Chapter 2

Enzo POV

Four months. It had taken four months to track down the necklace and now it was gone. 

Well, half of it. 

I stared down at the box which held the broken strand of diamonds, and let the growl rip from my throat. 

“Fuck!” 

“It’s not a complete loss,” I heard Elijah say as he propped his feet up on the decorative coffee table.

“Fuck you and your ‘glass half full’ philosophy,” I grunted, stalking to the brandy decanter and pouring myself a generous amount. 

Eli laughed and stood up casually, straightening his pants back over his prosthetic leg before he swooped in and stole my brandy. I grunted, but didn’t fight him for it, pouring myself another glass instead. 

Eli - my sister-in-law’s twin brother - was probably the only person in the world who had truly understood me when I had returned from my failed mission to rescue the werewolf princess. My wounds had been deep, cutting through my flesh as well as my heart. He knew what it was like, having experienced being a captive of a group who hated our kind, just as I had been. 

We had both returned from our experiences as changed men, and I was grateful to him for pulling me from the depression which had engulfed me. I was certain that I would have ended my life if it hadn’t been for him. 

“What can I say? I’m just a bucket full of sunshine,” Eli teased, taking a leisurely sip of his stolen drink as he sank back onto the sofa. “Just tell the King that you were robbed by a sneaky female, and give him what is left of the necklace. It’s better than nothing.”  

“No.  I refuse to fail this assignment, not when it was so blatantly my fault,” I grumbled before I took a healthy sip of brandy. 

He glanced at me with a confused look on his face for a brief second before clarity struck him. 

“No, Enzo. Tell me you’re not taking sleeping tablets again,” he implored, his happy-go-lucky mask slipping to reveal his genuine concern.

“It was just one tablet, so don’t get your panties in a bunch,” I grumbled as I sat down beside him and took a big mouthful of brandy as if it would magically purge the words from my mouth. 

“Fuck man, Enzo. It’s a fucking slippery slope. First it’s one tablet, then it’s one a night, then - when that doesn’t work - it’s one a night plus half a bottle of brandy. One day you wake up in a hospital having drunk a bottle of tequila by yourself and overdosed on every tablet you could get your hands on.”

I grimaced at his words, knowing that he spoke from experience. It wasn’t something he ever spoke about - hell, his own twin sister didn’t even know that he had overdosed. But it had been the kick in the arse he needed to get his life back together, and he was terrified that I would go down the same path as him. 

I patted my friend on his shoulder, grateful that he was always looking out for me. He might have been younger than me by three years, but he had made up for the years with his experiences. 

 “Don’t stress, Eli. I will tell you if I end up needing drugs to sleep. It was just a once off occurrence because my brain kept remembering how Milano reacted at the auction when I won the necklace, and I had to wonder if he knew who it had belonged to.”

“Do you think he would have known Princess Katerina? It’s not like he has any links with the werewolf kingdom. As far as I have heard from you, he’s just some human who deals in theft, extortion and prostitution.” 

I sighed, having to concede to his wisdom. “Yeah, you’re right. I guess I am just on edge.” 

“How about you describe this thief.” Eli switched the subject so rapidly that I almost got whiplash. “I can even draw her.”

I ran my hand over my face and groaned, wishing to the heavens that I hadn’t taken that blasted tablet. I would have at least remembered a bit more about the woman who had stolen from me.

Eli stood up and fetched a notepad and pen from the desk before he returned and sat on the coffee table. He was bloody lucky that the thing didn’t crumble beneath him.

“Okay, what do you remember about her?” he said, sounding so hopeful.

I shrugged and took a sip of brandy before I held the cold glass to my forehead. “I don’t remember much about her - only that she was blonde and small.”

And that her lips tasted of caramel. I could taste her long after she had left, and I wondered if every woman I had ever kissed had tasted of something - I had just been too preoccupied to notice. 

“Well, that narrows it down to a couple hundred thousand women here in Rome,” Eli grunted with exasperation as he started sketching on the notepad.

“I know, it’s a needle in a haystack,” I huffed and took another sip of my brandy, only to choke on it when the incredible artist revealed his masterpiece. 

A stick figure. The thing didn’t even have hair!

“It’s just like her, right?” he joked. “It belongs in the Louvre.” 

I rolled my eyes at him, “I think you’re pronouncing loo wrong. That thing would be better used as toilet paper.” 

Eli clutched his chest dramatically, “ouch! A shot straight to the heart. Now I know what your victims feel. No wonder why they call you the Dark Prince.” 

 I rolled my eyes at his theatrics. 

“Tear out a guy’s throat with your human teeth one time, and suddenly you’re a rabid monster,” I grumbled. 

Eli chuckled to himself, “you left a few people scarred by that incident. I’m pretty sure that one guy is still in therapy.” 

I would be lying if I said that I was proud of my reputation. It served me well, and I made sure that people saw me as the man who was more beast than man. 

“I think we need to see video footage. That’s the only way we will find out who this nymph is,” I said, fetching my laptop and opening it up. 

A few clicks later, and I was in the surveillance system which ran throughout the hotel. 

“You’ve been spending too much time with my sister,” Eli grumbled, obviously not impressed about the hacking skills I had learned from Eliana. 

I ignored him, paging through the cameras before I found the one situated in the corridor outside my room. We watched as the footage played backward until the moment she first appeared on my floor. 

At least I got part of her description right. She was certainly blonde, her long hair plaited down her back. I couldn’t judge her size properly on the camera, but I was certain that she would be as small as I remembered. She was dressed in a minidress so tight and short that I was pretty sure she had to be one of Milano’s prostitutes. 

“Let’s go and find her,” Eli declared.

And I couldn’t agree with him more.