Moon Bound

by Stephanie Julian

  “Cole—”

  “Bella,” he cut her off, staring into her eyes, his still shadowed with so much pain. “You can do this. You’re Luporeale, just like me. You know what needs to be done. You know what’s at stake. The lucani have to get behind us on this or everyone will suffer.

  “Watch out for Angelone, he’ll try to do an end run. He’s been a pain in my ass since I took the sceptre. Quinn will back you one hundred percent. Patrick and Levanti will need to be convinced. Trust Weichelt to steer you if you need help. Barrasso is solid to the core but the legion comes first with him.”

  She knew all of this. At least, she tried to tell herself she did. She hadn’t completely stuck her head in the ground the past few years. She listened when Cole talked about what he did. She’d just never considered having to deal with this stuff. The army had always been Cole’s job. She couldn’t be bothered.

  Stupid girl.

  Now she had to go into that room and convince five formidable, hardened veterans who had more than thirty years on her, to listen to a twenty-five-year-old female whose only claims to fame were a degree in veterinary medicine and the shared genes of two men they highly regarded.

  “Bella, breathe.”

  She drew air into her starved lungs and stared at Cole. His smile, though weak, had returned.

  “Sweetheart, you are our stealth weapon. They all love you. They still talk about the day you were born like it was a national holiday. The first girl born to a royal family in nearly a century. They treasure you. If you ask me, they’re just going soft in their old age because I know what a brat you really are. But they will listen to you, even if they think they’re only placating you.”

  His teasing eased her fears a little. But, he was right, to a degree.

  Those grizzled veterans had always had a soft spot for her. And if they gave out degrees for wrapping men around fingers, she’d have a doctorate.

  She’d use it to her advantage. She didn’t have to do exactly what Cole would do. She could do it her way.

  “Okay.” She nodded. “I’m ready.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Steven watched Bella walk into the meeting room like she owned it.

  In a previous life, Cole must have been a motivational speaker. Or emperor, which probably wasn’t far off the mark.

  Just as Cole had predicted, the council fell all over themselves to welcome Bella.

  They weren’t too pleased to see him, though.

  David Angelone, especially.

  “Arabella, we all understand the need for bodyguards, but I can’t abide a Mal presence at our council table.”

  Steven forced himself to meet Angelone’s cold gaze. He didn’t want to leave Bella alone, not even with these men. Not after last night.

  However, if she asked him to wait outside, he’d do it. He watched for some subtle hint on her part that she wanted him to leave.

  Bella never let her gaze flicker his way. She spoke directly to Angelone. “Steven has never posed a threat to Cole or me. He’s a loyal friend and advisor and Cole and I trust him completely. He stays.”

  Well, hell. The little wolf had sharpened her claws.

  Swallowing his smile, Steven checked the other men’s reactions to Bella’s jab.

  Praefect James Patrick didn’t bother to hide his smile. Neither did Quinn. Respect crossed the expressions of tribuni Daniel Levanti and Garth Weichelt. Only primus pilus Michael Barrasso seemed unaffected by her stand. Steven would keep an eye on him. Barrasso was the oldest of the council members, one of the most respected men in the legion. He’d served two tours in Vietnam as a Marine before taking a position with the lucani. Cole’s father had wanted to promote him to Praefect but he’d refused the post. He wanted to serve with the men, not above them.

  After what seemed like forever, Barrasso turned his gaze to Steven, who braced himself for a fight.

  Damn, he didn’t want to fight anymore. He’d been fighting his love for Bella, his love for Cole, his very nature, for so long and he was fucking tired.

  And now, when not only his life but his entire society hung in the balance, people still wanted to fight with him.

  Shock ran through Steven when Barrasso waved to the seat next to Bella. “Well, sit down, son. Apparently we’ve got a lot of ground to cover.”

  Steven didn’t bother to look at the other men. He nodded to Barrasso and sat.

