“Thank you, sweetheart.” She smiled at Ty, though she knew it didn’t reach her eyes. “Why don’t you get going? I’ll lock up tonight.”
Ty looked like he wanted to say something but he must have thought better of it. Finally he sighed and nodded. “See you tomorrow. If you need anything…”
It was Brandon’s turn to stiffen, as if he was offended by the implication that he might hurt her. But he didn’t say anything.
“I’ll be fine. Good night, Ty.”
Brandon stayed silent as Ty made his way out the door. But his gaze never left hers.
“How badly are you injured, Brandon?”
His mouth drew into a straight line. “It’s a deep bruise. I’ve had worse. What the hell happened last night? Was I drugged? Hypnotized? What?”
She took another sip of her drink and looked him straight in the eyes. “Yes, you were here and no, you weren’t drugged.”
A muscle in his tight jaw jumped and his hand tightened into a fist. She had no fear that he would hit her but she worried that any excitement would agitate his injuries. “Why do my memories seem messed up, jumbled?”
“Are you really sure you want to know?”
He didn’t answer right away, as if he were thinking about it.
“Why wouldn’t I?”
She took another sip of her drink, listening as Ty closed and locked the front door. When he’d walked back to the bar, he stopped behind Brandon, staring at her steadily.
Her lips quirked at his frown before she nodded and Ty left through the kitchen, leaving her alone with Brandon. “Because you might not like the answer. You might not believe the answer.”
And tomorrow morning, he wouldn’t remember the answer. She would do a better job of the spell this time. She had to.
His eyes narrowed as if he’d heard her thoughts. Or maybe he’d just read them on her face. “What the hell does that mean?”
Since he wasn’t going to remember anything tomorrow, she told him everything.
“I call myself Lucy Aster now, but I was born—well, born might not be the right word. I was first called Lusna and I was worshipped as the Etruscan Goddess of the Moon.”
Brandon’s mouth dropped open but he could get no sound to emerge. Hell, he’d be lucky if he could just close his mouth. She paused for a brief second, as if waiting for him to say something, her eyebrows slightly lifted. When he didn’t speak, she continued.
“For centuries before the year the eteri decided to start again at one, I commanded the power of the moon and took care of those Etruscans who worshipped under its light.
“When the Romans assimilated the Etruscan civilization, many of the Etruscan deities found ourselves at loose ends. For centuries we wandered as regular humans, though necessity demanded we move quite often. Some humans have trouble dealing with the very idea of us and, since we never age or die, we need to move so as not to arouse suspicion. Pitchforks and stake-burnings can be painful.
“I arrived in the States several centuries ago. I followed the descendents of the Etruscans who had settled in the Americas, mainly in the northeast; there are also a few pockets in the southeast, mainly in Florida and along the Gulf Coast. I think the water reminds us of home.”
She paused and Brandon watched her nibble her full bottom lip. Amazingly, he found that sexy as hell. Even after that completely unbelievable story. “Brandon, are you okay?”
Good question.
Of course he wasn’t okay, though not because of his splitting headache or his shoulder. He wasn’t okay because she was nuts.
She had to be. She thought she was the freakin’ Etruscan goddess of the moon. Of course she was crazy.
Christ Almighty, he wasn’t even sure he knew what the fuck Etruscans were, but he absolutely knew what the hell a goddess was. And there was no such thing.
But… she didn’t look crazy. She looked completely sane. She stared straight into his eyes without any of the scary intensity crazy people had, the wild look that would’ve marked her a few cans short of a case.
No, she looked perfectly rational and pretty damn sincere.
But she couldn’t be. There were no such things as gods and goddesses who weren’t born and lived forever. No way.
He shook his head. “No. I’m sorry. I can’t participate in your delusion.”
She smiled, as if she’d known he was going to respond that way.
And raised her hand toward the ceiling.
The room brightened, but not with the bright, harsh glare of the sun or an artificial bulb.
