Seduced by Magic (10 page)

The sound of hooves pounding up the stairs woke Scarlata before Sal’s words made it through the fog of sleep.

She sat up, wings unfurling as she blinked to bring the room into focus. At the same time, she reached for Justin—who wasn’t there.

Sal flung open the door and stalked into the room, only his head visible above the footboard of the large, ornately carved bed.

“Come on, Scary. Up ’n at ’em. I’ve got an incoming arriving soon. You get that kid outta here or he’s gonna be toast.”

Before she could speak, the door to the bathroom opened and Justin walked out, gloriously naked. Wet hair slicked back from his forehead, water droplets gleaming on his chest. She wanted to flick her tongue over the drops then work her way to his nipple.

She’d very nearly passed out last night, she’d been so sated.

“Hey, Sal. What’s got you all worked up?” Judging from his tone, Justin’s good humor had returned. He grabbed his shorts off the floor and dragged them on.

“Nortia’s on her way.” Sal directed his answer at Scarlata. “She’s gonna know in about two seconds who the kid is and she’s gonna be pissed. You gotta go.”

The news cut at her like a sharp knife, spurring her into motion.

“Justin, we need to leave. Immediately.”

Without a hitch in his steady pace, Justin stopped and folded his arms over his chest. “You know, I’m really fucking sick of running.” His flat voice stopped her in the 78

Seduced by Magic

midst of heading for the door. “What is it this time? The Wicked Witch of the West? The bogeyman? Hell, I’m willing to believe in the tooth fairy right about now but I’m not leaving until I get some answers.”

She ran to him and grabbed his hand, ready to pull him out of the house if she had to. “You could say she is kin to the Wicked Witch. She’s also Selvans’ partner and will not be happy to know he has strayed again.”

Justin’s mouth dropped open but he didn’t budge. “My father had another wife?”

Sal grabbed his other arm and started helping her tug him toward the door. They only moved him about an inch. The man might look thin but his entire body was roped in muscle.

“They’re not married like you’d understand it,” Sal tried to explain. “They have complementary powers, they work in conjunction with each other. Neither of them cares if the other screws around but she can be a right bitch to Selvans’ children. He must have hidden you pretty well.”

Scarlata knew she had to get him out of here. Nortia’s temper was legendary and the goddess would not fail to recognize Selvans in Justin.

“Please, Justin.” She placed her hand on his cheek, enjoying the rasp of stubble against her skin and the clean scent of soap. “For me. I do not want you to be hurt. I’ve grown…quite fond of you.”

That got his attention. His sharp blue gaze pinned her in place. “I’m not used to running from anything, babe. It’s not really in my nature.”

“Well, today it better be if you’re planning on seeing tomorrow,” Sal grumbled then tossed his hands in the air. “Shit. Too late.”

Scarlata froze as she too felt another presence enter the building. The power seeping through the air crept across her skin, touching her own magic. Bending it, making it subservient.

“Salvatorus. Where are you?”

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Stephanie Julian

The voice grated like nails on a chalkboard, making Scarlata wince.

“Hey, Red.” Justin touched her arm. “You okay?”

She shook her head. “Sal. Transport him. Get him out before she sees him.”

“I don’t have enough time to weave the spell and he’s not gonna like where I have to send him if I use the spell I have ready.”

“Salvatorus!” The goddess called again. “Attend.”

“Please, Sal,” Scarlata begged.

Sal shrugged. “Your call, Scary. Hang on, kid. This could get bumpy.”

As Justin watched, Sal raised his hand, snapped his fingers and the world twisted in on itself at the point where his fingers had touched.

Feeling like his stomach was being sucked out of his body, Justin fell into the pinprick hole in the fabric of reality Sal had opened.

The ride was over too fast for him to think anything other than “Holy shit” and

“Where the fuck am I?” when he hit the ground so hard, he thought he might have broken his leg.

“Well, hello.” The voice came from his left and he tried to turn but his stomach wanted to relieve itself of its contents. “If I had known I was going to have visitors today, I would have dressed for the occasion.”

Still trying to calm the fierce nausea, he rasped, “Sorry for intruding,” before he passed out.

When he came to, he was lying on a bed instead of the floor and his head no longer ached.

