Enigma, Maine, Bundle Three

by Iris Abbott

  Jenna sighed long and hard. “It’s a long and complicated story. You and Dante need to have a serious talk.”

  The bathroom suddenly filled with fog. A shimmering form danced in front of her and began to take shape. She blinked her eyes three times and left them closed for five seconds, hoping to clear her vision. When she finally opened her eyes, Dante stood in front of her.

  “I’m not letting you run away until you give me a chance to explain exactly who and what I am.”

  “Hello?” Jenna’s voice was loud enough to snap her out of the strange spell she seemed to be under.

  Jillian suddenly remembered her sister was still on the other end of the phone. She tore her gaze from Dante and answered her sister. “Umm, I’ve got to go,” she whispered. Jillian disconnected the call and placed the phone on the vanity. She took a deep breath and gathered her composure.

  “What’s a guardian, and how did you get in here? It took more than a staged illusion to pull that off.”

  Dante ran a hand through his already tousled hair. “You’ve been talking to your sister. The two are connected. It’s a long and complicated story, so we should get comfortable.”

  Jillian narrowed her eyes. “Jenna said the same thing. Why does my sister seem to know so much about you when the two of you haven’t even met yet?”

  “She’s mated with Craig, and she’s related to Lucian’s wife. Those relationships entitled her to the truth of the paranormal world, now it’s your turn.”

  Mated? Paranormal? The two words seemed odd, but he definitely had her attention. He unlocked and opened the bathroom door. Jillian took a deep breath and followed him into the living area of the suite. He sat down on the couch, and she followed his lead, but she sat on the opposite end, putting as much space between them as possible.

  Dante looked at her as if he was trying to judge her frame of mind. “You need to really listen to what I’m getting ready to tell you, and you need to keep an open mind. It’s going to seem unbelievable, but Jenna, Craig, and any of your family will be able to confirm what I tell you.”

  “If you’re opening with that line, it must be a heck of a story.”

  “Most would say it’s just a myth, that there’s nothing true about it at all, but I think you will know better than that. The witch inside you will recognize the truth for what it is.”

  She sat up much straighter. Jillian wanted to dismiss what he said as the ramblings of a madman or some weird practical joke. Her intuition told her that he spoke the truth, no matter how incredible it might sound. She didn’t know how the witch thing came in to play however.

  “Witch? You’ve already lost me, Dante.” She tried to smile through her growing confusion. “Next you’ll be telling me you’re a wizard and you use real magic instead of illusions and tricks when you perform.”

  “No I’m not a wizard, but my mother was the direct descendent of an ancient priestess blessed with potent magic. It’s why my connection with the mystical universe is so much stronger than what other guardians have.”

  “There’s that word again. When are you going to tell me what it means?”

  “Soon, let me tell you what little I know about your background first. My knowledge of your family tree is limited, but I’ll tell you what I can.”

  He’d never done anything to make her think he was a madman, other than confessing to killing Scott West. If she were quite honest with herself, that man deserved to die. He tried to kill her sister, and when that failed, he went after her. Jillian knew without a doubt that he hadn’t been in Italy just to say hello. She possibly owed her life to Dante, so she would definitely listen to everything he had to say.

  She took a deep breath. “I’m ready. What do you know about my family that I obviously don’t?”

  “You and your sister come from a long line of witches. I don’t know all the details. You’ll have to have that conversation with Jenna. What I do know is that Brianna is legendary in the paranormal world. She’s the most powerful witch alive.”

  “What about Brittany and Jessica?”

  “Jessica is fairly new to magic just like you and your sister. Your cousin Brittany, however, is a whole other story. She and her friends Selena and Julie have studied and been schooled in magic their whole lives. Separately they are very powerful women, but when the trio combines their powers, they are almost unbeatable. I’ve heard whispers about them since I came to town. They’re legends in Enigma.”

  “So any one of them could help me find out if I’m magical and teach me how to use it if I am?” She rubbed her forehead.

  “You definitely have magic. It’s so strong inside you, I sensed it almost immediately. Your magic called to mine. It’s one of the many things that drew me to you when I first saw you. I’m sure all of them will be more than happy to help you explore your magical roots and test your powers.”

  Jenna briskly rubbed her arms up and down. “Okay, enough about me and my family for now. I will be grilling my sister for sure when I leave here.”

  He winked at her. “I’m sure she’ll expect it after your phone call.”

  “I want to know more about you and your source of magic.”

  “As your sister mentioned on the phone, in the paranormal world I’m what is known as a guardian. Guardians are responsible for the wellbeing of the mystical universe. It’s our duty to make sure that paranormal beings live in harmony with humans. We seek to maintain a balance between the two.” He paused, waiting for her to absorb what he said.

  When she didn’t ask another question, he continued. “Guardians are also the law enforcers of the paranormal world.”

  “Ah, so you aren’t that different from Craig after all. You were acting in an official capacity when you killed Scott.”

  “That’s right. Our mission is twofold. We protect humans by making sure they are not harmed by paranormal beings, with the obvious exception of self-defense. We also protect paranormal beings by keeping their existence a secret from humans and eliminating any threats intent on harming them. The rules are in place to keep all living beings safe.”

