by Elle Thorne
She was more than his mother. She was his best friend. She understood him, stood by him, raised him, educated him.
In a time when many women married just to provide security or a home for their children, his mother chose to go it alone.
“Thank you, Roberto. It’s the world’s loss, though her memory will live on with her many fans.”
“True enough.” Roberto ushered him into his private suites, whispered to his secretary to bring cappuccinos and biscotti, and closed the door behind them.
“Why did I have to leave Florence to be here for this? Couldn’t it have been handled without me?”
“Special instructions from your mother. She wanted you to read the letter here.”
Letter? I thought I was here for the will.
“What letter?”
“One for your eyes only.”
“So you don’t know what it says?”
“It’s sealed, son.” Roberto had called him son since Tino was a young boy.
It was weird hearing a man calling him son, one that wasn’t actually his father.
Roberto held up a cream colored envelope with Tino’s name on it. Not his nickname. His given name.
Cristiano.
There was no last name on the envelope.
He recognized his mother’s elegant handwriting, but didn’t reach for the envelope yet.
“How long ago did she give it to you?”
“On your birthday. She’s given me one every year on your birthday. Has done so since you turned one.”
“Where are the other letters?”
“She took them with her.” Roberto pushed the envelope toward him, nodded encouragingly. “Read.”
“I’ll take it with me and read it at home.”
“The conditions were that you read it here.”
Frustration ate at Tino. “Or else?” He didn’t want to read the letter. It seemed nothing good could come of something like this.
Roberto sighed, his forehead creased with a slight frown. “Please.”
Tino reached across the desk, plucked the letter from Roberto’s waiting fingertips. Roberto dropped his hand immediately, then as if it was an afterthought, took a letter opener from an organizer and slid it across the sleek mahogany desktop.
“Thank you.” He slid the burnished metal tip under the envelope’s seal and dragged it across the length of the envelope, then withdrew the trifold papers within.
He glanced at Roberto, who was studying him.
Raising his brows, Tino cleared his throat.
“I thought I’d stay,” Roberto said.
“That’s a written condition?”
“More like something I mentioned to Ella. That I’d look after you.”
“I think I can handle this.” Tino kept his tone even. He knew Roberto was in love with his mother. He also knew Roberto would go to extremes his mother wouldn’t have expected.
Roberto nodded and left the room, closing the door behind him with a soft click.
Chapter Two
Ana—born Capriana Valenti—held her breath as she eavesdropped at her parent’s bedroom door. Something a child would do, not a twenty-year-old. But she was too afraid to go in.
The doctors were in there, and she could tell from the way they were talking that whatever they were saying to her mother wasn’t good.
The sounds of soft sobs came through the thin door. They were followed by sounds of comfort being given.
She knew her mother’s sobs. She’d heard them before.
That’s a bad sign.
But Ana didn’t need the doctors to tell her what was wrong. Ana was a tigress shifter. Her tigress had already sensed that her father didn’t have long to live.
“Hey.”
Ana startled, then whirled to face her sister Isabel. “Jesus. Could you be quiet?”
“Why? So you can get away with eavesdropping and not get caught?”
Ana threw Isabel a scowl.
“Why don’t you just go in there?”
Just like Isabel. Always the bold one.
“Why don’t you just go away?”
Isabel gave her a scalding look, put her hand on the knob and turned it. She took one step into the room, then turned, grabbed Ana’s hand and pulled her in with her.
Ana tugged backward, but it was too late, Isabel had caught her off-guard and they were already several paces into the room.
“Ahem.” Their mother was at their father’s bedside. She put her finger over her lips and gave them a warning look. “Silencio.”
“Sorry, Mama,” Ana whispered, tossing Isabel a dirty look.
Her father lay on the bed, his eyes closed, the sheet pulled up to his chest, his hands and arms, veiny, emaciated, by his side on top of the sheet.
Pain ripped through Ana. Her father, the once robust and amazing man who’d had the largest hands and had tossed a giggling Isabel into the air and caught her, while beside him Ana had begged to be next.
Gone was the vibrant man of last year. In the sickbed of her father’s room was a husk of the man he used to be. She cast her gaze away. It was too painful to see her father like this. To know it was destroying her wheelchair-bound mother.
She didn’t pay attention to the doctors, she’d seen them there many times before. They’d been a common occurrence since her father took sick. But there was someone else in the room.
Tall. Brutally, cruelly handsome, with a gleam in his eyes that made her want to hide. Or run. Probably run.
“Bruno Vergo has come calling,” their mother said.
Ana had heard that name. Her father had mentioned him before, but she couldn’t remember the context of what her father had said about the tall, broad shouldered man.
“Ladies.” Bruno’s eyes had remained locked on Ana. He licked his lips, thick tongue leaving bulbous lips glistening with saliva.
An image of a slug’s trail on the garden’s stones on a spring day came to Ana’s mind. She pushed the image away and fought the urge to squirm from his scrutiny, while at the same time, she fumed at his blatant sexual innuendos and at this intrusion on her father’s time.
