Seduced and Enchanted (14 page)

When his dad stepped back, Rio saw his second-oldest brother Nino talking to Cam. Ellie, Nino’s mate, gave him a quick kiss and a hug before she headed off to the bedroom where Stella sat with Rosie.

Only Teo was missing—

The front door opened one more time and Teo walked through. Shaggy brown hair curling around his face, hazel eyes taking in everything.

Teo got the same treatment from his mom and dad, got the head nods from Cam and Nino. Then they all turned to him.

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Stephanie Julian

“So, Rio,” his mom smiled, “why don’t you introduce us to your mate? Then we can get this show on the road.”

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Laying one last kiss on Rosie’s cool brow, Rio took a deep breath.

Adrenaline ran through his veins like broken glass, clearing his head of everything but what he had to do.

“I’ll be back, babe,” he whispered in her ear, hoping she could hear him, even though she seemed almost frozen in time. “I won’t let you down.”

When he stood, he looked at his dad, standing by the bed with Nino and Teo. All had swords. They were staying behind to guard Rosie and the other women while he—

Cam laid a hand on Rio’s shoulder.

“You stay close, Rio, when we get there.” Cam hefted his sword in his right hand.

“Mom’ll take it out of my ass if anything happens to you.”

“Camillus, language.” Their mom’s eyebrows shot up, even though they all could see she was tired. And scared.

For the past hour, Tana had labored over Cam’s moon bowl in his altar room, scrying for the
bergoia
, just in case the three
gianes
wouldn’t be able to track it. Because their mother was better at that spell than any of her children or her husband, she’d insisted on performing it herself, even though the
bergoia
could possibly create a link back to Tana and attack.

But they all knew Tana was damn good at what she did. She’d found the beast but what she’d seen had made Rio’s skin crawl.

“Why the hell didn’t they call us? We’ve got to go now. Her godmothers aren’t going to last long.”

The moon bowl had shown the women in their home, sparks flying as they threw spells at the
bergoia
. Vivian had blood running from her nose and ears and Lora’s arm 107

Stephanie Julian

bent at a weird angle, but Fanny had a wand out and was blasting the thing with bursts of pale blue electricity.

“They must have drawn the
bergoia
out and it went straight for them. Revenge is big with that beast,” Cam muttered.

“Don’t care. Get us there. Now,” Rio ordered.

Cam nodded.

Sword heavy in his hand, Rio took a deep breath then another as he closed his eyes and felt his body disintegrate. The next thing he knew, he was standing in the entrance hall of Rosie’s home just as the creature caught Fanny across the jaw with one of its claws. She stumbled backward and fell to the floor.

He didn’t have time to check strategy with Cam. He went straight for the beast.

Sword raised at chest level, he swung straight out. But the beast hissed and broke to the side with an inhuman speed before it parried with a slash of those lethal claws.

They fought in silence, only the sound of Rio’s breathing becoming heavier and heavier as they battled. Rosie’s godmothers hadn’t yet regrouped and Rio realized Cam was nowhere to be seen. The damn wards the godmothers had around the house must have kept him out.

“Rio, you need to cut off its head,” Vivian called to him from the other side of the hall as she crawled toward Lora, who looked unconscious.

“I can’t,” he yelled as he lifted the sword to defend himself against the broadsword the beast had manifested in its hand.

“You won’t win this battle,” the
bergoia
hissed through its teeth. “The girl will never wake again.” At Vivian’s soft cry, the beast’s mouth curved in a cruel grin. “She’s dropped into twilight sleep. She’ll stay there forever. There is no way for you to bring her back.”

Rio tried not to listen. The beast would say anything to hurt them, to weaken them.

Without responding to its taunts, he leaped forward and engaged it again, looking for a 108

Seduced and Enchanted

weak spot. Cam and his dad had taught him how to use a sword, had drilled him from the age of ten when he could finally lift his dad’s
gladius
and swing it. He’d never imagined having to use those skills. Not in a world where guns, self-defense training or a decent spell could take care of most everything.

