Chapter 12 Luca
CHAPTER 12: LUCA
Everything hurt.
His ears were ringing from the blast, a trickle of wetness suggesting his sensitive eardrums might’ve ruptured. The acrid scent of burnt explosives filled the air along with a sweeter scent that made his wolf howl—Cal’s singed flesh. At least there didn’t seem to be any silver in whatever this bomb had been.
Fuck. No silver in the explosive meant if they wanted him dead, someone would have to come lodge a bullet in his brain. They needed to move before whoever it was got close enough.
Heaving Cal’s weight off him, Luca staggered to his feet and bent down to hoist the large witch into his arms. An impact to his shoulder almost spun him off balance. The shot would’ve hit him in the head if he hadn’t bent over to pick Cal up at exactly the right moment. He could really have used one of Cal’s shields just then. Luckily, the door was only two paces away. His movements became a blur as he put on a burst of speed he wouldn’t have been able to sustain any longer than that. As he turned back to kick the door shut, flares of blue light sparked in the air—Cal’s wards on the building doing their thing to keep the bullets at bay.
With the witch cradled in his arms, he could feel just how rasping his mate’s breaths were as Cal struggled to draw air. His face wasn’t too bad because he’d pressed it in tight to Luca, but the side of his head was a mess of burns and he was pretty sure he could see bone peeking through.
Fumbling in his pocket, he dialled Rafe.
“Cal’s dying. I need you at the club now,” he cried as soon as the line connected.
To his credit, given it must be 4 am at this point and the doc would’ve been fast asleep, he sounded instantly alert. “On my way. What happened?”
“Bomb in the carpark. He threw his body over me and took the brunt of it.”
“How’s his breathing?”
“Faltering.”
“Heartbeat?”
“Shallow and irregular.”
“Let me listen.”
Luca put the phone on speaker and held the phone close to Cal’s too-pale face where his lips were turning the same blue as his power, but not from magic.
“Luca, I’m twenty minutes away. I don’t think he’s going to make it that long. Start CPR if his heart stops,” Rafe said. “I need to focus on driving and call your cousins. Call me back when things get worse.”
Not if, when . Panic started to set in.
“Don’t you dare fucking die on me,” Luca cried, staring down helplessly at Cal’s form.
As if the world was spitting in his face, the awful rasp of Cal’s breathing halted at that moment.
“Luca. What happened?” a voice called from nearby, steps running toward him .
Iris, the security manager, maybe? He recognised the voice but couldn’t tear his eyes off Cal. Tears snuck from his cheeks, falling down onto Cal’s where Luca leaned over him. They glowed a soft blue where they hit, but still his breathing didn’t restart. Rafe had said to start CPR, but he knew deep down it wasn’t going to be enough. The doc was too far away, and what would he do when he got here that would bring Cal back to life? Cal was human. Fragile. The explosion was too much for his delicate skin and body to take.
So, make him not human .
That thought came from his wolf side because his human side knew politically that was a big no-no. If the Elemental Mayhem MC was pissed about Cal allying with the pack, it would be a thousand times worse if Luca turned him and made him a shifter-witch. That was unheard of. A mating bond would have given Cal the same immortality as a shifter and only slightly less effective healing, but that would’ve required him to be conscious enough to participate or a witch willing to perform illegal bonding magic. Even if Luca knew such a witch, which he didn’t because he’d killed the only one he’d ever met, there was no way on this Earth that he would force a mating bond on someone.
Turning him was the only option.
The silence of Cal’s heart giving up was all the prompt he needed to decide. Cal was his . Luca wasn’t going to let him die.
Vampires turned humans fairly often to mate. It made sense for them because of their nature. It was a messy as fuck and slightly more unpleasant business for a shifter because he had no interest in drinking Cal’s blood. The process was all about the synthesis of their essences on a cellular level. The absorption of shifter magic into the human bloodstream once they’d been drained dry. On the rare occasions a human was turned like this, they were never a witch and they used a dialysis machine to make it more pleasant and efficient all round. That wasn’t an option, and he was running out of time.