“My father is a sick man. You’re here on business?” She kept her voice deliberately cold.
“Your father asked me to come.” He smirked and leaned closer to Ana. “You’ll belong to me one day.” His words were spoken low. His eyes glazed over with lust. “Mine. To do with as I please.” Again, the thick tongue made an appearance.
Ana looked away, disgusted. She wanted to slap the smug expression from his face.
“It’s true, cara mia.” Her father’s weak voice came from the bed. His eyes were barely open, slits that didn’t seem to be able to focus. “I’m glad you’re here. I’m worried about your mother, Isabel, and you. Bruno will help.”
Bruno nodded. His eyes were focused on Ana’s breasts way too intensely.
She shifted from foot to foot, fighting yet another urge—to vomit.
“How will he help, exactly?” Isabel’s tone was just as cold as Ana’s had been.
Neither of the sisters had ever liked Bruno, from the first time he stopped by their house for business with Papa. His lascivious glances and covert lewd assertions made them shudder.
They hid upstairs in their rooms as soon as they heard his raucous laughter coming from the front hallway.
“Your father has offered your hand in marriage in exchange for the financial and emotional security of your family.” Bruno was looking directly at Ana when he said that.
Chapter Three
Tino unfolded the thick parchment-like paper. The first thing his senses picked up was the scent. It was his mother’s.
It can’t be that long since she wrote it, if it still smells like her.
He glanced at the writing. Long hand, almost like calligraphy. That was one thing he could always identify about his mother, her handwriting had been meticulous and an art form in and of itself.
He glanced at the date on the top. Six weeks ago. His
twenty-first birthday. With a deep breath, followed by a long exhale, he began to read.
My Cristiano, my son, the light of my life.
You’ve been more than a son to me. You’ve been my best friend. I guess that comes from having a child when I’d barely reached adulthood myself.
I’ve written you a thousand letters, I think. Yes, I know what you’re thinking: Where are the letters? It doesn’t matter. The only letter that matters is this one. And don’t harass Roberto for the previous letters.
A smile crept to Tino’s lips. His mother knew him too well.
You’ve asked a thousand times, maybe, who your father is. You’ve always wondered about that side of yourself. It’s time now to share that with you, and to help you protect yourself.
Yes, Cristiano, protect yourself.
Brace yourself, my son, for I have a story to tell you. And then I have to beg for your forgiveness. I knew not how else to handle the situation that I found myself in when I had you.
You were more than an average baby. So much more.
A sound at the door drew Tino’s attention from the letter. A soft knock came again.
He turned the letter face down on the tabletop. “Enter.” He expected Roberto, but instead it was his secretary with a tray, a pitcher of water, an empty glass, and the cappuccino and biscotti Roberto had ordered earlier.
The secretary glanced at his face with concern and Tino realized he’d been scowling. He wiped the look away and replaced it with nonchalance. “Thank you for the coffee.”
She nodded, murmured a low welcome, then backed out of the room.
Tino glanced at the coffee but opted for water, pouring himself a glass and taking a long sip, then immediately returned to his reading.
The first time I knew something was wrong—
She’d crossed out the word wrong.
The first time I knew something was off was when you were six months or so and still teething. I’d given you a piece of meat from my plate, and you bit down with a ferocity, as if you were starving. That wasn’t the problem. The problem was your teeth were sharp and pierced my skin.
The next day I took you to the doctor for a checkup, and to find out if this was normal, for how would a little one have baby teeth that more closely resembled fangs? I didn’t tell the doctor about the discovery the day before.
Imagine my surprise when he looked in your mouth and the sharp tooth I’d seen there the day before was again a blunt baby tooth.
I was confused. Barely nineteen and unsure what to do, and who to talk to.
Tino was confused too. What did this have to do with his father?
I couldn’t talk to your father. I’d never told him about you. I… well, our story is another one. This one is yours. A few months later, this incident was long forgotten, I was busy with you, with whom I was enamored, and performing, which I managed to juggle with the help of an occasional nanny.
One of those nannies was Rina. Rina, as I found out later, had a cousin who was a witch.
Now, I can see you wondering what all this has to do with you… I’m getting there. You know I was never good at telling a story without meandering through paths and detours.
God knew that was true, Tino thought. It had created many moments of mirth, the way his mother could never get to the punchline of a joke or the point of a story.
Rina and I were playing in the garden with you one morning. We were on vacation in the countryside at a villa one of my fans had offered to us for the week. You were thrilled by the ball we were tossing about, gurgling and laughing. And then you fell silent. You stared into the bushes and made the strangest growling sound. It was strange because it didn’t sound remotely human.
Then, to my shock, your face began to change, it grew wider and peculiar noises came from your body. Sounds of creaking, stretching, popping, and you cried out a fierce grunt. I knelt, sweeping you into my arms and holding you tightly. But you wriggled, pulling free.
Then before my very eyes you became a lion cub.
My child. My son. My baby was now a lion cub.
