Luca's POV
"Damn it!" I screamed and hurled a drinking glass at Patrick in frustration.
"Dude, quit throwing s**t at me!" Patrick whined like a child.
"No wonder your pathetic a** ended up in prison! You can't take any kind of pressure at all!" I snarled at him. Judging from the p****d off look on his face I struck a chord. Patrick huffed and went to sulk in a corner.
We've been hiding out in an invisible sanctuary in the badlands of South Dakota for the last three months. I have been trying to find my mother, Sophia Lombardo. The last lead I had put her here.
Many witch covens are ready to go to war, but even with their forces combined Arlen and the Faes will annihilate them along with the wolves. There is also the fact that my plan to turn the Wizards on Julian DeBuys did not work. Arlen could very well have three supernatural realms joining up with him to do battle with me and the other witches. And I'm not even sure where the demons stand in this yet!
"F*****g Arlen, always one step ahead!" I growled in a full on rage.
"Will you get control of yourself?! Jesus Christ!" Patrick screamed from where he was cowering in the corner.
I yanked him up by his throat mid-air and forced him to me. "I have no reason to keep you alive. You serve no purpose to me whatsoever. You better watch what you say to me!" I shouted.
"OK this Arlen dude. He gets weaker if something happens to my ex right?" Patrick gasped out. I loosened up my hold on him.
"Will you leave the thinking to me please? You sound like a f*****g parrott!" I'm seconds from incinerating this fool.
"I know someone who can help. I had a hitman trying to find Brynlee!" I dropped Patrick for a second, then grabbed him and hurled him into the wall.
"We've been stuck together the last three months. YOU DIDN'T THINK IT WAS PERTINENT TO TELL ME THIS INFORMATION!!!"
"Well I tried!! You always shut me down and tell me to shut the hell up you know what you're doing!!" True, but still.
"Alright. Tell me everything about this guy." I snarled out.
"His name is Viktor Patva. He's got ties to the Russian mob and is ex KGB. We've known each other many years and used to run wild animals together." Patrick said.
"Run wild animals?"
"We procured and sold wild animals. Usually endangered species or venomous reptiles." I stared at him to see if he was serious and burst out laughing.
"So you and some big bad Russian gangster traded snakes and lizards??" This was too much!
"You know how many people will pay hundreds of thousands to get their hands on something like a black mamba to keep in their cage? It's for the thrill, Luca! To wake up everyday, look into the terrarium and stare death right in the face. I was f*****g good at it until that b***h Brynlee messed things up for me!!" Patrick shouted, the rage in his eyes unsettling me for a minute.
Maybe I misjudged this idiot. He and the Russian hitman may be quite useful indeed. A plan was slowly forming in my head.
"Call the Russian. We know your ex is with Arlen now and we will need all the help we can get for the next phase of this plan." Patrick eyed me with skepticism.
"If Brynlee is going to be the Queen of the fairies or whatever the f**k she will be called, isn't she going to be guarded?? That will put Viktor at unnecessary risk!" God this fool!
"We aren't going to put Viktor at unnecessary risk. We are going to lure Brynlee out and have Viktor finally end your ex. And when the good King Arlen is at his weakest from sweet Brynlee meeting her end, that is when I will strike!!" I pounded my fist into the palm of my hand.
"What makes you think we can lure her out? I don't know any of her new friends and I don't even have her new name yet."
"That will come. In the meantime call the hitman and get him here as soon as possible." Patrick nodded and used the burner phone I kept on me to make contact. He spoke only in Russian and while I couldn't understand what he and the man were saying, I was confident Patrick wouldn't dare double cross me.
"He will be here in two days." Patrick confirmed.
"Good. Do you know if he knows anything about the supernatural world?" I asked Patrick.
"I have no idea. Guess he's going to get a crash course like I did." Patrick shrugged.
"Get some sleep. The plan for tomorrow is to don our disguises and find out where my mother was last seen." Patrick curled up on the makeshift cot I had in the sanctuary. I hardly ever needed sleep being a wolf/witch, so I stayed up thinking about my mother.
Sophia was a good mother. Never once did she have any harsh words for me at all. She was gentle and kind to everyone in the pack and was one hell of a Luna. But she and my father Dominic had a secret and had lied to everyone at Silver Creek and even the Elders. They were not fated mates, but they deeply loved each other and denied both their Goddesses the fated mates given to them. The other thing was that Sophia was a pure witch and managed to hide not being a wolf for well over thirty years.
