Skins & Needles (COMPLETE)

Blood and Wine Part 1

Arsen

If I was going to get a tattoo, what would it be?

I found myself thinking that often after the day I met Charlotte Andersen. I had never wanted a tattoo. I didn't particularly like the look of them on others, either.

Until I met her, that is.

Something about the way she talked about them, the passion ringing clear in her voice, made me want to reconsider. Her tattoos were like a map on her skin. A map of her history, detailing each place she'd been, each notable memory or event or passion. A map I wanted to follow from her collar bones down to her ankles, and everywhere in between.

Of course, that would never be possible. At least not now, while a war brewed in my world.

A world she wasn't a part of.

It didn't stop me from thinking about her. Her deep red hair, hazel eyes framed by comically large glasses, bowless lips, sharp nose, slightly uneven teeth, alluring smile, even more alluring scent...

I wondered if she knew. I wondered if she had even the vaguest of ideas that half her clientele weren't human, or how she would react if I told her. I wondered what she had thought of me, and if she was looking forward to seeing me at Solstice. I wondered what she would wear, and if she would care if I pulled her aside at the party and...

I had to snap out of it.

After Adiran and I left the tattoo parlor, it had been a nonstop week of scouting the city and our territory, looking for any more signs of them.

The sorcerers.

They had discovered one of the last remaining Passes to Lycan, and wanted nothing more than to exploit our homeland for its inherent magical properties. We could stop them— if you combined all of the shapeshifters, even just the ones from Phoenix, we outnumbered them— but not alone.

That's where the challenge began and ended. The Volkovs, as we called ourselves in the mafia world, were dire wolf shifters. And as insignificant as differences in shifter species should have seemed while the safety of our homeland was threatened, it was difficult to convince many of the other "families" of this fact.

That's what we were hoping to break past at Solstice; the species barrier. If we could all access each other's territories surrounding the Pass, then we could more adequately protect against sorcerer infiltration. We would all maintain separate control over the various sectors of Phoenix that each family ruled, but theoretically, outside of the organized crime agenda, we could band together for the greater good of Lycan.

This was all just an idea, one that Kase, our pack's alpha of sorts, fully subscribed to. The issue would be convincing the others that this was the best option. I knew from my own hesitation and distaste for the arrangement how hard it would be. The preservation of Lycan should have been enough, but the distrust between species, especially in a city where we'd established ourselves as rivals, ran almost as deep as instinct.

"Do you think we'll convince them?" Adrian asked as we rode to Solstice. "I mean, the Nathairs are downright mean. Some of the others we may be able to logic with, but them..."

"They tend to strike first, think later," I agreed, and rolled my neck. "It's going to be tough."

"It's going to be damn near impossible," Kase said from opposite us. He sat with his wife, Eva, in a stark-white suit that would set him apart as boss. Shifter circles didn't work exactly the way people thought with hard alpha, beta, and luna roles. They were more fluid than that, more like a close-knit network of family and friends, with bosses falling into place purely for the purpose of managing our underground crime ring. Outside of Phoenix, we functioned like wild wolves, rather than the misrepresented, stereotyped werewolf pack. Elders usually sat higher up based on the extent of their Lycan knowledge, but leaders fluctuated as needed.