GraceinMoonlight

by Stephane Julian

  Grace in Moonlight

  Stephanie Julian

  Book five in the Lucani Lovers series.

  Kaisie Giliati is the lucani king’s best tracker. He’s used to hunting and capturing his prey with little resistance. He’s also old enough to know exactly what he wants, and the feisty redhead who stirs him like no other is at the top of his list. Too bad she’s the enemy and seemingly impervious to his charms.

  Grace Bellasario has a target on her back, two children to protect from their evil father and she’s in love for the first time in her life. With a man who should hate her—a man she has no business craving. But does she ever. Grace doesn’t have a chance in hell of shaking Kaisie off her tail. Now he just needs to keep her alive to live happily ever after…

  Ellora’s Cave Publishing

  www.ellorascave.com

  Grace in Moonlight

  ISBN 9781419935718

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

  Grace in Moonlight Copyright 2011 Stephanie Julian

  Edited by Grace Bradley

  Cover art by Syneca

  Electronic book publication July 2011

  The terms Romantica® and Quickies® are registered trademarks of Ellora’s Cave Publishing.

  With the exception of quotes used in reviews, this book may not be reproduced or used in whole or in part by any means existing without written permission from the publisher, Ellora’s Cave Publishing, Inc.® 1056 Home Avenue, Akron OH 44310-3502.

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  This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the author’s imagination and used fictitiously.

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  Grace in Moonlight

  Stephanie Julian

  Glossary

  Arus: magical power inherent in the Fata and Enu, races of Etruscan descent

  Boschetta: Etruscan coven, traditionally comprised of thirteen streghe

  Candela: Etruscan sprite, tiny magical beings with wings and a certain glow about them

  Decurio: legion rank of commander

  Eteri (pl. eteri): Etruscan for foreigner, used to describe regular humans without magic

  Enu: humans of magical Etruscan descent

  Fata: elemental beings of magical Etruscan descent

  Folletta (pl. folletti): Etruscan female fairy

  Linchetto (pl. linchetti): Etruscan night elf

  Malandante: descended from the Etruscans but born with a bent toward evil, with a taste for power and wealth

  Praenuntio: Goddess Gift of foresight

  Praepositus: an officer rank in the lucani army

  Praetorian: elite guard of the lucani king

  Pugio: a Roman dagger

  Quercioli: the offspring of a folletta and a linchetto, always female

  Salbinelli: Etruscan satyr

  Sicari (pl: sicarii): assassin

  Silvani: one of the three original Etruscan Fata; always female, protectors of fields and forests

  Speculator: spy

  Strega (pl. streghe): Etruscan witch

  Versipellis (pl. versipelli): literally “skin shifter”—shapeshifters including Etruscan Lucani (wolves), Norse Berkserkir (bears) and French loup garou (wolves)

  Chapter One

  “No, absolutely not. I don’t care what you say, there’s no way I’m going to allow you—”

  “Allow? Allow! Lady, you’re not in any fucking position to allow anything.”

  “Don’t you swear at me, Kaisie Giliati. And I don’t think you understand. I will not allow you to go without me to rescue my son. He needs me there. He needs his mother. I’m all he’s got and I will not let you leave me behind.”

  “Non rompermi le palle. You’re just going to get in the way and I can’t—”

  “Get in the way! Ooh, you are such a jackass. Don’t even think you can—”

  “How long have they been at this?” Catene Rossini Ferante whispered the words as the two combatants continued, but Kaine Giliati heard them loud and clear.

  Without taking her gaze away from the seething emotion between her father, Kaisie Giliati, and Grace Bellasario, she motioned for Cat to come closer. She didn’t want to interrupt the battle.

  “About half an hour,” Kaine whispered back. “They’re starting to circle back to where they started, though, so I assume Dad’s going to storm out in another minute. That’s the normal course of events.”

  Cat shook her head, careful to keep it subdued so she didn’t draw Grace’s or Kaisie’s attention. “I don’t know why your dad keeps fighting her about this. She’s right. The team needs her help. She may not have a lot of power but she knows how the Mal do things. She’ll be able to answer questions no one else can.”

  Kaine agreed. Silently. Her dad needed to suck up his objections and get with the program to take Grace along on the dangerous mission to rescue Grace’s ten-year-old son, Alex.

  A week ago, Ettore Marrucini had magically transported himself and six other men into the lucani den and walked out with Cat, Evie Simmons and Alex. Cat and Evie had gotten away.

  Marrucini still had Alex. But there was no way the lucani would allow the Malandante to corrupt sweet little Alex and turn him into a monster, like the other Mal.

  The Etruscan wolf shifters didn’t hold Grace’s sins against her son.

  Hell, most people had forgiven Grace’s sins, including the two women who had absolutely no reason to ever forgive her. But Tamra Macmillan and Evie Simmons had found a way to get beyond the fact that Grace had tried to kidnap Tam and had actually succeeded in kidnapping Evie and her brother, John.

