Deal With the Devil Read online

  “So how’s it going with the pack lately?” I asked, after the waitress came and took our orders and sushi menus, giving Diego doubtful looks the whole time. I was hoping to get the conversation started on his business and keep him out of my own.

  “Oh, you mean the were version of the KKK?”

  “Come on, Diego—I was angry when I said that. Let it go and I’ll let the things you said go. What do you say?”

  He sighed. “All right. But only because you’re my favorite sister.”

  “Gee thanks. I’ll be sure to tell Essie she comes in second place.” Essie, short for Esperanza, was my perfect older sister and the only other girl besides me in a family full of boys. Why our parents chose such Hispanic-sounding names for all of us when they didn’t seem to give a crap for the culture otherwise was a mystery, but I was glad I’d gotten a relatively short and easy one.

  “I’ll tell her myself.” Diego frowned. “You should see her. Now that Frank is up for pack master she thinks she’s the Queen of Sheba or some shit. Them and their perfect kids—makes me sick, ya know?”

  Now here was news I was genuinely interested in. “The pack mastership is up for grabs?” I meant my family’s home pack, not Los Lobos, the pack Diego ran with.

  He nodded and took a sip of his pink lady, another favorite he’d picked up from me. “Uh-huh. And about time. They’ve had the same leader for…how long now?”

  “Fourteen years,” I said automatically. That was exactly how long it had been since I had last visited the hunting grounds of my family’s home pack. Exactly how long it had been since that fateful night when James Engle had ascended as pack master and I’d first failed to change. It was burned into my brain like a brand. Don’t think about it! I pushed the bad memory aside quickly. “So, uh, what happened to what’s-his-name? The current pack master?” I said, trying to sound casual.

  “Who, Engle? He’s still around but not for long. Decided to step down voluntarily and retire to Miami. Of course, everybody thinks it’s ‘cause he’s too much of a pussy to fight if another wolf challenges him. Fucking mariposa.”

  “Keep your voice down,” I murmured. Two well-dressed South Tampa ladies who lunch were sitting at the table beside us, scarfing down sushi they would probably purge later. They were already eyeing Diego with distaste and his colorful language wasn’t helping any.

  “Sorry.” Diego gave them a little wave, displaying the LOVE and HATE tattoos on his fingers, which nearly made them choke on their volcano roll. “Anyway,” he continued, turning back to me. “Engle is all ‘I want to choose my successor for the good of the pack’. But first, of course, he’s taking this all-expenses-paid trip to Hawaii. Said he needs time to consider the candidates in a clean environment. Like Hawaii is so much cleaner than Tampa.”

  “It might be, you don’t know,” I pointed out, but I was running on autopilot. An idea had popped into my brain—one that held a scary kind of appeal. And if the pack master really was going to be gone it just might work.

  “Hell, Luz, that’s not the point,” Diego complained. “The point is, it’s the other pack members, like Mom and Dad, who are funding his little vacation. Of course Frank and Essie are all supportive because they think Engle is gonna pick Frank hands down, but a lot of people are pissed.”

  “I’m sure they are,” I said absently. “So you’re sure he’ll be gone this coming full moon? He’ll be in Hawaii?” There was no way in hell I would go anywhere near James Engle for the rest of my life. But if he was really going to be gone then maybe I could reclaim part of my heritage. A part that I had thought I’d lost forever fourteen years before.

  “He’ll be in a five-star hotel in Honolulu,” Diego said. “That’s why they’re having a scaled-down hunt this month. Essie wants me to run with them instead of the Lobos since Frank is acting as temporary pack master while Engle’s gone.”

  “Are you going to?” I asked, toying with the iced tea the waitress brought me along with Diego’s second pink lady.

  He shrugged, making his tattooed arms ripple. “I might. Dad is putting on the pressure, saying how important it is to show Frank support and how great it would be to have a pack master in the family. Mom and Dad always did care more about pack status than anything else—you know?”

  “I know.” I swallowed a lump that wanted to rise in my throat. God, how I knew. My parents would do anything for pack status. Anything at all. Even… I pushed it away. If Engle really was stepping down and moving on, then I had a unique opportunity. I cleared my throat. “Maybe I’ll come out to the hunting grounds this full moon, too.”

  “You will?” Diego gave me a blank look. “Uh, no offense, Luz, but what are you gonna do there if you do?”

  I took a sip of tea. “It’s been a long time. Maybe I should try again.”

  He frowned. “You think that’s a good idea? I mean, it’s kinda public, Luz. Maybe you should just try in private this time and if it doesn’t work…” He trailed off, shrugging.

  “No.” I shook my head. “I think I should come to the hunting grounds. I think I can do it this time—I think I’ll be able to shift.”

  Diego covered my hand with his. “C’mon, Luz—you know how you get when you try. You can’t breathe and you get all shaky. It scares the shit out of me.” Diego had gone with me several times during the full moon when I’d attempted to shift and needed some moral support. We always picked a private spot, which was a good thing because the result was always a massive panic attack on my part.

  “It won’t be like that this time,” I said stubbornly, trying to convince him as much as myself. “I’ll be able to control it. I’ll be calm.”

  “And how are you going to manage that?” He gave me a suspicious look.

  “The same way I passed the Bar exam.” I tried to sound nonchalant.

  “What—by taking blood from that goddamn vampire? Hell no!” Diego was practically yelling and the ladies who lunch both shot him looks that could kill before getting up and taking their half-eaten sushi to another table that was across the restaurant.

  “Keep your voice down!” I said again. “And stop judging. Jude is a really nice guy. And let me tell you something—he saved me from being kidnapped and you don’t want to know what else last week.”

  “He what? Who almost kidnapped you? What happened?”

  I sighed. I hadn’t meant to let that particular cat out of the bag, especially knowing how protective my little brother could be. Running with Los Lobos had enhanced his alpha-male tendencies to truly annoying levels.

  “Okay, I’ll tell you but only if you swear not to tell Mom and Dad.” Taking a deep breath, I gave Diego a highly edited version of my near abduction in which Jude frightened away my attackers instead of ripping one of their heads off and, of course, leaving out the incredibly sexual “healing” he’d done for me afterward.

  I also failed to mention the fact that my would-be kidnappers had talked about the value of my virginity to whoever had hired them. Diego, being a were, knew I was still a virgin just by the fact that my scent had never changed. But my lack of a sex life wasn’t exactly a standard topic of conversation between us. I mean, we’re close but you have to draw the line somewhere.

  Despite the way I’d downplayed what had happened, my little brother was highly pissed. First he wanted to know why I hadn’t called him immediately. Then, why hadn’t I gone to the police—which is always a second choice for shifters after pack justice. However, if humans are involved in an altercation it’s standard policy to call the boys in blue rather than just shredding the human in question to bits. Hey, they may be weaker than us but they outnumber us about a thousand to one so we have to live by their rules—mostly, anyway.

  I fielded Diego’s questions as well as I could but when he started saying I should move out of my apartment and come back home to my parents’ house, I put my foot down.

  “No, no, and hell no,” I said, taking a bite of my spider roll the waitress had deposited quietly on th