Seduced and Ensnared (5 page)

“Nino,
ciao
, man. I’ll call you later.”

“Aw shit. Give me a cha—”

But Cam had already closed his eyes and sent his brother back to his own home before Nino could finish his sentence.

From across the room, he heard Stella gasp.

Opening his eyes, he saw her staring at him across the room as if he’d just grown two heads.

“What… How… Wh-where did he go?” All that pretty pink color disappeared from her face, leaving her white as a sheet.

Tinia’s teat, how stupid could he get? He should have known better than to use his power in front of her like that before he’d had a chance to explain.

“Stella, take a deep breath.” He inched closer, holding out both hands so she could see them. “Hear me out. Let me explain.”

Her eyes got even rounder. “How do you explain that? That man just disappeared!”

“That man was my brother and I returned him to his home.”

She shook her head, blonde hair flying around her face. “That’s…impossible. What trick are you trying to play on me? Whatever it is, it isn’t going to work.”

He’d almost reached her, just a few more feet. “Stella, I’m exactly who I told you I was last night. I didn’t lie about that. But there are things you don’t know…things about your uncle.”

Stella backed away but he was close enough to grab her by both arms and hold her in front of him. He didn’t draw her closer, just held her in place. She was scared and pissed off and just a little wild-eyed, which was understandable.

“I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.” She practically hissed the words through her teeth, her lips white with strain. She barely resembled the woman he’d had in his bed last night. The one he wanted to take back to bed right now.

Patience,
ceffo
. Calm her down.
“You’re right, you don’t. Let me explain. Last night I—”

“Oh no.” She shook her head furiously. “You do
not
get to talk about last night. Not at all.”

He’d give her that much. They maybe wouldn’t talk right now but they would very soon. He had to make sure she knew last night had not been, in any way, a ploy. It’d been the real thing—at least for him.

“Fine. We won’t.”
Not now.
“But your uncle’s not who you think he is. He’s involved in something bad and I’m pretty sure you know nothing about it.”

She sneered at him, baring the straight white teeth that had bit into his flesh with desire only hours ago. “You don’t have a clue what you’re talking about. Let me go or I swear I’ll call the police and have you arrested for…for…”

She couldn’t say it. Couldn’t say rape, because she knew it hadn’t been and she was too much of a decent person to accuse him of something he wasn’t guilty of. Even though she thought he’d betrayed her.

Cam steadied himself, straightening his spine. A fierce sense of pride joined the lust he’d felt just seconds ago. This was his woman, the one he’d been searching for his entire life. Now he just had to convince her he wasn’t another asshole out to get something from her.

“Please, just let me go, Cam.” Her tone held no hint of fear. “Let me go and we won’t ever discuss this again. Just let me walk away.”

“I can’t, Stella, but I promise you, you don’t have to be afraid of me. I’m not the one you need to worry about.”

Her mouth tightened as her eyes narrowed. “My uncle is a good man—”

“No, Stella, he’s not.” Cam’s gaze held steady. “There are things you don’t know—”

“And you think you do? You don’t know anything.”

“Stella, your uncle’s been gone a lot lately, right?”

She rolled her eyes but didn’t try to get away. “Oh please, that doesn’t mean a goddamn thing.”

“He’s taken several trips over the past few weeks but he hasn’t told you where he’s going.” Okay, he was making an educated guess but he knew he’d hit pay dirt when her eyes shot wide for just a second. She recovered quickly but he wasn’t about to let her off the hook now. “He’s diverting money to projects you know nothing about.” That one he knew was true. He’d seen Bonnini’s computer files, the ones it had taken Rio nearly four months to hack into. The ones they’d begun searching for right after Nino had seen the books of lists Bonnini had made—lists of half-blood
Fata
who lived among humans.

Stella stiffened even further. “I don’t know where you’re getting your information but you’re wrong.”

“No, I’m not. Stella, you don’t really know your uncle.”

Her mouth firmed and he wanted to kiss that pouting lower lip. “That’s completely untrue. And I don’t believe you know anything at all about Uncle Daniel.”

“I know he’s not the man you think he is.”

“Neither are you.” She narrowed her eyes. “Release me.”

No way. Not until… When? When she’d believe him just because of the awesome sex? Because she’d fallen for him as hard as he had for her?

Cam knew there was magic in the world but he didn’t believe in miracles. He had to try nonetheless.

