautiful body.
“He’s a big boy. He should’ve known better than to leave his drink unattended. I’m doing what I can, but you need to get your doctor here,” Cal said, even though he knew there was probably little they could do.
“We’re on our way,” Marco growled.
Great. Just what he needed—half of Luca’s pack storming into his penthouse. He spared just enough attention to warn security to let the incoming shifters up to his place before focussing back on the shifter twitching on his bed. Luca had started sweating and a soft metallic scent filled the air, likely his body trying to reject a silver compound in the poison.
Placing his hand on Luca’s bare forearms to create a better connection, Cal dove deeper into his magic until he could help Luca’s body in its mission to purge the poison, forcing each drop of liquid silver he found in the shifter’s blood out through his pores. It was an exhausting and time-consuming use of his magic. Luca was damn lucky he was a water witch. If his affinity was to fire or air, it would’ve been much more difficult. The only thing better would’ve been if he was— fuck —an Earth witch. This kind of poison smacked of earth magic, just like the breach of his wards had. When he found this witch who was willing to work with a human terrorist organisation targeting supernaturals, their own people, he was going to make them suffer.
He was so focussed on what he was doing that he barely noticed the influx of shifters until they disturbed the energy in his room .
“What are you doing to him?” a female voice snarled.
“Saving his fucking life,” Cal croaked, his body exhausted from the power he was expending.
This wasn’t the kind of working he was used to. He was no stranger to intricate and subtle workings with his magic, but it was all on a larger scale—built into his resin tables, the artworks on his walls, and the water pipes through his building. Using his power to work down to the cellular level inside someone’s body where a single misstep could have lethal consequences was something else entirely.
“I’m the pack doctor. One of your security staff gave me the glass he was drinking from. I can’t get a scent from it, but Luca stinks of silver nitrate,” a man’s voice said.
Cal couldn’t tear his attention away from Luca or he knew he’d lose him. The shifter was holding his own against the poison with Cal’s help. Just. But if Cal stopped what he was doing for even a few seconds, that might not be the case.
“I’m extracting it from his bloodstream, but I don’t know if I can keep this up much longer. Can you give him anything for it?” he asked through gritted teeth.
“Nothing that will work as well as what you’re doing,” the same man replied.
Dammit. He loathed drugs. He really didn’t want to do this, but he didn’t have much choice. “There’s a magical stimulant in a hidden drawer in my bedside table. It’ll help me channel this better and for longer than I could otherwise. Can you get it for me? I won’t be able to get it all without it.”
“Is that safe for you?” the man asked.
“Shut up and let him save my brother’s life,” the woman snarled.
“Aria, if you can’t stay calm, you need to wait outside,” Marco growled.
Cal ignored them and replied to the doctor. “It puts a lot of strain on my body. It can cause cardiac arrest and asphyxiation.”
“I can treat those in you more easily than I can treat the silver nitrate poison in Luca. Is this injected intramuscularly?”
Cal nodded and jerked at the instant sharp prick in his arm as the doc injected him with the stimulant. The guy wasn’t wasting any time. Not that Cal blamed him. If Cal, who barely knew him, was panicking at Luca’s pale, limp form on the bed, his pack and family must be feeling it ten times worse.
As the familiar high he’d vowed never to feel again swept through him, Cal pushed away all distractions. Every aspect of Luca and his power came into sharp focus and the glow surrounding Luca’s body intensified until the room was bathed in blue light. With the assistance of the drug, he could chase down the poison so much faster.
He didn’t know how long he worked, but as his vision grew darker and darker, he refused to slow. Refused to let Luca slip away. The last thing he saw before he collapsed into unconsciousness was the flutter of Luca’s eyelids.
It would have to be enough. Cal was drained dry.
Raised voices from the other room greeted Cal when he came to. He was lying face down on his bed that still smelled of Luca, but the pack must have taken him back to his own room because the other side of the bed was cold when he flung his hand out. Groaning, Cal got his hands under him and pushed himself up until he was sitting hunched over on the side of the bed, clutching his temples .
“Need a painkiller?” a voice asked. He mentally catalogued it as the doctor’s from earlier.
“Yeah. Please,” he croaked.
The doctor stepped closer and held out a glass of water and one of the painkillers from his bathroom cabinet. “We didn’t get to meet properly earlier. I’m Rafe.”
