“Only if you want to lose another couple thou.” Sal snorted. “Sure, kid. See you then.”
And as soon as Cole had disappeared, Sal turned back to Brand. “So, Brandon, what do you think of the lucani king?”
King. Ah, the rex before Cole’s name.
Holy shit. That guy, who could only be in his early twenties, was a king. The werewolf king.
Brand started to shake his head then couldn’t stop.
Sal laughed. “Dude, you are providing hours of amusement. And the day’s not over. Let’s hope you live to provide a little more.”
***
“So, Catene. Do you think you’ll be able to handle this?”
Catene had turned out to be a beautiful copper-haired teenager with bright blue eyes, a smile that lit up an entire room, and two fathers and a mother who adored her. And were worried about her.
Catene didn’t seem to be worried, but then she was a teenager. Brand knew from dealing with the young guys on his teams over the years that, at that age, nothing frightened them. They were invincible, immortal.
“Absolutely, Lady Lucy.” She flipped that smile toward Brand. “Everything will be fine.”
Hell, when she said it, absolute conviction in her voice, Brand knew it would be. Not that he didn’t trust Lucy or Sal, but there was something about this girl…
Something her parents sensed or knew. Something that worried them. Or maybe that was just them being parents. Which he still hadn’t wrapped his brain around. He’d have to ask Lucy about that whole three-parent deal later.
Then Lucy smiled and all thoughts of anyone else faded. He figured he must look like a fool, grinning at her like he was.
“So,” Sal said. “Let’s get this show on the road.”
“Lady, are you sure you don’t want me to assist as well?” Catene’s mother, Margie, piped up. “I know I’m not as proficient with this type of spell as Cat, but you may need a healer on hand. I could call Nica…”
“If we need anyone, we’ll be sure to get in touch. But thank you, Margie.”
Lucy acknowledged Margie’s concerns without being patronizing but she’d made herself clear. Only Brand, Lucy, Sal, and Catene would be there for the actual ritual or whatever the hell they were going to do.
Which he hadn’t really allowed himself to think about. Probably shouldn’t really think about considering the knife Sal held in his hands.
As they’d waited for Catene to arrive, Sal had disappeared for a few minutes before returning with “supplies.”
A blanket, a basket filled with who-knew-what—and that blade. Long, lethal-looking. Black handle and dull black blade. Probably best not to think about what he was going to do with that blade. Yeah, they’d explained the process before, but that had been hypothetical. Now that Brandon was staring at that blade…
Not so hypothetical anymore. But he’d do it. For Lucy.
Jesus, had they really only meet three days ago? It felt like he’d known her forever. No, not forever. Lucy would live forever. He’d be gone in a few short decades. Or sooner, if whatever Sal planned to do to him failed.
“Okay, people.” Sal’s hooves clacked against the floor as he headed for the door. “Let’s move out.”
They left Kyle and Margie behind at the den’s community center, which turned out to be a sprawling log structure in the middle of a community of houses tucked into the woods.
Brand saw a few actual log houses though most were made of stone and none had a second floor. Hard-packed earth served as roads. No asphalt anywhere. No concrete.
It looked almost European, though he’d never been to Europe. He knew they had electricity but he had no idea where it came from because he didn’t see any power lines. Probably buried. Of course, it could just be magic.
The sun had just set and there was still enough light in the sky to see to walk as the almost-full moon hung low and just above the trees.
Lucy and Catene led the way, their voices too low for him to hear. They had their arms linked and, though Lucy’s lips curved in a smile, he saw stress in her expression.
“Where are we, anyway?” Brand asked Sal, as they walked side by side down a winding path through the trees, away from the houses. The pines provided cover from anyone who might want to pry.
“Rockland Township. The lucani own almost half the township though no one but them knows it. Been living here for almost two hundred years, since Cole’s grandfather came over from Sicily to take over control of the lucani and institute the legion.”
“Legion? Like the Roman Legion? Seriously?”