“I’m exactly who I told you I was. My name is Camillus de Feo. I am a security expert with my own company. I have a mother, father and three brothers. Yes, I set out to seduce you last night so that I could get you back here.” He didn’t tell her he’d hoped to use her as bait. She didn’t need to know that now.

He took a breath, watching her expression for any sign of what she was thinking, but her glare was arctic cold. “I planned on taking you to bed, seducing you. But I never expected it to be…”
Mind-blowing, life-changing
. “To affect me like it did. And Stella, make no mistake, last night was amazing.”

There, that got a response but not the one he’d hoped for. She blinked and her eyes got damp. Gods be damned, he was screwing this up completely and now he’d made her cry.

“I don’t want to hurt you, Stella, but I’m afraid your uncle will hurt you if you go to him with questions.”

She shook her head. “My uncle would never hurt me. You don’t have any idea what you’re talking about.”

Okay, this line of attack was getting him nowhere. He was going to have to play his only trump card and hope it wouldn’t send her over the edge. But he needed to convince her Daniel Bonnini was not the man she thought he was.

“Stella, have you ever questioned how your parents died?”

Without warning, she tore away from his hands and backed away, keeping her gaze on his as if he were a rabid dog.

“We’re finished here, Mr. de Feo. Don’t attempt to contact me again.”

With that, she disappeared.

Chapter Five

Holy shit.

Mouth hanging open, Cam stared at the spot Stella had been standing just a second ago.

Holy fuck, she
did
have power.

How could he have missed that? What exactly could she do? And where the hell had she gone?

“Son of a bitch, I’m an idiot.”

Was she
linchetti
like him? Sometimes it was hard for like to tell like, though Cam had never been fooled before. Her ears weren’t pointed but maybe they’d been surgically altered.

She definitely was not
Mal
. He knew it as surely as he knew she was his. He’d seen into her soul last night and there had been no blackness there. But how the hell he hadn’t detected the
arus
, the magic in her blood, well, that was a definite problem.

Right now, though, no matter what she was, he had to find her.

If she went to her uncle… Fear sank into his gut at the thought of what Daniel Bonnini might do to her if he discovered she’d slept with him. Bonnini might not know who he was but he’d be able to figure it out soon enough.

Then she’d be in danger. And that meant he needed to find her. Fast.

Upstairs, he grabbed the pillow she’d slept on and searched for and found a few blonde hairs. Then he ran back downstairs to the concealed door at the back of his house leading to his altar room. Bypassing the stone altar in the northwest corner, he dropped to his knees in front of the moon bowl he kept charged and prepared in the east corner.

Of the four brothers, Cam was the only one who used the old tools of the craft on a regular basis.

Nino had never been interested enough to learn, Rio’s gifts lay in other areas and Teo… Well, Teo had abandoned the old ways when they’d failed him.

Laying the hair on the surface of the water, he chanted the location spell and watched the liquid give up Stella’s secrets.

Then he picked up the phone.

He’d expected to have to leave a message—Rio rarely answered the phone on the weekend—but he picked up on the second ring.

“Yeah, whaddaya want?”

If he didn’t know better, Cam would’ve thought his youngest brother Valerio was drunk. But he did know better. Rio never drank to excess. “Up all night again, Rio?”

“Jeez, Cam, who d’you think you are, my mother? What do you want,
ceffo
? I just fell asleep…ah,
vaffanculo
, about an hour ago.”

“And you’re not gonna get back to bed until I have an address.”

“
No skuche ala gats
, Cam. I’m fucking tired.”

“You kiss our mother with that mouth? Come on, bro. I’ll make it worth your while.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, you always say that. What do you want?”

Cam smiled. “I need a location.”

He gave Rio everything he had on Stella Palmer, including the information he’d gleaned from the moon bowl.

“I need it immediately, Rio. I believe she’s in danger.”

Rio paused, the silence brief but telling. “And why do we care? She’s Bonnini’s niece. I thought you were going to use her—”

“Plans changed. She knows more than she should and I’m afraid Bonnini will hurt her.”

“Shit, Cam, why the hell would that matter? She doesn’t mean anything to you.”

His brother’s words made Cam’s chest ache. “Yes, she does. She’s mine, Rio. Or she will be as soon as you find her and I bring her back.”

Another pause. “Huh. Nino was right. You’ve finally lost it. I’ll be damned. How’d you lose the girl?”

