Although, what woman wouldn’t want to be in the middle of those two—
Jesus, what the hell was wrong with her? Had she become a sex maniac in addition to a werewolf?
Blinking, she turned to stare out the front window. She vaguely heard Diego say something to her and forced herself to ask him to repeat.
“I’m amazed you managed to come through those first months with your mind intact,” Diego said. “How did you learn to handle it?”
She shrugged, almost ashamed to admit that part of it had been sheer stubbornness. “I immersed myself in research. Anything and everything I could get my hands on about werewolves. There’s a lot of superstition out there but a lot of truth is hidden in all those old tales. Besides, I knew I didn’t want to slit my wrists, so I had to find a cure.”
Diego paused. “And now that you know there is no cure?”
His softly spoken words gave her goose bumps but it was his hand, which he’d slid across the seat to squeeze her knee, that made her stomach twist in on itself. She wanted him to leave it there, wanted him to put his arm around her shoulders and draw her against him.
When he withdrew, the warmth remained for a few seconds.
“I…haven’t really thought about it.” Which was true, but now that he mentioned it, she knew she wouldn’t be able to let go. There
had
to be a cure. She couldn’t live like this for the rest of her life—
“Do you have any questions you want to ask us, questions you weren’t able to find answers to?” Marco asked.
Try hundreds. “Actually, I do.”
“Then ask,” Diego said.
“Yeah, we’ve got nothing else to do for the next four-and-a-half hours,” Marco agreed. “Shoot.”
She had so many, she didn’t know where to start. So she asked the one uppermost in her mind. “Is it really magic?”
Diego grinned and she snuck a peek at Marco and found the same expression on his face. She went hot all over and her sex ached. Man, she really needed to get her hormones under control.
“You turn into a wolf three nights out of every month and you still don’t believe in magic?” Diego said.
Okay, she sounded pretty damn naïve when he put it that way. “But how does it
work
?” she continued. “There has to be some mechanism involved, something you can explain.”
“Magic just is.” Diego said. “Energy exists in every living thing on earth. Some of us can channel that energy, that magic, and bend it to our will. My parents weren’t…receptive to questioning and my tutors were even less so, so maybe Marco can tell you more about the mechanics.”
“You didn’t go to school?”
Diego shook his head, staring straight ahead. “I lived on an estate in West Chester County, New York, as a child. I was not allowed to leave the grounds without an armed guard. I had a tutor for academics and another for
grigori
studies.”
His cold words held a world of hurt that Amy Jo knew had to be eating him alive.
“You didn’t have any friends?”
“Not allowed. I occasionally met other children when my parents entertained hereditary families, but that wasn’t often.”
“Is that how you met Bella?”
“Yes, we met before her parents were killed.”
“Sounds like a lonely way to grow up.”
He shrugged then stiffened at Marco’s editorial snort from the back seat. “Though you might not believe it,” Diego directed this over his shoulder, “you had the easier time of it, Marco. Our father could be a vicious bastard.”
“That’s your story and you’re sticking to it, aren’t you?” Marco’s voice was a low growl. “I don’t know why you continue to shit on his name—”
“He was a master manipulator, Marco. He never did anything without a reason. He was never going to legitimize you. Never. It wasn’t in his plan.”
“That’s bullshit and you know it.” Marco’s voice started to get louder. “He died before he could.”
“Then why the hell did he wait so long? Control, Marco. He could control you, but he was never going to legitimize you because of your mother. She was—”
“Don’t go there, Diego—”
“—a wonderful woman, but Father always said she was nothing more than a piece on the side and you were little more than a toy.”
The flat tone of Diego’s words held the weight of truth and Amy Jo wanted to disappear into the seat. The emotion in the car had risen along with the men’s voices. Diego’s complexion darkened and his hands clenched around the steering wheel. She was afraid to look back at Marco. The two men seemed to be screaming in pain, though they did it with words.
“You bastard.” Marco growled.
“Damn it, Marco. When are you going to realize our father was a prick and stop worshiping the asshole?”
Silence fell. And it was worse than the fighting.
She heard both men breathing as if they’d just run a marathon. Diego’s intense gaze focused on the road as if he were trying to burn a hole through the windshield. She snuck a peek in the rearview but could only see the side of Marco’s face, his jaw clenched tight.
She didn’t know how long they drove like that but suddenly Diego swore under his breath and yanked the wheel to the right.
Chapter Twelve
“I’ve got a meeting, Bella” Cole said. “And I want you there.”
Bella rolled her eyes and flopped down on the bed in her room at the Hotel
Nuit sans Lune
. Steven had the room next to hers. Cole was across the hall as was Dorian. Steven had gone to take a shower and that’s what she’d intended as well, until Cole had followed her into the room and closed the door behind him.
“Cole, you know I hate meeting with your council.”
Cole shook his head. “This isn’t a meeting with the council. This is something else. Something you’re going to want to hear.”
Sitting up on her elbows, she watched her brother pace. Cole only paced when something bothered him. Not that he didn’t have enough on his plate with
congress
. And Steven.
But this was something else.
“Who are you meeting with?”
“I think it’s probably better if you just…go into the meeting with an open mind. I want you to give me your opinion afterward.”
“You want my opinion on your meeting?”
Her incredulous tone made Cole grimace, something he seemed to be doing a lot of lately. Cole rarely asked for her opinion. Probably because she’d never expressed much of an interest in the legion. Which made her a pretty shitty sister.
And an even more shitty royal wolf.
What would her parents have thought?
“Of course I want your opinion.” He stopped pacing to stand at the bottom of the bed and gave her his serious face. “You’re good with people, Bella. You pick up on things other people miss. You’re smarter than you give yourself credit for.”
Praise from her brother made her heart swell and she smiled, forcing back tears that would have made Cole shake his head. But the fact that he wanted her opinion meant the world to her. “Okay. Let’s go.”
Cole nodded and held out his hand to help her off the bed. “Come on, then. We’re meeting downstairs.”
In the hall, Cole knocked on Dorian’s door and waited for her to join them. As they passed Steven’s door, Cole paused for a brief second before continuing.
In the lobby, a few people lounged in the seating area. Bella recognized most of the faces, all of them
versipelli
. She didn’t know all their names.
And she should.
Just another way in which she’d shirked her duties as a royal daughter. As her parents’ daughter.
Her parents would have known every name. Cole knew all their names.
She’d let the men in her life—
No, that wasn’t fair. It wasn’t Cole’s or Steven’s or Michael’s fault. She’d allowed herself to fall out of the loop, to withdraw from her society.
Her family—Steven, Cole and her—had fallen apart and she’d allowed it.
Damn it. No more.
Following Cole, Bella thought they’d head for the meeting rooms she’d noticed to the left of the registration desk. Instead Cole turned left and pushed through a door marked Employees Only.
Several doors lined a hallway and Cole pushed through the second on the right. Bella stopped short when she saw three women sitting at the board table. They all looked up with polite smiles when she walked in. She smiled back, nodded then smacked a kiss on the cheek of the lanky blonde standing behind the women.
“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.