Silver light washed over every surface, every inch of space in the room. It held no warmth, just a cool brilliance that made everything sparkle.
Like moonlight.
He looked up, expecting to see skylights but he knew there were none. Besides, the light appeared to be coming from Lucy, as if… as if she were the moon, absorbing the sunlight and reflecting it back to Earth.
Oh, hell no. He was not buying into her delusion. No fucking way. Lights. Stage magic. Had to be.
Again, she seemed to read his mind. “No tricks. It’s true, Brandon. Everything I’ve told you is true. Now I’m sure you can understand our need for discretion. Why I had to erase your memories of last night.”
“Erase my…” He shook his head. “No. You must have done something to me last night, slipped me something. That’s why I was so out of it during the game tonight, why my memories are all fucked up. Because you did something to me.”
His anger increased with every second, a fiery blaze he tried to keep tamped down but wasn’t having much luck containing. He needed to leave, to get out of here before he said something he’d regret.
She grimaced, and the light winked out, leaving her standing there in a midnight-blue dress that cupped every curve of her beautiful body in sleek, shiny satin.
“I wiped your memories with a spell before returning you to your apartment. I should have wiped all knowledge of me from your brain but… obviously I couldn’t do it.” She drew in a deep breath and he couldn’t stop his gaze from dropping to her chest for a brief second. “I was selfish. I wanted you to continue to want me because I have lusted after you for so long. That was a mistake. Would you like me to remove it so your memory will be fixed?”
A spell. Right. More like illegal pharmaceuticals. And now she was going to fix him? Yeah, like that was going to happen. He needed to leave, go back to his apartment and forget about this crazy obsession for this crazy woman.
He slid off the stool, turned toward the door—and his brain split open. Images, pictures spilled across his mind. No, not pictures. Memories.
The bar. Lucy singing, this time in a purple velvet dress, not blue satin. Following her up the stairs in the kitchen… Oh, hell.
His cock instantly hardened. Lucy on her knees in front of him, sucking him off. Lucy naked, beneath him on the bed.
Oh, fuck. A weight fell on his chest, crushing the air out of his lungs. Jesus, he couldn’t breathe. The mess of images he’d been seeing in his mind all night lined themselves up like soldiers in formation. Everything made sense now. The timeline had corrected.
Lucy laid her hand on his good shoulder and he tensed, making his other shoulder radiate pain from his injury. Goddamn, that fucking hurt. She drew her hand back and he immediately wished she hadn’t.
Okay, there had to be a rational explanation for all of this.
“Brandon, take a deep breath. I know this is strange—”
He huffed out a laugh but felt no amusement. “No, this isn’t strange. Strange is two-headed snakes and crop circles. This is fucking weird.”
“Yes, I’m sure it seems that way to you.”
Something in her voice made him turn and the expression on her face made his heart hurt.
She looked… lost, sad, without a friend in the world. Why the hell did he have the overwhelming need to comfort her?
He almost gave in to the impulse and wrapped his arms around her. Almost. Instead he stood
there staring at her, trying to find a way to make it so she wasn’t insane.
But neither of them moved and he didn’t have a clue what to say.
“Would you like me to heal your shoulder, Brandon?”
His brain stumbled over her words for several seconds. “Heal my shoulder?”
She nodded. “I can repair your shoulder, if you’d like.”
Hope leaped in his chest before he realized she had to be delusional.
His damn shoulder hurt too fucking bad for her to do some Reiki shit or New Age voodoo with her hands, it hurt too bad for her to fool him into believing she’d actually heal him.
But what would it hurt for her to try?
No. No freaking way. It’d be like encouraging the schizophrenic to listen to the voices in his head. But what if he let her? What if he told her to go ahead? And when nothing happened, he could leave knowing he’d proved himself right. That she was crazy.
Yeah, so what are you going to think if she actually does it?