But now, with only himself between Rosie’s three injured godmothers and a nightmare creature that couldn’t be killed in any of the regular ways, he sent out a silent prayer to the gods. The weight of finding a cure for the woman he loved was squarely on his shoulders and by Uni, he would live up to the challenge.

The beast took advantage of his momentary pause to attack again. It swiped for his head, a move that Rio parried with the sword, but it followed up with a punch to his gut. He twisted away but it still caught him just below the ribs, not hard enough to be fatal but it hurt like a bitch. And really pissed him off.

They fought, the
bergoia
testing him, trying to wear him down. Though the beast had been a human
strega
upon death, it had made a deal with Charun, the Etruscan God of Death. It had given the god a blood sacrifice and Charun had allowed it to return to the living world as a
bergoia
.

But the god had a bitter sense of humor.

Though the
bergoia
retained its human intelligence, it was mostly animal now. It thought like a human, with cunning shining in its eyes, but it fought like an animal—straightforward and with no forethought other than to win.

Rio fought with every trick his dad and Cam had taught him but he hadn’t gotten close enough to the
bergoia
to even think about laying his hands on the thing and reading its mind. Without Cam, he needed to come up with another plan. He couldn’t count on Rosie’s godmothers to help. From the corner of his eye, he saw Vivian and Fanny trying to revive Lora. But he couldn’t help them now. He needed his entire concentration focused on the beast.

If he could only get it close to the wall then maybe he could shove his sword through it and pin it there. The iron blade should keep the
bergoia
from magically 109

Stephanie Julian

transporting away. Right now it thought it had a winning chance so it wasn’t about to leave.

And that, Rio decided, was the creature’s failing. It didn’t even consider that it could lose. That was how he’d beat it.

Rio let himself get a little slower with each parry. Falling back into a defensive position, he took a step backward then another. The
bergoia
’s mouth curled in a snarl. It got ready to come in for the kill. But when it pounced, Rio was prepared.

The
bergoia
aimed high, expecting Rio to block so that it could try for his stomach.

Rio took a calculated risk. He ducked, lowered the sword and stabbed straight through the beast. The
bergoia
caught him in the head with the back of its fist, making his ears ring, but Rio continued to force it backward.

It was hissing and screeching as it hit the wall. Its arms flailed wildly, its claws only millimeters from his skin. Its head thrashed from side to side. Still Rio kept pushing the sword through its body until the tip hit the solid oak paneling on the wall, holding it in place like a bug on a pin.

As soon as it was stuck there securely, Rio reached out and grabbed both of the beast’s arms, pinning them to the wall. Then he held on.

Rage hit him like a two-ton truck. Black and bitter and all consuming. The
bergoia
lived in an eternal well of hatred. All the wrongs—real or imagined—that had ever been done to it during its life ran on a constant loop in its mind. It fed the beast’s anger, kept it in a constant state of fury. The fact that Rio could read its thoughts pissed it off even more.

Single-minded in its determination to get away, it fought with the strength of two men. Rio held on. Bits and pieces of its human life filtered through—spell-casting, rituals under the moon, running through dark alleys with someone close on her heels.

Terror, anger, despair—a mess of emotion that made it so fucking hard for him to find what he needed. The cure for Rosie.

But he wouldn’t give up, his determination lending strength to his arms.

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Deeper, he had to go deeper into its mind. With a steadying breath, he pushed all his fear and anxiety back, closed his eyes and fell into the beast’s mind.

The
bergoia
went wild. It fought with everything, its fear making it stronger. Rio felt blood drip down his face from a scalp wound and from the gash in his side where the beast had caught him with its sword. And still he held on.

Because he saw something, something the
bergoia
didn’t want him to see, something the
bergoia
had hidden, maybe even from itself. It made Rio laugh in pure relief.

With a motion faster than any he would have believed himself capable of yesterday, he released the creature, grabbed the sword and pulled it free.

Before the beast had time to take even a few steps, Rio swung the sword through its neck, watching with a detached sense of awe as the head separated and fell to the floor.

He took one deep breath.

And passed out.

