Isaak cocked his head. “I hear a squeak, Valentina. Perhaps you have vermin.”
Valentina swatted his arm. “You will not play these games with my mate.” Turning to Dominic, she said, “These are my brothers—Dimitri, Isaak, and Sergei. Boys, this is Mila’s man, Dominic Black.”
Dominic nodded at the three male wolverines as they silently assessed him. They looked very much alike—dark, muscled, hair slicked back . . . kind of like the bad guys in The Matrix, minus the sunglasses.
With his chest puffed out and mask of sheer arrogance, Isaak seemed to stand out most. Shorter than his brothers, Sergei gave Dominic a somewhat genteel smile to put him at ease, but there was far too much cunning in those amber eyes for anyone to be relaxed around that guy. As for Dimitri . . . he just seemed to broadcast “try me, motherfucker” with his menacing glower and dark aura, even as he hugged Mila so gently. Oddly, though, Dominic got the sense that Sergei was the most dangerous of the three.
Dimitri looked at Mila. “What about Maksim?”
“I’ll kill him if he even thinks to come for her,” Dominic said in a calm, matter-of-fact tone. “Ripping out his throat won’t bother me in the slightest.”
After a long moment, Dimitri gave a small shrug. “We will still get alliance without the mating, it is no matter.”
Sergei moved closer to Dominic, his nostrils flaring. His nose wrinkled in distaste. “A wolf, Milena?” Letting out a put-out sigh, he gave Dominic another once-over. “At least you are not cat.”
James’s brows snapped together. “Hello, Mila’s a cat.”
Sergei glared at him. “Our Milena is wolverine.”
“No, she’s a pallas cat,” James stated.
“Her animal has the skin, muscle, and bone of a feline, but it is not the body that is important. Our Milena has soul of a wolverine—we all see it. Therefore, she is wolverine.”
“No, she’s really not.” James raised a hand when Sergei would have argued. “I’m done. Let’s sit and eat.”
Mila gave her father’s hand a supportive squeeze as they headed to the dining table. She sat between him and Dominic while Valentina piled food on plates, filled glasses, and generally fussed over everyone before finally joining them at the table.
Digging into his meal, Dominic silently marveled at how fast and how much the male wolverines ate as he listened to them talk of the many people they’d spoken with about Mila’s brother. Alex had been sighted in various places, but he didn’t stay anywhere for long and didn’t seem to be heading in a particular direction. “How long does Alex usually go roving for?”
“A few months at a time,” Mila replied, holding a forkful of pasta to her mouth. “Though he did disappear for a year once.”
“A year?” Dominic repeated.
“Wolverines like to roam,” said Isaak, his voice deep and gruff. “It is in our nature, our blood, our bones. Only a mate can anchor us.”
Dimitri lifted his glass. “Aleksandr roams more than most, though.”
Lips thinning in disapproval, Sergei nodded. “The boy needs a father.”
James bristled, pausing in slicing into his meat. “He has a father.”
Isaak glanced around. “I heard another squeak, Valentina.”
Giving her brother a light slap on the head, Valentina urged, “Eat your food, Isaak.” That only appeared to amuse the male.
Sergei drummed his fingers on the table. “Tell us more about the website your mother mentioned, Milena.”
“Dominic knows more about it than I do,” she said, but she relayed what information she had. Dominic added a few details in between bites of food.
“How confident is the other wolf that he can crash the anonymity network?” asked Dimitri.
“Very. If Donovan says he can do it, I believe him,” said Dominic.
“Once we have the website manager’s name, we will deal with him,” declared Sergei. “First, we must track Aleksandr. A wolverine can only be found by another wolverine. We will retrace his steps. He will be found, Milena—do not worry.”
Isaak nodded. “Then we will kill who put out the hit. All will be fine.”
“Except that Mila’s cat will probably attack Alex the second she sees him,” said James, shooting her a droll look. “I can’t count the number of times I saw that feline launch at his face in a fury. She always got him good.”
“He always deserved it,” Mila asserted.
Dominic’s mouth quirked. “You fought a lot with your brother?”
James snorted. “They fought constantly. There was no disciplining them over it. If I yelled at her for hurting him, he’d turn on me, saying no one