“The pack doctor will be here shortly. If I’m unconscious, bring him here. He’ll know what to do. Don’t stop me or he’ll die,” Luca told Iris.
Then he bent down and bit deep into Cal’s neck, letting his wolf take over. If they’d been fucking, it would’ve formed a mating bond and he would’ve ingested barely more than a taste. As it was, he was forced to draw deep, pulling swallows of the metallic liquid, letting the blood into his system so his instinctive shifter magic could do its thing.
Counterintuitively, despite the blood draining from Cal’s body, that magic was better than any CPR. By his third swallow, Cal’s heart gave a soft thump, coming back online even as the organ had less and less lifeblood to pump through his veins. A rattling breath shook Cal’s chest. It was the encouragement Luca needed to carry on even as he howled inside at the awful feeling of draining his mate dry.
Time lost all meaning until the door opened nearby and Luca’s head jerked up as he snarled in challenge at the new threat.
“Oh, Luca. What have you done?” Rafe whispered, but he was already reaching into his bag to pull out an IV line.
As he finally processed who it was and relaxed, Luca’s stomach roiled with nausea at the sheer volume of blood he’d consumed. How the fuck did vampires do this for every meal? Flopping down on his back on the floor beside Cal, he held his arm out to Rafe.
“Do it. I won’t tell anyone you were involved,” he said.
Rafe sighed and inserted the needle into his vein before doing the same to Cal so Luca’s blood could replace what he’d taken from the witch. “You should feed him some as well. The faster you get something into him, the more likely he is to survive. With the damage he’s sustained, this could easily kill him.”
Luca snarled in response, everything in him rejecting the doc’s assessment. He would not let Cal die. It wasn’t going to happen. Tearing into his wrist with his fangs, he opened a free-flowing wound and pressed it to Cal’s mouth, massaging his throat to help prompt his mate’s unconscious body to swallow.
“It’s working,” Iris said, as she watched Cal splutter and then start drinking.
“You need to leave. Wipe the security footage. You were never here. You saw nothing,” Rafe growled at the nearby human.
Luca had never seen him look so threatening. He realised why he’d done it a few minutes later when Marco and the rest of his family stormed in through the door, taking up way too much space in the crowded corridor. The political ramifications of this would be bad enough without dragging any of Cal’s staff into it.
“Help me get them up to the penthouse before someone comes out this way,” Rafe said.
“Fucking hell. You don’t do anything the easy way, do you?” Marco said, pulling Luca’s wrist from Cal’s mouth and lifting him up into his arms with care not to bump the IV line pumping Luca’s blood into his body.
The tube had started glowing blue as Cal’s magic fought for his life, dragging the blood into his veins faster than should’ve been possible. Luca’s head spun with blood loss and dizziness, and he closed his eyes as Marco carried him up the stairs.
“Rest, cousin. We can deal with this mess once you and your witch are conscious again,” Marco said.
“ Mine ,” Luca said, slurring as he echoed Marco’s words .
“I know. I’m starting to feel like I’m running a damn mating service. First Angelo, now you,” Marco muttered.
Luca’s heart didn’t even stutter at the word that usually had him panicking because he was already slipping into oblivious unconsciousness. He had just enough energy to push his hand out along the sheets until it touched Cal’s lying beside him. His skin was reassuringly warm, hot even. The shifter magic washing through his body was already changing his core temperature.
It was nighttime when Luca woke, but he was guessing it wasn’t the same night he’d succumbed to blood loss. He was desperate to piss and he felt like he had a mouthful of fur from how dry his throat was. Cal’s scent was heavy in the air, richer and more complex, more him . It was a siren call he was forced to drag himself away from as he rolled off the edge of the bed so he could stagger upright and over to the bathroom.
Business taken care of, his stomach growled as loud as it ever had. He was fucking starving.
“Here. You need to eat,” Marco whispered, slipping into the room and handing him a huge sandwich loaded with meats.
He barely got his thanks out before he was devouring the food in record time. His Alpha looked on with a worried frown before handing him a glass of water to wash it down.
