Chapter One
It was a night like any other in South Florida—muggy, damp, just beginning to be really hot—and the Lunas Locas pack was going vamp bashing. The moon was nearly full and the wolves were assembling around the Biscayne Boulevard edge of Bicentennial Park. You couldn’t really get out of the city—the urban sprawl of Miami stretched on and on until you hit the Gulf or the Everglades. But there were a few open places a pack could run under the moon and this was one of them.
Paul Kraskowski, aka Krackskullsi, aka Skulls to the rest of the wolves, sighed and shrugged out of his damp T-shirt, revealing the pack tats he’d had inked back when he’d been jumped-in on his fifteenth birthday. A wolf howling at a crazy-faced moon decorated his muscular left shoulder and a blazing sun pierced by a stake covered most of his right pec. The tats sent a clear message to anyone who knew how to read them but by the time they did it was usually too late. He sighed irritably as he dropped the shirt carelessly on the seat of his custom-built motorcycle. He was already in a shit mood and the fucking humidity wasn’t helping one goddamn bit.
“What the fuck?” he snarled as someone covered his eyes from behind. The fingers were small and cold and the scent on them was bitter lime. “Hands off, Mercedes,” he snapped, impatiently turning to face her. “What do you want, anyway?”
She pouted prettily, tossing her long black hair over one slim shoulder. “Don’t be such a fucking killjoy, Skulls. Angel sent me—he said to tell you you’re leading the pack tonight.”
“What? Why?” Angel Chavez was packleader by blood and birth—he could trace his heritage all the way back to Cuba, which was something Paul, with his purely Polish ancestry by way of Chicago, couldn’t claim. He would never be packleader himself but he was second in command and closer to Angel than anyone else.
“Like I fucking know.” Mercedes shrugged. “He’s busy—family business. Not that you’d know anything about that.”
He’d taken enough shit for being the only blond-haired, blue-eyed non-Cubano in the Locas often enough for that not to bother him. But he didn’t like the fact that Angel was sending Mercedes to tell him the plan for the night had changed instead of telling Paul himself. He gave the girl a hard look. “So why’s he sending a little wanna-be like you to tell me his business, huh?”
She flushed. “I’m not a wanna-be now. I was sexed-in two months ago, remember?”
“Like I could forget.” As one of the pack’s veteranos he’d had to take part. He’d made it as fast as he could but he couldn’t make himself finish inside her. What if she’d gotten pregnant? He didn’t want any kid of his to have Mercedes for a mother. “Well, I haven’t forgotten.” She reached between his legs and palmed his cock through the baggy jeans he wore. “What happened that night, anyway—you didn’t want to share me? Tonight you can have me all to yourself. You can even take me in wolf form if you want—I like to fur fuck under the full moon.”
Paul pushed her hand away, repulsed. “No thanks. I’ll take a fucking pass on that one.”
“What’s the matter with you, anyway, you don’t like girls?” Her delicate features were a mask of fury.
“No, I just don’t like pinche putas.”
“Cabron! ” She spat on the ground, obviously pissed that he’d refused her again.
Leaving his cum on her belly instead of inside her cunt was the ultimate sign of disrespect. It had damaged her status in the pack right from the start and Mercedes wasn’t likely to forgive him for it anytime soon—especially since he kept resisting her advances. Not that he cared.
“Fuck off.” He didn’t bother to keep the contempt out of his voice. There were other human girls who ran with the pack—it was a necessity since the were gene was hardly ever dominant in females. But none of them annoyed him as much as Mercedes who was constantly trying to sleep her way to the top. Paul wasn’t willing to be another rung in her ladder, even if he’d wanted her—which he fucking well didn’t.
Mercedes stuck a finger in his face. “You better grow some fucking manners soon, Skulls. Look at my eyes—they’re green—witch green. I’m a bruja, you know. You mess with me I’ll make your pinga fall off.”
“Yeah, right. I’m shaking in my shoes.” He turned to go but she grabbed his arm.
“I know why you don’t want me—it’s the same reason you don’t want any girl.
You’re a maricon. ”
Paul looked down at her hand on his arm and then back to her face. “Get your fucking hand off me if you don’t want to lose it.”
“Yeah, right, I’m so scared.”