Spell Bound (Darkly Enchanted) (39 page)

The voices buzzed, soothing her somewhat. Weird how, for so long, she’d thought them an annoyance. Now…now they were a comfort. Something familiar to hold on to when everything else had turned to shit.

She started to head back to Leo, but the sound of something smashing against the wall in a room behind her stopped her in her tracks.

Quinn. She heard him pacing, like a caged animal. Heard something else break, something crunch. Then…nothing.

She didn’t want to intrude, but Quinn’s agony was palpable. She could feel it, like smoke in the air.

Turning, she stuck her head through the slight open door and into a tiny bedroom. Quinn sat on the bed, elbows on his knees, head in his hands.

He didn’t look up. “I’m not really up for visitors.”

“I know. I just…It’s your pain. I can feel it.”

He blew out a gusty sigh and, when he raised his head, Shea saw tears in his eyes. “Yeah, sorry. I’m not that good at burying my emotions. But I’m heading out soon so that won’t be a problem. Tell the kid goodbye for me, okay?”

“Do you have to go?” She still wasn’t sure she could leave Leo behind, even if it was for the best. But to leave him in the care of a woman they’d just met, without anyone he considered a friend? “Gabriel wants to leave Leo here but I don’t think he’ll be comfortable without someone he knows.”

Not that they’d known each other long, but it was funny how you could become so close to someone in so short a time, yet live with someone for seventeen years and not know the most important things about them.

“Shea—”

“Quinn, please. Please stay. For Leo’s sake.”

Quinn didn’t lift his head, just shook it. “Serena will be okay with the kid. She loves kids.”

“But he doesn’t know her. He knows you. He trusts you.”

“Shea—”

“Quinn—”

“I can’t, Shea. I’m sorry.” Quinn cut her off then drew a deep breath as he wiped his wet eyes. “Look, there’s stuff…I can’t…” He huffed and stood to grab a duffel bag off the bed. “I guess you figured out whose mate I am, huh? Let me tell you something about love, babe. It sucks. And I can’t stick around anymore without having my heart torn out of my chest.”

His anger and hurt brushed against her senses like sandpaper, raspy and harsh. She knew he was in pain, but she had to make him stay.

“Quinn, please. I’ll beg if I have to.”

He was halfway to the door when he stopped, his head hanging. “You don’t know what you’re asking.”

Oh, she had a bit of an idea, but Leo was her priority. “Probably not, but I have to ask anyway. Please stay. For Leo. He’s just a little boy.”

He stood still as a stone, his breathing ragged, his back rigid. Finally he turned and she knew she’d won by the look on his face. But at what cost to him?

No, he was a grown man. He’d cope. Leo was just a baby. He needed someone with him. Someone he trusted, someone he knew. He’d taken an instant liking to Quinn therefore Quinn had to stay if she or Gabriel couldn’t.

“
Shit
. Fine. I’ll stay. For Leo.”

She walked to him, kissed his cheek and hugged him tight. “Thank you.”

“Yeah, yeah.” He dropped his pack and hugged her back so she felt the slight tremble in his arms. “Just don’t blame me when the house implodes.”

* * *

“You going to put him out of his misery or do you really want him to leave?”

Gabriel watched Serena rise from her chair and head for the liquor cabinet, where she pulled out the Jack Daniels and a shot glass. She held up both and shook them at him.

With a sigh, he held up his index finger. One shot wouldn’t kill him. And maybe a few would loosen up his mother to the point where they could talk.

“Mom.” He watched her hand falter at the term. He used it sparingly and only when they were alone. He’d been taught early on not to call attention to their relationship. “This is killing him. And you’re not too steady yourself. He loves you.”

“Love is painful, Gabriel.” She poured herself a shot and downed it with practiced ease. “Haven’t you learned that?”

Ooh-kay. It was going to be one of those nights. Usually when his mother started on the hard stuff, he headed the other way. He knew, only because his sisters had told him, that their mom sometimes had a problem with alcohol. The problem being she liked it too much.

He’d never seen her sloppy drunk but after what she’d been through, he couldn’t say he blamed her for using liquor to dull her pain for a while. But he couldn’t stand to see his mom or Quinn in so much pain.

“You taught me,” he took the bottle out of her now shaking hand and poured his own shot, “that love is the most all-consuming emotion in the world and the only thing worth living for.”

