by Thorne, Elle
* * *
“Esme is the highest powered witch on this continent. Or at least high powered enough to counter Iniga’s spell,” Desideria said.
Esme, the same name as the witch that Tino’s mother had visited to have his lion repressed. That fact hadn’t escaped Ana’s notice. She was hoping to appeal to Esme’s sense of justice in helping free Tino from Iniga’s spell.
When Ana had first told Desideria that Iniga was the one who’d imprisoned him and that Tino had seen a vial, and that she wanted to find the vial, Desideria had shuddered.
“You will never find it. Your only hope is to find a witch stronger. More powerful. One able to override Iniga using the vial’s contents.”
“Would Iniga seek retribution?” This did concern Ana. She didn’t want her family to pay for her decisions.
“Iniga is no more. She messed with the wrong witch.”
“Then how is her spell still active?”
“Because of the contents of the vial.”
“Could you break her spell, then?” Isabel asked.
Desideria laughed. “No. Only one I know is Esmerelda.” Another shudder. “My half-sister.”
Hope had flourished in Ana. “Can you talk to her? Tell her Tino’s plight?”
“Ha.” The sound was mirthless. “No. We do not speak. But I can tell you where to find her, in a province outside Rome in the forests near the volcanic cliffs.”
“Can you be more specific?” Isabel asked.
“No. But do be careful. That is Tiero territory, and Giovanni Tiero is very—and I mean very, very, very—territorial. He has been the most resistant to change in the shifter world. And his father ran the European Shifter Council.” Desideria shook her head. “Do not trifle with the Tiero family. They don’t play nice.”
“I’ve heard of them,” Isabel agreed.
Have I been living under a rock? Why don’t I know this? “I wasn’t aware,” Ana murmured.
“They don’t do publicity,” Desideria affirmed.
* * *
Isabel shook Ana back to the present. “So are we going today?”
Ana shook her head. “I don’t know.”
“Bruno’s gone for a week, right?”
“True, but Mama—”
“We will have someone take care of Mama.”
A thought occurred to Ana again. One she couldn’t seem to shake. Would she ever see Tino again after releasing him? How would she keep Bruno’s advances at bay without Tino’s distractions?
Would she end up pregnant with Bruno’s son? Images flew through her mind of younger, smaller, equally brutish miniature versions of bull shifters like Bruno raising Cain in a playroom.
A shiver touched the base of her spine, then traveled upward.
It doesn’t matter. Tino can’t stay there. Not any longer. It’s not fair to him.
“We’ll leave tomorrow.”
Isabel jumped with joy. “Now take me to meet your lover—”
Ana gave her a double take and a dirty look.
Isabel cleared her throat. “Sorry. Your friend.”
Chapter Fourteen
“How much longer. I’m not meant for trekking through woods,” Isabel huffed.
“I’m already regretting allowing you to come along,” Ana snapped.
“I’m sorry. I’m not a hiker.” Isabel tugged on her pants, readjusting them. Her steps were heavy as they stomped through the forests in the province of Viterbo. They’d gone as far as they could by car, then they’d looked at the scribbled directions Desideria had given them.
“See there’s the forked tree. Not much further,” Ana hissed her response. “But I wish you’d lower your voice and quit stomping so loudly. She’s bound to hear us and cast a spell. Maybe even turn us into trees.”
Or something. It was the or something part that made Ana nervous.
“Oh, and you’d rather sneak up on her and really piss her off? I’d sooner announce our arrival with foot stomping so she knows our intent isn’t to sneak up on her.”
Good point.
“So, wise one, what do you suggest?” Ana asked Isabel playfully.
“I suggest you don’t move. Unless you enjoy pain.” A very deep, very male voice came from within the darkness of the heavily treed forest.
Ana glanced into the shadows but saw nothing, not even with her supernatural shifter sight.
“Wha—?” Isabel whirled around, turning around and around. A creaking sound betrayed that she was beginning to shift.
