by Lia Davis
Forcing my attention back to my book, I tried to appear like I wasn't affected by him. But it was so darn hard. His scent wrapped around me and made my lady parts ache for his touch.
Harper and Noah made their presences known, obviously sensing my emotions through our bond. They each took a seat on the arms of my comfy chair—Harper on my left and Noah on my right.
Gino watched them with amusement and sat in the chair across from us. "We do need to talk about this mating."
Yes, I knew that. And right then seemed like a good time because who knew what would happen in the coming days. "I know nothing about you. My dad is obviously against this. Why is that?"
Harper added, "Or why not start with the rumors that your family is the witch mob?"
Gino flicked his gaze to Harper then back to me. "My family does have a reputation. We don't engage in illegal activities. We take care of our own and punish those who deserve it."
I raised my brows. "Please enlighten me."
A ghost of a smile formed on his face, making me react viscerally. Darn him. I squeezed my thighs together.
"Witches are not without their rogues. Magic can be an addictive power, especially dark magic. We take care of the rogues, eliminating the threat before it gets out of hand." He shrugged as if it was that simple.
Yeah, right. There was so much more to his words. "So, your family is like the rogue hunters of the witches?"
"Not technically." He leaned forward in his seat and my wolf danced around, eager to get close to him. "We don't hunt them. If a situation is brought to our attention we take care of the problem. Many times that is done as a favor."
"So people come to you with a problem and for a favor, you take care of it." I frowned. That sounded way too familiar. "That's pretty much mob behavior."
Gino's mouth lifted in a full, panty-wetting smile. "But isn't your grandfather the original mob boss?"
Yeah. He had a point there. Darn him.
Standing, Gino held out his hand. "Come walk with me?"
Harper and Noah tensed. I knew they didn't want me out of sight. After all, they'd been my sentries since we were young teens. Mom and the niswi had thought it'd be a good idea to place a few sentries with my sisters and I that were close to our age. That way we'd be friends as they trained with us and with the other sentries to protect us.
Standing, I faced them. "I'll be fine. Gino is my mate and so can't harm me."
He could, but if he wanted to stay alive, he wouldn't. Plus Poppy would make sure Gino's soul suffered after death.
Shaking out of that last thought, I focused on Noah and Harper. "I'll see you at dinner?"
They both glared at Gino but nodded. Harper said, "We're going to check in with Randall and get some training in."
She stood and pressed a kiss to my lips, lingering for a moment before stepping back. Noah drew me into a hug. I rested my cheek to his chest and sighed. His wolf was restless but calmed as I hugged him. Lifting my gaze to his I said, "I'll be okay."
Noah grunted but kissed my forehead before releasing me. Then they left the library.
"They care for you." It wasn't a question.
Nodding, I faced Gino. "They're my mates and the bond is new."
Gino nodded and held out his arm, bent at the elbow, to me. "Shall we?"
I looped my arm in his and allowed him to direct me out of the library. A walkway out the back of the hotel led to a beautiful garden. It was something out of a fairytale. Blue, purple, yellow, and red flowers bloomed all around us, and they seemed to sparkle in the sunlight. "This is amazing." I touched a pale green flower and it shrank in on itself. When I drew my hand away, it bloomed again. "They're magical?" We had a small magical garden at home, maintained by a witch-friend of my mom's, but it was nothing this grand.
"I thought you'd like it," Gino said with a smile.
I narrowed my eyes at him. "Are you trying to seduce me?"
His internal magic sparked in his chocolate eyes. "Is it working?"
Tugging me to him, he wrapped an arm around me, pressing our bodies together. I sucked in a breath at the contact as my body lit up like a Christmas tree. Flattening my palms to his chest, I locked gazes with him. "Maybe."
A low chuckle escaped him. Then his expression turned serious, but he didn't let go of me. "You're mine, Ami."
As he was mine, but I didn't tell him that. Pushing against his chest, I said, "We'll see." When his grip didn't budge, I raised an eyebrow.
