by Opal Carew
But Serena’s soft words doused her in cold reality.
Holy crap. With everything else going on, she hadn’t even thought about the fact that she would have to perform what would have been her mom’s duties tonight. It made her brain stutter to a complete stop for a few seconds as she blinked at Serena, her hand going to key around her neck.
Her mouth opened but nothing came out. She couldn’t form a coherent thought beyond the fact that her mom was truly gone for good.
Except… she wasn’t. The voices murmured softly behind her mental shield.
“Shea.”
Closing her eyes, she saw her mom giving her the key for the first time and teaching her how to make it transform into its natural shape as a nail. Saw her mom show her how to perform the yearly ritual that charged the nail on the summer solstice. Saw the nail clutched in Leo’s hand as he slowly woke in that hidden room in the basement.
“Shea? Are you alright?” Serena asked.
Slowly, she shook her head. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m fine.” She looked Serena in the eyes. “Of course, I’ll help.”
Shea felt Gabriel’s gaze on her as she rose and she gave him what she hoped was a reassuring smile before she turned to Leo. “I’m going with Serena, bud. You stay with Gabriel, okay?”
Gabriel gave her a look before saying, “No problem. We’ll go work with your knives, again.”
Leo gave her a quick smile because Gabriel had said the magic word. Knives. He loved training with Gabriel. Which was good, because if anything happened—
“Shea?”
Serena stood in the doorway, looking back at her. Waiting.
She followed Serena through the house to her private altar room. A tree stump sat in the middle of the room, only about four feet in diameter and two feet high, but carved over every inch with pictures of the Goddesses and Gods and Etruscan writing. Someone had put many years of hard work and loving attention into the altar.
“This is beautiful,” Shea said, running her fingers over the smooth top.
“Gabriel’s father made that for me.” Serena walked around to the other side of the altar. “Davis was a master craftsman.”
Shea looked up, catching the look of utter devastation that crossed Serena’s face.
“I’m sorry.” Shea shook her head. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”
Serena quickly wiped the expression away with a forced smile and turned to gather her moon bowl and other tools from a table on the far wall. “I know. Please, don’t feel you have to walk on eggshells around me. Davis and Nino have been gone a long time. Sometimes, I actually like to talk about them. To remember them.”
Shea nodded. She knew exactly what Serena meant. “Is Gabriel a lot like his dad?”
Some other emotion crossed Serena’s face now, something Shea would have sworn was fear. But that made no sense. “Gabriel idolized Davis. By the time Gabriel could talk, he was finishing Davis’ sentences. They never fought, never butted heads. Not over anything.”
Unlike Shea and her mom. They’d constantly been at odds. And when she met the hiker, it’d gotten so much worse. They’d barely been speaking when she’d finally left.
Tears rushed to her eyes, and she tried to blink them away. They’d only give her a headache.
“Shea?”
“How do you think the curse will be broken, Serena?” Shea looked the other woman directly in the eyes. “Do you have any ideas?”
Serena sighed as she sat on the floor before the altar, waving Shea down opposite her. “I’ve had many ideas over the past centuries. Most of us believed the curse would be broken the second you took your first breath. Most of us wanted to believe that. Now that we know differently, I’d like to say I’m at a loss.” Serena paused as she set the moon bowl on the altar. “But I won’t lie to you, Shea. I think… I think it’s going to require sacrifice. One that involves blood. Your blood. I think your parents knew that, and that’s why they disappeared.”
Yeah, she thought that too. But hearing someone else say it made it that much more real.
And, strangely, that much more acceptable.
She looked into the moon bowl, at the green liquid Serena had put there, then back up with raised eyebrows. “You want to induce a vision with vervaine juice? Didn’t Gabriel tell you about my headaches?”
The spell Serena wanted to try would definitely bring on a migraine. Vervaine was a powerful herb in its natural leafy state, but distilled down to a juice, it was capable of producing a hallucinogenic state that could last for hours. Or days.