  Bella took her seat last. “As you all know, Cole was shot last night and Steven was abducted. We don’t know who shot my brother or why. The praetorian guard are working on that as we speak. I have no doubt Dorian will find whoever’s responsible. We do know that Steven’s kidnapping was unrelated and we know who took him.”

  “And that would be…” Angelone said, sarcasm thick in his tone.

  “The Goddess Turan.”

  Silence fell for all of three seconds. Then the men began to talk over one another.

  Bella let them go for at least a minute until Barrasso said, “Princess, how can you be sure this isn’t a hoax. Isn’t it possible Steven was drugged or the victim of a spell?”

  “No.” She said it with such conviction, Steven knew she believed completely. “You can question Dorian. She was there when we found him. She can attest to the fact that he was under no spell nor was he drugged. She can also tell you about the unusual nature of the arus permeating the house. It certainly wasn’t Mal, or lucani or streghe. It was…different. Pure.”

  “This is bullshit,” Angelone sneered, pushing away from the table as if he were going to walk away. Which he didn’t do. The bastard didn’t dare. “Princess, there’s absolutely no—”

  Bella’s fist slammed on the table as she stood, startling everyone into silence. The action was at odds with the placid expression on her face, one he’d seen Cole adopt many times. Steven had called it Cole’s King Face. He’d ragged Cole about it before… Hell, that seemed a lifetime ago.

  “I didn’t tell you this information so you could debate it, gentlemen,” she said. “I’m only informing you of what happened. And there’s more. So you need to be quiet and listen, because this you will want to hear.”

  Angelone looked stunned and furious, but the man was smart enough not to contradict Bella in front of the other men, who also looked stunned. Except for Barrasso. Now he had a smile.

  “I believe Steven’s meet-and-greet with Turan has something to do with the reason Cole called for congress in the first place.” Straightening her back, Bella stared at each man in turn, pausing to smile briefly at Quinn. “The Priestesses of Menrva are returned to the Etruscan people. And the lucani legion is about to become the first line of defense.”

  * * *

  “No. Absolutely not. I won’t allow it.”

  “Gods damn you, Diego. I happen to agree with you, but it’s not your decision to make.”

  “There’s no way in hell I’m going to allow her to do it. I don’t care if the fate of the world hangs in the balance. She’s been through enough.”

  Amy Jo heard the men arguing but couldn’t quite wrap her brain around what they were saying. Her head felt heavy, like she was coming out of a deep sleep.

  “Gentlemen, keep your voices down. She’s waking.”

  Andrea’s calm tone soothed, helping her rise through the fog.

  Someone took her hand. Diego. Funny how she could tell just by his touch. Or maybe not so funny. She wrapped her fingers around his as she opened her eyes.

  And looked straight into his fierce scowl.

  She shook her head, trying to loosen the last of the fog. “What’s wrong?”

  Diego’s hand squeezed around hers. “Nothing. You’re fine.”

  She looked at Andrea, who also smiled. “There were no adverse side effects.”

  Amy Jo raised an eyebrow at the other woman. “But…?”

  “But nothing.” Diego shot Andrea a look meant to cut out her tongue.

  “Diego.” Amy Jo sat up, even as Marco appeared on her other side to put his han
d on her shoulder to keep her down. “Guys, please. Stop.”

  The brothers released her and stood so fast it would have been funny if it weren’t so frustrating.

  “Andrea, what’s going on?” She turned to the other woman. “Were you able to get anything helpful out of me?”

  The other woman shook her head. “Unfortunately, no. Your thoughts are too jumbled, your memories too deeply buried to be of much use.”

  Amy Jo’s spirits plummeted straight to the ground. “Well, shit. That’s not good, is it?” Then she remembered that the guys had been arguing. She looked at Diego.

  “What aren’t you telling me?”

  Diego shook his head, his mouth a sharp line.

  Which just pissed her off. “I am not a child, Diego, so back off. Andrea, what’s going on?”

