My Bad Boy Werewolf Quadrillionaire Space Lord

The Gift of Guile

It was a bloody miracle I didn't murder this jackass on the spot.

As you probably figured out by now, I am not some air-headed, fake-titted, gold-digging floozy. Unfortunately for me, that seemed to be the only type of girl Fabulo Lorenzo has ever actually interacted with, which meant that any time I opened my mouth, I was running the risk of blowing-

Eww, no. No innuendos. Not around this creep. The only impulse control issues I was having around him was a war between my stomach, which wanted to vomit, and my hands, which wanted a flamethrower.

For one thing, Fabulo was a distinctly unattractive shade of white. Not like hot Norseman white, more like a colour I'll call 'pasty Englishman three weeks in the morgue'. Would rather kiss a wolffish.

His body contours, with an unnaturally rigid chest and abs that didn't move even when he twisted to look somewhere, definitely hinted at 'surgical enhancement'. Basically a lot like stuffing a pair of boobs full of silicone, they take a guy who wants to look like he gets exercise and pack filler where his muscles are supposed to be. It's an appalling bit of false advertising.

His hair smelled like someone was covering up a chemical burn. And the way he whipped his locks about to let it blow in the wind, from the fan his minions hauled around, meant that I was constantly smelling it.

But, ladies, if you ever need to pump a guy for information, here's some advice. If you want a guy to talk endlessly, pretend to be interested in what he's saying. Especially with a guy like Fabulo, there's no lie he'll believe quite as readily as the idea that a girl's attracted to him.

"So, Fabulo," I said in a vapid semi-rasp as I hung off his arm. I kept my eyes wide and batted my eyelashes at him. "Is this your first time getting one up on Luca Cardego? It can't be, you're so smart and handsome, but you seemed surprised to see the better man win."

Saying that nearly made me vomit. There's only so much bullshit I can pack into a single sentence without choking. Fabulo took a painfully long moment to process what I said to him, before he said, "It is the first time, sugar-tits, but it won't be the last. I can promise you that."

Sugar tits? I was very tempted to break his surgically altered nose and put him in dentures while I was at it. But I took a deep breath and kept a happy thought in my head. It might have been Luca's abs, but I'll never admit it aloud.

"Ooh, do you have a wily and sexily clever plan, Mister Lorenzo?" I asked.

He lead me up a short stairwell that brought us into a small executive box. There was a woman with a black eye at the bar, who somehow made a little black dress look more like activewear. All around us were very expensively dressed young women and tuxedoed men. All of these men, and many of the women, had the same unhealthily pale complexion as Fabulo.

"It's a pity that the best of the Brotherhood isn't here," Lorenzo said with a heavily embellished sigh. He even wiped a fake tear from his mascara-thickened eyelashes. "But I will see them again soon. Our plan will soon come to fruition."

"Where are they? And is your plan as sexy as you?" I asked.

Fabulo grinned and wrapped his arm around me. The only thing keeping my stomach from erupting out of my mouth was the hope this idiot would spill the beans on his plan. Going by the itching on my skin, I might have developed an allergic reaction to his smarm.

"Oh, this plan of mine is foolproof. Brilliant even, if I, Fabulo Lorenzo," and here he had his minions turn on the fan while he posed dramatically, "do say so myself."

"Your plan?" I asked as vapidly as I could. I struggled, really hard, to avoid eye-rolling. As angry as I was with BIRD, the idea that its ideas could have come from the vacuum between Lorenzo's ears offended me.