Long Shadows: The Lycanthropy Files, Book 2 (24 page)

 
“No,” he said. “I am
Benandanti
come from a different line. You are the direct descendent of the sorceress. She was clever and transferred the price to the females of her line so the monks wouldn’t take them.”

“Did she do something else to curse him in return?”

“Yes, it was the combination of her adjustment to his spell, her anger at his charging too high a price for getting rid of the evil witch, and the other one’s venom that caused him to turn vengeful and hunt the good witch’s descendants throughout eternity. He will only be free if he can capture the soul of one of you on its way to its final place, but he cannot be the one to kill you.”

“So what is your role in all of this? You said you’re from a different line.”

 
“It is up to us to watch your family and train those as necessary when it happens. That is how I knew your aunt. She had trouble finding her guardian.”

Tears came to my eyes, and I didn’t even try to suppress them. “So you never really fell for me. You’re only a family tutor to make sure I don’t mess up.”

“You are wrong again. I do care for you very much. I did not like having to lie to you.”

“So all the drinking…”

“I was going into my trance to also become a spirit wolf and ensure you were not putting yourself in danger as you learned how to be what you are.”

“Why didn’t you tell me sooner?”

“You are the one who dislikes what you are. I did not want you to hate me too.”

I narrowed my eyes, sure he was leaving something out. “And why else?”

“Because my vow is to protect you and others from witches and sorcerers who would do them harm.” He took my hand. “You already had the mark of one on you. Now a second one has touched you. I wish I had never made that second promise.”

I thought about when Max put the mark on my foot. My face must have matched the color of the tomato sauce. “What second promise?”

He shook his head. “Part of it was to keep it a secret.”

“Fine. Okay, you’re right about the mark. I allowed a wizard named Maximilian to put one on me so he would know I’m in danger.”

“I sense no malice in that. The wizard Maximilian, although not a friend to our kind, is not our enemy like other wizards. I am more concerned about someone else, the one who wielded the tranquilizer gun.”

“How did you…” My mouth fell open. “You were following me the whole time!”

He nodded, his face serious again. “And I counted on the Crystal Pines pack to protect you. They failed.”

“You will not hurt them,” I said and stood. “Do you know how much we’ve needed someone like you to help us, to guide us? We’re novices at this werewolf thing.”

“Lonna, I want to, but I cannot teach your whole pack because…” His fingers tightened on mine, but I yanked them away.

“Because…”

He only shrugged. “Others would consider them not worthy. You have been insulated from werewolf politics, and many are angry at these newcomers.”

“How dare you pass judgment? It’s not like it was our fault. And you’ve deceived me from the beginning.”

“I was under orders,” he said with a rueful smile. “I have a vow of obedience to follow.”

I paced to the window to put physical distance between the two of us and clenched my left fist until my fingernails pricked my palm. “Well, you obviously didn’t make one of chastity.”

“We broke from the church long ago. Celibacy doesn’t sit too well with the wolf nature, as you know.”

The heat in my face and cheeks increased to molten. “Get out. I can’t think with you being all hot and Italian over there.”

He walked behind me and caressed one shoulder while pushing my hair away from my neck. I stilled and willed myself not to lean into him. He grazed my neck with his teeth, and the sharpness of his canines startled me. There was some physical stirring in my belly and between my legs, but not as much as I expected.

“You’ve been holding back, Giancarlo,” I said to cover up my bewildering lack of response.
Don’t tell me Max has ruined me for other guys. We didn’t even have sex!
But thinking of him brought my parts to attention, and I closed my eyes.

“Denying one’s true nature can do that,
Bellissima
. I will love you as you’ve needed me to, as I couldn’t before now without revealing myself.”

Just stop talking…
A flickering light caught my attention and made me open my eyes. The street lamps outside my window were blinking on and off in random patterns. It was like a splash of cold water.

“Giancarlo, the lights!”

He growled, but stopped caressing me and looked outside.

“Who is it?”

“A wizard who wants to harm you.” He buried his face in my hair.
 

“No shit.” The lights went out, and the world outside was plunged into darkness. Thick clouds covered the waning moon.

“We must move away from the window. Then I will change and confront him for you.”

I shook my head. “Thanks, sweetie, but this is my fight.” As much as I hated to do it with my whole being acutely aware of his proximity and needing
something
to release the sexual tension of the past few days, I pushed him away and walked toward the door, where I turned off the lights. Now the only illumination came from the flickering candles on the table.

He caught my arm. “I am sworn to protect you. You cannot go out there alone.”

I opened my mouth to argue, but he was right. With such a vague threat—flickering lights could mean Max, after all—I wasn’t feeling in enough danger to change, so I definitely was in no shape to confront anyone. “Fine. I can’t change, anyway.”

It was Giancarlo’s turn to frown, and he looked sinister in the candlelight. “Not even with the aconite?”

“No, not unless I feel I’m in mortal danger.”
 

“Oh,
Bellissima
, what happened to you?” He traced my jaw with his fingertips.

“I wish I knew. It was something in the tranquilizer dart in the woods, some sort of medication that messes with brain chemistry. I don’t know what’s worse, that I can only change if I feel my life is in danger, or that I can’t talk to Wolf-Lonna anymore.”

Giancarlo said something in Italian that I’m pretty sure his mother would have washed his mouth out with soap for. “Then you definitely can’t fight them. They have separated you from your guardian. That is not good.”

“Right. Because the evil
Benandanti
might be able to claim my soul. But why can’t I fight?”

“You cannot fight in a centuries-old war as half a person,
Bellissima
.”