“When did Nino— No, don’t bother. Knowing Nino, he called you right after I sent him back. And I don’t have time to explain what happened. Just find the address.”

“If that was nearly an hour ago then, yeah, that’s about right. Give me a few minutes and I’ll call you back. And try not to worry so much, dude.”

Rio hung up on him before he could come up with a sufficient comeback that didn’t include the word “dude”.

Hanging the handset back in the cradle, he shook his head. He should have known Nino would tell Rio and Teo. It didn’t really matter. He would have told them himself soon anyway but he didn’t want it getting back to their parents just yet.

Tana and Lucumo de Feo had old-fashioned ideas about who were suitable life partners. Stella’s family would not fit into their parameters but once they met the woman, he knew they’d change their minds. They’d love her.

Unable to sit, he paced while he waited for Rio to call back. His youngest brother was a wiz with computers. Their parents had been horrified at his affinity for modern technology at first but Cam had immediately seen the benefits for the business they were in. He’d encouraged him to learn all he could and to use it to fill in the gaps—like the gap in knowledge he had now.

He’d seen Stella in the moon bowl but it would have taken a more powerful, and potentially detectable, spell to find her exact location. He would chance it if he needed to. But usually Rio could come up with an address by means of the computer in a matter of minutes.

After ten minutes, Cam began to worry. After fifteen, he was ready to translocate himself to Rio’s apartment to make him get his ass in gear. But he knew from previous experience that would only piss off Rio and slow him down.

So he paced some more and found himself back in his bedroom. If he closed his eyes, he could still smell her. He’d stick his nose in the sheets if he thought it would stop this incredible ache in his chest.

Where the hell was she? She’d left hurt, disappointed, pissed off and confused. Mostly pissed off though—at him. He had to find her and explain his intentions more fully.

And if she wouldn’t listen then he’d just have to find other ways to make her understand that she was his.

* * * * *

The next time she saw him, she was going to—

Wait, there would be no next time. That bastard had better never come around again or… Or what?

Stella tried very hard not to think about what she would do if she saw Cam again but she had the uncomfortable feeling that, despite his obvious treachery, she might throw herself at him.

Last night had been amazing, he’d been right about that. And the more she thought about what he’d said about Uncle Daniel, the more she knew that at least some of it was true.

Something was going on at BD Enterprises. She’d been ignoring the signs because she hadn’t wanted to dig too deep for fear she’d discover something she didn’t want to know.

How much of a coward did that make her? So here she was, sitting in her parents’ cabin hidden in the hills near the Appalachian Trail in northwestern Berks County. Her parents had used this rustic one-room structure on weekends. It had a toilet, sink and shower stall in the back left corner, a small kitchen with a refrigerator in the right corner, a bed to the right of the door, a couch to the left and a fat woodstove in the center.

Her parents had said they used the cabin to escape. Escape from what, she’d never really known.

Since her parents’ death, she’d only spent a few nights here since graduating from college. Her uncle had occasionally asked if she wanted to sell the house and twenty acres, but she couldn’t do it.

He’d never questioned her attachment to the place, never pressured her to sell. Now she had to wonder why she’d wanted to keep the cabin all these years—considering this was where her parents had died. Well, not in the house but on the property.

While some people might not have been able to return to the place where their parents had died, Stella had always felt close to her parents here. The rest of the world fell away when she came here.

But now she found it hard to relax. And it was all
his
fault. Damn him for invading this once-sacred space.

She was so pissed at him she could scream. At the same time she was angry at herself. For being taken in, for falling for him. He hadn’t been slick, he hadn’t bowled her over with charm. Hell, he wasn’t even all that good-looking.

Grimacing, she took that last observation back. She had to admit he was gorgeous, just not in the way of a poster boy.

He’d seduced her just by being himself. Which begged the question, was he telling the truth about everything?

She was not ready to think about what else she’d seen Cam do. About the other man who’d disappeared before her eyes—right before she’d done the same.

She’d never discussed her ability to think herself somewhere else with anyone. And she’d never used the power if there were other people around to witness it.

“It’s a useless, stupid, deadly gift, sweetheart,” her mother had said on the rare occasions they talked about her power—or curse—just after she’d realized she could make herself invisible. It’d been a shock the first time she’d willed herself to disappear. After she’d reappeared, her mom and dad had looked at each other, the fear in their faces enough to let her know this wasn’t a party trick.