Serena nodded. “Yes, but you’re not doing the spell. I am. I just need a bit of your blood.”
Foolish hope made her hands clench into fists and still she had to ask. “Do you think you’ll be able to see anything?”
“I honestly don’t know.” Serena held out her hand. “I’m not a foreseer. But we don’t have many options, do we?”
Shea only hesitated a few seconds before placing her hand palm up in Serena’s, wincing only a little when the other woman cut the tip of Shea’s index finger with the sharp athame then dripped a few drops of blood into the bowl.
Rising and stepping away from the altar, Shea wrapped her cut finger in the hem of her t-shirt and watched as Serena took the blade and mixed the fluids together. Chanting in Etruscan, with an accent that reminded her so much of her mother, Serena made pleas to the Goddesses Menrva and Uni for their strength to see what would be.
Dipping her finger in the bowl, Serena closed her eyes then painted the mixed blood and vervaine on her cheeks and down the pulse points on her neck. Her head fell back and her hands dropped to her thighs. She continued to chant, the words deepening until they were little more than a rumble.
Shea felt the air thicken around her as the spell drew power up from the earth. Serena’s muscles quivered with tension as her voice became a whisper. Shea’s temples began to throb at the amount of power Serena drew to her. The first tinge of fear crept up Shea’s spine. Fear that Serena might not see anything. Fear that she would.
Shea gasped as Serena’s head suddenly snapped upright until she stared straight at Shea. Only she wasn’t seeing Shea at all. Serena’s eyes stared straight ahead, looking at something only she could see.
Her mouth continued to move, to chant, but Shea couldn’t hear her at all now. Her ears strained for any recognizable words or phrases. Anything that would indicate what she saw.
What—
Suddenly, Serena started to shake, her body twitching uncontrollably, her head whipping back and forth, as if she were fighting something. Or the spell was fighting her.
Shea rose, not sure if she should touch Serena to bring her out of it or if that would do more harm. But Serena was going to hurt herself if she didn’t stop.
But what if the spell was working? What if she interrupted the spell before Serena was finished?
Just as the thought crossed her mind, Serena slumped to the floor as the power in the air dissipated.
Shea hurried to her side, not knowing if she should touch her. “Serena, can you hear me? Are you okay?”
Serena groaned, and her face scrunched into lines of pain. “I can hear you, dear. Very clearly. Just…give me a minute, okay?”
It took more than a minute for Serena to finally open her eyes. And when she finally did, the woman’s expression told her everything she needed to know.
“I’m sorry, Shea. I saw nothing.”
* * *
Serena watched the girl’s shoulders drop even as she tried to smile.
“That’s okay,” Shea said. “It was pretty much a shot in the dark anyway.”
Serena pulled herself back to a sitting position, closing her eyes so Shea couldn’t see the lie she was telling.
Because she had seen something, something that made her cold to her bones.
Something it took every ounce of her control not to reveal to Shea. The girl had inherited her mother’s Empathic Gift. If she wasn’t careful, Shea would pick up on her fee
lings and demand to know what she’d seen.
But there was no way Serena would tell Shea how she was going to die.
* * *
A slight breeze rustled the leaves as Serena led them on an unmarked path through the forest.
It was close to midnight, but the full moon cast enough light that they didn’t need flashlights.
Deer, raccoons and possums were the only life Gabriel sensed. He heard no car noise, no planes rumbling overheard.
Perfect night for the ritual. He hoped like hell it dispelled some of the tension that had built through the afternoon and evening. No one had said anything. Nothing inflammatory, anyway. But everyone had been on edge.
Even Leo had seemed to regress back to silence.
When they finally reached the circle in the clearing, Gabriel sighed as the power of the earth called out to him.
A sense of calm laced with anticipation seeped into his blood from the ground up and he smiled, knowing there would be more magic. And it would be good.
Almost as good as sex. He turned to see Shea speaking quietly with Serena. Almost.