“Fine. You think you can fix my shoulder, have at it.”
With a curt nod, Lucy stepped closer then lifted her hands to his injured shoulder, placing one palm on his front and the other on his back.
Her hands warmed him through his shirt and, for a few seconds, aggravated the pain. His breath hissed in but then oh, Jesus, that glow started again.
He looked down and saw that the glow was now contained in her hands. They had turned translucent, like someone was shining a flashlight through them.
He had a momentary flash of fear that she was going to burn him to a crisp and the pain flashed into agony. His groan echoed through the bar and his head fell back on his shoulders.
Seconds of pain that felt like an eternity. And then the pain ended. It was just… gone.
Lucy stepped back, her hands falling away from him. She stared at him steadily. “Go ahead. Move it.”
Heart pounding, he took a deep breath. And flexed his shoulder.
Holy shit.
No pain.
No fucking way.
He stared at her, trying to figure out if he was going to pass out or fall on his knees in front of her and kiss her feet. He’d never passed out in his life unless he’d gotten his head knocked into the boards. He wasn’t starting now.
“How—” His mouth snapped shut, cutting off the rest of his question. She’d told him how. Magic.
“Would you like a drink?” she asked.
“Yeah, I think… Yeah. Whiskey. Just get the bottle.”
Lucy turned to grab a bottle and two glasses from behind the bar, then motioned for him to follow her through the kitchen and up the stairs into the living room.
Brand stopped to look at the amazing murals on the walls and realized not only did he recognize them but that now he realized they probably weren’t just showing mythological scenes.
He lowered himself to sit on one of the chaises, almost missed the edge and nearly fell on his ass on the floor. He shoved back before he embarrassed the hell out of himself.
Lucy sat next to him, cracked the bottle and poured healthy amounts for both of them.
After a few good pulls, he set his glass, now nearly empty, on the table in front of him.
“Explain the comment about not being born,” he asked, lifting his gaze to hers. “Are you human?”
She nodded, her expression solemn. “Yes, I am as much human as you are, except for the aging and… dying. I also have abilities you don’t.”
He realized she’d sidestepped an explanation for being born and figured maybe he didn’t want to know the answer to that one just yet. “Abilities like healing. And glowing.”
She smiled and his gut twisted. She was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen.
“Actually, what I do is harness the power of the moon and manipulate it to my needs.”
“How?”
She shrugged. “It’s what I do.”
“But how?”
She frowned. “After you learned how to skate, did you have to think about how you do it every time you go on the ice? No, it’s instinctive. It’s the same for me. I don’t think about how I do it anymore. I just can.”
“And when did you learn how?”
She smiled, but it looked almost painful as her gaze sank to the ground for a second. “Long before you could ever imagine.”
Okay, he’d let that one go. For now.
“But you weren’t born?”
Her gaze dropped for a brief second as she shrugged. “That one’s a little more difficult to answer. We came to be because our people had a need for us yet we do have parents, of a sort. We never age. We cannot be killed by conventional means and we don’t die of natural causes.”
“You’re immortal.”
“So far, yes.”
Holy shit. Just… holy shit. She was dead serious. And he was fucking crazy to believe anything she said.
But he did.
She’d healed his shoulder. And she’d glowed like the fucking moon.
Now, he wasn’t the sharpest blade on the ice, but he’d been smart enough to get an academic scholarship as well as a hockey scholarship to his first-choice college, even though he’d decided to go pro out of high school.
What she was telling him shouldn’t be possible. Weird didn’t begin to describe it.
But he couldn’t explain what she’d done through conventional means. Which made her explanation the only rational explanation. Or he’d had a psychotic break with reality and was in a mental hospital somewhere talking to a wall. He let his gaze travel around the room once again.
“So, Etruscan? That’s somewhere in Italy, right?”
She blinked, as if surprised by his question. “Yes. Long before Italy became the country it is today, Etruria had a rich history and a fascinating culture. The Rasenna formed the basis of much of the Roman civilization.”