“Tell her not to shift. We don’t want to hurt her, but we will if she decides to turn into a tigress.”
Ana put her hand on Isabel’s arm, which already was covered in a thick, downy fur. “Don’t, sister. Not yet. Not until we know—”
“There’s nothing for you to know. Nothing at all. Except that you are trespassing.”
Out from the forest, strode three men. All with dark hair, all with dark, swarthy skin, and all with a menacing predatory look on their sculpted faces.
Ana glanced at Isabel, who was frozen in place, already back in her fully human form. Isabel’s gaze was focused on the one in the middle. The biggest one. The meanest looking one.
“We can take them,” Ana whispered to her sister. “If we shift quickly enough.” What can three human males do against two fierce tigresses, after all?
Isabel’s stare didn’t waver from the one in the center. The one striding confidently their way, though he was still yards off. “I don’t think so.”
“She’s right, Ana. Listen to your sister.”
“How do you know my name?” Under her breath she whispered to Isabel. “Why not?”
“Shifters,” Isabel hissed.
“Correct,” the man—correction, the shifter—in the center said.
Ana didn’t care for the grin on his face. It was too… victorious.
What makes him think he’s got us under control?
“In case you ladies are having second thoughts,” he indicated the man to his left. “We have Tranqs. Though they are still experimental, I have it on good authority from personal experience that they are extremely effective.”
Bastard! “Who are you? We have business in this area. Who are you to say we are trespassing?”
“Who are you?” Isabel echoed Ana’s question, but the tone in her voice sounded far away.
Ana glanced at her sister. What was up with her?
“You are in the middle of Tiero territory,” the one on the left said.
When all else fails, bluff. “How do you know we don’t have permission to be here?”
Oh, God. Ana didn’t care for the quick turn his smile took, straight into dangerous zone. “Because I am the one who grants permission.” He nodded, as though reinforcing his statement. “I’m Giovanni Tiero. And you, it seems are my guests for the evening.” He indicated his companions. “Tito and Federico. My brothers.”
“What kind of manners are those? Pointing a weapon at a lady?” If nothing else, Ana thought she could appeal to his sense of honor.
His laughter echoed in the forest. Dark and powerful. “Ladies? Your sister here, beautiful as she may be, was preparing to shift and attempt to rip us to shreds. Unsuccessfully, I might add, because well, shifters.” He pointed, first to himself, then to his brothers.
A low growling sound came from Isabel.
Giovanni smiled in response. “I like her,” he said to his brothers.
As if we aren’t here. Or as if we are furniture.
“I have business. So hurry up and give us the courtesy of your permission,” Ana exclaimed.
He gave her a haughty look from eyes that appeared glazed with black ice, so forbidding was his glance. “You have business here? What sort of business could you have on my land that I’m not aware of?” He turned that formidable stare toward Isabel.
Ana wanted to quake and tremble under his expression.
Not Isabel. No, that hardheaded sister of hers, foolhardy as well, released a laugh. Isabel�
�s laugh was genuine and elicited a quizzical, brow-raised mien from the tall, broad shouldered man.
“So, Giovanni Tiero,” Isabel began. “Our business is our own.”
Before Ana could blink, Giovanni Tiero had turned, making a complete one-eighty. “Take them to the main house.”
No sooner had the last word left his lips, twenty shifters stepped out of the shadows. All tigers.
Ana glared at Isabel. “Did you have to piss him off? Did you?”
Chapter Fifteen
Ana sat at the window bench, staring at the dark forest that surrounded the villa. Now she had to get out of here and hunt Esmerelda down.
It was the getting out of here part that worried her. She wasn’t convinced that would be easy. Not with so many shifters there to reinforce Giovanni Tiero’s orders.
Isabel paced the room. “Really?” She frowned. “He expects us to show up for dinner and behave casually. As if it’s a dinner party.”
Isabel picked up one of the dozen dresses the housekeeper had brought in with the explanation: “Signor Tiero is inviting you to dinner.”
Isabel crumpled the dress between her fists and threw it at the wall. “How dare he!”