“Oh good. You’re awake. I was afraid you’d sleep through the night and I would have died from curiosity.”

Justin sat up, wincing as pain shot through his left hip. Rubbing it, he looked toward the source of the voice.

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A completely human-looking woman stood at the end of the bed, smiling warmly at him. She looked to be in her mid-thirties with coal black hair that hung to her waist and a petite body that looked thin enough for a stiff wind to blow her over.

“Would you like some tea?” she asked. “I always find that helps whenever I get transported somewhere. It really is disorienting. First time?”

“No, actually. I’ve been disoriented pretty much the past couple of days.”

She laughed at his joke, pure amusement in her tone. “You’re a smart one, aren’t you? I’m Mia by the way.” She sniffed the air. “Salvatorus sent you, didn’t he? How is the horny little devil these days anyway?”

Justin swung his legs over the side of the bed and sat up. “Sal’s fine. At least he was the last time I saw him.” He hoped he could say the same for his Red. “Where am I?”

The dark-haired woman smiled again and now he noticed that her incisors were longer and sharper than any person’s he’d ever seen before. “Why don’t you come down to the kitchen? Are you hungry?”

Surprisingly he was. He just hoped that, wherever he’d landed now, the natives weren’t cannibals.

He followed her down the stairs of a home surprisingly like the one he’d just left.

“I’m
Lucani
by the way,” the woman spoke over her shoulder as she pulled things out of the refrigerator to set on the counter. “And you are…”

“Jeez, I’m sorry. I thought you said your name was Mia. I’m Justin Johannson.”

The look she shot him was amused and bemused at the same time.

“My name
is
Mia.
Lucani
just explains the teeth.”

He shook his head, not knowing if he wanted to ask the question or not. But he figured he’d better find out now than be surprised later. “Okay, I’ll bite. What’s a
Lucani
? But I gotta tell you, before two nights ago, I was blissfully unaware of
folletti
, gods and little horned guys with goat legs.”

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Stephanie Julian

Mia’s laugh rang around the kitchen as if that was the best joke she’d heard in the past year. “Son, if you’re this calm after only two days, I’d say you’re going to do well.”

Hands moving fast, she began making sandwiches. “Let me add to your menagerie. I’m a werewolf.”

He let that sink in while he watched her finish the sandwiches, pour milk and set it all in front of him. “So you grow fur and claws during the full moon?”

“Actually I can change any time I like. I’m a hereditary, which means my parents were
Lucani
as well. You can become
Lucani
if you’re bitten by one in their wolf form but it’s rare and many don’t survive the first transformation.”

Well, there went another fairytale. “Why did Sal send me here?”

She shrugged. “I suspect because this was the last place he sent someone, which meant he didn’t have to weave a new spell to transport you.”

“What happened to the last person he sent?”

“I ate him,” she said with a completely straight face.

His mouth dropped open and the sandwich he’d just picked up slipped from his fingers. “Huh?”

Mia laughed again, a full-out belly laugh. “Oh you are so easy. Don’t worry, sweetie. If Sal sent you to me without explicit instructions to eat you, you’re safe. For now.” She smiled sweetly. “So why did he send you?”

He picked up the sandwich and forced himself to take a bite. Turkey and cheese with mustard and lettuce. His stomach growled. “I just found out my dad’s a god and his mate would make mincemeat out of me. And that’s before she found out I’ve fallen in love with a
folletta
.”

Mia sighed. “Well, that sounds like a busy two days. Which god?”

“Selvans.”

She blinked. “Really?”

“Really what?”

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Turning to the sink, she started washing dishes. “Oh nothing. I know Nortia can be difficult.”

Setting down his sandwich, he shook his head. “Come on, Mia. It’s been a bitch of a day. ‘Really’ what?”

After what seemed like forever, Mia shut off the water and turned again to face him. “Let me be the first to welcome you to your father’s house.”

* * * * *

Scarlata felt reality fold in around itself as Sal transported Justin away.

One minute Justin stood in front of her. In the next, he was gone as if he’d never been there. She didn’t have that power. Only a few of the
Fata
retained that particular gift. And of course the gods and goddesses.

“Salvatorus! Where are you?”