Cal took his offerings and ran his eyes over the man. He didn’t think the guy was a relation of Luca’s, but he shared the intimidating form and sharp Mediterranean beauty of many of the Lunetti men. The doc had a silver fox thing going rather than the deep black of Luca’s hair, though. It must be something to do with his wolf’s colour because shifters didn’t age like humans. Cal suppressed a smile at what the guy would say if he knew Cal had used the word fox to describe a wolf.
“Thanks. How long was I out?”
“Only a few hours.”
It must be ass o’clock in the early hours of the morning, then. A quick glance out his window confirmed it was still the dead of night.
“Luca?”
“Still sleeping, but his vitals are sound. That was a very impressive use of your power. You saved him. Thank you,” Rafe said.
“I’m not sure he’ll be as grateful. He hates when people think he needs saving,” Cal said.
“I’m familiar with that particular challenge. Don’t let him push you away. He needs someone like you in his corner,” Rafe said, a hint of old pain in his eyes.
Before Cal could figure out what to say to that, they were interrupted.
“He let Luca get poisoned on his watch. My brother doesn’t need someone like that in his life,” a woman growled from the doorway. Aria, he remembered .
“Luca’s not a child. He doesn’t need a minder,” Cal said, only half paying attention as he wondered whether he had the time and strength to take a shower.
He felt like he’d run a marathon and then separated the salt from seawater with tweezers. Luca had messed up with the drink, but surely his family realised he’d go crazy if his every move was watched. That was no way to live. Although, Cal wasn’t against giving the man some gentle reinforcement to get some safer behaviours from him.
“He was supposed to be safe here!” she growled.
“What do you want me to do? Tie him up? You’re the ones who broadcast his location with your fake dating scheme. They knew exactly where to find him when he’d barely been gone half a day,” Cal snapped back.
Damn. The image of Luca all tied up was not what he needed when Luca’s sister was standing right there. Focussing on the throbbing pain in his skull instead of the throbbing desire that thought engendered, he stood and walked cautiously toward his ensuite, not certain his legs were going to hold him.
“If he’s better now, y’all can see yourselves out,” Cal called as he shut the door behind him, not really expecting them to listen.
The knowledge that his sanctuary was filled with the upper echelons of what was basically the shifter Mafia was driving him crazy, but there wasn’t a lot he could do about it while Luca was still recovering. He’d be surprised if Aria left before Luca was awake. If he didn’t hate everything they stood for, he would envy the familial loyalty of the Lunetti Pack.
His own family had been torn apart by addiction when he was still a teen and he’d alienated the rest of his kind when he refused to become part of the Elemental Mayhem MC. He was close with some of his staff, the club having become a haven of sorts for the outcasts of the city, but it wasn’t the same. He was their employer. While Cal would go out of his way to help them out of a tough spot—and had done so on more than one occasion—there wasn’t a single person in New Trinity he would rely on to do the same for him. Except maybe Vin, and then only if there was something in it for the vampire.
Pushing the depressing thoughts aside, he turned the water of the shower on as hard as it would go and let it pound into his skin. With his affinity to the element through his magic, every drop running down his skin restored some of the balance of his power, like rain soaking into parched earth. Familial loyalty wasn’t everything. It hadn’t saved the Lunetti Pack from whoever this traitor was targeting Luca. What did they expect in their line of business?
Cal had roots in this place he owned and he had the respect of his people for the power he wielded and for the morals he refused to compromise. Morals people were going to start questioning if the Alpha of the Lunetti Pack kept turning up at his home in the middle of the night. At least this time, people would probably assume Marco was here to kill him for letting Luca be harmed.
The memory of Luca cradled in his arms in the club flashed through his mind. Even during his frantic efforts to save the shifter, he’d felt a tremor of something warm when he’d held him so close. What he wouldn’t give to have Luca back in his bed for a few more hours—conscious and willing this time.
He’s a fucking criminal , he reminded himself as he shut off the water. And since when did he ever want a man in his bed , of all places? He didn’t let anyone he fucked in there. This whole arrangement was making him lose it. He needed his space back already so he could get back to figuring out what to do about the other group of criminals who wouldn’t leave him alone—the MC.
Pulling on jeans and a hooded sweatshirt, he took a moment to check in with his security staff from the relative privacy of his bedroom. The shifters would probably still be able to hear him, but the walls should block them from making out the other side of the conversation.
“Any more trouble?” he asked.
“Nah. Closing went fine. Everyone’s left for the night. I’ve transferred the security footage to the Lunetti Pack, but the guy was good. He never showed his face to the cameras. My bet is that he was human, though. We never watch them as closely, so it would be easier to sneak the poison in,” Iris said.