* * * * *

Rio regained consciousness in stages. First was his sense of feeling—and with it, mind-numbing pain. His entire body ached as if the flesh had been stripped off the bones. He really hoped that wasn’t the case.

He must have passed out again, because the next time he woke he could hear as well as feel. That wasn’t much better, because Rosie’s godmothers were taking him to task.

“What if you’d gotten yourself killed?” Lora asked. “What would our Rosie have done then?”

“Foolish boy,” Fanny tsked. “Brave but foolish. Lucky for you, Vivian is a decent healer or you’d have bled out all over our floor.”

Finally he got his eyes to cooperate and focused them enough to see Vivian’s ageless face above his.

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“Now leave him alone, you two, or I’m going to banish you.” Vivian smiled down at him. “I think you were very brave, Rio. And more than a match for our Rosie. How are you feeling?”

Before he could answer, Cam spoke from somewhere out of his sight range. “He better be feeling awful, because if you’re not, you’re going to wish you were. Goddamn it, Rio. I’m going to kick your ass for being so reckless. I was stuck outside because of the damn wards. Apparently they’re designed to only let Rosie’s soul mate through.”

Cam shot a quick glance in Vivian’s direction then continued, “If anything had happened to you, Mom would have never—”

“Christ, Cam, give me a break.” Rio wanted to lift his hand to brush away his brother’s anger but decided against it. Just thinking about moving his muscles hurt.

“You would have done the same damn thing.”

Cam took several seconds to digest that. “Yeah, I would have. Shit, Rio, you could have been killed.”

Rio blinked a few more times, getting his eyesight back to normal so he could locate Cam. His brother stood next to a pile of ashes. That must be what was left of the
bergoia
.

Cam must have burned the body with a spell. “Thanks for cleaning up after me, dude.”

Cam just shook his head as he walked over to Rio. “You better have what you needed from that thing, because the only place it’s going is the landfill.”

Carefully, with Vivian’s arm around his shoulders, he sat up, anxious to get back to Rosie.

“I got what I needed. No one can help Rosie but me. Now transport me back.”

Vivian nodded as if she understood but Cam’s gaze narrowed. “Are you su—”

“I’m sure. Just do it.” Rio stood, already feeling better. Vivian’s healing magic had obviously taken care of the worst of his wounds. Sure, he’d be sore for a while but those tiny aches and pains couldn’t compare to the one in his heart. He had to get back to Rosie. Right now.

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Cam’s lips curved up in a brief imitation of a smile. His brother didn’t say anything.

He just reached out, laid his hand on Rio’s shoulder and took them back to his house.

His dad was the first to notice them. He crossed the space from the couch at a flat run.

“Rio, son…” Lucumo’s worried expression told Rio he still didn’t look too good, but he didn’t care. He needed to see Rosie.

“I’m fine, Dad. Is she okay?”

“Oh Rio.” His mother emerged from the back bedroom. “Are you hurt?” She ran her hands over his shoulders and down his arms. “Camillus, is he okay? What happened?”

Rio gave his mom a quick peck on the cheek but didn’t stop on his way to the bedroom.

“Rosie’s godmothers are probably going to be here in a few seconds, Mom. Keep them company please. But don’t let them into the room. Actually it’d probably be better if you all leave. We’re going to need some privacy to break the spell.”

He didn’t wait for his mom to answer. He had to see Rosie. He vaguely heard Cam say something to their mother but he couldn’t make out the words.

Teo stood in the doorway, his gaze assessing. “No change. Hope the
bergoia
looks worse than you do, bro.”

“If by worse you mean a pile of ashes then, yeah, it does.”

He moved into the back bedroom, past Nino who had his own sword in one hand.

Stella and Ellie sat next to the bed. Both got up to give him a quick hug.

“Guys, I can’t thank you enough for watching over her.” He turned around for a brief second to acknowledge his family then he focused on Rosie, and her alone. “But for what I need to do, I don’t think Rosie’s going to want an audience.”

Nino’s eyebrows lifted but Ellie smiled and began to drag her mate out of the room.

Before she closed the door behind all of them, she said, “Don’t worry, Rio. I’ll make sure 113