Taking the skeleton key that always hung around his neck, the one his mom had given him when he was five, he inserted it into the lock and let the wards surrounding the building sense his arus, though he was careful not to let it rise. In this state, he could easily lose control.
The door opened silently. Steven took a deep breath as he slid the key back into his shirt and stepped into the hallway that led to the main sanctuary. It’d been years since he’d been here. Years that seemed like centuries.
He tried to dismiss the immediate lift in his spirits when he stepped over the threshold. But he couldn’t, not completely.
Like DownBelow, any eteri stumbling in would think he’d time traveled to ancient Rome because this truly was the domain of an ancient goddess.
The temple was open to the top of the three-story building, pure white marble walls reaching to the vaulted ceiling. Three columns on each side of a center aisle led to the wooden altar decorated with gold leaf.
Wooden benches lined the sides of the temple, leaving the floor mosaic uncovered. A skilled artist had created a Tuscan forest populated by the various members of the Fata and Enu.
A half-hided salbinelli chased after a winged folletta. A mass of tiny human-shaped candelas glowing like fireflies danced around a tree stump as a linchetti couple, their pointed ears prominently displayed, lay entwined on a moonlit patch of grass.
A pack of lucani howled at the bright moon while a strega bent over a moon bowl and her male companion held an athame in his hands. The conical hat on his head signified his status as a netsvis, a priest of the gods and goddesses.
That one picture, the netsvis, had always drawn him for some reason. Maybe because the young man resembled him. The artist had created him with the same dark hair and blue eyes, the same body shape.
Steven had known, even before his parents had told him, that there was something different about him. Something that made his parents live apart from the rest of Etruscan society. Something in the way people looked at him when they went to temple.
When his power had manifested when he turned thirteen, his parents had told him the truth of what he was. How, because of a fluke of birth, he’d been born Mal.
Not that his parents had accepted that. They’d taught him to submerge his power. To live without it. To bury the emotions that made it harder for him to control the power.
It’d worked.
Until he’d met Bella.
Then everything had gone to shit.
He lifted his gaze to the statue of the Mother Goddess Uni behind the altar. She looked so damn serene. And he felt all the bitter anger he thought he’d gotten rid of rise up.
Why the hell was he here? Uni had never heard his prayer before. What made him think this time…this time, maybe she’d listen, maybe she’d—
A velvet-soft snout nudged the hand hanging at his side.
In a motion as natural as breathing, he lifted his hand and ran it along her sleek pelt, beginning between the pointed ears and following the line of her spine.
“Sorry. I just…needed to walk.”
She rubbed against his side, drawing his gaze away from the statue and down to her.
He’d never seen a more beautiful animal. Her silver fur sparkled and she stared up at him with brown, human eyes. She must have followed him, had probably watched over him as he walked blindly through the city. She wouldn’t allow anything to happen to him.
If she’d been hurt last week…
Would he have been able to live with himself?
His hand tightened in her fur and he forced himself to let go before he hurt her.
Don’t think you can more than you already have.
She bumped his hand again and shook her head, her jeweled collar jangling in her mouth.
“Yeah, I know. I left the rental at Harry’s. We need to get it.”
He bent to take the collar and leash. Bella hated those strips of leather, hated to put her control in someone else’s hands. She’d only ever allowed him to put a collar on her. Not Cole, not his father, not anyone.
She’d been right to bring it. They were in a city where unleashed dogs were taken to the pound. Or, in a shifter’s case, shot for its intimidating size.
He slipped the collar around her neck like he was fastening a string of pearls, stroking her soft fur at the same time.
“I guess I should be glad you’re not biting my hand right about now, huh?”
He knew she never would, at least not while she wore her pelt. The bite of a versipellis in animal form could result in that person becoming versipellis. If they lived through the transformation process.
Bella cocked her head to the side and stared at him with a look so haughty, he couldn’t help but smile. He left the collar loose so it wouldn’t bind then clipped the leash to it.
As she led him out of the temple, Steven held the leash loosely. They walked back to the club and his car without speaking. When they reached the car, Bella hopped in the back seat and tilted her head so he could remove the collar. Then she sat on her haunches, her face turned toward the window. She would never stick her head out the window. Too pedestrian. Still, he lowered the glass so she could feel the wind on her face.
They headed north out of the city, past the overdevelopment of Muhlenberg Township and into the relative peace of Alsace Township. By the time they got to Bella’s family house in Rockland Township, it was nearly three in the morning. The moon had set and tiny pinpricks of stars dotted the black velvet sky.
He turned off the main road and onto a side road that curved into gentle hills. The countryside here still held a patchwork of farms and woodland, although more housing developments encroached every year.
Cole and Bella owned nearly a thousand acres out here, the deeds to the property distributed between various dummy corporations his father had set up. They leased some of the outlying land to area farmers, but most of it remained forest. As it had since Bella’s grandfather had brought the property in the early 1900s when he’d first arrived from Sicily.