  The other woman sat on the chair next to the bed. “I believe I may be able to discover more if you allow me to help you bring the memories to the forefront.”

  Buzzing filled her ears, and the room darkened at the edge of her peripheral vision.

  “Amy Jo.” Diego’s arms wrapped around her, encasing her in warmth, warmth she desperately needed because the air had turned frigid. Or maybe that was her.

  “You don’t have to do this.” He whispered the words into her ear, his warm breath not nearly warm enough. “We’ll figure out what’s going on without putting you through hell. I won’t allow it.”

  She laughed at that. “It’s not really up to you, though, is it?”

  “Amy Jo, listen—”

  “No. You listen.” She took a deep breath and made a decision that could very well make him turn away from her forever. “I’ll do this. This is my world now, too. I want to get the bastards who made me—” she had to bite back the words. She was going to call herself a monster but then she’d be calling Diego and Marco the same. And she knew better. “I want to get the bastards who hurt Cole. And I want to make them pay for hurting me.”

  She turned to Andrea, watching her with dark, steady eyes. “Let’s do this. Now, before I lose my nerve.” She squeezed Diego’s hand then disengaged. “But you and Marco have to leave.”

  * * *

  “Princess, forgive me for being a little skeptical,” Angelone sneered, “but you want us to believe the Goddess Turan, one of the blessed Involuti who’ve been MIA for more than two thousand years, approached your Mal boyfriend to tell him he’s needed in an upcoming war and that the legendary Priestesses of Menrva have returned to lead our people’s spiritual rebirth so we can fight a battle against some unknown foe.”

  Bella nodded. “Basically, yes.”

  Angelone began to laugh, shaking his head and turning with an expression of “What the fuck” to the other men. “Are you seriously going to believe this shit? How do we know for sure this is what Cole wants? Is he even coherent enough to speak? He must be pretty damn far gone—”

  “Cole will return to the council table later today,” Dorian spoke up for the first time. “He has full faith in Arabella or she wouldn’t be here. You all know that.”

  Thank you, Dorian.

  Bella acknowledged the praetorian with a slight nod and had to restrain a smile when the other woman winked at her. Dorian’s support bolstered her waning trust in herself to convince these men that what had happened was true.

  Angelone snorted in disgust and Bella forced herself to meet this gaze. He was the only man at this table, excluding Quinn, who hadn’t served in his position under her father. He’d inherited the position from his own father, who’d retired shortly after her dad had been killed.

  As one of Cole’s highest advisors, Angelone held a position of power that he wouldn’t continue to hold if Cole didn’t think him worthy.

  But he treated her like a bubblehead who knew her way around the mall but didn’t know jack shit about a council table.

  Which was where Angelone was wrong. Not about the mall. She knew every centimeter of the Court at King of Prussia. But she’d also spent years sitting alongside Cole as her dad and her brother Cal had met with the council.

  Time to show these men she was her father’s daughter.

  “Cole wanted you all briefed as soon as possible about what was going on,” she said. “This afternoon, you will meet members of the boschetta. Cole trusts your opinions and—”

  Someone knocked on the door a second before it opened and Luca popped his head through. “Marco’s here.”

  She nodded as the room fell silent and Marco walked through the door, which Luca shut tightly behind him.

  The lucani sized him up as he walked around the table to get to her, his gaze locked with hers.

  Her blood froze at the carefully blank expression on his face.

  Shit. Something had happened to Amy Jo.

  “What the hell’s going on now?” Angelone asked, anger and exasperation in his voice. But no fear. “Who’s this?”

  “Marco, what’s wrong?”

  He shook his head. “I need to speak with you in private.”

  “Oh, for fuck’s sake.” Angelone threw his hands in the air. “Who the hell is this guy and why does he need to see you in private?”

  She tore her gaze from Marco’s to stare down Angelone. “This is Diego Falco’s brother, Marco.”

  “Does this have something to do with Cole’s shooting?” Barrasso asked.

