Spell Bound (Darkly Enchanted)

by Stephanie Julian

  Smart ass. He liked that about her. “You sure you’re ready to hear the rest?”

  She swallowed and blinked. She looked ready to say no.

  Then she nodded.

  “In 1495,” Gabriel began, recalling the tale every grigorio memorized as a child, “Fabrizio Paganelli cursed the thirteen Priestesses of Menrva, living as simple streghe in a Tuscan village, to outlive their loved ones and to never produce another strega. He blamed them for the death of his youngest son. And because he was a powerful Malandante, the curse worked.”

  From the shocked look on her face, he could tell Shea knew what that meant. The Mal, like streghe, were born with the ability to work magic. But the Mal used that power in dark ways. An ancient secret society of Etruscan descent, the Mal orchestrated much of the chaos in the world, benefiting from death and destruction.

  “The women didn’t know that right away,” he continued. “At first, they dismissed Paganelli’s ravings. He was distraught with grief, and no one in the village believed the streghe had killed his son. But years passed and the women didn’t age.

  “Eventually, the town turned on the streghe, burned their seer at the stake and murdered their families. They attempted to kill the remaining streghe by slitting their throats.” The thought made blood lust boil in his veins. “But their bodies healed and they left the village, scattering across Europe, hiding wherever they could, eventually making their way to America.

  “At the time, the streghe didn’t know Paganelli’s curse had also trapped his three remaining sons in never-ending life. Paganelli’s son, Dario, made it his mission to kill every one of the women. That’s why he wants Leo. To use his powers to hunt the streghe.”

  Gabriel took a deep breath, trying to rein in the fierce anger he felt whenever he thought about Dario. “Any of this ring a bell?”

  She nodded, her expression shell-shocked. “Mom told me that Dario is trying to find and kill the Priestesses, that he wants Leo to use against them. But she never… Mom never…” She took a deep breath and lowered her gaze to the floor. “This is the first time I’ve heard anything about a curse.”

  Gabriel shook his head. Why the hell had Celeste not told her?

  Then again, how do you start that conversation?

  Surprise! You’re the key to breaking a five-hundred-year-old curse. Welcome to the world. Now all you have to figure out is how to do it.

  After a few moments of silence, she looked up. “What did they do? After they found out they’d been cursed.”

  “They begged the Goddesses, Uni and Menrva, to release them. No go. Then, before the villagers burned her, Dafne foresaw the birth of a daughter to one of the original thirteen to end the curse.”

  Shea blinked and swallowed, the only outward sign to give away her fear. He wanted to reach for her hand but stopped before he touched her, remembering what had happened the last time. The voices and how they had aggravated her migraine. He didn’t want her to repeat that.

  So he waited for her to make some signal that she was ready.

  Shea’s eyelids fluttered then she drew in a deep breath. “Do you know how she’s supposed to do that exactly?”

  Gabriel shook his head. “Neither do the women.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “Dafne didn’t tell them?”

  He shook his head.

  And waited. He expected more questions. Hell, he expected anger, fear, maybe tears.

  Instead, she sat there, staring at her hands. Finally, after what had to be at least two minutes, she drew in another breath, but didn’t lift her gaze. “Do you think Dario knows…about me?”

  She sounded exhausted. Defeated. Lost. The urge to grab her out of her chair and set her on his lap, put his arms around her and hold her, made his muscles twitch.

  Instead, his fingers curled into the arms of his chair, anchoring him in place. “We didn’t know about you. We’re not sure Paganelli even knows about the prophecy. He was away at school when the townspeople burned Daphne and tried to kill the others.

  “I figure your mother discovered fairly early in her pregnancy that she was having a girl and she and Kyle disappeared before anyone could find out. Your father was a damn good grigorio, descended from Dafne’s line. He’s probably the one who realized your mother was carrying a girl. From everything I’ve heard, Kyle was damn good with the sight.”

  Gabriel was right, Shea thought. Her dad had been the best. A well of sadness hit her chest and tears burned in her eyes. An image of her dad popped into her mind, his brown curly hair always in need of a trim, his quick smile and steady dark eyes. Blessed Goddess, she missed him.

  She took a deep breath, pushing down sadness. “He was. He always managed to be wherever I needed him, right before I fell out of a tree or tripped over rock.” She took another breath, trying to steady herself against an encroaching dizziness. “Is your mother one of the thirteen?”

  He nodded. “But I can’t tell you which.”

  “Why not?”

  “Safety precaution.”

  She figured that seemed logical. “What about your father?”

  “Davis Borelli.”

  “Is he still—”

  “He died several years ago.”

  “What aren’t you telling me?”