“I’m sorry,” Luca said when he was finished.
His attention hadn’t left the figure still in bed behind him the entire time he ate. Cal’s chest was rising and falling with reassuring regularity, his heartbeat calm and steady.
Marco sighed and pulled him into a hug, running his stubble over his cheek to scent-mark him as he did. A tension Luca didn’t know he’d been holding released at the show of acceptance and belonging. He was still pack. Even though he’d just made Marco’s life much more difficult.
“You did what you had to do to save your mate,” Marco said.
“He’s not—” Luca started to say, trying to pull away.
“Shut up. You’re not fooling anyone. Not even him.”
“I can’t do it again,” Luca whispered, voice cracking.
“You’re stronger than that, Luca. He’s nothing like Garyth. I would’ve killed him myself before you even noticed the potential bond if he was.”
“Who’s Garyth?” Cal said, his rasping voice sounding even rougher than Luca’s had when he’d woken.
Luca was beside the bed in a flash, reaching down to touch Cal’s throat and feel his reassuring pulse as he turned his head to inspect the now-healed damage from the blast.
“You’re okay,” Luca whispered, finally believing it.
“I’m something. What did you do to me?” Cal asked.
He didn’t sound accusing or upset, but Luca winced nonetheless. “You need a shower and some food,” he said, not ready to face that question yet.
Cal’s eyes were flashing the bright blue of his magic, which they’d never done before. Was that his new wolf showing through? They should’ve been gold. Shifters always had gold eyes.
“I want to bite you so much it hurts. Why do I want to bite you, Luca? My teeth are aching as bad as my cock with you standing so close,” Cal said.
Marco barked out a laugh from behind them, and Cal glanced over warily. He must’ve known the Alpha was there with his new senses, but maybe he’d been a little distracted by this whole biting thing.
“Don’t,” Luca said to Marco as he opened his mouth.
His Alpha ignored him .
“You can’t keep him in the dark about his own body, Luca,” Marco chided.
Turning to Cal, Marco dropped the bombshells in a disturbingly succinct way, destroying any hope Luca had of softening the blow or just avoiding the subject entirely for a few hours.
“Luca turned you into a shifter because you’re his mate and you were dying.”
“Isn’t that kind of frowned upon?” Cal asked after a long pause.
“Yes,” Marco agreed, looking far too relaxed.
“It’s forbidden,” Luca clarified, looking down at the covers instead of at Cal.
He heard Marco shrug behind him. “The Supernatural Council has never issued an ordinance on it. I’d call it more of a gentleman’s agreement between the species.”
“Blaze is going to kill me,” Cal groaned.
“Not unless he wants to start a war with the pack. You’re family now,” Marco said.
Luca winced again as Cal didn’t say a word in response to that statement.
“You’re right. I do need that shower,” he said, finally.
Luca hovered nearby as he got out of bed, all too aware Cal was still weak and healing. He was so busy watching in case he fell that he jumped in surprise when Cal stepped close and tipped his chin up to look at him, his hands shaking slightly. Luca really needed to get him something to eat.
“I’m not upset to have a family, Luca,” Cal said, stroking his hands down his neck and scent-marking him. “Not when it’s because of who you are to me.”
“That’s your wolf speaking. You’ll feel differently about being linked to a mafia pack once you’re feeling more yourself again,” Luca said.
Marco made a concerned noise at his words. Probably because of what it revealed about the unhealthy way Luca had viewed his wolf all these years. He knew he was going to have to explain himself to his Alpha at some point after years of hiding the trauma still lingering in his soul, but Cal held a hand up, asking Marco to wait. It was a measure of how Marco saw Cal that he did as he asked.
“One day, I hope you tell me why you feel that way, but I told you before that your wolf is a part of you. Its needs are yours. Now mine is a part of me. It feels like a natural evolution of my magic, to be honest. I am myself,” Cal said.
“How can you be so calm about this? You hate my pack! You want nothing to do with us! And now you’re stuck with us!”