“Rasenna. What does that mean?”
“That’s the name the Etruscans called themselves, before the Romans decided to call them Etruscan.”
Brand took a deep breath, feeling like he was wading through deep water and the current was starting to drag him under.
“Brandon, I know it’s a lot to absorb—”
He laughed, then shook his head at the slightly crazed sound of it. “Uh, yeah. Just a little.”
“But I’m not crazy and neither are you.”
No, she wasn’t crazy. She was beautiful. Sure, he’d noticed the absolute perfection of her features before. But now when he looked at her, he saw the purity of her skin, the clearness of her eyes, the perfect balance of her features.
Ethereal. Otherworldly.
But it wasn’t just her beauty that he responded to. It was also the heat in her gaze and the wildness he felt just below the surface of serenity. They called to that core of wildness in him.
The one he had to work so damn hard to keep under control.
“So… you’re a moon goddess. What does that mean exactly?”
The corners of her lips curved upward and she released a quick breath, as if she’d realized he wasn’t going to run screaming into the night.
“Not as much as it used to. You may have noticed polytheistic religions have gone the way of the dodo.”
“But you still have followers, don’t you? The people in the bar…”
She nodded. “Yes. Believe it or not, there are some who still follow the old ways. We just don’t advertise in the local paper. When the Rasenna held sway over much of Italy, I had many more duties. I reigned over the world from the second the sun set to the second it peered over the horizon at dawn. Those who lived their lives in those hours worshipped me, paid fealty to me, begged for my mercy, and pleaded for my aid.”
Her tone sounded flippant but her expression showed a fierce yearning. She missed those days. Couldn’t say he blamed her.
“I could be a ruthless bitch to those who crossed me.” Her smile turned impish, making his body burn with a sudden, fierce heat. “But I was good to
those who worshipped me. I had quite a following at one time.”
Yeah, he didn’t have to stretch his imagination to believe that. Hell, he’d follow her anywhere. And maybe do a little worshiping himself. Which was just so totally fucking weird.
“Brandon?”
He loved the way she always called him by his given name. Hell if he knew why. “Yeah?”
Damn but her smile tied his guts in knots. “Do you have other questions?”
Oh, hell, yeah. He wanted to know everything. He had so many questions, he couldn’t begin to formulate just one. They all jumbled together in his head until the noise was too great.
She must have sensed his confusion because she went quiet, still. As if she was afraid to make any sudden movements around him.
Christ, he didn’t want to scare her. He’d never hurt her. He didn’t want her to worry. He wanted her to— Well, he just wanted her.
Need for her clawed at his guts, made his cock hard and his mouth dry.
“Brandon.”
“I don’t even know where to start.” He shook his head, then couldn’t stop. “Jesus, this is fucked up.”
Her smile slipped away. “I know it must seem that way to you. I’m sorry. I never meant for this to happen. You were never to know. I screwed up and I’m sorry.”
Shit. He heard the implication in her tone. The only reason he’d remember her was because she’d done something wrong with her spell last night, the one that had wiped out his memories. She’d already said she wouldn’t make that mistake again.
“You’re planning to take away my memories again, aren’t you?”
Her chin tilted and she looked him straight in the eyes without answering. He took that for a yes.
Finally she dropped her gaze. “This time you won’t remem—”
Cupping her face in his hands, he pressed his mouth on hers and kissed her. The impulse was impossible to control, more like an imperative. One that wiped out every other thought in his brain.
Pushing his tongue into her mouth, he inhaled her.
He remembered her taste from last night, the dark, sweet flavor that flooded his senses and threatened to take him under, make him lose all control.
He tried to rein it in, to repress the base instinct to dominate, but he couldn’t. Not when her arms came around his shoulders as she kissed him back, sighing into his mouth. Heat pulsed through his body, his muscles tightening with lust.
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