Forty-Nine
Antonio
June 23 1907, Jacksonville, Florida
“Evening, mister. Wanna warm me up tonight?”
I ignore the whore on the docks as I make my way to my Boss’ office. If it was up to me, I’d take her some place quiet and kill her, but Oscar likes them hanging around. No better way to finish a meeting than by sticking his dick in a couple of whores. He also thinks they’ll act as a look-out if the cops arrive – and failing that, they will be a distraction, giving us time to get away while they get carted off – sometimes to be arrested, other times to be fucked in a train or gangbang in exchange for being let go with just a warning.
This particular whore has been picked up half a dozen times from here, but she keeps coming back because sailors are an easy score. Most aren’t married, and those that are – well, their missuses don’t travel with them.
“Oh, come on, big daddy, I’ll make it worth your while.”
She lifts her red skirt up slowly, revealing her ankle, then her knee. She trails her own hand along her skin. “You can help me just like this...”
My jaw tightens. Filth like her should be cleaned from the city. If only they’d all been burned in the fire of 1901, but they weren’t the focus of that attack. We were.
After we took a few key streets of Jacksonville, Florida, from the Blood Fangs, they decided to try to burn us out by sacrificing the whole damn city. Their Boss is a genuine psychopath. This gang war isn’t business or retaliation for him like it is for us or the Shadow Domain. It’s pure, simple pleasure.
“Like what you see?”
the whore purrs as she swishes the red fabric back and forth across her leg.
“No.”
I stride past her, leaving her spitting curses. But a whore like her can never give me what I need.
Slipping a hand into my pocket, I pull out my gold watch and flip it open. I don’t look at the time though; I know I’m ten minutes early. Instead, my eyes fasten onto the painting on the other side. The one of a wide-eyed girl with the biggest, goofiest smile.
“Look what I found! Isn’t he just the cutest?”
I turn around, expecting her to have brought back some stray cat like she has in the past. My heart jumps sixteen feet into the air, and I damn near follow it. “Godsdammit, Siome!”
I shout. “That is an alligator!”
“It’s actually a crocodile –”
“That’s worse!”
“You mean better!”
she squeals. Holding the hatchling up to her face, she kisses him on the nose. “He’s so pretty. Can we keep him?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because when he grows up, he’ll eat you.”
“Ah.”
She nods sagely. “And you don’t like it when other males get to eat me.”
She laughs as I choke on my next breath.
Dear gods, my little helfire is going to be the death of me.
I snap the pocket watch closed. Thinking about her right now is dangerous. I need to keep my head cleared for this meeting. We’re about to hit the Shadow Domain in only a few hours.
Marching towards the office at the docks, I slip inside and nod at the man at the door. He isn’t a wolf like me, but he’s loyal to the cause. He lost his older brother to the Blood Fangs, then his parents to the witches. He will give his life for us – a price he will undoubtedly pay. Everyone dies in this war.
But not her.
She’s safe out west. In a stable pack. In a well-established territory. She’s even mated to some fucker now, and he can give her the peace I cannot.
Forcing her from my mind, I make my way into the back room. It’s already filled with capos – all women par one, but none of them greet me. I am just a lowly soldier. Oscar’s perfect killing machine, his favorite hitman. Which makes them scared of me. They know I have the skill to kill them and take their title, and I have the favoritism of the Boss. After all, one cannot rise in rank if all the rungs are filled.
But I’ve never been interested in politics.
I’m pissed off enough with the world the way it is. I don’t need to be involved with people actively trying to make it worse. I might take orders from Oscar, but he knows better than to try to use me for his own personal gain.
I fight for the innocents trapped in this war. For people like Siome. Not him.
My eyes narrow as I clock movement towards me. All those around me move away, able to smell my irritation. They know how fast I can shift into my wolf form. What takes them minutes takes me only seconds, and I can handle the pain enough to fight back even while I change.
The woman walking towards me, however, only hesitates a half-step before she continues. Her dark hair is cut to her shoulders, and she wears pants instead of the dresses of the whores out on the docks. But she’s still a whore – always tossing herself at me, as if I’d be happy to take any scraps.
Because that’s all every woman is compared to Siome.
Fucking scraps.
“I hear we’re hitting a drug den,” she says.
I don’t look at her, knowing I will get told what I need to soon enough. The meeting’s to start in three minutes, and Oscar is never late.
“Maybe we can grab a couple Ricks and Vs,”
she says as she sidles closer to me.
Now I do look at her.
My eyes flash dangerously, and she sucks in a breath as she takes a step back. Fear paints the air sickly sweet, and one of the other capos call her name as Oscar steps into the room. Taking the out she was given, the whore scurries off.
My irritation doesn’t wane though, and the space around me doesn’t fill. All through the meeting, I’m left alone. My arms crossed, I listen to the plan Oscar gives us.
While everyone storms the east side of the warehouse, I’m to go in through the west. Working alone is how I work best – no one to babysit; no one to try to keep safe. Then we’re to destroy the warehouse and any product inside. The drugs might be worth millions, but taking them would cause more trouble than they’re worth.
As long as we scorch it, our war stays with the Shadow Domain. But if we start dealing the Ricks and Vs ourselves, we will be targeted by every dealer of it in the world. The Mattos twins, the two geniuses who make the potions, are notoriously strict about who they sell to and who is allowed to distribute for them. There’s a list of detailed requirements their partners must adhere to, and one of those is to kill any unauthorized traders.
So if we try to sell even a single vial, we’ll instantly put a multi-billion dollar bounty on our heads and create enemies on every continent.
The Mattos twins are not ones for mercy.
We move out, a dozen of us stalking through the city in our human forms. Oscar only joins us as far as the whores on the docks though. That is where he stops; he hasn’t got his own hands bloody in a long time.