You growled at the bushes, and a red fox darted out and ran away.
Then you began a process of switching back to your human form. Again with the creaking sounds, the body changing, stretching, contracting.
You were crying, inconsolable. I can only imagine it must have been sheer agony. I held onto you, as confused as you, watching my child suffer, suffering alongside you.
I glanced up at Rina, ready to beg her not to tell anyone what she’d witnessed, unsure what would happen if she did, ready to do whatever I had to in order to protect you.
Rina’s gaze was steady. “You didn’t know,” she said to me matter-of-factly, as if she knew I didn’t know. As if it wasn’t important that you’d turned into a lion cub, but rather that I didn’t know you’d done this.
I shook my head at her. “I did not. What—do—where—how—?” I had so many questions, but I couldn’t compose a single one.
Rina wrapped her arms around you and me. “Your little one is a lion shifter. His father must have been one.”
One thought ran through my mind. If your father was the same thing as you were, when he turned into an animal, he would be a full grown, very dangerous lion.
I decided at that moment I had to keep you a secret from him. He’d want you. He’d claim you. I’d be powerless to keep you from him.
Your father, you see, is the very wealthy shipping magnate, Marco Ricoletti. And clearly, he’s a lion shifter.
Oh, as that sweet baby that you were, sobbing in my arms while my tears merged with yours, one thought came to me.
Protecting my son. I looked up at Rina, and I knew she could see the resolve in my eyes.
Rina nodded. “We will take care of this. We will protect him.”
That was all Rina had to say. Then she took me to her cousin, Esme. Esme, dear Tino, was a powerful witch. With Esme’s assistance, a spell was cast upon you that kept your lion at bay.
You were now a “normal” baby. And you grew into a “normal” child, and then later, as you are now, a “normal” man.
So why am I sharing this with you?
With me gone, there is no one to get the spell renewed. Esme’s spell, which kept your lion away, had to be recast every year.
She couldn’t—or wouldn’t, I’m not sure which—make the spell permanent. So every year, I’d visit her. Yes, when I told you I was going to the country for a weekend with the girls, I was traveling to Rome to visit Esme and pay her for the extension of the witchcraft that kept you from being your father’s son.
It’s your decision now, if you want to be what you have been, or if you want to explore the world of your father. I wish I knew more about it, but Rina didn’t know and Esme said that shifters kept to themselves and kept their ways and secrets private.
Cristiano, forgive me, sweet son. Forgive me for my deception. Forgive me for never bringing it to light. Once started, I never knew if I should keep it a secret from you, or make it part of your life.
I hope I chose correctly. But in the event I did not. I apologize and seek your clemency. Be merciful and know, when you judge me, that everything was done out of love.
Your loving mother. Always.
Tino sat back in the chair; the arms seemed to almost reach around him, as though trying to embrace him. He held the letter at arm’s length, eyeing it like one would a dangerous snake.
Lion? He glanced at the downy hairs on his arms. Hardly hairy enough to be a lion man. His mother was talking about this as if he could be a werewolf. No. Not werewolf. That would be a werelion.
A scoffing laugh escaped him. As if that shit really existed.
He knew his mother had been sick, she’d been stricken with cancer and it had progressed quickly, fiercely, and mercilessly to her brain.
Maybe Mom wasn’t all there when she wrote this?
He pushed the thought aside. Who wanted to have a thought like that.
&nbs
p; More than ever, now he felt the need to be alone. Rising to his full height, well over six feet, he tucked the letter in its envelope, folded the envelope in half, and slipped it into his pocket.
He’d read it again. Later. When he was alone.
Chapter Four
Ana crumpled the tissue into her fist and leaned against the dark wood of the desk her father had always used for business in their library at home. She let her eyes trail over the books. All of Papa’s books.
Who will read them now?
The doctors had performed last rites on Papa. And yet, as close as he was to death, he had the resolve to keep asking for one thing.
One thing, and one thing only. And Ana had granted him that one wish.
What else could I do? He’s on his deathbed.
Her mother’s crying and praying that Ana would relent hadn’t helped Ana’s dilemma.
Ana relented.
Begrudgingly.
Very much so.
She shredded the tissue moistened with her grief and sorrow.
Grief over her father’s impending death.
Sorrow over her looming nuptials.
“He’s here,” Isabel whispered, eyes glued to the rain-misted window.
Outside, the weather was dreary, rain falling in half-hearted spurts, just enough to ruin a day.
Even the weather’s miserable, just like me.
Ana peeked around Isabel’s shoulder. Sure enough, without an umbrella, walking as if he owned the place, Bruno Vergo, the bull shifter, in an expensive, tailored brown suit, shouldered his way up the walk leading to their front door.
Following Bruno was a smaller man, clad in black, not nearly as expensive, but holding an umbrella above his balding head.
Seconds later they were out of sight, under the covered front door, and a demanding rap of knuckles on wood echoed in the front vestibule.
A shudder rippled through Ana, she tugged the gray skirt down, smoothing the non-existent ripples out.