From the time I was a child, she and my father told me I had to keep her witch powers a secret from everyone at the Silver Creek pack. Her powers would put her and me in grave danger. Dominic was the Alpha and wanted nothing more than to pass Silver Creek down to me. For twenty years, I ruled in his stead while he and my mother retired and became gentiles.
But then the rumors started about how no one had ever seen my mother shift into her wolf. How Sophia managed to be in her sixties but look to be in her early thirties. Due to the rumors and to not draw attention to our pack or my Alpha title, Sophia faked her death to ensure I would stay in power and my Alpha title would not be in question. And rose to power I did, even becoming an Elder briefly to get my revenge on Amos Rainwater after he killed his uncle, my best friend. But that went to pieces. Up until last year when the King and the Starr brothers figured out my mother is still alive, no one suspected anything about her. I can only hope Arlen and the Starrs are the only ones who know and have not tried to outsource finding her to his hired hands, the Quads.
When I awoke the next morning, Patrick was getting ready using a blonde wig I had procured and a fake mustache. We drove to some small middle of nowhere diner where I immediately sensed a strong witch presence outside of it. I looked and saw both an old woman behind the counter and a pretty tall blonde waitressing, both humans. The blonde came over to us and smiled ear to ear, and I noticed her name tag said Della.
"What can I get for you two gentleman this morning?" She asked us politely. Goddess Blondie smelled amazing! I am already planning how to get her to the hotel next door to get laid this afternoon.
"Actually, Della, you can. We'll take some coffee for sure, but we are private investigators looking for this woman. Has she happened to come through this area?" Patrick pulled out the picture of my mother and laid it on the table. Della took a glance at it and raised an eyebrow.
"She looks familiar, but I just came back last week after being out on maternity leave. Hey Annie? Can you come here a second?"
Well, there went my plans to get lucky this afternoon. Annie, the old lady behind the counter, came over to us and I smiled politely at her.
"Good morning, we are trying to locate the woman in this picture." Annie glanced at it and smiled.
"Why, that's Sophie! She was living here in the Plains for a minute and came in here sometimes. When Della here had her baby, Sophie was actually her replacement for awhile. Shoot y'all just missed her Sophie left town last week!" That's why I sensed witch power.
"Did she happen to say where she was going?" I asked Annie.
"Oh Lord, I want to say Oregon? Sophie's a traveler, can't stay in one place more than one minute. Hang tight, let me ask the cook in the back. He and Sophie talked quite often." Annie ran back to the kitchen then came back out within a minute chuckling to herself.
"I was way off. She went to Washington, though the cook doesn't know exactly where." Annie smiled at us.
Even if Annie didn't know why the waitress she knew as Sophie went to Washington, I do. My mother is going after Arlen Miller.
After we finished our coffees and thanked the waitresses for their help, we returned to our sanctuary to gather our belongings which weren't much. Patrick showed some brains and kept his disguise on without complaining. We drove through the night to Seattle to meet Viktor Patva at the airport.
We were almost to Seattle when I saw the police lights. Patrick was passed out in the front seat after driving most of the night. I debated not pulling over but felt it better to do so. Thankfully this stretch of highway was deserted for the time being. I pulled over and waited for the cop to come over. He came over and tapped on the window.
"License and registration." He commanded. I gave him the license but the story that I lost the paperwork for the rental.
"You drove all the way from Maine?" The cop asked me, eyes narrowed.
"Yes, is there a problem?" The cop raised an eyebrow.
"Who is your friend here?" That did it. Immediately I incinerated the state trooper and could only hope that my fire power destroyed any potential body cam footage he had. Patrick woke up with a start when I floored it back on the road.
"What the...." Patrick looked back in horror at the pile of ash burning in the middle of the road. I leaned over and smacked him upside the head.
"He saw you and was getting too close. It had to be done." I growled at him. We reached the airport in no time. I had Patrick stand outside the dropoff and wait until he saw Viktor. I gasped at the sheer size of Viktor Patva. He had to be at least six and a half feet tall and had muscles, a shaved head, and had the piercing blue eyes of a hired killer. I gulped as he got into the front seat and Patrick in the back.
"You wolf, aren't you?" Viktor asked in his thick accent.
"How do you know about wolves?" I asked him.
"The stories from Motherland." Viktor stared hard at me, sizing me up.
"The woman. She is with man not of this world?" Viktor asked me. Patrick was whipping his head between us like a f*****g bobblehead.
"She's mated to the Fairy King." I answered honestly. Viktor smiled, an evil glint in his eye.
"Little cyka cost me deal of lifetime. I want her pretty head!" Instantly I knew this man and I were going to work very well together.
As much as I want to eliminate Patrick, these two are friends and I have to tread carefully.
For now.