  “I don’t mean to keep interrupting, and I’m sure the hundred questions are getting old, but this is a lot for me to make sense of. And it’s getting all jumbled around in my head. I’m just trying to process everything.”

  “Better be careful,” Dante playfully warned. “They say curiosity killed the cat.”

  Jillian smirked at him and shrugged. “Well, that’s all right. Apparently, I’m a witch not a cat.” She couldn’t help but notice that Dante wasn’t smiling anymore. “Is that why you were protecting me, because I’m a witch?”

  “Yes, as witches you and your sister are paranormal beings, and the two of you fall under the protection of the council and the guardians who serve it.”

  “So you were justified in taking out Scott,” she breathed a faint sigh of relief. “Thanks for that by the way. I know he meant to do me harm. I could feel his malicious intent even though the fog tried to wrap me in a comforting blanket of numbness.” She frowned. “Does that make any sense?”

  “Perfect sense, I created the fog to make things more difficult for him and to hide my presence. I also used my magic to send you waves of comfort.”

  “I think I’m starting to understand, even though all of this is pretty unbelievable. You’re kind of like a secret agent with a covert group known as the council, and your persona as a magician is your cover?”

  “That oversimplifies things but basically, yeah.”

  “Are Lucian and Craig members of this council group?”

  Dante threw back his head and laughed. He was always gorgeous, but when he laughed in wild abandon like that, he was irresistible. Jillian scooted over until their bodies touched. She leaned in and brushed her lips across his.

  “What’s so funny about that? It seems like a reasonable assumption to me. I did learn that Craig works with Lucian sometimes and both my sister and brother-in-law seem in awe of him.”

 
“You could almost say that Lucian is the council. He’s the oldest most revered guardian alive, and he is head of the council.”

  “I met him tonight. He didn’t look that old to me.” She Scrunched her nose.

  “He’s a lot older than you think.”

  It was a lot for Jillian to take in, but so far it wasn’t anything she couldn’t handle. There was nothing wrong with law enforcement as a career, except for the danger of course. She gave him a lopsided grin. “All jokes aside, dispensing justice to other paranormal beings sounds dangerous.” She shuddered at the thought of something horrible happening to Dante.

  Dante shrugged. “Guardians were blessed by the gods and goddesses of ancient Egypt, and we literally have nine lives.”

  She remembered his earlier comment. “Nine lives, like a cat?”

  “Exactly like a cat. I’ll show you.”

  One second Dante was sitting next to her on the couch, and the next a longhaired black cat with big yellow eyes stared back at her. She blinked long and hard, but the cat was still there. It crawled onto her lap and purred. She automatically petted its head.

  “Hey, I know you!” It was the stray cat from her neighborhood in Italy. She gave the cat a suspicious glare. It meowed at her and stalked to the other side of the couch. Before Jillian could blink again, the cat was gone, and Dante was back in its place.

  “You’ve never done that on stage,” she accused.

  “Of course not, humans think my performances are full of illusions just like all the other magicians out there. I would never want them to connect magic and black cats. That’s a little too close to home to be comfortable.”

  “You used your cat form to spy on me,” she said with a heated glare.

  “No, I didn’t. I used it to case out your neighborhood and keep you safe. Trust me, there’s a difference between the two.”

  “Why a black cat instead of something else?” She couldn’t help but think of the stories she heard in the past about witches and their familiars and wondered if there was a connection.

  “Guardians were created by the Egyptian goddess of justice and execution. She wanted to make sure her loyal followers were protected from the strange new beings who’d recently appeared and would eventually procreate and increase in number. She chose the already revered and very useful domestic cat as her model. Other gods pitched in their mystical powers, and guardians were the result.”

  “Okay, back to the age thing. What life are you on, and exactly how old are you?”

  “I’m only on life number two. Phillip Saint John and I are both first generation guardians. I am over six hundred years old.”

  Jillian was stunned. “You weren’t joking about Lucian being a lot older were you?”

  “No, obviously not. He is one of the original twenty cat shifters created by the ancient Egyptian goddess. Lucian is the only original still alive. I think he’s mellowed some since he became head of the council and mated, but in his younger days, he was a ferocious hunter and killing machine. No one escaped the justice handed out by Lucian Petrakos.”

  Jillian swallowed hard. “That is so unfair,” she said in a huff. “Guardians age really well, and that’s all I’m going to say about that for now.” She had more things than aging to worry about at the moment.

  “To live so long, you must be hard to kill.” Please be hard to kill. She was already worried about Dante out in the world fighting against unimaginable evil.

  “As long as our body isn’t burned to ashes or our head completely severed from our body, we can recover from anything else. That really comes in handy when battling paranormal creatures consumed by evil, greed, bloodlust, or any combination of the three.”

  Jillian’s eyes widened in disbelief, and she gasped out loud. She quickly closed her eyes and waited several heartbeats before moving on. Something he kept saying nagged at her. She probably didn’t want to know the answer, but she was going to ask anyway.

  “You keep talking about other paranormal creatures, and you said a goddess created guardians because of strange new beings. What else is out there other than witches and guardians?” She held her breath and waited for his answer.

