Matteo Bianchi | Alpha of the Costa d'Oro Pack

The feast day setup started at six in the morning and Matteo had been in the middle of it since five.

The tables were out across the harbour square, the good ones, brought up from the storage room under the trattoria that only got opened four times a year. The decorations were Carmela's department and she had been directing three pack members with the focused authority of someone who had been doing this since before they were born and was not interested in improvisation. Matteo had learned twenty years ago not to have opinions about the decorations.

He had opinions about the food.

By nine, he had three pots going, an argument with Rocco about the fish delivery that had arrived twenty minutes late, and a running commentary from Sofia about the placement of the long tables that he was filtering at about forty per cent. The square was already filling, locals setting up their chairs early, the way they always did, the older families who had been coming to this feast day since the previous Alpha's time claiming their usual spots with the quiet confidence of long-established tradition.

Tourists too. More of them this year, which was fine. The feast day had always been open. That was the point of it.

He was crossing the square with a crate of wine when Sole went still.

Not alert. Not threat. Something else entirely, and Matteo knew the difference.

He kept moving. He put the crate down at the end table, straightened up, and let his eyes move across the square the way he moved his eyes across any area, easy, unhurried, taking it all in.

Then he found {{obj}}.

They were standing near the harbour wall at the edge of the square, watching the setup with the expression of someone who had stumbled into something they had not expected and were quietly delighted about it. Not performing the delight. Just, taking it in.

Damn, Sole said.

Matteo picked the empty crate back up.

Put that down, Sole said.

I need to take it back to the — Matteo started internally.

You do not need to do that right now. Sole retorted.

The crate needs to go back to — Matteo tried again.

Matteo. The wolf said his name with the patient emphasis of someone identifying an obstacle. Look at them again.

He was looking. He was also walking back across the square toward the kitchen entrance because there were four more crates to bring out, and the food was not going to run itself. The feast day started at noon, and it was nine fifteen.

You're doing the thing, Sole said.

What thing? Matteo frowned.

The thing where you are busy avoiding someone. Sole pointed out.

I'm busy at the feast day. Which starts in — Matteo tried to explain.

Three hours. You have three hours, and they are standing right there, and they are a tourist, Matteo, which means they have a flight and a checkout time and — Sole started to panic and whine, it was obvious {{sub}} were a tourist, the way they dressed, the way they watched the pack move around.

I know what a tourist is. Matteo stopped, the box in hand.

Then you understand, Sole said, with the tone of someone making a very simple point to someone who was being deliberately slow, the timeline. We don't know how long they've been here, when they'll leave... we might never know their name. Never see them again... do you want to lose our fated mate?

Matteo went into the kitchen.

He came back out with another crate, two bottles tucked under his arm, and a reason to cross the square in the direction of the far tables that was entirely legitimate.

He was not going the most direct route.

Sole said nothing. The wolf had learned when to stay quiet, and quiet right now meant Matteo was already moving and pointing himself in the right direction, and that was enough to be going on with. Carmela appeared at his elbow from nowhere in the way she always did.

"The table by the wall needs another chair," she said.

"I'll get it."

She looked at him. Then she looked across the square to where {{sub}} was standing. Then she looked back at him with an expression that contained an entire conversation he was not prepared to have at nine in the morning during feast day setup.

"Carmela —"

"I said nothing," she said, and went back to the decorations.

He crossed the square.

He was not hurrying. He was a man carrying wine to the far tables, which was a normal thing to be doing, and if that path took him past the harbour wall, then that was simply the most efficient route and had nothing to do with anything else.

He got close enough that the scent hit him properly for the first time, and Sole made a sound in his head that had no translation but meant something in the direction of yes, exactly, I told you.

Matteo stopped at the table nearest the harbour wall, set the bottles down and took his time about it. They were close enough now. Right there. Looking out at the square with that same quiet delight, taking in the colour and the noise and the specific organised chaos of a coastal Italian feast day coming together.

He had about four different ways into a conversation. He had used all of them at various points in his life and knew which ones worked. He also, for the first time in recent memory, was not entirely sure which one was right, because Sole was being unhelpfully loud about the fact that this was not a normal conversation and the normal tools were not the right ones.

He picked up one of the bottles, checked the label, and looked up.

Luca's boat went out at eight.

It was a good morning for it, flat water, the light coming off the sea at the angle that made the coast look like something from a postcard, warm enough already that the tourists who had booked the trip were going to have a good time. Luca ran it twice a week through the summer season. Boat trip out along the coast, stop at the good swimming spot below the second headland, jet ski in the afternoon for a quick thrill before coming back. He had been doing it for two years and it ran well.

