Moon Bound

by Stephanie Julian

  “Hey, Quinn.”

  Her brother’s second-in-command ruffled her hair, knowing she hated it. “Hey, babe. Heard you had some excitement since the last time I saw you.”

  “Just a little.”

  Quinn smiled. “Well, hold onto your hat, because you’re about to get your mind blown. Let me introduce you.”

  He gestured to the woman at the table. “Arabella Luporeale meet Serena.”

  Why did that name sound fami—

  Bella’s eyes widen even as she felt the odd impulse to curtsey. This was one of the fabled cursed streghe, the thirteen women who had lived for five-hundred years, cursed to immortality by Fabrizio Paganelli in his grief over is youngest son’s death.

  Bella had been born in the modern world but raised in a community where magic was commonplace. Where streghe and winged folletti and half-hided salbinelli lived, not to mention deities who occasionally showed up in temple to lead the rituals for Uni and Tinia.

  Serena had been born in the late 1400s and lived for 500 years under the constant threat of discovery and torture by the Mal.

  “I’m honored to meet you, ma’am.”

  The beautiful woman smiled and held out her hand to shake Bella’s. “Please, call me Serena. I feel I know you already. I’ve heard much about you from Quinn.”

  Bella slid a wry glance at Quinn, who had lost his ever-present smile. “I certainly hope some of it was good.”

  Serena shook her head, her lips curved in solemn amusement, dark hair falling around her shoulders in long waves. The woman was a beauty, with strong Etruscan features visible to those who knew what they were looking for. Anyone else would only guess that she was Italian, possibly Greek.

  “Actually, all of it was. He thinks very highly of you. And your brother.”

  “Well, Cole is the true brains in the family.”

  “Don’t sell yourself short.” Serena paused and she bit her lip as if she was going to say something else but finally she merely smiled and turned to the two teens seated next to her. “Arabella, these are my daughters, Furia and Madrona.”

  The fraternal twin girls, who Bella knew had been cursed at the age of sixteen, also shook her hand. They looked so young but their eyes…looked haunted. They all had the same whiskey gold eyes, which made sense considering they were related.

  But those eyes—

  Blessed Goddess. Their eyes. The legends all said the cursed streghe had eyes that resembled shattered glass.

  Her gaze swung first to Quinn then to her brother before flying back to Serena’s, who nodded.

  “Yes. The curse was broken.”

  Bella’s mouth dropped open as she slid into the nearest chair. “Holy shit. Seriously?”

  The second the words were out, Bella wanted to smack herself but Serena’s laughter filled through the room, echoed by her daughters’.

  “I’m so sorry that—”

  “Was a totally appropriate response,” Madrona completed Bella’s sentence. “Seriously. Don’t stress yourself. That’s exactly how we feel some days.”

  “Our lives have become…even more interesting in the past year.” Serena paused and, behind her, Quinn stiffened. “But we’re not here to discuss the curse.”

  “How well do you know Etruscan history?” Madrona asked.

  Bella stared at the 500-year-old woman who looked like a teenager. “Which part?”

  “The part about Menrva’s nails,” Furia spoke up for the first time.

  “I know they were hammered into Menrva’s temple at the end of each year by the Goddess Nortia to cut the threads of fate for the past year, allowing our people to begin the year without the problems of the past following us.”

  Madrona smiled as if Bella were a star pupil, which was a little freaky considering the other woman looked young enough to be in junior high school. “Do you believe in the nails, Arabella?”

  Her nose wrinkled as she frowned. “I guess so. I mean, I believe our ancestors performed a ritual that involved nails and a hammer. Do I believe the nails actually exist?” She paused, looking around the table. “Should I?”

  In answer, Madrona hooked a finger in the silver chain around her neck and drew it from beneath her Skelanimals t-shirt. An iron key hung at the end.

  Many Etruscans wore a key just like it from the time they were children. The key was a talisman, a ward of protection and used in some magical rituals and spells.

  Though she didn’t wear hers, Bella had received one from her parents when she was five. Cole wore his at all times on a leather thong around his neck.