He released me, not that he had a choice, and I remained where I was instead of putting distance between us like I made him think I wanted. Actually what I wanted was to strip him naked and...
Shaking out of that thought, I stared into his dark gaze. There was a question bugging me since I saw him at Elijah's funnel. "How do you know Elijah's family?"
Something dark clouded his features, and he turned so I stared at his profile. An ache formed in my chest. Several moments went by before Gino answered. "Elijah was my lover." His raw voice held truth.
I opened my mouth and closed it. "I didn't know he was seeing anyone." Let alone, my mate. Did that mean he was gay? What if he wasn't sexually attracted to me. I already had a bond like that with Phenex. It might not have been so bad, except for the fact that I was horny for him.
"Elijah wasn't open with his sexuality. We weren't fated mates as far as I knew, but I cared for him deeply." The break in his voice triggered my tears.
When I sniffed, Gino snapped his attention back to me. I waved him off then hugged my waist. "My sisters and I loved Elijah like a brother. He was family and our sentry."
Before I took my next breath, Gino enveloped me in his arms. I hugged him back, burying my face into his shirt. "He saved my mom's life."
He lifted my chin so our gazes locked. "It was his job. All of us knew if it came down to it, he'd do what it took to protect the High Alpha and her princesses."
"It still doesn't make it any easier." My vision blurred.
Gino swiped a tear from my cheek, then slid his hand to the base of my neck. He lowered his head, and I held my breath in anticipation of how his lips would feel. When he brushed his lips against mine, I groaned and flattened my body to his while standing on my toes. Desire flood my senses, making me dizzy with need. My wolf howled in triumph. My inner vampire wanted to taste him.
All of us were thrilled he wasn't gay. Bi we could deal with.
Sliding his hands down my back and cupping my butt cheeks, he lifted me. I wrapped my legs around his waist as he slipped his tongue into my mouth. I met it halfway with my own.
I sensed Meda as she approached and broke the kiss. Gino and I glanced at her, noting the smirk on her face. Wiggling, I loosened my legs from around Gino, and he lowered me to the ground.
Meda studied Gino for a moment before looking at me. "Phenex wants to work with us on learning to connect our powers without our elements."
I made a face before I realized had. "I thought we were going to get settled in."
"And we are." Meda turned and walked away. I could tell that she wasn't happy about training right then either.
With a sigh, I faced Gino. "I'm sorry."
He caressed my cheek with his knuckles. "We will pick up where we left off." Then he kissed me soft and quick on the lips.
Good grief, my Italian witch was hot.
Chapter Nine
My time with Gino left me feeling unsatisfied and hopeful. Not exactly the best frame of mind to spar. But Phenex was right. We had to connect without our elemental powers or we'd never get them back. How else did we have any hope of defeating Trinity and restoring our power to their rightful places if we couldn't connect any other way?
"Gino, we'll talk later, okay?" I smiled at him, glad we'd taken the time to connect. "Maybe you'd be okay with staying with me, Harper, and Noah tonight. I'd like for them to get to know you better, too."
My newest mate flashed me a wide grin. "That's been awkward so far. Harper never did like me hanging around Elijah either."<
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"She's not going to have much choice in the matter now," I said with a laugh. "Mates aren't exactly something you can ignore."
He nodded. "Yeah. I'll go fill in my parents." He walked away with an expression on his face that let me know he had no real desire to tell his parents anything.
Meda waited for me in the lobby. "You okay?" she asked as Tala exited the elevator.
"Yeah. We talked, and we're going to do what we can to work it out. What else can we do?" I shrugged.
"Gino?" Tala asked.
Nodding, I turned toward the door.
"He seems like a cocky ass," she said bluntly.
Tala had always been the most abrasive of us. She'd always been the one to say the wrong thing at the wrong time, in the wrong way. Usually, I could forgive her, given her empath problem. She couldn't handle all those emotions, so she blocked them off.
Unfortunately, all too often, it made her a total bitch. "Tala, you don't know him at all."
She raised her eyebrows at me as we pushed the tinted glass doors open and walked out into the breezy afternoon air. "What's to know? You can't say he's not cocky."