Sal nodded. “Just like that, yeah. No time for a history lesson, but the lucani had been a secret legion of the Roman army way back. They were kinda like the Special Forces. They did the dirty work, if you get my meaning.
“They managed to keep it together for centuries after Rome fell, but in 1758 the Malandante nearly decimated them and the Enu and Fata in a purge. That was when most of the Etruscans moved here.”
Brand thought for a moment about what that would have meant. No huge cities. Hundreds and hundreds of miles of forests.
“Must have seemed like heaven,” he murmured.
Sal nodded. “Too much temptation for some. They ran wild. Not all of them, but a lot. Enough to make it dangerous for them all. They’d splintered into small groups and none of them would’ve survived if a few hadn’t gotten together and petitioned the Sicilian lucani king to help them.
“Cole’s great-grandfather sent his oldest son over in the early 1900s to bring them into line. And when his father died, he moved the entire operation here to the States. A few families stayed, but the lucani legions are based in America now. Right here, actually. With Cole.”
“And he controls the werewolf army?”
Sal grunted out a laugh. “Yeah, he does. They have fighters, but mostly the lucani run a string of nightclubs across the country. More structure, steady employment and a way to keep the younger males from running feral. It works for them.”
Brand just shook his head at the thought of werewolves running nightclubs. It just seemed so damn bizarre.
As bizarre as what the little goat man is about to do to you, right?
Exactly.
“You can still back out, you know?” Sal’s voice had dropped to a level Brand shouldn’t have been able to hear if he’d been completely human. All his life, he’d just thought he had exceptional hearing and a sense of smell to rival a dog’s.
Or a bear’s.
Jesus, what if he really was a berserkir?
“No, I can’t. I have to do this. I… don’t want to lose her.”
Sal flashed him a wide grin around his still-smoking cigar. “I knew I liked you, kid.”
Brand just shook his head and watched the sway of Lucy’s denim-covered ass in front of him. So fucking beautiful. That gorgeous dark hair with its strands of pure silver threaded through it. A woman’s lush body.
But he loved her strong personality just as much. He loved that she seemed to be completely head-over-heels for him. That she was willing to go through all this for him.
And who wouldn’t love a woman who loved hockey as much as she did?
After a few more silent minutes, they stepped into a clearing. Brand swore the temperature rose from almost freezing back in the village to a nearly balmy forty degrees or so here. Weird. But not as weird as the beautifully carved wooden table at the far end of the clearing. And the musical waterfall spilling down the outcropping of rock to the table’s right.
Okay, maybe weird wasn’t the right world. Magical. Yeah, magical fit. Hell, he’d never been one for fairy tales. Give him a good gritty mystery any day. Still, there was something so freaking peaceful about this place, it felt like one huge tranquilizer.
He stopped at the edge of the clearing, the warmer air heating his skin, the sound of the waterfall soothing his rough edges.
“Brandon?”
Lucy’s voice held a tremble he might have missed had he
not turned to look at her. Damn it, he hated that he made this strong woman worry. She stared at him with wide eyes, her bottom lip caught between her teeth so she wouldn’t say anything, even though he knew she wanted to. She wanted him to say he wasn’t going through with this.
Not gonna happen, babe.
He grabbed the fleece sweatshirt he was wearing and pulled it over his head, followed by his T-shirt. The cooler air brushed up against him, making his nipples hard.
The temperature wasn’t unbearable. He hadn’t been kidding when he’d said he could withstand subzero temperatures. He’d been a Polar Bear swimmer—
He started to laugh, letting his head fall back as the sound ricocheted off the surrounding trees. He knew they were all staring at him like he’d gone made and he just didn’t care. The situation was wild, too crazy to be believed, so why not laugh? Damn it, he fucking deserved it.
“So, puckhead,” Sal practically growled at him, “you wanna tell the class what’s so funny?”