Nortia screeched again, giving the house a shake just for good measure. She had a temper to be reckoned with. Her court went out of their way to smooth all obstacles so they wouldn’t bear the brunt of her anger. Scarlata was not a member of her court but, as a goddess, Nortia deserved her fealty and adoration.

“Come on, Scary.” Sal tugged on her arm to get her moving. “Before she brings the walls down around us.”

“Where did you send him?” she whispered. “Sal, please. Is he going to be okay?”

“He’ll be fine. I sent him to his father.”

She didn’t have time to question the intelligence of that choice as Sal dragged her through the hall and down the stairs to the front room where the goddess lounged on an overstuffed velvet armchair.

With her curly, shoulder-length hair the color of the summer sun and eyes as blue as clear river water, Nortia looked all of twenty years old and had the attitude to go with it.

As Scarlata and Sal bowed before their goddess, Nortia rolled her eyes.

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Stephanie Julian

“Oh give me a break, you two. Get up, get up.” She waved slim hands at them.

“Please, I’m here to hang out for a while, not hold court and be worshipped. Hey, Scary, I didn’t expect to see you. Got tired of your mountain?”

Scarlata stood as Sal hopped onto the couch. “No, my lady. I am only visiting Salvatorus for the day.”

“No problem.” Nortia shrugged. “You kids can play with whoever you like. I’m not that much of a bitch. I just stopped in to say ‘Hi’, hang out on a normal plane of existence for a while.”

“Something going on?” Sal asked, the sharp note in his tone drawing Scarlata’s glance as she sank onto the couch next to him.

Nortia shrugged, looking much like a human college student in tattered jeans, a belly-skimming pink tank top and several tiny silver hoops dangling from her earlobes.

Her bare toes shimmered with silver rings as well and the anklet on her left leg held at least twenty diamonds.

“Nothing that need worry you,” Nortia said then smiled as if to cheer Sal. “So tell me what’s new, my friend. I feel I’ve been gone forever.”

After a slight hesitation, Sal launched into a rundown of current events. Wars, famines, natural disasters. How many of the old race had perished in each.

It was a sickening number, Scarlata thought, particularly when there were so few of them being born now.

At one time, the deities, the
Fata
, the
Enu
and the humans had shared the Earth.

Until science had replaced magic and the gods and goddesses had ceased to be worshipped.

Midway through the sixth century, the Etruscan pantheon had scattered to all corners of the Earth when the founding gods and goddesses of the Etruscans, the
Involuti
, had disappeared.

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Their duties usurped by the Roman deities when the Etruscan civilization had been assimilated into the Roman Empire, the Etruscan deities had wandered for centuries, living ordinary lives, blending into the
eteri
population, much like their people. When the
Fata
and
Enu
had congregated in the New World, most had followed and set up shop there.

“Hey, Scary, are you okay?”

Startled, Scarlata refocused her gaze on Nortia, whose soft expression belied everything she’d heard about the goddess and knew from past experiences.

“Forgive me. I’m fine. I just—”

“Missing the boy you brought with you last night?” The goddess waved away her stunned expression. “It’s okay. I know who he is. And I’m not going to turn him into a frog or a statue or a bench.” She snorted and slid her gaze Sal’s way. “Although that last one worked well enough on Theo, didn’t it?”

Sal nodded, a genuine smile on his face. “Yeah, actually he had that one coming.”

Nortia shifted her gaze back to Scarlata. “I’m not an ogre, child, and if you spent more time with me, you’d realize that. Now, now, that’s not a criticism,” she added as Scarlata stiffened. “It’s just, well, time changes everyone, hon.”

The goddess sighed. “I
do
know my reputation and I’ve cultivated it well over the centuries. Yes, I have a temper but only because I actually hate being mated to a god who falls in love with another woman every five or six decades?”

The goddess took a deep breath and released it on a long sigh, a navel ring glinting at the edge of her t-shirt. “So I’m turning over a new leaf. Out with the old baggage. I’m starting a new life.”

Sal barked out a laugh. “Damn glad for you, girl. I knew you’d get around to this.”

Nortia beamed as if he’d just crowned her prom queen and Scarlata couldn’t help wondering again exactly who Salvatorus was.