We continue through the cloud-covered night, weaving our way through quiet streets until we reach the outskirts of the city, where humans are few. They might not know about our existence, but they know danger haunts these woods. They know better than to be out this late alone.
Slipping into the cover of the trees, we strip out of our clothes, then shift. Pain cuts through our skin – a curse of the gods, the consequence of some ancient sin. Grunts and growls rip through the group, and even I’m not quiet as the intensity increases, but at least mine doesn’t last long. Shaking out my red fur, I push to my feet, towering over them. Most of our soldiers are female due to the make-up of our pack – one alpha male, a few betas, and the rest women, but werewolf males are still bigger. Stronger.
My eyes slip to the whore in the middle of her change, and terror permeates the air. They are all too aware that I could kill them one by one. I move too fast, when they don’t shift fast enough.
But capo openings just cause strife within our Family. So I turn my gaze to the woods around us and breathe in deep, checking for any Bloods or Shades, standing watch while they finish.
Then we race through the trees as one, heading towards the secret outpost Oscar marked on a map. It’s hidden by magic, but it’s been scent-marked by a couple of our guys, and we turn our heads side to side, pinpointing its direction.
I veer off when we get close, and as the rest of them start to target the east side, working to destroy the invisibility and protection ward by overloading it with their attacks, I wait on the western side. The air shimmers in front of me, the witches’ pale-blue shield taking a hammering. It starts to weaken.
My fur stands on end as adrenaline rushes through me. I could probably push through the ward without dying right now, but I’m only resistant to magic, not immune.
If I calculate it wrong, I’m dead.
And so I wait.
It fizzes out in a few minutes. A wooden hut pops into view. As the sound of fighting dances through the trees, I streak towards the building in a blur of red fur. We only have ten, maybe fifteen minutes before more reinforcements arrive. They’ll have a witch in there who knows how to scry, and they would have sent out a cry for help as soon we started attacking the ward.
Launching myself into the air, I crash through a window rather than the door. Rolling to my feet, I dart to the side and slice through the chest of the man I have taken by surprise. They’ve only left one guard for me, and I whip my head around, breathing in the smells to track where I need to go next.
But the whole place stinks of sex, Vs, and Ricks. We must’ve just interrupted an orgy – the dealers too tempted by their own product. If we don’t kill them for their mistake, Delun Shadow will, so perhaps they haven’t requested back-up at all. Perhaps they are dumb enough to think in their drug-induced state that they have what it takes to fend us off. To be the heroes and hide this mess from their Boss.
My cock twitches as the drugs in the air hook their claws into me. Ricks are the only way I’ve been able to get off in the eighty-two years since I chased Siome away. It still feels disgusting to get that release every few years, but at least with a Rick, the dick isn’t ‘mine.’ It’s a thing of magic with its own shape… And yet, I still kill the women after. Still feel the disgust too strongly. Like I’m cheating on her even though it’s been decades since I’ve even seen her outside of the painting in my watch.
Shaking my head, I fight the effects of the drugs, but they’ve filled the place up like a fucking opium den. It’s only a matter of time until I succumb. If they were having an orgy, then they have whores, and if any of them are wolves in heat and on V, then it will trigger a primal instinct I’ll struggle to fight. There is a reason most packs are made up of women. Too many males cause too much trouble too easily.
Heading deeper into the house, I kill any witch I come across, biting off their heads or stabbing my claws through their hearts. I move quickly and efficiently, feeling the timer ticking down on my control.
I barge into a room, and my cock jumps to attention. Beneath the smoky haze of the drugs filling the place, I spot a woman I would know anywhere.
Her scent calls to me, fills me, demands I make her mine.
I dig my claws into the door frame on either side of me, my muscles rippling as I struggle to control the urges of the Ricks so potent in the air.
She lies naked on a bed with one hand between her legs. Multiple bottles of V lie around her – a few full, more of them empty. The smell of her pussy is all wrong, too twisted by the potions’ own scents. Too filled with other men’s cum.
A pack member screams from outside, but I ignore their cry for help.
All my attention is on my childhood sweetheart.
The woman I thought I’d saved.
Siome.
Shifting back into my human form, I stumble towards her.
She turns to look at me, but her eyes are all wrong. The beautiful bright red delights are now dull and empty. Full of all the pain she was never supposed to experience. There’s no recognition there, no big smile to greet me. There’s just pure desperation. “Come fuck me,”
she purrs.
I flinch away even as my cock demands me forward. I don’t want her like this though. Where she doesn’t even know who I am.
My eyes fall to the glass bottles tossed beside her. To the addiction that’s dug into her veins.
“I need to get you out of here.”
“No,”
she cries, still riding her fingers. “Let me stay, big daddy. Let me stay, and I’ll fuck you real good.”
Ignoring the throbbing of my cock, I thank the gods she’s not in heat. I pick up the bottles she has lined up on the bed, then throw them at the wall. They smash into pieces, and she screams like I’ve hit her.
“Stop!”
she shrieks. “I’ve been good! I’ve sucked off all your friends. They fuck me whenever they want! Why are you doing this to me!”
She sits up as I peel off my shirt. She scrambles towards the wall and tries to lick the dripping liquid, but I grab her arm and pull her back.
“Siome, it’s me! I need to get you out of here.”
“No!”
I force my shirt on her, then lift her up and throw her over my shoulder.
“Get off me!”
she screams as she pummels her fists into my back.
She bites me. Kicks me. Starts to cry.
Her tears have always stabbed like knives, and hearing them after eighty-two years of nothing is fucking lethal, but I push through the pain as I stumble out of the house.
“The V!”
she screams. “At least go back for the V!”