He took a deep breath but couldn’t completely stop his laughter. “When I was a kid, I was part of the Polar Bear Club. We used to ring in the New Year with a midnight swim in the lake. It gets pretty damn cold in Maine in the winter, you know.”
Then he couldn’t help it. He kept laughing. A second later, Sal joined in, his braying howl of amusement setting off Catene. The only one not laughing was Lucy. She just shook her head. He walked over to her and almost had himself under control when he got there.
“You know you’re allowed to laugh, right? And it is kinda funny.”
He had a brief moment to wonder if his parents had appreciated the irony as well. He’d have to ask them sometime. And that was a phone call he really wasn’t looking forward to making.
Sighing, Lucy raised her arms and placed them around his neck, drawing him down for a kiss. The second his lips met hers, all thoughts of polar bears fled and he only thought of her. The taste of her lips, the warmth of her body.
He didn’t try to make the kiss anything it wasn’t, but she almost drowned him with the force of it. Heat and worry and sweet emotion infused her kiss.
When she finally left him up for air, he realized he’d pulled her against him and had a decent hard-on going. Exactly not what he needed right now.
“Let’s just get through this, okay, babe?”
He heard a strangled cough behind him and turned to see Sal patting Cat on the back as she stared at him with wide eyes.
Brand frowned at the girl. “What?”
She blinked at him, all innocent and sweet and totally faking it, if the amusement in her eyes was any indication. “Nothing. Not a thing. Why do you think anything’s wrong?”
Lucy sighed, shaking her head. “Let’s get this over with, Brandon. We need to finish before the moon sets. I need all the power I can get.”
“Come on over here, big guy.” Sal patted that wooden table. “Take off your clothes and lie on your back. And don’t worry, dude. You’re not my type.”
Sal’s attempt at lightening the mood put a smile on Brand’s face but couldn’t lift the sudden weight on his chest as he shed the rest of his clothes and pulled himself up onto the table.
Cat had turned her back while he’d gotten naked and Sal gave him what looked like a velvet table runner to cover his privates. At least he hoped that was what it was for.
He didn’t want to be totally naked in front of the teenager. That was asking a little much. He didn’t have many reservations about shedding his clothes in company, but he knew as soon as he’d dropped his pants, everybody had been able to tell how freaked he was because his cock and balls had tried to crawl back into his body.
He should’ve been embarrassed but he figured that was the least of his problems. Sure, he could blame it on the temperature, but they all knew why he’d shriveled. He was starting to get freaked out. And that was unacceptable. He straightened his back and nodded to Sal.
“Alright, son. Lie on your back and put the cloth over your—yeah, that’s right.”
The wood had been polished until it felt almost like glass against his back. Really cold glass that warmed in seconds. Almost like someone had turned on a heater.
As he shifted around, arms at his sides as he tried to relax, Lucy walked to stand at his head, Sal at his left and Cat on his right.
Cat had removed her heavy fleece jacket and stood next to him in a plain white long-sleeved T-shirt and jeans. She smiled down at him as she rested one hand on his arm while pressing something into his hand.
He lifted his hand and smiled at the four small charms dangling from a ribbon. “What’s this?”
“I made you a cimaruta charm,” Cat said. “It’s for good luck.”
He took a closer look at the charms—a tiny dagger, a small flower, a crescent moon and a skeleton key.
“Guess I need all the luck I can get, huh? Thanks, sweetheart. And when this is over, you’ll have to explain it all to me,” he said.
Cat nodded as she laid both hands on his arms then looked at Lucy before training those blue eyes on Sal.
Cat had a laser-sharp focus that belied her age. Then again, Brand didn’t have much contact with teenage werewolves, so maybe they were all this smart.
Above him, Lucy produced the knife he’d seen in Sal’s hand not that long ago. She started to chant in a language he didn’t understand but sounded an awful lot like the songs she’d been singing the other night. He was guessing ancient Etruscan. Absolutely beautiful.