He downed his shot then put the bottle on top of the cabinet, out of his mother’s reach.

“Well, then let me tell you something else.” With the flick of one finger, Serena bespelled the bottle off the cabinet and into her outstretched hand, her back to Gabriel as she stared at the Jack. “In the immortal words of J. Geils, ‘Love stinks.’”

He snorted in amusement. His mother was a complete contradiction, full of old-world and pop culture. She made her own clothes though she did it with the most up-to-date sewing machine on the market. She grew her own food but couldn’t get enough Doritos. She made her own shampoos and soaps yet couldn’t live without her satellite TV or radio.

But his amusement turned to frustration when she looked at him. Fat tears rolled down her face as her bottom lip trembled.

“Damn it, Mom, why do you do this to yourself?” He reached for her, pulled her into his arms and felt silent sobs rack her. “He loves you. Yeah, he’s young and he’s a pain in the ass and sometimes he’s furry, but he would die for you.”

She laughed, but it sounded more like a whimper. “And that’s the problem, isn’t it? He’ll leave me eventually. You’ll leave me, and I’ll be alone again.”

Shit. He didn’t know how to answer that because it was true. Unless Shea…

He bent to whisper in her ear. “But we’re here now. And there’s hope. Finally.”

A shudder rippled through her slender frame and she sighed. Then she backed away, the bottle still clutched in one fist. “I’m going to finish the bottle now,
il mio figlio caro
. You should get some rest.”

“Mom—”

“Gabriel.” Her voice held more than its normal hint of the old country, and Gabriel knew the conversation was finished. “I will see you at dinner.”

With deliberate movements, Serena poured herself another drink.

Gabriel shook his head and left, closing the door behind him.

* * *

“Have you found it?”

“We believe so, yes.”

Dario turned from the window, eyebrows raised. “You don’t sound convinced.”

Peter swallowed, blinking rapidly. “We’ve narrowed the area to a couple of square miles. We’ll know for sure in a few hours. They’re closing in on the site now. I sent five men—”

Dario cut off the other man by raising his hand. “I don’t need to know details. Not yet. Report back when you do know for sure.”

Then he waved the terrified man out of the room and turned back to his contemplation of the Gulf of Mexico across the street from his house.

This water was nothing like the murky Atlantic. It reminded him more of the soothing blue Mediterranean. He hadn’t been to Italy in years, and he was starting to feel the irresistible pull of home.

Florida was so different, brown and flat where Tuscany was lushly green and hilly. He’d been living in Florida for the past fifty years, drawn to the proximity of the water and the relative quiet of the jut of land that was Pass-a-grille Beach. The community was secluded and the residents transient enough that he’d never had anyone become suspicious of his never-changing age.

But he wanted to go home, wanted to finish out his natural life in the land where he was born and go on to his reward. Whatever that may be.

His father had died nearly five hundred years ago. Freed from the constraints he’d condemned his remaining sons to bear.

Christo had been the lucky one. He had died—at the hand of the
streghe
, his father had believed. Dario didn’t have an opinion on that. Frankly, he hadn’t cared enough about Christo to miss him. His youngest brother had been a mean-spirited faccia di stronza.

He’d been closer to his older brothers, Remo and Parente. But they’d been given different directions for their lives. And while they had come to grips with their unnaturally long existence, only Dario continued to fight to release their souls.

Hell, the women should thank him. They should seek him out and ask him to take their lives. And when the last of them was dead, the curse would be broken. Blood for blood. His father had drilled that into his head.

Instead, the
streghe
continued to elude him, to bear male children he ruthlessly turned—when he could catch them young enough—to hunt the women and destroy them. It was for their own good, of course. They would thank him when this was over and they could return to the natural order of life, death and rebirth.

When he broke the curse.

Now Peter believed he’d found what had eluded Dario for centuries. He didn’t know whether to hope the imbecile had really done what he’d said or laugh in the man’s face.

How could he have found the women’s American stronghold when Dario himself had searched for years? How had they finally given themselves away?

He’d find out soon enough. But God help Peter if he was wrong this time.

Chapter Sixteen

After wringing that hard-won promise from Quinn, Shea fell into the bed beside Leo’s and forced herself to go to sleep.

When she woke, she opened her eyes and found her brother sitting by her side, his face inches from hers, staring straight at her.

She yelped and sat straight up, knocking Leo off the bed as he dissolved into laughter.