Free The Lonely Wolf by Monica La Porta

nerves.
    His mind had been in tatters since the day he met Ludwig at Drako’s. Quintilius had gone to such length to avoid having to call the angel, and there he was in all his beauty, looking at him with a possessiveness he had no right to show. His hunger mirrored in Ludwig’s eyes.
    Maybe taking a lover would help , he thought once again.
    It had worked in the past. Not for long, but enough to heal the wounds Ludwig always seemed to inflict in his wake. His angel never hurt him on purpose, but the end result was always the same. They would be exclusive for a few months—the longest stretch lasted a whole year—then Ludwig would remember his duty toward his brethren and would leave Quintilius.
    Not that Quintilius could afford his clan to know of his unnatural love for a non-wolf. Although the elders hadn’t pressed the matter again, his wolves were disappointed he hadn’t mated yet. No one had ever confronted him about it, but, if nothing else, he owed them to look for a suitable she-wolf. Yet, every time he thought about the whole process, his stomach churned. Camelia would have to leave the house. No alpha she-wolf would accept another woman in her domain. Especially not someone like Camelia who was venerated by the entire household and who had reigned over the casale for almost two centuries.
    And finally, he couldn’t envision a life without Camelia by his side. The house wouldn’t be the same.
    He also couldn’t imagine mating with someone who wasn’t Ludwig. His marriage would be a sham. A necessary one, but a sham nonetheless. His wolf had bound him to Ludovicus that day in the Baths so long ago, and a wolf’s binding was forever.
    On his way to the harbor of Civitavecchia, he listened to his favorite opera, one of Alessandro Scarlatti’s earlier pieces, aptly named L’onestà Negli Amori, the honesty of love. Since the seventeen hundreds, after attending a soiree at Teatro Capranica where the maestro’s best operas were produced, Quintilius had always had a soft spot for Scarlatti’s work.
    What had started like patronage, soon became a friendship that lasted several decades. Even after three centuries, Quintilius still missed the composer’s wit and good nature. Scarlatti wrote L’Onesta’ Negli Amori after Quintilius confided his love pains to him. The only mortal Quintilius had ever befriended and one of the few people he trusted with the truth about his love for Ludwig. The rest about him, his being a werewolf he could never share, and although his friend must have wondered a time or two about Quintilius’s never-changing appearance, Alessandro never asked.
    The Palermitan composer accepted Quintilius for what he was, without judging him. When he died in Naples—Scarlatti moved from court to court throughout his whole life—Quintilius traveled to the south and mourned him with such grief, people wondered about the nature of their friendship.
    Quintilius tended to listen to Scarlatti when he was in a dark mood and needed the comfort of his friend’s soothing music.
    Without meaning to do so, Quintilius pushed his Jaguar to the limit and entered the port half an hour later—a full thirty minutes earlier than expected. Despite the right music, the drive hadn’t helped him relax. The phone call from Peter reached him when he was about to park.
    “We positively identified the boy. Lupo Solis belongs to the Reds and he was at Castel Gandolfo. Ravenna and I will approach him tomorrow.” Peter sounded happy.
    “Thanks for keeping me in the loop. Let me know if I can do anything for him.” Hopefully, the boy was redeemable. After dealing with Raphael’s situation, Quintilius couldn’t bear the idea of another teenager lost to a bloodthirsty gang like the Reds.

Chapter Seven
    At the corner of Via Condotti and the Spanish Steps, Lupo realized he was being followed. Stranded on foot—he had left his bike down at the Metro garage—he briefly wondered if he could get away by entering one of