Kingdom of Fangs

Prologue

Prologue

Kidnappers Should Not Have Plump Lips.

“Life is interesting. Why, you ask? Mostly because I never thought I’d be kidn*pped by an Italian gigolo. But here we are. Also, I just saw a man turn into a panther. So, there’s that, too.” ~Katy

“So this is how my life ends.” Katy sighed and attempted to twist her wrists in a very futile effort to loosen the cable ties securing them. “In a white van. Very cliche, by the way.” She rolled her eyes at Antonio and the other sleazy looking dude sitting next to her. “I mean, you couldn’t come up with something more original than k********g me in a white van?”

“Seriously?” Antonio snapped and ran a hand through his hair while his gaze darted around the vehicle. Katy noticed the beads of sweat on his forehead and his disheveled-looking clothes. Very un-Antonio. “That’s what you’re concerned about? That we didn’t get a fancy car to take you in?”

Katy shrugged. “I’m just saying. Maybe you’ve all watched one too many movies where the chick gets abducted and thrown into a white van. But that’s not the point.” She shook her head and blew out a quick breath in an attempt to get her hair out of her face. “The point is, I’m going to die⁠—”

“You’re not going to die.” He heaved a deep sigh.

“And no one will know all the great things I would have done in my life.” Katy kept talking as if he hadn’t just rudely interrupted her grieving moment. “I mean, c’mon, man. Did you think I planned to work in a pizza place forever? Did you think that would be my only contribution to society?”

“What plans did you have?” A smooth voice from beside her asked.

She turned her head to look at Sleazeball Number One. That’s how she’d come to think of the three men in the van. Sleazeball Number One had bleached-blond hair, green eyes, an eyebrow ring, thin lips, and a surprisingly seductive voice. He could have been cute in a punk rocker sort of way, if his gaze wasn’t creepily crawling all over her. And if he wasn’t, you know, a kidnapper. Sleazeball Number Two was the driver. He had pitch black hair, eyes that were also black, which was eerie, but were most likely dark brown in the proper light, because who in the world had black eyes? He had a very square jaw that could no doubt handle a pretty strong punch and very plump lips… which annoyed her. Kidnappers should not have plump lips. That left Sleazeball Number Three. A man she’d known for three years. And though she’d known he was a douchebag, she’d never thought he was capable of something so despicable as abducting a person. I seriously need to reconsider my ability to judge a person’s character.

A snapping sound brought her attention back to Sleazeball Number One.

“You in there?” He snapped his fingers in her face again.

Katy darted forward, her mouth ready to take a finger off, but he pulled his arm back before she could clamp down. “It’s rude to snap your fingers in a person’s face.”

“It’s also rude not to answer a question,” he countered.

Katy scoffed. “I don’t think anything I do with respect to you three could be considered rude. You’re abducting me. It’s pretty much par for the course for me to be a complete b***h. The audience would cheer me on.”

“Can’t argue with you there.” Sleazeball Number One nodded his head and folded his arms across his chest before leaning back into the seat. “But we digress. You were just about to tell us of all the things you planned to share with this world, should you not have been taken against your will, which could possibly end in your untimely demise.”

She narrowed her eyes on him. She greatly disliked that he seemed to have a first-rate vocabulary. Kidnappers should sound like thugs. She crossed her ankles and shifted in her seat in an attempt to find a more comfortable position, but the seats were hard as rocks, and there must have been a broken spring where she sat because something kept poking her in the butt. “I was going to go to college, then veterinary school, and then study endangered species and save them.”

“I never knew that.”

Her head swiveled to look at Antonio where he sat on the opposite side of Sleaze ball Number One. Antonio’s brow drew low as he studied her.

“It wasn’t your business,” Katy said simply.

“Endangered species, you say?” Sleazeball Number Two asked from the driver seat. It was the first time he’d spoken since she’d been shoved—kicking and slapping and clawing but not screaming because screaming in New York City wouldn’t even earn a person a passing glance, so what was the point?—into the van. “It just might be your lucky day, Little Girl. You could get to help with that without going to college for ten years.”

As she stared at his eyes in the rearview mirror, she noticed, for the first time, that his pupils were vertical slits. Katy blinked and then looked again. Nope, she wasn’t imagining things. They still looked like reptilian eyes. And they were no longer black, but now seemed to be a golden color. He smiled at her, and her gaze dropped to his mouth. She saw a row of razor-sharp teeth that were definitely not human. “What the…” She breathed out while her mind moved a mile a minute, attempting to reason out what she was seeing.

“I think our guest is starting to see past the glamour.” Sleazeball Number Two looked back at the road.

Katy looked at Sleazeball Number One and noticed he watched her intently. Like she was the one with the creepy eyes and piranha teeth. She studied his face in turn as she thought back to all the things Lola had told her and Maddie. How she’d seen the features of the new guys they’d met in No Name Pizza change, revealing their animal nature. “Beastwalkers,” she whispered. Sleazeball Number One’s face shimmered when the moonlight lit it up briefly. Scales. He had scales on his face.

“In the flesh.” Sleazeball Number One smiled. His lips stayed closed, leaving her to wonder if he, too, had pointy teeth. Though when he spoke, she hadn’t noticed them being pointy.

“You hadn’t noticed the scales, either,” she muttered to herself.

“I’m Slick.” Sleazeball Number One said with a bow of his head.

“Of course you are,” Katy said dryly.

Slick just smirked and then motioned with his head to the driver. “And that’s⁠—”

“The Head Boy of Slytherin House?” Her eyes darted to Sleazeball Number Two, who simply chuckled.