"I can say that." I jutted out my chin. "Where are we doing this?"
Meda pointed toward the other side of the boardwalk. "Phenex told me to meet him down the beach. Away from everyone." We nodded at people we'd known all our lives, people Meda would one day rule. Waving at kids and acquaintances, we walked quickly so nobody would try to stop us and talk. We'd learned that trick early on. Wave and look busy.
A cat darted across the boardwalk in front of us with a tiny vampire chasing after it.
I felt the moment my sisters realized we'd forgotten Marvin. Because my stomach dropped at the same moment. "Marvin," we gasped in unison.
I clapped my hand over my mouth.
Tala scrunched her eyes shut. "How could we forget Marvin?"
Tears sprang to Meda's eyes. She'd bonded with him more than Tala or me. "We have to go back for him."
Phenex interrupted us as we stepped onto the sand. "Go back for who?"
I hadn't realized he was behind us and his voice made me jump out of my skin.
"Marvin," Meda said. "Our cat."
"Ah, yes. The furball. I'm sure he's perfectly fine." Phenex didn't sound worried. "Does he have access to the outdoors?"
"No, he's an inside cat," I murmured. "He'll have enough dry food in his bowl for the day, but then he'd have nothing to eat." I looked up at him with big eyes. "He'll starve."
Meda and Tala stopped and turned to face Phenex. The three of us knew exactly what we were doing. We'd done it so many times over the years to our niswi that it had become like second nature.
Big eyes, puffy lips, innocent expressions.
It worked on our mates as easily as it did our parents.
Well, not our mom. It never worked on her. She just rolled her eyes. We'd learned early not to bother with her. She saw reason and facts, not pitiful expressions.
"I'll go get him. Tonight, after your practice." We gave him a triple-watt smile, all of us relieved to hear he'd go get our sweet kitty. It wasn't easy, all three of us hugging him at the same time, but we managed it. He practically purred with the contact.
"Okay, okay." He laughed and disentangled himself from our clutches. "Come on. We need to go down the beach until we're well separated from the crowd, then try to get you girls some power flowing."
As we started down the beach, I had to stop and slip off my sandals, letting my toes sink into the warm sand. The warm wind off the water lifted my hair, teasing me and mocking the fact that I couldn't harness it.
I felt so heavy since I lost my air. Before, my body was light, limber. The expression 'floating on air' was literal for me.
Not now. The earth had a grip on me, holding me close like she'd never let me feel the rush of my element.
When Phenex thought he'd gone far enough, he stopped and faced us. "You have the power and energy of every living thing around you. Plus, you can connect to your inherent power from Hell. Not to mention the power each of you was born with, which is not a small amount."
Harper and Noah moved closer to me, I felt them in the back of my mind, growing slowly closer. I knew they couldn't let me be away from them for long. Though, now that I thought about it, they probably thought I was this far away with Gino. Whoops. Reaching out to them, I tried to reassure them, but Tala interrupted me. "Ami, why don't you try connecting with Hell?" She put one hand on her hip. "Maybe if you'd been able to when Trinity came, we wouldn't be in this mess."
"Is it my fault it was closed off to me? How could you blame me?" No way that was my fault. Just because they were born before me, didn't give either of them the right to think they were any better than me. Sure, they sparred more, but Meda was better at that than Tala. Neither of them were as good at their studies as I was, and like Tala said before, I'd likely do better with the magic than either of them. They were too into the physical side of our gifts.
Tala opened her mouth, and by the expression on her face, she wasn't going to say anything nice.
"No, but if we'd had time to practice this, maybe it wouldn't have ended the way it did," Meda said, cutting Tala off.
"Well, it did. And I didn't see either of you lifting a finger to stop her from doing it," I said, more acid in my tone than I'd intended.
"Ladies," Phenex said. "We are in an extremely high-tension situation. The last thing you three need to do is turn on one another."
He was right. I sighed, looking at Tala. "He's right."