By rights, Iris should’ve left as soon as the place was closed up. He would’ve questioned her for sending the footage to the Lunettis without asking if he wasn’t so grateful she’d stuck around. Plus, it wasn’t fair to expect her to stand up to whichever of the pack had put the pressure on her. You didn’t say no to the Lunettis.
“We need to change that approach with this D-2S group targeting us. Humans are just as much a security risk as anyone else now. And I’ll need to check how the scent-dampening spell got through the wards. Luca should’ve noticed the silver in the drink.”
“He might’ve noticed if he hadn’t sculled the damn thing, and you know small magics don’t trigger the wards or we’d have to check everyone with a little glamour on them as they came through the door. It’d be a nightmare,” Iris said.
She was an air witch, although not particularly strong. They were fond of using magic to air-brush their looks in the club. It became a competition of sorts—who could get away with the most striking or unusual look that didn’t tip off their human clientele or trigger the club’s magical protections .
“The wards should’ve picked up on the murderous intent, though,” Cal said.
“Not if the human didn’t know what was in the vial,” she pointed out.
Cal groaned and rubbed his temples where the painkillers hadn’t quite succeeded in getting rid of his headache. Between the too-tempting man every instinct in him was calling to care for, the Mafia wolves circling in his living room, and the ticking clock of the MC’s deadline, he wasn’t expecting it to go away anytime soon.
“Get some rest, boss. We’re not going to solve it at 3 am,” Iris said.
He didn’t bother telling her he wouldn’t be sleeping until the four shifters and the vampire he could sense in his living room left. She’d just feel like she needed to stick around, and that wasn’t fair to her.
“You should take your own advice. Thanks for staying on until I was awake. I’ll see you later today,” he said.
Everyone was sitting around his dining table on their laptops or phones when he finally emerged from his room. Well, everyone except Rafe, who was sitting reading a book on his couch. Ignoring them, he went to his kitchen to pour himself a coffee someone had brewed and then headed toward the spare room.
“Where do you think you’re going?” Aria snapped.
“To check on my guest,” Cal said.
“Stay away from him. He doesn’t want you there.”
Cal rolled his eyes and ignored her, only to find his face smashing into the door as Aria used her shifter speed to pin him in place, her claws scraping down his throat. Growling under his breath, he used the smallest amount of his still sluggish power to form the coffee in his cup into a liquid mask that he used to smother her nose and mouth. He was lucky he’d been holding such an easy source of water or he’d have struggled to react so quickly with his magic still recovering.
Aria started suffocating as she tried, and failed, to breathe through the coffee shaped to her face. Rearing away from him, she scrabbled uselessly at her mouth with her hands.
“That was totally justified, Sugar, but Luca will be sad if you kill his sister,” Vin called from nearby.
The reminder of who she was to Luca cut through his defensive reflex. Glancing over at Vin, Cal saw the vampire had raised a finger to ask Marco to wait before charging him to save his cousin. Waving his hand, Cal let the coffee form a trail back into his cup until Aria could breathe freely once more. As she doubled over gasping in heaving breaths, he looked down at his cup in disgust. Gross. He couldn’t drink coffee that had been up a shifter’s nose. Sighing in annoyance, he went to make himself a fresh cup.
“Impressive,” Marco said. “I would’ve thought you’d be tapped out and helpless given how you looked earlier.”
Cal shrugged. He wasn’t going to tell the shifter Alpha just how much that move had cost him when he was still recovering. You didn’t show weakness to wolves.
“You’re going to let him get away with that?” Aria snapped, her voice still sounding croaky.
“You attacked him. Without my permission. Between that and your damn dare, you’re lucky I think the shame of being bested so easily by an exhausted witch is punishment enough. Don’t think I don’t know you’re the reason Luca was up on that dance platform.”
Aria flushed red and stalked over to the couch to join Rafe. “Luca’s sleeping. He’s vulnerable,” she muttered.
Cal snorted. “He’s a fucking wolf. He’s never vulnerable. And I was going to double-check I couldn’t sense any more silver in him. Unless your doctor has a way of scanning for it that I’m unaware of? ”
“That would be helpful, thank you,” Rafe chimed in. “His colour is back, so I think he’s fine, but he will recover much quicker if we make sure it’s all been removed.”
Cal tipped his chin up in acknowledgement and headed back toward the spare room. Had he actually been intending to scan for silver when he first approached? Maybe? He wasn’t certain he had the energy for it, to be honest. But now he was going to do it or die trying because he couldn’t stand the thought of Luca being weakened a moment longer than was necessary.