  He smiled again and her eyes widened. Damn, the man was gorgeous when he did that. Luckily, he didn’t do it often because it made her want to lean in and taste him. “Nothing you need to know right now. Look, Shea, I know this has been a lot to take in. But now you’ve got to think. Did your mother ever say anything about the curse? Something you might not have thought was important at the time, something that might make sense now but didn’t then.”

  Muscles twitching with nervous energy, Shea stood and began to pace. “My mother taught me how to draw the circle and work spells. She taught me what I needed to do as a Priestess. To protect the nail at all times.”

  Her hand grabbed and held onto the key again. Without conscious thought on her part, the key drew on the arus in her blood and transformed into the nail. One of Menrva’s twelve Nails of the Ages.

  From the time she’d been old enough to understand, her mother had drilled her on the ancient spells and rituals the priestesses would need when they were called on by Menrva to resume their duties.

  Every day they’d studied a new spell or reviewed an old one. She’d grown to hate it. The spells made her head hurt, so much so she constantly screwed them up. And her mom had looked so sad.

  Over time, she’d come to dread the day her mom would hand over the nail to her. She didn’t want it. She couldn’t do the spells, she couldn’t protect it. She was defective.

  Not once had her mom mentioned anything about a curse. Her five-hundred-year-old mother. Something else she couldn’t wrap her mind around.

  Still, she’d known there was something her mom wasn’t telling her. She’d sensed it, like a current between them.

  That old pain, the one she’d gotten whenever she and her mom argued, was back, lodged in her chest like a dagger she couldn’t pull out.

  Mom, why didn’t you say anything?

  But the feeling of betrayal by her dad was worse.

  “Shea. Did your mom ever say anything about a curse?”

  Gabriel’s repeated question cut through her thoughts and she turned to face him, anger beginning to replace shock.

  “My mom was difficult to talk to. And she never, ever said anything about a curse.”

  Gabriel’s expression remained unreadable. “I guess she felt she had good reason.”

  Fuck that. No reason would ever have been good enough to keep this from her.

  Jesus, Mom—

  “So why’d you leave?” he asked.

  Gabriel watched as her mouth tightened as Shea’s gaze disconnected.

  “I didn’t know there was a world beyond the forest we lived in until I was twelve.” The bitterness in her tone cut through the air like tiny knives. “A lost hiker somehow found his way through the wards on o
ur property. My dad hustled him away pretty fast, but it was too late. The secret was out.”

  She met his gaze then. “Ballet was the one thing my mom and I actually enjoyed doing together. She’d taught me since I was three or four. It was the best part of the day, when my mom and I would go into the studio to dance.”

  Her smile turned bittersweet. “When I was twelve, my dad introduced me to the wonders of TV and movies. I must have watched ‘The Red Shoes’ and ‘A Chorus Line’ and ‘Center Stage’ hundreds of times. And I decided I wanted to be a ballerina.

  “When I was fifteen, my mom told me I’d never be a ballerina. That I would live the rest of my life alone because no one could be trusted. That’s when I started to plan.”

  “Plan what?”

  Her hands did that wavy thing again. “My great escape. I was fifteen, after all, and I wanted to see the world. My mom was just as determined to keep me away from it. I started exploring past the boundaries my parents had set. I found out we lived several miles from a small town and I used to sneak there. I was fascinated to see so many people in one place.

  “My dad used to leave the door to the communications room open sometimes and I could watch whatever I wanted. I had the biggest crush on David Boreanez from ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer.’ Until I realized he wasn’t a real vampire. You know that whole cross deal is a hoax, right? And the sunlight death?”

  Her lopsided smile reached inside his chest and grabbed the air right out of his lungs. Holy shit, he didn’t need this now.

  Her smile faded fast. “Anyway, I heard my parents fighting sometimes. About me. I think my mom wanted to lock me in my room and never let me out. I couldn’t understand why she didn’t lo—why she wanted to keep me hidden.”

  She stopped pacing to stare at an abstract painting on the wall, her expression tight. What was she thinking? Hell, at this point he didn’t have a clue—

  Leo’s terrified scream reverberated through the house and they ran for the bedroom.

  Chapter Eight

  Lea Tulane’s eyes flashed open, immediately awake from a deep sleep.

  She reached out and laid her hand on Brian’s back, sleeping beside her, listening for the sound of his breathing. She released a relieved sigh at his slight wheeze. He was okay.

  Brian was only seventy. Not old. Not really.

  Oh, hell. Who was she trying to kid? Every morning she woke, she thanked the Great Goddess he was still here.

  They’d been lucky. They’d had a good fifty-five years together. This time. But life had started to take its toll. Brian’s blood pressure was too high. His knees creaked and he didn’t recover from their lovemaking as fast as he used to. Not that it wasn’t good.

  Alright, at least she could be honest with herself. There hadn’t been enough of it lately to be good. Brian wasn’t as interested in her sexually as he had been. Some of it had to do with the way his body had changed over the years. And some of it had to with the way hers hadn’t.