  Marco waited for Bella to nod then turned to address Cole’s advisors. “We’ve just received information that the Mal were involved with Cole’s shooting. Three months ago, a group of men was overheard discussing this congress and exactly where it was being held. They talked about harming Cole and Bella and throwing the lucani into turmoil. That they had a mole in the legion who’d told them everything.”

  The men erupted in a furious chorus. Names flew around the table as long-held grudges, suspicions and outright anger made the air in the room heavy and hard to breathe.

  Bella looked into Marco’s eyes. She saw pain and fear. For Amy Jo. Her heart ached with the need to go to her new friend.

  She also saw anger.

  “Marco. Did she…”

  How he heard her over all the yelling, she didn’t know. Maybe he read her lips. He turned to her and looked her straight in the eyes. “Levanti.”

  Though she heard him plain as day, his mouth never moved. He somehow whispered it into her mind. She gaped at him for all of two seconds before the enormity of the situation hit her.

  Shit. Oh shit. They’d been betrayed by one of their own.

  Daniel Levanti.

  The knowledge cut into her chest like open-heart surgery without anesthesia. Cole would be devastated.

  Drawing in a deep breath, she tried to calm her now-racing heart. What should she do? Confront him? Denounce him in front of the rest of Cole’s advisors? Was he working with anyone else? What the hell should she do?

  Steven clasped her shoulder, the warmth of his hand seeping into her through the casual touch before drawing away. Then she glanced around the table, making sure not to single out any one person.

  When she got to Barrasso, she found him staring at her, eyebrows raised.

  With a nod, she again smashed her hand on the wood table, this time so hard, she cracked the wood.

  Silence descended as everyone turned to her.

  Then she looked straight at Levanti. His expression showed absolutely no hint of fear, no surprise, just curiosity. The snake.

  “You will burn for this,” she said. “I’ll make sure of it.”

  Levanti’s eyebrows rose as his mouth quirked up in a bemused smile. But his eyes… Now she saw a flare of fear spark in the depths of his eyes.

  That’s right, you bastard. You better fucking squirm.

  It’d been three centuries since a lucani had been charged with the attempted assassination of a king. The stories of what the praetorian guard had done to the man should have been enough to discourage anyone else. Her brothers had told her the tale by the light of a campfire, a horror story meant to det
er anyone else from betraying the legion.

  That had been long before her great-grandfather had taken control of the American lucani, those Etruscans who had emigrated to America in the early 1800s, drawn by the promise of fertile soil and dense forests and an escape from the oppressive Catholic Church.

  America had turned out to have a little too much space for the lucani. Too much freedom, too little order. For a hundred years, they’d run feral until a small group banded together after they’d come close to being exposed. They’d approached her great-grandfather, who still bore the title King of the lucani. They’d begged him to give up his comfortable life in Sicily and wrangle the American lucani into some semblance of order. His reputation for fairness made him the most likely candidate for the job.

  He’d done better than the lucani could have hoped.

  And his blood ran in her veins.

  Without moving her gaze from Levanti’s, she said, “You plotted with the Mal to kill Cole.”

  Levanti shook his head, his expression a perfect mask of derision. “You don’t know what you’re talking about, Princess Arabella.” He made her name sound like a verbal pat on the head. “I’d never hurt Cole and every man at this table knows it. You’re barking up the wrong tree. If anyone’s working for the Mal, we know where we should be looking.”

  Beside her, she heard Steven draw in a hard breath. Reaching for him, she laid her hand on his shoulder to keep him in his chair, even as she forced her own fury back.

  “Trying to shift focus is a well-worn tactical defense for someone who’s got something to hide,” she said. “How long have you been working for the Mal?”

  “Now, wait just a minute,” Angelone blustered. “You can’t mean to tell me—”

  He cut off as Barrasso stood, five feet and eleven inches of pure solid muscle honed to warrior perfection. The man might be in his 60s, but he could still fight like a twenty year old. And he commanded the respect of everyone in the room, much more so than Bella ever would.