  As Bella watched, Madrona closed her hand around the key. When she spread her fingers again, a thick, rough-hewn nail lay there.

  Bella’s mouth dropped open. Holy shit.

  “Through the years, we’ve lost our seer and two other streghe,” Serena said. “My boschetta has been scattered for centuries. We’ve shirked our duties as Menrva’s priestesses. We’ve hidden.” Serena said the word like it was a obscenity. “But recently, Furia has been having…well, visions, for lack of a better word.”

  The redhead who’d been silent until now snorted. “More like nightmares. I dismissed them at first. Chalked them up to stress. But they didn’t go away and then they got worse. Then one of them actually came true.”

  Bella waited for Furia to elaborate but Serena took over again. “Needless to say, we’ve had to rethink our first impression. We believe the visions are trying to tell us it’s time.”

  “Time for what?” Bella frowned.

  Serena’s gaze bored into hers. “For the boschetta to resume its duties. For us to become a functioning part of the Etruscan community again.

  “There’s a war coming, Bella. We don’t know with whom. The Mal would be the easy answer but nothing’s ever easy, is it? This conflict is going to be bloody and it’s going to require sacrifice. We need to be ready.”

  Ice coated her spine and Bella shivered. Serena’s expression and her tone frankly scared the crap out of her. The woman utterly believed. But why Serena felt the need to tell Bella this in a private meeting, she didn’t know. “And what does that have to do with me?”

  Serena gaze skipped to Furia for a brief second. “As you know, we are missing three members. Two of them held nails. We’re here to talk about your future.”

  * * *

  Diego couldn’t take this anymore.

  He and Marco had to settle this old fight before their poison affected Amy Jo. They had been living with it for years, but Diego didn’t want her caught in the middle.

  He aimed for the shoulder of the road then turned into the first break in the trees he found. A rutted lane led to a long-neglected picnic area, a moldy-looking table and benches sitting in a small clearing overgrown with weeds.

  Slamming on the breaks, he threw out one arm to stop Amy Jo’s forward motion then pushed out of the car. Marco slammed the back door at almost the same moment.

  Diego let Marco spin him around and get in the first punch. His brother had a hell of a strong arm and Diego rocked back on his heels with the force of it. He figured he owed Marco at least that much.

  Then he put up his fists. “You want to go a few rounds with me, Marco? Fine. It doesn’t change the fact that our father was an arrogant asshole!”

  Marco’s expression pulled into a savage grimace as he threw a roundhouse at Dieg’s head that would have flattened him if he hadn’t dodged it. Diego followed with a jab in Marco’s ribs. Diego didn’t want to hurt his brother but he wasn’t going to take a beating just because Marco needed to punch something.

  Marco feinted to the left and caught him with an uppercut in the jaw that rattled his teeth. Adrenaline flooded his system until he felt it zinging through his veins. Diego battled back his anger, barely restraining the urge to throw another punch.

  “You didn’t really know our father, Marco. You weren’t the one he’d starve for days because you failed to address an elder by his proper name. You weren’t the one he beat if your m
other dared speak her mind in front of him. You weren’t the one he set the guard dogs on to help with his so-called training.”

  His father had been a mean son of a bitch who had treated his wife like a possession and his son —at least one of his sons—like a slave.

  Marco’s eyes narrowed but he didn’t lower his fists. “That’s not the man I knew.”

  “The man you knew was a lie. He had a purpose for everything he did. You were his way of controlling me after his death. Why the hell do you think he never told us about each other?”

  “Because he knew you’d try to poison my mind—”

  “Fucking hell, Marco. Get a grip. You were just another tool in my education. Call it Family 101.”

  Diego’s fists clenched so hard, his knuckles cracked. He wanted to shake some sense into his thick-headed brother but refused to stoop to his father’s level and beat the shit out of Marco. Their father had used his fists to beat a backbone into Diego.

  He was not his father, the bastard who had aligned brothers against one another.

  “What the fuck are you talking about?” Marco demanded.