As Steven pulled into the lane that led to the two-hundred-year-old farmhouse, Bella whined. He stopped in front of the house and got out to open the back door. As soon as she could, Bella leaped out of the back seat and dashed for the small field to the west of the house. On all sides, old-growth forest surrounded them, cool and dark.
Sliding onto the warm hood of the car, he watched her run, a pale blur in the night. The grass had been mown recently and she tore through the stubble, startling a couple of rabbits and a family of quail. She gave chase but she wouldn’t hunt. Not while he watched.
He drew in a deep breath of crisp, clean air, not tainted with the stench of city. Just a faint hint of cow manure, so different and so much more alive than the salty breezes in Florida that could turn rancid in seconds.
He loved Florida, loved living in a place where nine months out of the year you didn’t have to worry about the temperature dropping below sixty. Still, he missed the fields, the woods, the hills of Pennsylvania. You could drive for miles in Florida and never find more than a bump in the road.
He turned his gaze to the woods that flanked the field. The trees had barely started their autumn show, the brilliant leaf colors muted in the dark.
He’d lost sight of her, though he knew she wouldn’t go far. From the trees, he traced the line of the creek at the woods’ edge. She’d stop there for a drink eventually. At least a mile up the hill in the woods, the creek bubbled out of an underground spring and ran through the woods, cutting across the middle of the field and passing within a few hundred yards of the house.
Out here, the land still retained some of its wildness. That wildness called to him.
He couldn’t let it.
He should leave now, before he found himself slipping into old ways he’d fought to suppress. He should get back in the car and drive away. She wouldn’t be stranded. There was a car in the garage and a closet full of clothes. The pantry and freezer in the basement wer
e stocked, always ready for unexpected visitors. Or fugitives.
Leaving now made sense—
He saw her then, standing in the creek. The water had to be cold but she had returned to her own beautiful skin.
She stared straight at him, and he couldn’t remember why he’d wanted to leave only seconds ago. When she started toward him, collar in her hand, he let his gaze take in every inch of her perfection.
It’d been three years since he’d seen her. It could be forty and he’d still be blown away by her.
Her chestnut-brown hair fell in a mass of curls to just below her ears and her dark eyes stared into his, wide and unyielding. Her delicate features were almost too pointed to be pretty. Still, he’d never known anyone more beautiful.
When his gaze dipped to trace the curves of her breasts, he saw she wasn’t unaffected. He wanted to reach out and grab her hips, press his throbbing erection against the slight swell of her stomach. Force his knees between her strong thighs and spread them so he could run his fingers through the darker curls of her mound.
He lifted his gaze to hers, trying to control the rate of his own tortured breathing. Sliding off the hood to stand, he straightened until he towered over her. She waited until he’d met her gaze before she let hers drop to wander over him. When she’d gone from head to toe, and everywhere in between, he knew he’d lost the battle.
Would always lose this fight. But couldn’t bear to win, either.
Wrapping one arm around her waist, he pulled her against him. She had her mouth tilted at the exact perfect angle for him to cover it with his and he sank into the kiss with a groan of surrender.
Arm curled around her, he lifted her until she could wrap her legs around his waist, pressing her breasts and her mound against him. His free hand sank into the curls at the back of her head and held her steady for his outpouring of raging emotions.
Her mouth opened and she tasted exactly as he remembered, exactly as he’d tried so fucking hard to forget. Hot and sweet and so familiar he nearly couldn’t stand it.
When he slid his tongue between her lips, hers glided around his as she arched into him. Groaning, he drew back to draw in a deep breath and walked to the front door, digging his keys out of his front pocket. Bella didn’t speak as he walked, her head resting on his shoulder, arms warm around his neck.
How many times had he carried her like this? How many times had they made love? Too many times to count. And he swore he remembered every single time.
The door swung open without a sound and he made sure to lock it behind him before taking the stairs to the second floor.
He didn’t need light to see where he was going. He knew this house as well as he knew the house he’d grown up in.
And he knew this woman like he knew no one else in the world.
Goddess, was he crazy?
He stopped at the open doorway to her childhood bedroom. He was crazy. He shouldn’t be here.
“Steven.” Bella’s voice wrapped around him like silk threads, binding him to her. “Please.”
Her hand lifted to his cheek and caressed him, causing his eyelids to drop.
“We shouldn’t.” He should set her on her feet and move away. Hell, he should run. He couldn’t get his arms to release her.
“Yes, we should.” Her voice, so calm and rational, dragged against his libido. “Put me down.”
He did, wondering if she was going to be the one to pull away this time. Instead, she took his hand and pulled him into the room.
Fool that he was, he let her.
When they reached the bed, she tugged on his polo shirt. And he lifted his arms so she could pull it over his head.
Cool air brushed against his skin but heat shot to his groin as her fingers unbuttoned his jeans, slid down the zipper then pushed them off his hips. When she wrapped her warm fingers around his shaft, he had to reach for her shoulders to steady himself.
“Bella—”
She rose on her toes to seal her mouth over his, cutting off any protest he might have had. After a few seconds of her tongue dueling with his, he couldn’t remember what he’d been going to say.