Obviously Cam had a similar gift—which raised all sorts of questions. Where did they get these powers from? Were they born with them? Did others have them? What was she? Was she human? Or something else?

There was no one to whom she could go for answers. Her closest living relative was her uncle. Her mother’s parents had died before Stella had been born. Only her dad’s mother was alive but she was in a nursing home in Florida and probably wouldn’t be much help, because the power had come from her mom, who was the sister of Uncle Daniel. Did he also have powers? And why did she believe Cam when he told her not to go to her uncle with questions?

“Oh this is stupid. You’re not getting anywhere…and now you’re talking to yourself.”

Throwing her hands in the air, she decided she needed a nap. Maybe some sleep would help clear her mind. Then she could decide what, if anything, she wanted to do—

Something crashed into the door, making her jump and startling a cry out of her.

Running to the front window, she looked to see if a tree had fallen against the house.

But what she saw made her think that maybe she
had
gone crazy overnight.

* * * * *

“You’re sure, Rio?”

His brother sighed so loudly the phone line crackled. “Yes, I’m sure. Now, for the fifth time, get the hell off my back and go find your little woman. You do know you’re obsessed, right, bro?”

Yeah, he knew that but he didn’t need his younger brother to point that out. “
Testa di minchia
,
saccente.
I’ll call you later.”

“Hey, Cam?”

He sighed. “What?”

“Be careful. You don’t sound too steady.”

A “fuck you” was on the tip of his tongue when he realized his brother wasn’t joking. “I’ll be fine, Rio. And thanks.” He hung up before the kid could say anything else.

Pulling a state map from his office desk, he pinpointed the location Rio had found for Stella’s parents’ cabin. It fit the profile for the area he’d seen in the moon bowl. Secluded, wooded. Perfect.

Before he left, he gathered a few supplies and stuffed them in a backpack. He needed to be prepared if she tried to run away again. Then he began the chant that would take him to her.

When his parents had discovered his unique ability to translocate himself and others to a place he’d never been, they’d had to get a tutor since neither of them had known how to help him control it. The
stregone
they’d found, Gregory Jozwiak, had been powerful and just this side of dead but he’d known more about this particular talent than anyone else.

So transporting himself from his home to a specific place more than twenty miles away was child’s play for Cam. Hell, halfway around the world would be easy as long as he had a recent photo of the area and the latitude and longitude. Gotta love Google Earth.

And being
linchetto
, Cam could do this being invisible. Stella would never see him coming.

* * * * *

The creature outside was human-shaped though it only stood about three feet from the ground. And probably male, if the scruffy beard was any indication.

He wore dark sunglasses, just visible under long hanks of dirty brown hair, tattered blue jeans and an old flannel shirt. On his feet he had a pair of huge shit-kickers. No way could his feet be that big and no way was she opening the door. Luckily she hadn’t unlocked it when she’d arrived.

Lifting his hand, the little man banged on the door again and she had to slap a hand over her mouth not to make any noise. She was hoping if he thought no one was home, he’d go away.

There was something distinctly odd about this guy—from his huge feet to his huge hands to his… Wow, she must need sleep more than she’d thought, because the guy had a nose that looked like he’d been in some kind of freak accident. It was so long and pointed she could have sworn she saw it twitch side to side like an aardvark’s.

Okay, now she really was losing it. Today was definitely the weirdest day she’d had in…well, ever. It was almost as if there was a whole world out there she knew nothing about.

She didn’t know how long she stood there, waiting for that strange little man to leave. She barely took a breath until he finally wandered back into the woods surrounding the cabin.

Leaning back against the wall facing the front window, she took a deep breath, trying to calm the terrified beating of her heart. Would this day never end? She wanted to go back to yesterday, before she’d met Cam, before he’d turned her life upside down.

Shaking her head, she nearly missed the slight ripple in the air in the middle of the clearing in front of the house. It looked like heat rising from an asphalt road but since there was no asphalt anywhere on her property, she chalked it up to more unexplained weirdness—until Cam appeared out of thin air.

Her mouth opened as he walked toward the cabin, disappeared and reappeared right in front of her in the room. She should have been shocked to see him. She wasn’t.

He’d changed clothes since she’d seen him last. The first things she noticed were his worn jeans, tight black t-shirt and running sneakers. Then she noticed that he smelled like sex and musk and male. His hot gaze made her stomach flip, her breathing shallow out and her hands itch to reach for him.