  “You were my final lesson, Marco. He spoiled you. He told you he loved you, that you were his favorite. And he knew, when we met, that I’d see that. And hate it. Because I spent years wanting him to love me.”

  Marco’s mouth parted in shock and his fists lowered several inches. “What—”

  “But by the time I was ten, I knew it would never happen. He was a sadistic prick who considered emotion a weakness no leader could afford. He assumed I’d be jealous when I found out he had another son, a son who thought he walked on water. Well, he fucked up. Because when I saw you, Marco, I saw family. And I knew I could never follow his will and cut you and your mother off completely.”

  He heard Amy Jo’s quiet gasp behind him but it was the shock in Marco’s eyes that held his gaze. “That’s bullshit. We never—”

  “—went without a goddamn thing,” Diego finished for him. “At the will reading, I watched your mother’s face across the table as the lawyer told her my father hadn’t left her or you anything. She looked like she’d been gut-shot. Our bastard father had told her she’d be taken care of. That you would finally be acknowledged as a legitimate heir. Instead, you were left with nothing and I was forbidden to help you in any way.”

  Diego shook his head, his mouth firm but his eyes… “No.”

  “Yes. He made it part of the damn will that I wasn’t allowed to help you or your mother in any way or I would forfeit everything and you would get it. He wanted me to be as ruthless and cruel as he was and he wanted everyone else to know it.”

  Diego started to see the cracks in Marco’s façade. His eyes looked bleak, desolate. Diego didn’t want this but Marco had to know. Diego couldn’t keep it to himself anymore.

  “Yes, I agreed to the terms of the will. I let everyone believe I cut you off.” Diego shook his head. “But I never would’ve let you and your mother starve. Paloma was…unprepared.” Which was the nicest way of saying she was clueless as Diego could manage. The woman hated him. Always would. “She’d believed that bastard, too. She thought our father would take care of her.”

  Marco started to shake his head but Diego pushed on.

  “I tried to talk to her after the funeral but she refused to listen. She saw me exactly the way our father taught her to see me. As his clone. But that’s not me.”

  “Bullshit. You never gave us—”

  “Gods damn it, Marco. Shut the fuck up and listen.” Diego’s anger started to bubble like hot tar because this was the part that got hairy. This is what he was ashamed of. “Your mother never worked a day in her life. Where do you think the money came from? Not from him.”

  “You’re lying.” Marco said the words but there was no heat behind them. He looked…shell-shocked.

  “No.” Diego shook his head. “I’m not lying and you know it. He made it impossible for me to care for you and your mother without me losing the ability to care for my mother and the people who depend on me.”

  Most specifically, those employed by Falco’s Jewels, a New York City institution for more than a hundred years. Small and exclusive, it sold exotic jewels to some of the richest people in the world. More importantly, the company kept the magical races of the world supplied with the diamonds, rubies, emeralds and all other jewels needed for their magical rituals. The Falco family had a long history as gemminex, jewel workers.

  “But I didn’t turn my back on you, Marco. Because there were no strictures placed on my mother to stop her from giving you money. Our father thought he’d beaten her into submission. Luckily for you, he’d only taught her to take commands well.”

  An old and familiar rage began to simmer but he ruthlessly shoved it back down. He couldn’t deal with that on top of this.

  Marco just stared at him, confusion starting to show on his face. “Why the hell should I believe you?”

  Diego forced himself to shrug, as if it didn’t matter. “I can show you the will if you want. Or I can tell you what you got for your eighteenth birthday.”

  He didn’t wait for Marco to reply. Diego stepped closer and reached out to pull the chain around Marco’s neck from beneath his shirt. A gold medallion hung there. “He specified in his will that he should be buried with this. It’s an exact copy of the ring I took off his hand at the funeral. It belonged to our Uncle Francis.

  “I bet you never knew our grandfather had this made for Francis as a charm, protection against our father. No one trusted Gilbert Falco, not even his own father.” Diego dropped the medal but didn’t step away. “And the damn thing didn’t work because, when he was sixteen, Uncle Francis had a mysterious accident and died. That,” he pointed to the medal now lying on Marco’s shirt, “is our family coat of arms and you are a member of this family. I took it off our father’s neck when I took the ring.”

