Chasity’s POV
“You’re a werewolf, you know just as well as anyone else those marks cannot be removed. They’re permanent,” I said, trying to stop my brown eyes from turning black with rage. How dare he try to remove my mates’ marks. That was beyond heinous. I’d never even heard of such a thing.
Dante shrugged. “It was magic. I thought it would work,” he said.
I must have lost my mind for a second. Temporary insanity. I lunged at him and tackled him to the ground, canines bared. I wanted to rip him to shreds.
Dante was so stunned. He actually froze as we fell to the ground with me on top of him. My claws came out as I scratched at his torso and his face. He recovered and grabbed my wrists, squeezing until it was painful. I screamed. He stood up and tossed me back onto my bed. He roared at me, his own eyes turning my black. His canines were pointed and extended to his lower lips. I was panting. Slowly, my eyes lightened from black to their usual warm brown. My nails and teeth returned to normal. My wrists were throbbing. Dante returned to normal too, still glaring at me, now with pink scratches all over him. I stared at him, waiting for the scratches to fade.
“Don’t ever do that again!” He warned.
I knew he could have killed me if he wanted to. He was much stronger. He was alpha material. I was no match for him really. I doubted he would kill me though. One of my alphas would obviously kill him in retaliation and he still did not know if I was pregnant or not. My eyes filled with tears. It was all so unfair. I hadn’t asked for any of this.
Dante’s expression softened a little . I curled up into a ball on the bed and cried.
“Chasity,” was all he said. He was silent for a long time.
“You need to pull yourself together,” he said.
“Why would you try to erase my mates’ marks?” I sobbed. “Why must you take everything from me?”
Dante sighed. He sat down, slumped against the door that separated my prison of a bedroom from the rest of the house or whatever it was.
“I’m sorry,” he said softly.
“You are,” I mumbled.
“I…you…remind me of someone,” Dante said.
I stared at him through blurry tear-filled eyes. I blinked, allowing the tears to escape.
“Who?” I asked.
“It doesn’t matter…but because you remind me of someone…it helped seal your fate,” Dante said.
“Seal my fate?” I asked.
“She asked me to choose,” he whispered.
What the hell was he talking about?
“She as in the boss,” I said.
He nodded.
“What were you asked to choose? Me?” I asked, horrified. He had picked me out. Who were his other options?
“You were a candidate anyway, but because of…me…she found you the most appealing,” he said.
I was fed up.
“Just tell me what you intend to do to me. It’s the least you could do if you truly are a bit remorseful about it,” I said, sniffling.
He got up suddenly and cupped my face in his hands. His nose was very close to mine.
“Don’t you dare,” I warned.
I belonged to my triplets.
“I’m not going to do anything,” he promised. “Your eyes are different than hers but other than that. Yeah. Like a perfect match.”
“Congratulations, your reward for the most vague speech in the villain category is on its way,” I muttered yanking my face away and scrambling across to the corner.
He snorted with laughter.
“She was funny too,” he said.
“Oh, really, did she have hair and a face?” I asked.
I was tired of his bullshit. He was probably making stuff up to distract me from how angry I was about the marks.
“Yeah,” he said, grinning. “She had long curly dark blonde hair and really sweet innocent face.”
I glared at him.
“Like a little fairytale character,” he said.
I was silent.
“Like Goldilocks,” he said.
I rolled my eyes.
“The name Chasity is so…bleh. I’m going to call you Goldilocks for the time being,” he said.
“You can call me whatever you like but I’ll only answer to Chasity,” I said dryly.
He scowled. There was the Dante I knew. “Suit yourself,” he snapped, storming out.
Third Person
The five looked up to see a large werewolf, tall and broad-shouldered with a scowl on his chiseled face. The man was covered in fine pink lines, scratch marks. Dante frowned at Destiny, upset that she had made a spectacle out of him. Dante spotted the triplets at the bar. He tried as hard as he could not to stiffen or react to them in any way. He had made an effort to hide her smell when he left the house. He always did. He couldn’t risk going up to the bar though. He sat near the wall on the other side of the bar. He hoped Destiny could take a hint.
She came over, leaving the bar, drawing eyes to him. He scowled at her. He sighed and tried to look deeply interest in his menu. The menu had almost nothing on it. He grumbled to himself. He chanced a glance at the triplets who were deep in conversation. He felt a little relief.
“What do you want to drink, Da…” Destiny began.
He flashed her his black eyes and she stopped talking. “A beer, ok,” he said softly.
“Ok,” she mumbled. She brought of a beer thankfully without asking which one. She opened it for him with the opener on her belt. She looked at him blankly. He usually made small-talk with her. He was regretting that now. She took a deep breath and walked back to the bar. He strained his ears, listening to the triplets. There were two others with them. One he recognised as Danny, the private investigator the triplets had hired to interview the pack members on the suspect list. His boss’s informant had found that out, asking questions around the pack lands. Who was the older werewolf? Dante had not seen him around before. Where had he been hiding? Clearly he was important for some reason. He was at ease with the three alphas and the P.I., eagerly contributing to the conversation. Who was he?
“…Deidre Binx…”
Dante caught the name. He was all ears.
Felix was staring at the P.I. with a frown, his eyes narrowed. “So once we’re done with all the leads here, you think it makes sense to hop on a plane to LA? What if Chasity is still here in the pack lands? We locked the pack lands down remember? She’s more likely to be here.”
“She could be here or she could be anywhere,” Alex said. “The point is to connect all the dots and one of the biggest enigmas here is Deidre Binx and her lookalikes. I don’t know whether we should be tailing the one spotted here or the one simultaneously spotted in LA so let’s try to track down both.!”
Calix nodded. “Cover all the bases. We need to be on the lookout for other members of the Furina Ornata who might know something. So we should be keeping an eye out for that tattoo!”
“Definitely,” said the older werewolf. “Not all members knew each other. Far from it. There were different pockets with different goals. Only the moon snake and the amazing power-giving properties of its venom connected them.
Finally the pink scratches were fading. The little she-wolf’s scratches had taken surprisingly long to heal. Dante was glad they were finally going away. Dante was also glad he was wearing boots that covered his ankles because one of those ankles bore a tattoo of the full moon with a snake curled around it.