“Isabel. Please, calm down.” Ana had never seen her sister so worked up. “Why does this bother you? Let’s have dinner with him, then let’s explain our cause. I’m sure he will work with us. He may even help us.”
“Pffft. Did you see him? He’s a brute. He’s a—”
“You like him.” Ana watched her sister in the window’s reflection.
Isabel stiffened, whirled. Cheeks kissed with the crimson of anger, her mouth open in a perfect elliptical shape. She snapped her lips shut. “I.” Foot stomp. “Do.” Another foot stomp. “Not.” Isabel delivered a kick to the footstool near the dresser. “Ouch.”
She roared, a bellow that came from her tigress’s pain, then turned to Ana again. “Don’t say that,” she hissed, then flounced into the wingchair. “I will make him pay for this. How dare he do this? Does he not know who we are?”
We’re the powerless daughters of a shifter who is no longer around and delivered to Bruno for security. Bruno, who is not going to protect us.
“For my sake. For Tino’s sake, please calm down. This is not the time to act hastily and Giovanni Tiero is not a man to antagonize.”
“Don’t tell me what to do! I’ll—”
Isabel’s tirade was interrupted by the door opening. At the threshold stood a boy with intense eyes. A boy who was a miniature replica of the Tieros.
“Who are you,” the boy said.
Isabel crossed her arms over her chest. “Who are you, little man?”
“I’m Vittorio. My friends call me Vax.”
Ana rose to her feet, eager to intercept Isabel, in case her sister took her rage out on the boy with the serious expression.
“I’m Capriana Valenti. My friends call me Ana.”
“Can I call you Ana?” He stepped closer.
“Of course.” Ana held out her hand.
The boy shook it solemnly. “Don’t tell my father I was here. I was curious about our new guests. It’s not often we get guests. You’re the second ones this week. I haven’t been able to see the witch. She’s confined in a different wing.”
Witch?
“Who is your father?” Isabel asked.
“Giovanni. Shhh. Someone’s coming. I have to go.”
And with that, the boy was gone.
And Ana’s question about what witch remained unanswered.
“He’s mated.” Isabel’s countenance had darkened, as had her mood.
“What?”
“Giovanni Tiero. That was his son.”
“Yes. I gathered.” But you’re not interested. She wasn’t going to tell her sister that. Because clearly there was something about that dark, menacing, formidable man that she found intriguing.
“Let’s go to dinner.”
“Harrumph.” Isabel’s exhale of exasperation was telling.
Too telling.
Chapter Sixteen
Giovanni—Mister call me Gio—Tiero was at the head of the table. He’d placed Isabel to his immediate right, and Ana sat across from her sister to his left.
Next to Ana was Federico. The seat next to Isabel held Tito.
The rest of the twenty something seats at the long table were empty.
“Where’s your crew?” Isabel asked with a sneer. “Surely you don’t feel safe with only the three of you here.”
Giovanni didn’t look at Isabel. In fact, his behavior was very different than earlier. Whereas at first he couldn’t take his eyes off her, now he didn’t even so much as glance at Isabel and he certainly refused to take the challenge. He remained stoic, his beautiful hawk face immobile and void of expression.
He had been this way through the consommé, the salad, and now through the delectable spice-rubbed, roasted quail.
Ana couldn’t enjoy the meal. Her mind was on her mission. And on her questions. She’d tried to approach Giovanni with some answers.
Finally, he turned toward Ana, and addressed his conversation to her. Only her. “What was your purpose?”
Ana took a deep breath. He could help her. This shifter, with all his muscle could help her find, convince, or even coerce a witch to help Tino. Dare she ask for his assistance?
“First, I apologize for interloping on your territory without your permission.”
Isabel released a low grunt and an even lower laughing scoff.
Not low enough clearly, as a Giovanni Tiero’s brows drew down to a prohibitive vee.
Ana kicked under the table, but her foot didn’t get Isabel’s. She gave her sister a dirty look, but it did no good as Isabel’s eyes were trained on the pattern on her still full plate.