And it would have been perfect if it all hadn’t gone so wrong.
* * *
One minute Gabriel was watching Serena perform the blessing to the Goddess.
The next he was flat on his ass, blown out of the circle by a blast of power so intense, he blacked out for several seconds.
When he came to, he heard Quinn calling Serena’s name, Serena calling to Leo and Shea moaning.
Leo remained in the center of the circle, eyes closed, holding tight to Shea’s hand as he funneled power through his body and directly into Shea. She was already on her knees and would soon be flat on the ground. In a coma.
The force of the magic the kid channeled had taken him under, made him oblivious to anything but the power he controlled.
He didn’t realize he was going to kill Shea if he didn’t release her.
“Gabe!” Quinn yelled. “Serena won’t let me in.”
Damn, they’d underestimated the kid again.
He had to get Shea out of there before the kid killed her. Holding out his hands, he tested the wards Serena had set up around the circle. The arus in his blood reacted violently to the amount of power enclosing Serena, Shea and Leo in the circle. He couldn’t break the wards in his current condition. They were too strong.
“Mom! Let me in.”
Serena didn’t spare him a glance. “Too dangerous. Leo, sweetheart, listen to me. You have to release the power. You’re going to hurt Shea.”
The little boy didn’t move. Gabriel was pretty sure he hadn’t heard Serena.
Leo had tapped into the power of the ley line pulsing straight through Serena’s land. It was why she’d settled here, how she’d kept this house hidden all these years.
Magic, as all Etruscans knew, came from the earth. It flowed like blood through the soil in veins—ley lines. When anyone used magic, they tapped into that power to do so.
Leo, with too little training, must have felt like he’d just swallowed the biggest fucking happy pill in the world. All that power gave him a high better than sex and drugs combined.
And he was channeling it all through Shea.
If Leo didn’t stop…
Gabriel took the only option left. It was going to hurt, hurt like hell. And not just him, but Serena, too.
Fuck it. He drew power into himself, up from the ground and through his body. Then he lifted his hands toward the shield and released the power at the shield his mother had set up.
A lightning bolt of sheer agony slashed through his body, seizing his muscles and making his head feel like he’d gone five rounds with a heavyweight champion. Ears ringing, he locked his knees when they wanted to buckle as the barrier Serena had erected fell with an almost audible crash.
As it did, Gabriel grabbed for Leo and Shea at the same time Quinn lunged for Serena, who fell to the ground in a dead faint.
Too late. Too damn late.
Touching Leo was like grabbing a live electrical wire. Sharp pain surged through Gabriel as Leo tried to hold on to the energy Gabriel wanted to drain away.
“Leo!’ he shouted. “Leo, you’ve got to stop. You’re hurting Shea. Let her go.”
Gabriel yanked at the boy’s arm, trying to get his attention but Leo showed no sign of hearing him. Gabriel didn’t want to hurt the kid, but if he didn’t release Shea soon, he was going to have to knock him out. First, though, he reached for Shea and Leo’s joined hands.
And gritted his teeth against the force of power running between them. It took him several minutes but finally, he managed to separate their fingers.
All that energy needed somewhere to go and it chose to bitch-slap Gabriel, driving him to his knees.
Even so, he tried to reach Shea before she fell to the ground, unconscious, but just missed her.
Leo blinked and looked around, as if coming out of a deep sleep
“What…happened? I don’t feel good.”
Gabriel pulled himself onto his hands and knees and crawled to Shea.
“Gabriel? What’s—”
Leo cried out at the sight of Shea crumpled in a ball on the ground next to him. Gabriel grabbed for him and missed. His body screamed in residual agony as he fell back to his knees. He wanted to curl into a little ball and wait for the pain to recede but he couldn’t.
Leo sobbed over Shea’s unmoving body while Quinn held a slowly awakening Serena.
“Quinn.” It hurt to speak, but he forced the words out as he dragged himself to his feet. “Take Serena back to the house.”
