Raphael (The Immortal Youth Book 1) by Monica La Porta Page A

you fail, you promise to never come back. Understood?”
    “Understood.”
    Looking behind his back, the wolf stepped forward. “I need you to get something for me”
    “I deliver—”
    “Lesson number one, and it’s free this time. If you really want to pledge, you don’t talk back to a big brother. You lower your head, and say ‘How can I be of service?’” The wolf stared Raphael down.
    Prancing and howling, Raphael’s wolf rebelled in his mind, but he had expected his beast to react that way and forced him to behave. Good thing the moon was new, and the wolf was at his least powerful. With what he hoped was his most humble look, Raphael lowered his head and repeated, “How can I be of service, big brother?”
    “You aren’t a pledge, so you don’t have permission to call me anything but sir.”
    At that, his wolf jumped ahead to challenge the Red’s beast. Willing him to stay put a second time, Raphael ground his teeth, and let out the required words. “How can I be of service, sir?”
    “Bring me back a vial of V, and I’ll think about talking to the alpha about testing you.” With a satisfied smirk, the Red shushed Raphael away.
    The door was already closing, when Raphael grabbed the lion knocker. “For when do you need it, sir?”
    The werewolf looked at him from over his shoulder, surprise on his face, but he covered it with a scowl. “I want to be generous. I’m on door duty until ten, tonight. Come back with my gift before then. Now leave or I’ll change my mind.”
    Shaking legs and mind in turmoil, Raphael took away his hand from the knocker and watched as the door closed. A long list of swearwords left his mouth, as he moved away from the Reds’ and tried to reorder his thoughts toward finding a solution to his predicament. All the while, he would have given anything to know if Luisa was in that building, as Carla had suggested. Otherwise, he was about to go against his moral and infringe several laws for nothing.
    After his limbs stopped trembling and he had cleared his mind, he mounted his Nimbus. The longer he rode his bicycle, the easier it became to accept he was about to steal V. Pedaling without sparing himself, Raphael concentrated on the task ahead. He had to reach the city center and Termini Station within the hour. There, he hoped to find the two shifters who had declared war on drugs one street at a time. His entering Reds headquarters depended on it.

Chapter Six
    Termini Station was filled with people. Not just commuters and travelers swarming inside the big structure, crisscrossing paths on their way to the platforms or leaving them. Outside, a whole world gathered 24/7. Immigrants—from several parts of Asia, Eastern Europe, and Africa—had claimed the large area around the station as their own. They used the premises to meet and greet, to sell and buy, to play games of chess, and even to have cookouts.
    Raphael loved the micro-worlds of the station, each ethnicity never straying in someone else’s territory, but always polite to their neighbors. Sometimes, cultural exchanges were made, and colors mixed, then everyone would go back to their corner.
    Dismounting his Nimbus, one hand on the handle, Raphael ventured into the melee, looking for Edoardo and Ludovico. A team of two, they were also known as the Street Angels for their safety patrol work within the renegade community. A few years older than him, and belonging to the shifter society upper echelons, they spent their fortunes and time to help kids in trouble. Edoardo and Ludovico were probably the only non-renegades Raphael admired. And Quintilius. But he could never go back to the alpha, and by now Iris had already informed the alpha that Raphael hadn’t showed up for work.
    Red and white striped umbrellas covered vendor carts from the relentless sun, and Raphael used the shadows they cast to take refuge from the afternoon heat. Colors and scents assailed his senses, and so did the memories.
    When he was a young