“Well, this fucking gorgeous man keeps telling me even criminals can have morals and I’m pretty gone on him at this point, so I’m willing to give his family the benefit of the doubt,” Cal said.
Luca’s jaw dropped and he just stared at him as Cal pressed a kiss to his cheek and walked off to the bathroom.
“He’s good for you. I’m glad you found him,” Marco said once the door shut, although now Cal was a shifter too he could probably still hear them.
Luca sank down on the bed and dropped his head into his hands.
“I’m sorry I didn’t realise you were in so much pain still.” Guilt was clear in Marco’s words and voice.
Luca shook his head in annoyance. “You’ve given enough to all of us. You’d light yourself on fire to keep us warm. It’s not your job to fix my brain, too.”
“I’m here for you, Luca. We all are. You don’t have to handle it all on your own.”
Luca sighed and looked up at Marco. “I won’t be a burden to the pack.”
Marco scowled. “You are the furthest thing from a burden possible. How long have you been dissociating from your wolf?”
“Cal took care of it,” Luca muttered.
“How?”
“He used his magic to help rebalance everything so I can control my need to shift properly again.”
“What the fuck, Luca?! You were losing control and you couldn’t even tell me?”
And now Marco sounded heartbroken, which was even worse than the guilt from earlier.
“Hey. He’s had a rough few weeks. Back off,” Cal said, stepping back into the room with a towel barely holding on to his hips and water still dripping down his chest like he hadn’t even taken the time to dry himself.
Marco snarled at Cal, and the witch bared his teeth back, glaring at him. Oh, this was bad. Cal was a new wolf challenging a pack Alpha.
Diving in between the two, Luca pressed himself up to Cal’s chest and gripped his hair tight, dragging his head down so he could nuzzle in under his ear. “Calm down, Cal. I’m fine,” he said.
“I’m cutting you some slack because you’ve been a shifter for all of a few hours. Try that dominance shit with me again and we’re going to have a problem. Don’t challenge me unless you want to lead the pack,” Marco snapped.
Cal grunted. “Fuck, no. I have no desire to lead your pack.”
“That’s what I thought. Just as well, because you wouldn’t fucking win,” Marco said.
Luca wasn’t so sure. On pure predatory speed and strength, sure, Marco would take it out easy. He had years more experience as a wolf, and Cal hadn’t even shifted yet. But Cal had his magic on top of his new form. It was a good thing his witch had no interest in leading a pack or a crime family, because a fight between Marco and Cal would be brutal and devastating for them both. There was no saying who would come out on top.
“Don’t worry, baby. I wouldn’t hurt your family,” Cal murmured into his hair.
Marco growled again, but it trailed off quickly. “Thank you for helping him when I couldn’t,” he said, grudgingly. “Luca is one of our hearts. We’d be broken without him.”
Luca’s breath caught at Cal’s reply. “I know the feeling.”
It was too much, too fast. Luca needed some space. “I’ll go make you some food,” he told Cal.
The blue glow of Cal’s eyes intensified and his nostrils flared, his new wolf instincts clearly reacting to the promise of mating behaviour. “You going to feed me, baby?”
“It doesn’t mean anything.”
Luca yelped and then growled as Cal swatted his ass. “Don’t lie to me.”
Luca flipped him a middle finger and headed to the kitchen. Cal had a huge amount of calories to replace between losing all his blood and the damage from the blast.
By the time Doc had checked Cal over, the witch had consumed half the contents of his fridge and it was almost midnight. Despite sleeping an entire day away, Luca still dragged. Losing consciousness was not the same as resting. He could only imagine how much worse Cal must feel. They weren’t going to be able to relax until whoever had attacked them was cold and dead, though.
“Where’re my computers? The carpark cameras must’ve picked up something this time,” he said.
“You two aren’t doing anything until you’ve had some real sleep and Cal’s had a chance to shift and run for the first time,” Marco said.
“I can work while he does that,” Luca said stubbornly.
“You need to shift regularly or my magic won’t be able to keep you in balance, baby. You can’t keep avoiding it,” Cal said, dropping him in it with both Rafe and Marco.