  For weeks, Grace had made Evie’s and John’s lives hell, holding them against their will while Grace had taken pints of Evie’s blood on a regular basis. To create a serum that allowed her son to live.

  Turns out Evie’s blood had magical properties the streghe and the lucani medical doctors were still trying to figure out. The Etruscan witches had made some progress in determining that Evie’s blood chemistry had been altered in some strange way, though not by Grace.

  Grace had only been able to identify the fact that Evie’s blood was different and use it to help her son. The hint of magic in her blood, something many eteri had but never realized, kept Grace’s son from succumbing to a disease that wanted to waste the little boy away to nothing.

  “Gods damn it.” Kaisie’s voice had reached almost to shouting level. “You’re not strong enough to be of any help whatsoever—”

  “And you’re an ass if you seriously believe you can—”

  Kaine and Cat exchanged raised eyebrows as the fight raged on but neither had anything else to say.

  Ultimately, it wasn’t Grace or Kaisie who made the final decision about Grace accompanying the team. It was Kyle Rossini. And Kyle, as head of the sicarii, the lucani king’s assassins, had already made hi
s decision. He’d told the four members of his team, which included Kaine, that Grace was going.

  “You know what?” Kaisie finally threw his hands in the air. “I can’t talk to you. You’re irrational.”

  Kaine took a deep breath. Her dad had just reached his breaking point. When he started talking with his hands, she knew it was only a matter of minutes before he stormed out.

  “I’m irrational?” Grace fired back. “You’re the one acting like a madman.”

  And he looked like one, too, Kaine thought.

  Anyone who didn’t know Kaisie would think he was homeless and off his meds.

  His dirt-brown hair hung below his shoulders in a straggly mess. It was clean but it definitely looked as if he’d been the one to butcher his hair last. Without the benefit of a mirror. His beard looked a little better than it had when he’d first shown up two weeks ago. At least he’d trimmed it down to a manageable scruff, which he would eventually shave off. He always did.

  Six-foot and nearly two-hundred pounds of lean muscle, Kaisie had bright-green eyes a shade lighter than her own. They burned when he was furious, like he was now.

  He’d never act on that anger, not in any way. Her dad didn’t hit. If he was in his pelt and you were a mortal enemy, he’d fight until his last breath and he’d win. And if he could, he’d leave his opponent alive.

  Still, he had an air of danger that gave him an edge. One that either made women run in the opposite direction or drew them like flies, not that he’d ever kept one around for longer than a few weeks.

  Neither variety usually wanted to fight with him. And that’s all he and Grace did until her dad decided he’d had enough and left.

  She loved her dad dearly but the man had a serious commitment problem. Sure, he’d reared her from the time she was a baby and her mother had died. But more often than not, he’d left her with whatever family agreed to care for her that week when he went on assignment for the king.

  She’d never doubted his love but ever since she’d been old enough to take care of herself, he’d been on assignment more often than he’d been home because her dad was the best tracker the lucani had ever had. If it was lost, Kaisie Giliati could find it.

  It’d taken him less than a week to find Alex. Her dad was that good.

  And now it was up to Kaine’s boss, Kyle, to come up with a plan to get Alex out of a secure compound in Florida where Marrucini had stashed the boy.

  Cat leaned closer to Kaine. “Do you think they realize they’re hot for each other?”

  Kaine winced and shot Cat a disgruntled glare. “Come on, Cat. He’s my dad. Eww. Just…no.”

  Cat merely raised her eyebrows and gave her a wicked grin, to which Kaine responded with rolled eyes.

  Hell, everyone in the lucani den saw what was going on between her dad and Grace. Trying to ignore the situation wouldn’t make it go away.

  And Kaine had to admit she kind of liked the woman.

  Grace had done some bad things, yes, but she’d done them to save her child. No lucani would ever fault someone for trying to save the life of their child.

  The problem was some of the lucani would never see Grace as anything other than a pawn of the Malandante.

  The Mal were born evil and grew up to be monsters. They craved power and money and had no soul. They didn’t love. Family was a tool to be used in the pursuit of power and domination. They had no friends, only allies. And usually they double-crossed those.

  The lucani and the Mal had been enemies since the time of their creation. The Mal didn’t mingle with the rest of the Etruscan race. They were a cult unto themselves.

  And her dad had the serious hots for a woman who’d been reared by that evil.

  Kaine sighed. She allowed herself a brief, selfish moment to wish Grace had taken Cole’s offer to leave and return to the Mal, to retrieve her son by giving herself back to the man who’d ripped Grace’s first-born child, a daughter, from her arms at the moment of her birth and had kidnapped Alex only last week.

  Grace hadn’t hesitated. She’d begged Cole to get her son back. She’d promised her eternal servitude. Hell, she’d practically offered up her own life for the lucani king’s help.

  Grace wasn’t begging now. No, she was reading Kaisie the riot act for trying to force her to stay here at the den while Kaine’s team went after Alex.

  “You know,” Cat whispered. “They’ll make adorable babies. Maybe you’ll finally have that sister you always wanted.”