“Apology accepted.” Giovanni tore off the leg of the quail.
Ana’s eyes widened at the ferocity with which he attacked the bird. Had she said something wrong?
She didn’t have the time for niceties and things like that. “I need your help.”
He looked up from the quail’s flesh.
“Please,” she added.
Giovanni gave her a single nod, set the quail down, took a napkin, wiped his fingers. “What do you need help with?”
“I have a friend—”
Isabel released a short giggle.
“Stop.” Ana had enough.
Her retort cut Isabel’s giggle short. “Sorry,” Isabel mumbled, eyes still down.
Why was Isabel so contrary?
“My friend is in…” How to phrase this mess? “I have a friend in trouble… and he can’t be freed without the help of a witch that I’ve heard is in this area.”
“Esmerelda?” Tito asked.
Ana snapped her eyes his way. “How did you know?”
“She’s the only witch in this area,” Giovanni explained. “And she’s unavailable.”
“What? What do you mean?” This couldn’t be. She couldn’t be unavailable. After all of this, after everything they’d been through. No, no. I don’t believe it. I can’t. “What does unavailable mean?”
“She’s being held.”
“Where?” Isabel’s tone was snide.
“Here.” Federico said, as if it was that simple, and no big deal.
The answer to their problem, the solution, was right here.
“We need her,” Ana said.
“I can’t let her go.” Giovanni’s tone brooked no argument, no discussion.
“Can’t we discuss this?” Ana was ready to beg if she needed to.
Oh yes, she’d beg. And plead. And even threaten. And if she needed to, she’d try to bribe. Somehow, she’d find a way to get money from her father’s accounts, though Bruno controlled them with a tight fist.
“Discuss?” He glanced at Isabel finally. “If your sister can contain herself.”
Isabel rose to her feet. “Contain myself? You—you.”
“Sit,” Giovanni ordered.
Is
abel glared at him, unmoving, and very definitely standing. “You can’t make me.”
“You need a spanking. Such a petulant child.”
“Oh. Is that how you treat your wife? The mother of your child?”
Ana gasped. Isabel was going too far. Giovanni would refuse to help them if she kept at this. Ana turned to Giovanni to apologize for her sister’s actions
Only he had gone ashen. His swarthy good looks were pale, his features drawn, the earlier vibrancy vanished.
Tito stood. “Please, sit.” He addressed Isabel. “My brother has lost his mate. Sit.”
Isabel’s color faded, the anger in her face gone, replaced with the horror of her words.
“I’m—God. I’m so sorry.” Isabel lowered herself into her seat, then proceeded to become as small and as inconspicuous as possible.
“We apologize,” Ana started. Tears threatened, down deep, but she knew they didn’t show yet, and she wouldn’t allow them to. “Please—”
Giovanni held up a hand. “I’d rather discuss the business at hand.”
“Of course, of course.” She gulped in a large breath. “My friend. We need this witch to set him free. He’s imprisoned in a wall. He’s a shifter. Won’t you help a shifter? One of our own kind?”
“What is this shifter’s name?”
“Cristiano Ricoletti.”
“Never heard of him. Is he related to Marco?”
Ana nodded eagerly. “His son.”
“Marco never mentioned a son to me.” Giovanni looked at Federico and Tito. “Do you know of this?”
Both brothers shook their heads.
“His lion was suppressed. By the same witch we seek. Esmerelda. His mother didn’t want him to know he was a shifter.”
Giovanni rubbed his jaw. “Very odd.”
“You know Marco Ricoletti? You can ask him.”
“Not so easy. He’s in mourning, in Sicily. Or perhaps he’s in hiding. Or both. The Shifter Council has questions for him regarding his choice to take a witch as a mate. This is frowned upon.”
A fork dropped to the floor. Ana glanced toward Giovanni’s brothers. They had exchanged a look she didn’t understand. Not that it mattered. Her mission was to help Tino.