Luca glared at the witch for the betrayal.
“His first shift will be much safer with his mate there by his side,” Rafe said.
Dammit. The doc had an uncanny ability to manipulate him into doing things. He’d been cheerfully ignoring the way everything in him rejected the idea of leaving Cal to shift alone when he knew firsthand the dangers of getting stuck in wolf form. Rafe’s words were the excuse he wished he didn’t need.
“Fine,” he grumbled.
“Oh, are we admitting the mate thing now?” Cal teased.
“Don’t push your fucking luck,” Luca said.
“We’ll come collect you tomorrow afternoon and you can run in the pack forest. We’ll have to go to one of the remote entrances so no one sees him, though. Get some sleep,” Marco said, heading toward the door. “Or not,” he added with a wink.
Luca busied himself sorting the dishes as Rafe and Marco let themselves out of the apartment. Cal wasn’t having any of it. Warm, strong arms wrapped around him from behind, and the witch inhaled his scent deeply and groaned.
“How do you stand it? It’s fucking intoxicating. I could get drunk just standing here next to you,” Cal said.
“You get used to it,” Luca said, focussing on his task.
It was a lie. He still wasn’t used to the effect Cal’s scent had on him. Or the effect his mere presence had on him.
“I can hear Marco opening and closing the door downstairs,” Cal said .
Luca stopped what he was doing and leaned his hands on the bench. “Do you hate it?” he asked. Do you hate me?
Cal sighed, running his hands down Luca’s arms. “I think witches are a bit more used to the idea of magic shaping the world than most. That there are some things that are just a force of nature you can’t fight. Maybe I should feel panicked or angry or confused. I don’t. You and me, this connection. It feels inevitable. It always has. Would I have asked you to change me under other circumstances? No. That doesn’t mean I’m not grateful. Not just because you saved my life, but because now I can feel this thing between us every bit as much as you do. I wouldn’t give that up for anything now I have it.”
Luca swallowed down his despair. “I can’t give you what you want,” he whispered, back still turned, head hanging down in the hopes Cal wouldn’t notice his tears falling into the sink.
“What I want is to be close to you. To feed you and make you smile. To touch you when you want to be touched and to hold you when it all becomes too much. To make sure you know just how perfect you are. My good boy,” Cal said, pressing kisses to his shoulder through his shirt.
Luca let his head fall back onto Cal’s chest and released a breath, for once letting the euphoria of his praise wash through him without bothering with the accompanying annoyance or shame. It was time to explain things to Cal. He deserved to know why Luca was the way he was.
“When I was seventeen, a lone wolf arrived in the city. Garyth was charming and attractive and he paid more attention to the young computer geek of the Lunetti family than any of the guys at school ever had,” Luca started.
“You don’t have to talk about this if you don’t want to, baby. You don’t owe me anything,” Cal said softly in his ear.
Luca just shook his head and continued. “I should’ve known it was too good to be true. My family is rich and powerful and people don’t just befriend you for no reason. I hadn’t had my last growth spurt yet, either. I was scrawny and pale and pretty much the opposite of what a wolf shifter looks for in a partner.”
Cal snorted softly. “I doubt that. I can’t imagine you ever not being the sexiest fucking man in the room.”
Luca smiled despite himself and leaned into Cal a little more. Maybe he could do this after all. Talk about what happened. Cal made it so easy.
“Things moved fast between us, but not fast enough for Garyth. He’d told me he was twenty, but we found out later he was actually twenty-three. Old enough to have racked up a huge debt to the Silverlake Pack out west between product he’d lost as a courier and gambling. That pack is even more ruthless than we are. Garyth was looking for protection and money and he thought tying himself to the na?ve cousin of the Alpha of a crime family would be his free ride.”
Luca paused, swallowing hard, and his voice grew softer.
“The first time he asked to mate me was on my eighteenth birthday. Technically legal, but not something my pack ever would have supported and not something I was interested in. I’d snuck out to stay the night with him and he asked me over pancakes he’d made for breakfast. I laughed it off and told him we had plenty of time for that. He dropped it when my brother and Aria hunted me down to bring me back to celebrate with the pack.”