“Wait a second… A war?”

“
Si
. The wizards and wolves have been at war for centuries. That’s why there are so few families of mixed blood.”

Something in Aunt Alicia’s diary came back to me about how she and my mother used procedures and props that sounded like spells to ensure I wouldn’t share Aunt Alicia’s fate. “But I’m part of one of them.”

Giancarlo took my hand. “I have much to explain to you, but first I must go outside and ensure you are not threatened.”

He went into a back bedroom, and a minute later, a black wolf came out. Even with a canine face, his eyes sparkled with good humor.

“Do not let anyone else in while I am gone
,
”
he cautioned, and then slipped out the door, which I locked behind him.

I shook my head.
Trust an Italian to talk about food and battle at the same time. And probably love too.
 

I cleared the table and brought the plates and candles into the kitchen. Putting up leftovers and washing dishes gave my hands something to do while my mind and my heart warred it out over the situation I was now in. No one was there with me, so I talked out loud since making things external can bring clarity. That was one of the reasons I wished there was a therapist somewhere who could help me with this bizarre situation.

“There probably is in Europe,” I muttered. “Perhaps I’ll just pop over there for the weekend. It would be better than staying here and letting Giancarlo fight my battles for me.”

To distract myself from my frustration and heartbreak, I imagined what a European jaunt to find other werewolves would be like. “Who to take? Giancarlo or Max?” My mind sifted through mental postcards of things that hadn’t yet happened, and I couldn’t help but notice it put Giovanni in aviator sunglasses standing in front of monuments and famous places and Max in more intimate settings, like cafes and a bed with rumpled sheets and breakfast in bed trays.

“Stop that,” I told it. “He’s not interested. He’s still mourning his Lady Simpet.

“Oh, he’s interested. Kisses don’t lie. At least that’s what Motown and all the other music people say.

“Well, he’s got his issues with us. Giancarlo is handsome and interested, and he’s a lot more psychologically attractive now that I know he’s not an alcoholic. He’s also inclined to give me a lot more information than Max.

“Yeah, but he was also in on the ‘keep Lonna from knowing what she is’ plan until just recently.

“I was also using him.” I cringed to say it, but it was true. He’d been an almost normal boyfriend and a fixture in my almost normal life. “I wonder what’s taking him so long and if I should fix coffee for the tiramisu.”

“Is there enough for three?” asked a voice I’d resigned myself to never hearing again.

Chapter Twenty

I dropped a plate, which didn’t break but did splatter tomato sauce all over the floor. “Max, son of a bitch, do you have to scare me every single time?”

I glared at the seagull who now perched on the countertop. It shimmered and expanded, and he stood beside me.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I forgot about your exaggerated startle response. Let me clean that up.”

“What are you doing here?” I asked and handed him a wad of damp paper towels.

“Cleaning your kitchen,” he replied. “I also sensed you’re in danger, so I pulled off the road at a rest stop, and here I am.” He looked around. “Is there danger here to anything but your health? Remember, your cholesterol is high.”

“Fuck my cholesterol, I’m still having the tiramisu. Oh, and the lights outside were blinking and then went dark. Giancarlo, with whom I was having a nice dinner, went to check it out.”

“Your aunt’s friend,” he said, his tone neutral.

“Yes, him.”

“Is he something more to you?”

I turned away to hide my smile. He kept his inflection perfectly formal and polite, but I heard an undercurrent of jealousy.
Or maybe that’s wishful thinking.

A scratching at the door alerted me that Giancarlo wanted back in.

“Perhaps I should install a doggie door,” I said when I opened the front door.

“How degrading. Wizard!”
He launched himself at Max, who had come out of the kitchen. Max tumbled to the side and out of sight, and as a seagull, flapped up to the counter and then to the top of a bookshelf, from where he glared at the snarling wolf below.

“He’s not a threat, Giancarlo. That’s the wizard Maximilian. You said you knew him.”

“Knew of him. Why is he here?”

“He sensed I was in danger. Go back to the bedroom and change, and you can tell me what you discovered, and we can figure out where to go from here.”

“My
Bellissima
, she is a take-charge woman, no?”
he asked the seagull, who ruffled his feathers. I’m not sure if that was an agreement or an “I’m not talking to you” gesture. Giancarlo didn’t seem insulted. He went into the back bedroom to change back and dress, and Max landed on the floor and returned to his human form.

“All this shifting is a bit confusing,” I said. “Do you know who might be out there?”

“I would guess Henry and his crew, although street lamps aren’t his style. Perhaps Carrigan decided to come fetch you and take you into custody for your protection.”

“I’m not going,” I told him.

“Would you rather spend your life in fear worrying about every little light flicker or bit of radio static?”

I recalled the strange behavior of the lights in the breezeways and the radio static when he’d first come into my life. Before I could answer, Giancarlo—fully dressed— returned to the room and put his arm around my waist.

“She has no need of fear, wizard. She has a protector.”

I couldn’t believe his behavior, but it wasn’t exactly unwarranted considering we’d not officially broken up.

Max arched an eyebrow. “And what, exactly, are you protecting her from? Did you find anything out there?”

Giancarlo shifted his gaze. “Only that the air smelled of the ocean, which is odd since we are in a landlocked state.”

“Henry,” Max and I said at the same time.

“But why would he be hanging around?” I asked. “He seems to be the ‘barge in and take what he wants’ kind of guy.”

“Perhaps he is observing you or testing your defenses.”

“Or perhaps it was Carrigan coming to get me and backing off when you appeared because he thinks you’re going to haul me in.”