  Even though she knew Cat was teasing, Kaine had a momentary flash of her father holding a red-haired baby in his arms.

  She didn’t shudder at the thought.

  Turning to Cat, she raised her eyebrows. “Maybe it’ll be a boy.”

  Cat’s eyes widened just before she started to giggle.

  And Grace and Kaisie broke off their argument to stare at the girls, as if they’d only just noticed their presence in the small meeting room in the den’s community center.

  “Kaine,” her father practically barked at her. “Talk some sense into this woman. She’s got less than a fly at this point.”

  Vaffanculo. Sometimes her dad really was an ass. Sighing, she opened her mouth to apologize to Grace for him but never had the chance.

  Grace got right in Kaisie’s face, her milk-pale skin suffused with a dark flush almost the same color as her wavy, auburn hair.

  At thirty-five, Grace looked almost a decade younger, her rounded body completely feminine, her features sharp and pointed and her brown eyes the color of dark chocolate.

  You couldn’t call Grace pretty. No, she had more of a classical beauty, something you’d see on a marble statue in a Roman museum. Aristocratic. Regal.

  Especially when she had that aristocratic nose stuck in the air. “And you are an arrogant, mule-headed idiot who has no idea how to see beyond his own ingrained prejudices.”

  With that parting shot, Grace turned and stalked out of the room.

  Score one for Grace, Kaine thought. Usually her dad left first.

  Beside her, she felt Cat still as Kaisie stared at the door Grace had left through. He almost looked as if he wanted to go after her. Frustration showed in the tight line of his mouth and the clenched hands at his sides.

  Kaine had the unfamiliar urge to comfort her dad, something she never would’ve thought to do before. He’d always been so strong, so controlled. He had a reputation for being a loner, uncomfortable around other people, magical or not. He didn’t work well with others, which Kaine had always attributed to being a tracker.

  She’d had the same tendencies until she’d joined the sicarii and learned to rely on Kyle, Duke and Nic as her partners. And fallen in love with John Simmons.

  Now she realized how lonely she’d been.

  And she wondered if maybe her dad—

  “Vaffanculo, that woman is going to be the death of me.”

  She heard the rough growl in his tone, the utter frustration she hadn’t heard in her dad’s voice since she’d been a little girl begging him to let her come with him on his frequent trips. She hadn’t understood then that he couldn’t take her but she’d learned not to ask after the fifth or sixth time he’d left her in tears at the home of one of the other lucani families.

  With a sigh, Kaine walked over to stand next to him. “Dad…”

  He didn’t look at her right away. She could tell he was trying to control his temper.

  When he finally had that slow-burning anger under wraps, he flashed a smile and bent to press a kiss to her head. She felt about twelve years old when he did that and she adored him for it.

  “I know what you’re going to say, little girl, so don’t bother.” Then he flashed a smile at Cat, who answered with a hero-worshipping smile of her own. “And how’s my pretty Cat?”

  Kaine rolled her eyes as he used Cat’s adoration to deflect the conversation. Something else he was good at.

  “I’m good, Kaisie.” Cat practically skipped over to give her dad a hug, the girl’s
smile so bright it had to hurt. “It’s so great to see you.”

  Hugging Kaine closer, he wrapped an arm around Cat’s shoulders then steered them all toward the front door of the center.

  “Good to be seen, sweetheart. Good to be home.”

  Kaine heard something in her dad’s voice she hadn’t before. Weariness.

  She realized she hadn’t known where he’d been before he’d arrived at the den two weeks ago to find Alex. With everything going on, she hadn’t even thought to ask. Maybe he wouldn’t even be able to tell her but she always, always, always asked. It let him know she thought about him. Cared about where he was and what he was doing.

  Though the village had helped to raise her, she was and always would be a daddy’s girl.

  “Dad… Is everything okay?”

  He didn’t answer right away and that made her heart race as fear dropped into her system.

  “Dad—”

  “Everything’s fine, sweetheart.” He smiled down at her, though she still saw strain in the lines around his eyes and his mouth. “Everything’s fine.”

  *

  “Tinia’s teat, what a fucking mess.”

  “I don’t know what you’re so pissed off about, Kaisie. It’s not like you have to babysit the woman. Hell, you don’t even have to go along to retrieve the boy if you don’t want to. You found him. Let the sicarii handle the rest.”

  Kaisie threw Dorian Pellegrino a vicious look as he took a long pull on the beer she’d set in front of him before dropping into a chair at the dining room table.

  “Grace Bellasario is a menace. And my daughter’s normally good judgment seems to have deserted her when it comes to that woman.”

  Leaning back in her chair, Dorian gave him a long, steady stare. Years younger than his own forty-four, the praetorian was tough, smart and one of his best friends. Of which he didn’t have many.

  And most of them were sitting at this table.

  Dorian sat across from him, her brown hair and eyes so perfectly ordinary but her face so delicately not. Not that he’d ever say that to her. As one of the lucani king’s elite guards, she could toss a knife through a period on a magazine page from fifty yards and she could take down a warrior twice her size in hand-to-hand combat.