“No, though that’s a good one.” Slick nudged her shoulder. “His beast form is a snake, but as far as I know, he has no affiliation with Death Eaters. His name is Myron.”

“He doesn’t look like a Myron.” Katy didn’t know who the hell he looked like, but Myron was entirely too tame a name for someone who turned into a snake.

“What name would you give me?” Myron asked. His gaze stayed on the road.

“I don’t know.” She frowned. “I’ve never named a snake.”

Antonio cleared his throat, causing Katy to jump. She’d completely forgotten he was there, which should have been impossible, considering this was all his fault. Her head snapped to the side as she shot him her death glare. “And what about you? You suddenly seem like a snake in the grass, so it would be fitting.”

“I’m not like them.” Antonio sighed, suddenly looking twice his age.

“You just work for them?”

He looked away from her. “Sort of.”

“How do you think Lola is going to feel when she finds out you’ve signed my death warrant?” Perhaps Katy enjoyed a little too much how her words made him flinch.

“We told you. You’re not going to die,” Slick said. “In fact, your life will be much better than it is now.”

Katy pursed her lips and narrowed her eyes on him. “How, exactly, is my life going to be better after being taken against my will from my friends and family?”

Slick uncrossed his arms and laid one across the back of the seat. “Well, you won’t have to work in a pizza joint, for starters. In fact, you won’t have to work at all. You’ll be taken care of, provided with everything you need and want. You’ll be revered, considered precious, because you are. Men will fight for your attention, hoping to win your affection.”

Her eyes widened at his description. “Not that I have any sort of insecurities, but why on earth would men do that?”

“Because of what you are.”

“A woman?”

His lips turned up in a crooked smile. “Yes, but you’re way more than that.”

The word popped into her mind and slipped out of her mouth before Slick could continue. “Animus.” Another thing Lola had explained to her and Maddie. But Lola had said Katy wasn’t one. She said Katy would have seen the tattoos on the guys move and the changes in their appearances. She looked at Slick, and this time, his entire face was covered in scales, but only for a few seconds. Then it returned to his human appearance. She looked over at Antonio. “That’s why you took me?”

“Well, it certainly wasn’t for your sparkling personality and pleasant company.” His surly tone made her want to slap his handsome face.

“Don’t listen to Antonio,” Myron waved a dismissive hand. “He’s just ticked because he didn’t get the girl he wanted. He’s under the impression that if he’d grabbed you and your friend, then he’d have gotten to keep her. Though where he got that idea, I have no idea.”

“Because your king promised me,” Antonio snapped. “He told me if I got them both, then Lola would be mine.”

“She’s an animus,” Myron hissed, and the sound was scary as hell. “You’re unworthy of such a female.”

“You’re all unworthy of any female simply because you have to kidnap one in order to get one,” Katy snarled. Oddly enough, fear hadn’t been her go-to emotion, even when she’d first been forced into the vehicle. Instead, she’d jumped straight onto the anger train. And she was riding that b***h all the way to the beastwalker king who’d ordered her and Lola to be taken. Animal or not, Katy was going to give him a piece of her mind. If she was so valued, he most likely wouldn’t hurt her. Or at least that was what she’d keep telling herself, because being angry made her feel more powerful. Being scared just made her feel helpless.

“You’ll change your mind once you choose a mate and you realize how much he cares for you.” Slick’s tone of voice suggested he completely believed that BS.

“Hmm.” Katy nodded. “Riiiight. This unknown animal man cares for me so much that it won’t be a problem that he had to get me by k********g. Sounds like a real winner.” She slapped her thigh with her bound hands. “Grab a marriage license and sign me up for that guy.”

“It’s better than being mated to a flea-infested, mangy mutt,” Myron called back, his voice laced with agitation. Apparently, she’d hit a nerve.

“What?” Her eyes darted from Slick to Myron. “Are you talking about a dog? And why would you say that? Dogs are loyal. I doubt someone from the Dog Kingdom would kidnap a woman.”

Slick and Myron both laughed, and it took long enough for them to gain their composure that Katy began to feel stabby.

“I hope she picks me as her mate.” Slick gave her a wink. “I want to get the chance to tell the Alpha that she called his kingdom the ‘Dog Kingdom.’ Don’t you know that would raise his hackles?”

“You said mangy mutt,” Katy pointed out, feeling strangely defensive of this Alpha and his kingdom. “What am I supposed to think?”

“Wolves.” Myron’s gaze locked onto hers.

She jumped when she felt cool flesh against her arm. She dropped Myron’s stare to turn and find Slick running a finger across her shoulder, along the lines of the wolf tattoo she’d gotten. “You bear the mark of a wolf, which might make one of those mangy mutts think you belong to them. But a tattoo can be removed and replaced easily enough.”

Her eyes felt like they were going to pop out of her head as her heart squeezed in her chest. Katy didn’t like the idea of her tattoo being removed or changed. Suddenly, Roan’s words came flooding back as she looked down at the wolf on her shoulder. “You’re not an accident, Lola. And that Callon was the male you were drawn to is not a mistake. The Creator has changed the way our people mate. For as long as we have existed, our kind found their other half much like humans. They met, fell in love and then chose to spend their life together. Due to some poor choices our kind made, there are consequences to our actions. Though Visata has also blessed us for our decision to right our wrongs. Our kind can no longer look for a mate that they can choose. Visata is giving one mate for each male. She will be his and his alone, and he will be hers.” She slapped Slick’s hand away and covered the tattoo with her hand. The question of why she’d gotten the wolf was no longer a question. She was an animus. “Holy hell, I’m supposed to be mated to a wolf.”