Luca filled a cup with water before continuing. He needed to gather his thoughts before he finished this shitty tale.
Sensing his tension, Cal held him tighter. “I really don’t like where this tale is going, baby,” he whispered.
Cal and him both.
“The Silverlake enforcers reached the city that night. Garyth must’ve heard they were in town because he was jittery as fuck at our party. The pack had hired out a nightclub for us. They always went big with our milestones. Twin orphans, you know? They wanted to be there for us. The Silverlake enforcers didn’t hide. They came through the front door of the club. They knew Marco would listen to them and there was no reason for us to attack them and risk starting a pack war. Garyth dragged me to a bathroom out back as soon as they arrived and by the time Marco had got to the bottom of what they were after, Garyth and his pet witch had forced a mating bond on me in a fucking nightclub bathroom stall.”
Cal swore, and Luca felt warm tears, not his own, running down his neck. “I’ll fucking kill them,” Cal growled, shaking with rage against Luca’s body.
“No need. They’re already dead. Garyth used the bond and more magic to keep me under control and it took the pack a couple of weeks to understand I hadn’t chosen to mate with him. They still carry the guilt of that to this day. It’s part of why they are the way they are with me. I don’t hold it against them. I’d been head over paws for Garyth and they had no reason to expect he had access to that kind of magic. Without magic, mating bonds only form if you’re fated and that’s what they saw when two young shifters came stumbling out of that bathroom wrapped around each other. Marco paid off the enforcers and sent us to one of the safehouses for some privacy to let the bond settle.”
“They unknowingly sent you off to be trapped alone with a fucking rapist,” Cal said.
“Yes. They did. And it will haunt them forever.”
“How did you break the bond?” Cal asked.
“Aria was the first to realise something wasn’t right. She says my texts sounded wrong, but Garyth was monitoring them, so I hadn’t given anything away. She knew regardless. She and our big brother Frankie snuck out to the safehouse and saw enough to confirm their suspicions. Frankie couldn’t help himself. He went straight for Garyth’s throat. But he didn’t know that damn witch had left defences behind. Aria was stuck outside in a literal bear trap that almost severed her foot and I just sat curled up in a corner, unable to do a single thing to help my brother kill my mate while they fought because of the damn bond. When Garyth realised he was losing, he used the bond to force me to shift and tried to get me to attack my brother. It didn’t work. Frankie eviscerated him. And as Garyth lay bleeding out on the floor, he broke this tiny little stick he had in his pocket. I still hear the snap in my dreams. So quiet. So innocuous. It was some sort of spell. When I found the witch who’d made it later, he admitted Garyth had blackmailed him, but he’d already been going down a dark path with his magic. All Garyth did was press that stick to Frankie’s ankle and my brother went up in flames. Screaming. There were only ashes left behind. I ran off into the forest so deep in my wolf that I wasn’t even aware I’d ever been human. My uncle eventually dragged me back to his apartment. He sat talking to me for what must have been weeks before he managed to coax me into turning back.”
Cal pulled at Luca’s shoulder until he turned around and scooped him up into his arms, holding him close as he walked back to the bedroom.
“Thank you for sharing your past with me,” Cal said as he sat down, holding Luca in his lap. There was no pity in his voice. Only understanding.
Luca buried his head in Cal’s chest and let himself be held for once. “So, now you know why I’m so fucking weak and broken,” he said.
“No, baby. Now I know just how fucking strong you are and just how precious this connection between us is.”
“Even if I can never let the bond form?” Luca asked.
“I don’t need a mating bond to love you, Luca.”
Luca’s breath caught at Cal’s admission. He wished he could say the words back, but there was no way he could navigate the torrent of emotions telling his story had let loose just then to do that. Showing once again just how attuned Cal was to him, the witch gently undressed him and laid him in bed without expecting any kind of reply.
“Can you just hold me?” Luca whispered.
“Of course. Always,” Cal said, curling around him in a blanket of safety and affection.