Not with her hand stroking him in the exact way guaranteed to make him lose every ounce of his hard-won control.
It shouldn’t be this damn hard to say no but it’d been so long. It’d been three years since he’d held her like this, since his father—
He broke away, drawing in a breath that felt like glass shards in his lungs.
Bella knew exactly what he was thinking. And set out to totally obliterate his control by dropping to her knees and taking his cock in her mouth.
His groan echoed in the room as her lips engulfed the head, licking the sensitive skin on the underside then using her teeth to scrape as she took him deeper.
“Bella, please.” He was begging but—oh, Christ—he couldn’t stop.
Push her away, the rational part of his brain said.
Instead, his hands lowered to cup her head as her mouth blew his mind.
It’d been so long, too long, and there’d never been anyone but her.
She took him right to the edge, ready to explode. Then she withdrew, releasing his shaft with an audible pop, nearly louder than his deep groan.
Now was the time to stop, to get the hell off this runaway train that had only one possible destination.
Yeah, right.
When she rose to her feet and gave him a tiny push with her index finger, he dropped back onto the bed. And when she crawled onto the bed and over him, he grabbed her hips to help her.
Three years without her. He hadn’t seen her, hadn’t held her in his arms, hadn’t been inside her. She was everything he considered home and he’d missed her so fucking much.
On her hands and knees, she crawled over his body until his cock brushed the soft, trimmed curls between her legs and the even softer skin of her thighs. His lungs strained with the effort to breathe.
When she wrapped her hand around his cock and pulled it away from his stomach, he bit his tongue so hard he tasted blood. For three years, the only release he’d achieved had been through his own hand. He didn’t want to come in hers when he would be in her body in seconds.
“Steven, open your eyes.”
No, if he opened his eyes, it’d be all over.
“Steven, please.”
The plea in her voice helped him back from the edge and he cracked his lids, enough to see her above him.
Beautiful. Goddess, she was beautiful. Her olive-toned skin glowed in the dark, her expression rapt, her dark eyes trained on his.
Releasing the sheets, he palmed her hips and guided her down. The head of his cock pierced her and he felt warm moisture coat his flesh, easing his way, sealing them together as she slid further. When she’d engulfed him completely, she stilled, fingers on his chest kneading like a cat, nails biting into his skin.
Perfect. It was perfect. Exactly where they were both meant to be. Goddess, he was an idiot—
Then she moved and sensation shot through his nervous system like a hit from a lightning bolt, searing every synapse.
Torturously slowly, she lifted and lowered herself onto him, gaze locked on his. The drag of flesh against flesh long denied made his balls tighten in an agony of delay. He was going to come any second.
One of his hands slid from her hip and arrowed straight to her clit, knowing exactly what she liked. It wouldn’t take him long to get her off and then he could come, too.
His thumb flicked over that nub, rubbed soft then hard, falling into her rhythm. He needed her to come, needed to hear her scream his name when she did.
Her breath started to fall from her mouth in soft moans and her hips started to pick up speed until she rode him mercilessly.
Damn, he couldn’t…couldn’t take it. He pressed his thumb hard and ground her against him. She broke, collapsing onto his chest and crying his name, her body convulsing on his as he released his control and pumped into her.
Shit. No co
ndom.
Doesn’t matter. She’s mine.
Eyes closed now, he wrapped his arms around her, holding her as if she was trying to get away.
Tomorrow. They’d talk tomorrow.
Chapter Four
Menrva’s Nails.
Remo shook his head, still trying to wrap his brain around the concept.
The legend of the nails had been ancient even at the time of his birth, five hundred years ago. A curious piece of history from the time before the Romans assimilated the Etruscans. Long before the advent of Christianity.
Remo had never given much thought to the legend of the nails. The stories were just that…stories about an ancient tradition that had been abandoned more than two millennia ago.
Legend said Menrva had crafted the nails herself and had given them to her priestesses as a gift. They were to be hammered into the walls of her temple by Nortia, Goddess of Fate, at the end of each year, cutting the threads of destiny so they could begin the new year fresh, unencumbered by mistakes of the past.
They were said to hold a powerful magic.
Remo had never suspected the nails could be real.
Or that they could be used to wield the kind of power he wanted.
For a price—a pretty damn high price—Veive had told Remo he needed at least four of the nails to make the spell work.
Of course, all twelve would be better.
With twelve nails in his possession, Veive had assured Remo he would be able to pretty much do whatever he wanted, including absorb the life force of another person.
Remo knew exactly whose powers he wanted to start with.
With his still-aching fingers, he pressed the intercom button on his phone. “Patricia, come in here.”
Seconds later, the door to his office opened and his aide walked into the room. Patricia Gigliotti stood five-two in heels, wore her hair in a mass of loose black curls that complimented her overtly Italian features and never failed to remind him of his long-departed Aunt Aurelia.
His father’s sister had run his father’s villa with an iron fist and a branch from a willow tree. She was the only woman who had ever given Remo a beating. Just one, though. She’d learned her lesson after that.
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