  “In a fit of rage and spite, a minor Mesopotamian god created vampires, wolf shifters, and raptor shifters. The majority of paranormal beings are vampires, shifters, guardians, witches, and merpeople. There are also a handful of gods and goddesses that hang around this realm as well.”

  Jillian turned in his arms and looked at him really hard. She took in the dark stubble on his chin, his magnificent cat shaped eyes, and the rest of his heavily muscled, yet graceful body. “So you and Phillip are cat shifters descended from these protectors, and Lucian is an original guardian. I’m still trying to sort out where my brother-in-law fits in the paranormal world. I know Latin, and Aquila means eagle. I’m guessing that Craig is a raptor shifter.”

  “You got it in one, baby.”

  “What a relief, for a second there I was scared to death he might be a vampire.” She wrinkled her nose when she said the last word.

  Dante burst out laughing. “It’s a good thing I’m not a vampire then. But really, they get such a bad rap thanks to classic literature and horror movies,” he said with a smug smile. “Craig might not be a vampire, but you did meet one tonight.”

  Jillian looked at him in horror. “Who was it?”

  “Alessandro Russo is one of the oldest vampires out there. Our paths crossed a few times over the centuries before he left Europe for America. He’s helped the council on several occasions. Lucian and Phillip consider him to be a friend. Not all vampires are evil, just the ones that let bloodlust control them, or allow the rush of power to go to their heads.”

  “Alessandro was dressed as a vampire, but I thought it was just a costume.” She let out a long drawn out sigh. “Come to think of it, most of Jenna’s friends were dressed as witches, now I know why. I also understand why Jenna is so attached to her costume. It makes her look like a feminine and sexy eagle.”

  “I did find many of the costume choices to be quite ironic,” Dante agreed.

  “That makes two of us since I’ve been let in on the big cosmic secret of the paranormal world.”

  Dante lightly squeezed her shoulder and kissed the spot on her neck where he recently bit her. “You’re handling this a lot better than I thought you would. It’s amazing to me how quickly you’re taking everything in stride.”

  “Even though I didn’t know about my magical ancestry until several minutes ago, it clicks with me. I’ve always had a well-developed sixth sense.” There wasn’t an ounce of doubt in her voice. There were zero looks of disbelief on her face.

  “What does your intuition tell you about my words?”

  “It tells me that everything you said is true. It explains a lot of things,” she admitted.

  She could feel Dante stiffen beside her. “I hear an unspoken but in there somewhere,” he said with a frown.

  “I’m not taking everything you said in stride. Just because I believe what you said doesn’t mean it isn’t confusing and complicated. It’s life-altering kind of information.”

  She extracted herself from his arms and stood up. “It’s almost too much for any one person to absorb and comprehend immediately. I need time to think about everything that you’ve told me. I also need to have a heart to heart talk with my sister about our family. I have so many questions about our mom and why she left Enigma in the first place, and I know you don’t have the answers I need.”

  “You’re right, I don’t. Your sister will have to explain your family history to you. Having all the information will help you fit the pieces of the puzzle together.” He stood up. “Get dressed, and I’ll give you a ride.”

  Jillian blew out a long stream of breath. She hadn’t expected him to give in so gracefully. Truthfully, it was a little upsetting that he could let her go so easily.

  As if he could read her mind, Dante spoke up. “This is by no means the end of us. I meant wha
t I said. You’re mine, and there is no getting around that for either one of us. I’m just smart enough to realize you need time, but I’ll be coming for you soon, Jillian.”

  The bite mark on the side of her neck throbbed, and she tentatively touched it with her fingers.

  He saw what she was doing and gave her a sexy smile. “You wear my mark now, as a warning to other beings to stay well away from you or face my wrath.”

  “You are so arrogant,” she told him. “You better get me back to my sister’s place while I’m still willing to talk to you.” His rich laughter followed her into the bathroom.

  The ride passed quickly and in silence. Jillian was lost in her thoughts, and she figured that Dante had pretty much said all he had to say. They were back at the apartment before she realized it. She stopped him at the elevator. “You don’t have to see me up. I’ll be fine.”

  Dante leaned in, backing her up against the elevator doors. “I insist. When we aren’t busy stalking prey and meting out justice for the council, you’ll find that most of us paranormal beings are a chivalrous bunch. It comes from being centuries old and from a time when manners still mattered.”

  “Manners still matter today, just not everyone has them anymore.” He was so close she could see the individual eyelashes that made up the spiky black fringe that lined his eyes. She stood on her tiptoes and brushed her lips with his.

  Dante pressed into her, effectively trapping her between the hard planes of his body and the elevator doors. It didn’t matter, she pushed back, trying to get as close to him as possible. His kisses were as addicting as the most powerful drug. She needed and wanted the taste of him on her lips.

  They separated several heartbeats later. Jillian wasn’t sure exactly how much time passed while they were captivated with each other. She was oblivious to everything but the feel and taste of Dante. “What woman could say goodbye after a kiss like that? My sister is probably still up, and I’m sure she’s dying to meet you.”

  SIX

  As soon as Jillian said a final goodnight and shut the door on Dante, she turned back to her sister.