She bristled, and I knew whatever was going to come out of her mouth, it wouldn't be an apology. "It doesn't make it less true. Why don't you try to connect to hell?" She tossed her hair in a very Tala fashion. Only she could make a head movement look sarcastic. "See if you can do it now."
"Fine," I said through gritted teeth as Harper and Noah moved ever closer. They were going pretty fast. I wasn't sure if they felt my anger and unsteady emotions, or they just didn't trust Gino to have me so far away from them.
I ignored them and focused on the part of me that was connected to Poppy. It helped me find the connection to Hell, and try to tap into those powers.
They opened up to me with ease this time. "Maybe Trinity managed to block my connection somehow," I said. "When she got our powers."
The power flowed into me, and as Meda and Tala connected to me, it moved through me into them.
"Or maybe you struggled to perform under pressure," Tala said under her breath.
I let go of the power abruptly, yanking it out of my sisters in the process. The sudden loss of the magic left them both reeling. "What the fuck, Ami?" Tala said.
"Ami, I know she's being especially crude today," Meda said in a bossy tone. "But that's no reason to drop the magic like that. It hurt."
She rubbed at her chest as she lectured.
"I'm struggling," I said. "I was struggling with the loss of my air, but at the moment it's with being gracious toward the two of you." My normally sweet and kind voice came out waspish. I didn't like it.
"Me?" Meda asked in outrage. "What did I do?"
"Boss, boss, boss," Tala said, then blew a raspberry. "You were born first, do you have to remind us of it every second of every day?"
Meda's jaw dropped, but before she could retaliate, Tala turned to me. "And you. Grow a damn backbone once in a while, would you? God. There's more to life than what's in a book."
Narrowing my eyes on her, I opened the connection to Hell again, but only a minuscule amount. Grabbing a thread of Hell power, I used it to whip at Tala, essentially slapping her in the face with it.
She stumbled backward with a gasp. "Ami," she hissed. "How dare you?"
"You're the one that wanted backbone! Deal with it."
She moved her hands as if to command her water to do her bidding, but of course, it didn't come. Her face reddened and the next thing I knew, my head snapped back as I was hit by a...something, right in the nose.
/> Squealing, I opened the flow of power more, ready to knock her on her sarcastic ass.
"Enough," Phenex thundered. I cut off the flow of power and looked at him, panting. "What is wrong with the three of you?"
I looked at my sisters, but my anger wouldn't dissipate. With a growl, I whirled and stalked down the beach in the direction we'd come.
I spotted Harper and Noah, running full speed toward me, but I didn't stop or even slow when they reached me. As soon as my sisters were out of sight, I yanked my shorts and tee off, stripping down to my lacy pink bra and panties. Then I walked into the ocean, ignoring Harper and Noah's calls. I heard Noah sigh. "Rock, paper, scissors for who goes after her?" he asked.
I kept going. They could come or not. A few laps in the warm, salty water might help calm me down. If not, I'd find Tala and slap her for real.
Chapter Ten
I floated on the water and tried to pretend it was my air flowing around me, holding me up. What the hell was wrong with us? Sure, we fight as all sisters do, but we'd never gone at each other like that. Not with that level of venom.
And I was still pissed that they turned on me, blaming me for not connecting to Hell. They had the ability to do so as much as I did. Why couldn't they tap into it?
I sensed Noah moments before he reached out and touched my hand. I lowered myself to tread water, but he pulled me to him, hugging me close. "I've never felt so much anger from you. It was like it wasn't you at all. Too much darkness."
I pulled back and studied his features. He was right. "Do you think it might be the same curse that's blocking our elements causing a mood shift?"
He shrugged. "It's possible. I'm not familiar with curses and magic. All I know is Harper and I felt it, and it was dark. Like it was fueling your anger. And it would be something Trinity would do to keep you and your sisters from combining your powers."
That was plausible. And very much something Trinity would do to weaken us. A very small part of me wanted to rush off and tell Meda and Tala about Noah's theory. But the larger part didn't want to see them anytime soon. Tala had said some hurtful things. I got angrier thinking about it.