  And there went her chances of getting back to sleep tonight.

  Sliding out of bed, she walked to the window, drawn by the light of the almost full moon. Summer treguenda was approaching and she’d thought about returning east to celebrate.

  She enjoyed southern California, possibly the only place on earth where she, stuck at twenty-eight, and Brian, at seventy, could live without being stared at. Much. But she wanted to see her sister—

  An odd shadow shifted across the grass. Just a palm frond moving in the ocean breeze? Or someone sneaking onto the property?

  She shivered, straining to distinguish two a.m. shadows from potential intruders. Brian always told her she worried too much. But after five-hundred years on the run, she figured she could cut herself a little slack.

  The shadow moved again, and now she could see it was a palm, one of the large ones flanking the patio—

  A floorboard creaked on the first floor.

  Adrenaline pumped through her bloodstream, covering her skin in goose bumps.

  Her hand crept to the silver chain around her neck and the iron key hanging from it. Someone was in the house. The housekeeper had left hours ago and they didn’t have a security guard, although many who lived in this gated community did.

  Brian wouldn’t hear of it. He’d protected her on his own for years. Why would he need help now?

  She glanced back at the bed. Brian still slept soundly.

  Had Dario’s men finally found her? Should she run? Wake Brian? Draw them away?

  Or…was she ready?

  Even if it meant death the way Dario dealt it, maybe it was worth it. Brian would soon be taken from her again. She’d spent more than fifty years alone before they’d reunited. Before that, it had been more than a century.

  Time was a bitch she couldn’t escape.

  Concentrating on the open door to their room, she could just barely hear the scrape of soft-soled shoes on the wool carpet covering the stairs.

  If she gave herself to them without a fight, would they leave Brian alone?

  No, she knew that was too much to ask. But maybe Dario would make it quick…

  She wondered if it would hurt.

  Footsteps in the hall now.

  Slipping the key from around her neck, she dropped it into her wooden jewelry box. Her sister would find it there. She had to believe that.

  * * *

  Shea was closer to the bedroom but Gabriel was faster.

  He burst through the door, gun in his hand. The room was dark, even with his enhanced sight.

  Shea tried to move past him but he barred her way. How the hell could someone have slipped past the wards without him knowing?

  He flipped on the light switch, trying to see everything at once. Leo huddled on the bed, pillow clutched to his chest, rocking back and forth.

  “Borelli, let me in.” Shea insisted.

  “Stay back,” he hissed. “Leo, are you okay?”

  “Dark,” Leo whimpered.

  “Gabriel, move your ass now.”

  Shea’s tone nearly singed his eyebrows. But his given name coming out of her mouth… Well, that singed other, lower places. Since he didn’t sense anyone else in the room, he let her by. She ran for the bed as Leo launched himself at her and clung like a baby monkey as she sat on the side.

  “Shh, it’s okay,” she whispered. “I’m sorry. It’s my fault.”

  “Dark,” Leo wimpered.

  “I know. I’m sorry. Calm down, bud. Deep breaths.”

  Gabriel took a couple of deep breaths to calm his own runaway heartbeat.

  Shit, the kid wasn’t being kidnapped or murdered. He was afraid of the dark. And Gabriel had put him in the darkest room of the house.

  Fuck.

  He caught Shea’s glance, expecting to see condemnation there, but she only shook her head.

  “My fault,” she said. “I’m sorry. I should have checked on him. I always leave a light on for him if I’m not here. You didn’t know.”

  Because he hadn’t asked.

  As Leo clung and drew in deep breaths while Shea held him and rubbed his back, Gabriel complicated the situation by sitting on the bed next to them. He should keep his distance. It was one of the first things his dad had taught him. It was why Davis hadn’t been his mother’s true mate, merely her companion.

  “Hey, kid. Wanna know what scares the shit out of me?”

  Shea and Leo looked at him. Shea’s mouth tightened at his language, Leo’s eyes still wide and terrified. But after a couple of hitched-in breaths, he nodded.

  “Spiders. They freak me out. All those legs and some of them bite. I know they’re tiny and I could crush them before they get to me, but I had to learn how to overcome that fear because sometimes there’s gonna be spiders.”

  The terror in Leo’s eyes began to fade as curiosity settled in. He released his death grip from around Shea’s neck and moved a little closer to Gabriel. “How?”

  Shea’s indrawn breath drew his gaze for a second before concentr
ating again on Leo.

  “By studying them, learning everything I could. Then they weren’t so scary anymore. If you want, I can teach you some stuff. Maybe then the dark wouldn’t freak you out so much. The dark can be good. We can hide in the dark. And you and me, we can see things in the dark other people can’t.”

  Leo’s eyes widened even further.

  “Some are kind of cool,” Gabriel continued. “Come here.”