The sound of her voice eased some of his tension and his shoulders eased down. He took a deep breath, staring up at the knife she held in her palms just above his head. Almost mesmerized by the razor-thin edge.
Cat joined in after a while, her words different, like she was answering or responding to whatever Lucy was saying.
The little goat man was still smoking a cigar, but the scent had changed. It smelled almost like grass. Not marijuana, but the clean, fresh scent of new-mown grass. He was half goat, after all.
Their voices meshed into an almost drugging symphony of sound… and where the hell did he come up with that?
Holy shit, this must be what falling under a spell felt like. Kinda like being high, which he vaguely remembered from his reckless twenties. But without the munchies.
He felt like he was floating, even though he still felt the wood beneath his back.
After at least a minute, their voices stopped. He opened his eyes, hadn’t realized he’d closed them. Above him, stars shattered the dark blue velvet sky.
Shit, he must have been out for more than a minute. Or night fell much, much faster out here.
Above him, Lucy passed the knife to Sal, who looked a hell of a lot taller at the moment. Still had his little horns though. For some reason, that grounded him.
Sal caught and held his gaze. “Last chance, man. Say no and—”
“Just do it.”
Sal nodded and plunged the dagger straight into his chest.
Chapter 7
Lucy held her breath as the blade slid cleanly through Brandon’s body until the hilt touched his skin and she knew the point had lodged into the wood beneath him.
Brandon went deadly still. With his eyes closed, he looked like a mounted butterfly.
In her head, she knew he was unharmed. But her heart beat like a trapped bird and her stomach roiled.
And even though she knew they wouldn’t answer, she began a silent prayer to the Involuti. The founding gods of the Etruscans had deserted their children years ago, but she couldn’t help herself. She needed to do something more.
Reaching for Catene’s hand, Lucy drew on the girl’s pure well of power, calling up the very essence that tied them together, the essence that made Catene the only person who could’ve provided Lucy with this much energy.
Soon, the day would come. But not yet…
Now, Lucy had to concentrate. Sal needed her strength and the power she channeled through Cat to help him.
With her free hand, she
grabbed Sal’s and let the power flow through her, completing the connection with Sal.
Immediately she felt Sal begin to pull the power out of her and pour it into Brandon.
Brandon’s muscles began to twitch, his body jerking as if Sal had shocked him. The ancient iron blade, blessed by Nortia, the Goddess of Fate, made contact with the solid wood through Brandon’s body and allowed Sal to make that connection with Brandon.
Sal used her magic, boosted by Catene’s, to seek out what might be hidden.
Dragging her gaze away from Brandon, she watched Sal as he searched Brandon in the most intimate way. Through his blood.
Sal had closed his eyes, using his free hand to grasp the handle of the blade and filter the images passing through the iron and into his head.
Through her connection to Sal, she saw bits and pieces of Brandon’s life—family, friends, girlfriends, and hockey. Always hockey. From the first moment his parents put him on skates to his first win in high school to his first professional game.
His love for the sport never wavered, nor did his love for his family and friends. She caught glimpses of his parents, his sisters. He took after his father…
The images cut off as Sal began to focus deeper, looking for ancestral memories carried in the DNA.
Something that would give a clue—
A blast of power blew through Sal with no warning, throwing him away from the altar, away from Brandon.
“No!” Lucy cried out, ripping her hand from Catene’s and reaching for the blade. She wrapped her hand around the hilt, ready to yank it out but the blade was stuck, as if some force held it in place.
“Catene!”
The girl had fallen to the ground when Lucy had broken contact, her eyes closed, her face so pale in the moonlight.
“Catene! Oh Gods. Wake up. Sal, I need you. I command you! Get up.”
From behind her, Sal groaned. Catene stirred, her eyes fluttering open as she made an attempt to climb to her feet.
“What hap—”
“Catene, run and get Dane. Now.”
Catene’s eyes widened as she finally stood. “Holy crap. What happened?”
“I’m not sure. I can’t remove the blade. We need to get the blade out.”
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