It ran well when Matteo was not on it.

"You're not supposed to be here," Luca said, when Matteo stepped onto the boat at seven fifty with a coffee and no explanation.

"I wanted some air." Matteo spoke.

"You have air. The whole coast has air." Luca opened his arms and looked around.

The younger Alpha getting prideful about his side job.

"Sea air." Matteo retorted.

Luca looked at him. Matteo looked back with the expression of a man who had decided something and was not going to be moved on it. Luca had known that expression for twenty-six years and knew exactly how much arguing with it was worth.

He went back to checking the engine.

The guests arrived at eight, a small group, tourists, the kind of mixed morning-trip booking Luca got most days through the season. Matteo was sitting at the stern with his coffee looking out at the water, relaxed, giving every impression of being a man who was simply here for the sea air.

Then {{sub}} came down the dock with {{poss}} group.

Sole woke up like someone had thrown a switch.

There, the wolf said, immediately and with total certainty.

Matteo's coffee cup stopped halfway to his mouth.

He set it down carefully.

Matteo, Sole said, warm and extremely smug, this is why we're here.

I didn't know they were going to be — Matteo replied internally.

And yet here we are, Sole said. On the boat. Very good instincts.

Matteo watched {{obj}} come down the dock with {{poss}} group, laughing at something one of them had said, easy and relaxed in the way of people who were on holiday and had committed to it. The morning light was doing something unreasonable and Sole was running a commentary that Matteo was filtering out because he needed to function.

Luca appeared beside him.

"You're staring," Luca said quietly.

"I'm looking at the water." Matteo snapped at his younger Alpha brother.

"The water is that way," Luca said, pointing in a different direction. He looked at the group coming down the dock, back at Matteo, and then his face did something that Matteo did not have time to address because the guests were boarding.

The trip out along the coast went well. Matteo was good company, he always was, and he knew the coastline well enough to point things out that Luca's usual script did not include, which Luca acknowledged with the silence of someone storing this up for later. They at the rail for most of it with {{poss}} group, watching the cliffs go by.

Sole was paying attention to every single thing {{sub}} did and reporting back in real time, which Matteo did not ask for and could not stop.

They anchored at the swimming spot. People went in. Matteo did not go in, which Luca noticed and said nothing about, because Matteo in the water was Matteo at full charm and Luca had apparently decided to allow his brother some dignity this morning.

Then he prepared the jet ski at the back of the boat.

Luca drove it out from the stern hatch and got it in the water and looked at his list. {{User}}'s turn was third.

Matteo was beside him before he had finished reading.

"I'll take them," Matteo said.

Luca looked up. "I drive the jet ski."

"I know how to drive a jet ski." Matteo added,

"I know you know. I drive it." Luca glared at him.

"You could do the next one, we could alternate." Matteo suggested

"I do all of them. That's the trip. I drive the jet ski, the guests sit behind me, we go along the headland and come back. That's what they booked." Luca explained, looking at his older brother with a blank face.

"I'll do this one." Matteo was getting annoyed, Luca was his brother, but he was also questioning the Alpha.

Luca stared at him. "Why?"

Matteo said nothing. He looked at the list in Luca's hand, then out at the water, then back at Luca with the expression he had been using since childhood when he had decided something and was waiting for everyone else to catch up.

Luca looked at the list. He looked at the order of the names. He looked at which name was third. He looked at Matteo.

"No," he said.

"Luca —" Matteo started.

"Absolutely not." Luca was thinking he was helping his brother not make an idiot of himself.

"I'm the Alpha." Matteo clenched his fists, he didn't like pulling that card often.

"You're my brother," Luca said, "on my boat, where you were not supposed to be, and the answer is no." He paused. "Also you're being embarrassing."

"I'm not being —" Matteo protested.

"You've been watching them since the dock." Luca folded the list. "You're being embarrassing and the answer is no."

Sole was not helping. The wolf was entirely on Luca's side about the embarrassing part and had made this clear.

Matteo stood at the stern while the first guest went out, and the second, and watched Luca bring the jet ski back around for the third.

He picked up a spare life jacket. Checked it over. Set it down. Picked it up again.

Luca came back with the second guest and pulled up alongside the boat and looked at his brother standing there holding a life jacket with no purpose.

"You could at least help them board," Luca said.

It was not a concession. It was pity, possibly, or the specific mercy of an older brother who had decided enough was enough.

Matteo was at the edge of the boat before Luca had finished the sentence, life jacket in hand, ready to help {{obj}} across from the boat to the jet ski.

Sole was completely insufferable about it.

.