“No,” Serena said, her voice weak but calm. “Let Quinn get Shea. You and I can help each other. Leo, sweetheart. Stop crying. Come here.”
“Didn’t mean it.” The little boy sobbed out the words. “I’m sorry.”
Serena pulled away from Quinn and took a few steps toward Leo, nearly fell then pulled herself together to reach for him. “Come with me, baby. Shea will be fine. Quinn’s going to take her back to the house and she’ll be fine.”
Serena sounded confident and loving as she soothed Leo then got him walking back to the house, leaning on him, making him feel like he was helping her. And maybe he was. She looked ready to drop over.
As Quinn lifted Shea in his arms, Gabriel heard her moan, and he released the breath he hadn’t known he’d been holding.
“Shea.” His voice sounded like sandpaper on wood. “Can you hear me?”
“Come on, Gabe.” Quinn held Shea in both arms but used one hand to pull Gabriel to his feet. “Let’s get back. I don’t want to be stuck out here if someone got a hint of that power. It was enough to light up the entire eastern seaboard.”
Shit. Quinn was right. Someone might have picked up on the disturbance they’d caused. The flow of magic in the earth had been disrupted. Leo had unknowingly gathered it to him and bent it to his will, something you didn’t attempt unless you knew what you were doing. He’d caused the natural order to unbalance for those few minutes. And for someone looking for a signal, this area had just lit up like a neon sign.
Still, the wards on the property would hold. They had to. And as soon as they were feeling a little better, he and Serena would strengthen them. After they got Shea back to the house, he’d have Quinn take a run around the property.
First, he needed to get everyone settled. And quiet the fear gnawing a hole in his stomach.
* * *
Quinn stepped naked out the back door, closed it behind him and took a deep breath of the now-still air.
The house reeked with fear. Serena’s. Gabriel’s. Shea’s. Leo’s. Even his own.
That had been too fucking close. And it’d happened so fast, he hadn’t been able to do a damn thing to help. It sucked to feel that powerless, to know you could lose someone in the blink of an eye.
He could almost, almost, understand Serena’s reluctance to love him. If only—
“Shit.” He had no time to think about this. It was h
is turn to be the protector. Closing his eyes, he reached for the place in his soul where he kept his wolf and unlocked it.
If anyone ever asked how he went from human to wolf, the only thing he could tell them was, it was like opening a door and letting the animal walk through and into his body.
And, fuck, did it hurt.
That was the main reason there weren’t a lot of biters running around. Most biters, people who became versipelli by being bitten by one, went crazy from the pain and sheer lunacy of what was happening to their bodies. And then they usually killed themselves.
Hereditary versipelli had years of training to handle their change before they hit puberty and actually went through it. Some got lucky, able to “flash” back and forth between their animal and their human skins without much pain.
Not him, though. He had to bear the full brunt of contorting his entire being into the body of a different animal.
Now on four paws, he headed toward the perimeter, the dark no hindrance. He’d never get lost in these woods. From the first moment he’d stepped on the property, he’d felt like he’d come home. That had been just after Davis and Nino had been killed. He’d helped Gabe bring their bodies here to be buried.
It was the only time he’d ever seen Gabe upset by anything since Quinn and his dad, now retired and living in North Carolina, had moved into Davis’ rural Chester County home. Quinn had been twelve, sick with anger and despair. His mother had tried to kill him, to burn the house down around him as he’d slept. That wasn’t something you got over right away.
Gabe had been fifteen and they’d bonded over a fistfight for some imagined slight. Nino had been six and idolized Quinn and his big brother. He’d died of a stray gunshot in Davis’s arms.
He shook his head and caught a glimpse of full moon through the canopy. It’d been full the night Nino and Davis had died, too. He remembered because at fifteen, he’d only been able to change for about a year. That night, he still hadn’t been able to control it. He’d been the one to kill the man who’d murdered Davis, had torn him to pieces and almost went to work on Gabe before he could control the blood lust.