  His brother’s eyes were wide and dazed as he stared up at him. “Why would you do that?”

  “Oh, for fuck’s sake, Marco!” Diego threw his hands in the air. “You’re my brother! How the hell do you think your mother paid for your flying lessons? Where do you think you got the money to buy your plane?”

  He wouldn’t add the rest—his first clients, the loan for his business, the money for his mother’s cancer treatments. Marco didn’t look like he could take any more. He sometimes forgot his brother was seven years younger and a lot less worldly. He’d been pampered , spoiled, protected.

  Marco took a step back, shaking his head. “No—”

  “Yes,” Diego practically hissed the word. “I wasn’t about to let you or your mother starve just because our father wanted to prove a point about me.”

  With a rough growl, Marco turned away and stormed off toward the edge of the wooded area. Diego started after him but a small, warm hand caught his arm.

  “Let him go.” Amy Jo’s voice grazed his ear. “I think…he could probably use a few minutes.”

  Damn it, he knew she was right. Still…the pain in his brother’s eyes stabbed straight into his gut.

  “Gee,” Amy Jo continued, “and here I thought my family was dysfunctional.”

  He actually laughed, just a short exhalation of air, at the dry humor in her tone. But he couldn’t look at her. “Yeah, we’re definitely the poster children for fucked-up families.” He closed his eyes against the memories that tried to creep in. Memories he’d thought long buried. “Sorry you’re caught in the middle of all this. You certainly don’t need our shit on top of everything else.”

  Opening his eyes, he watched Marco stop at one of the draping trees, grab an overhanging branch in both hands and let the limb take his weight, stretching like a cat in the sun.

  “Actually, it’s kind of taking my mind off everything else.” Her hand started a slow caress along his arm, soothing and erotic at the same time.

  He tore his gaze away from Marco and got caught in her blue eyes, filled with so much compassion he had his hand on h
er cheek before he realized he was going to do it.

  “I won’t let anything happen to you,” he vowed. Just as he would always take care of Marco. “No matter what.”

  Her flash of a smile was bittersweet but her voice held conviction. “I truly do believe that.”

  Her complete and utter trust dumbfounded him.

  Just a few days ago, she’d been unwilling to accept her fate, distraught because she wasn’t going to be able to reverse the curse and would remain a monster. Last night, she’d slept with him, gave him her body for the first time since she’d been raped and today she was looking at him with a boatload of trust in her eyes.

  Christ, didn’t she have any sense at all? Yes, he wanted her. Yes, he’d protect her to the best of his ability, but did she have to trust him on top of that? Didn’t she know she shouldn’t trust anyone, least of all him?

  He didn’t deserve her trust. He was a bastard. Maybe not by birth, but he’d been brain-fucked by his father for years. His only family hated him and he didn’t have a clue how to fix that. He was good at one thing—killing.

  He’d been born grigorio, a rare honor that he made sure never to take for granted. Yet, even among that elite group, he was an anomaly. His mother was the great-granddaughter of Amalia, one of the cursed streghe who’d disappeared a couple of centuries ago. His birth as a grigorio had been unexpected and, surprisingly, a great source of pride for his prick of a father. Diego had never been able to figure that one out.

  Just as he couldn’t figure out why this woman trusted him. He scowled at her and her smile faded.

  Immediately, he wanted it back.

  Gods damn it. She was screwing with his head and he couldn’t deal with that. Not now.

  “We’d better get going,” he said. “I want to get to New Orleans before tomorrow.”

  She nodded slowly and withdrew her hand from his arm. “Sure. I’ll just…um… I guess I’ll—”

  “Get back to the car.” His voice held more than a hint of his frustration and she blinked and stepped back. “Shit. Amy Jo, look—”

  “No.” She slashed a hand in front of her as she shook her head, her mouth drawing into a straight line. “Just…don’t. I’ll wait in the car.”