Theresa screamed as the two guards caught her arms and dragged her from the castello and out into the dark night. Tendrils of fog lay along the ground, swirling into ribbons of mist. With the snow covering the rocks, the courtyard had the appearance of a graveyard, stark and eerie and hideously vile.
Isabella eluded Don DeMarco’s outstretched hand and raced after the guards “What are you doing? You can’t do this, Nicolai.” There were tears in her voice.
Violante burst into a torrent of weeping. “Don DeMarco, I beg you to reconsider. Don’t do this.”
Sergio tried to silence her, terrified by the don’s fury, terrified it would be turned on his wife for her part in the entire mess.
Nicolai leapt after Isabella. He caught her arm as she tugged at one of the guards in an attempt to set Theresa free. As he yanked her toward him, she felt the needles puncturing her skin, a certain sign of the beast’s aggression. “Go to your room, Isabella, until it is finished here.” The flames in his eyes were burning out of control, his voice a dark rasp of authority.
Isabella quelled her first reaction to fight him. Stubbornly she shut off the fear and horror gathered in her soul. She stood still in his grip, forcing her mind to think. At once awareness crept into her heart, into her mind. Here, in the courtyard where Sophia was beheaded, where everyone believed it had all begun. Where Nicolai’s father had killed his mother. Where the entity slept and awakened and orchestrated the hatred and fear that perpetuated atrocity on the entire valley.
She took a deep breath and forced it through her lungs. And she inhaled the entity’s sour odor. Malevolence. Hatred. Pure evil. She was in its territory, and it was feeding Nicolai’s rage, feeding his weakness, his utter belief in his destiny that he would kill the woman he loved above all others.
“We are not alone out here, Nicolai,” she announced, looking to the others who had followed them. Even Francesca had arrived, alarmed, out of breath, frightened by her brother’s roaring. “If you’re very still, you’ll feel it. The influence is subtle, but it can’t hide the surge of power when it manipulates us.” The needles in her skin flexed, and she felt hot breath blast her face, the warm trickle of blood down her arm that would only serve to call to the beast.
“It has influenced everyone to act differently than they normally would, building on their failings. Failings we all have. Jealousy, hurt, anger, distrust.” She looked at Rolando. “Pride. What else would cause a man to leave his wife to a death sentence, a wife he loves. Even poor Sophia, a woman who by all accounts loved her people and her husband, who certainly loved her children. She never would have cursed them for all time without something evil compelling her to do so.” She was alone, fighting an unseen enemy who was swelling in power and gloating at her inadequacy. She looked around her at the faces white with shock from Don DeMarco’s orders. No one seemed to comprehend what she was saying. “Don’t you see it? None of us would do these things.” She was unashamedly pleading with them. Pleading with Nicolai.
Francesca rushed to her side and caught her hand in a show of solidarity.
Rolando took several steps toward Nicolai. “My wife is your famiglia. Your cousin,” he reminded him. “You would see more DeMarco blood soak into the ground?” His hands were knotted into tight fists at his side. Fury had stolen into his eyes.
“If you have no mercy, Captain Bartolmei, for your own wife, why would I as the don have mercy for a woman who betrayed me?” Don DeMarco snapped his fingers, and the guard obediently forced Theresa to her knees.
She screamed in terror again, tears burning down her cheeks.
“This will not happen,” Bartolmei objected, his hand on his sword. “If you’re so eager for blood, take mine.”
“No!” Violante protested from where she was huddled in Sergio’s arms. “I’m the guilty one. I provoked her.”
Fury swept through Nicolai, pure, undiluted rage. He threw back his head and roared at the defiance of his orders. The sound set the lions in the valley roaring until the night was filled with the brutal, primitive sound. His people scattered in all directions. Nicolai spun in a circle, scratching a deep line down Isabella’s arm as he thrust her away from him. His long hair haloed his head and fell around his shoulders and back in a wild mane.
“Nicolai.” Isabella whispered his name aloud in despair. She watched his powerful shape shimmer, the white mist swirling greedily around him, devouring the man, revealing the beast.
The lion stood in the center of the courtyard, a magnificent animal, enormous, heavily muscled, the shaggy mane adding to its bulk. Its eyes were burning with hunger, a dangerous, wild warning to those in the courtyard.
“Dio, it’s happening again! I’ll have to call the lions!” Francesca cried out, and she buried her face in her hands.
“No!” Isabella’s voice was a whip of authority. She lifted her head and walked toward the crouching beast. Her arms were spread out away from her sides in a gesture of supplication. “I love you, Nicolai. It isn’t going to take you from me. If you kill Theresa, we have nothing. It knows that.”
The lion swung its massive head toward her, eyes flaming with the need to kill. The mouth opened, revealing huge, sharp teeth. Another roar split the air. Above their heads, the dark clouds split and poured down rain.
Isabella lifted her face to the drops, allowing the rain to bead over her face and wash away the terror of the moment. She looked back and met the lion’s focused stare without flinching. Her heart was pounding, her mouth dry, but there was a sense of peace deep inside her. “I won’t see you as the beast, Nicolai. I won’t.”
The lion shuddered and sank into a crouch, staring at her without recognition. Francesca stepped up beside Isabella. “I won’t see you as the beast either, mio fratello.”
Sergio and Violante took up positions on Isabella’s left side. They refused to look away from the slavering lion. The beast shook its massive head, eyes glowing red in the night.
Isabella, always sensitive to the malevolence of the entity, felt it gather itself for the final attack. She knew its ultimate target was Nicolai. It fed the beast, fed natural instincts, hunger and rage, until the emotions swirled together, culminating in the lion’s need to kill. In concentrating its entire power on the don, the entity had to leave the others alone.
Captain Bartolmei caught his wife’s arm, pulling her away from the two cowering guards. The soldiers broke and ran some distance away, terrified of the crouching beast. Rolando and Theresa stepped up beside Sergio and Violante to face Nicolai.
Without further warning, the lion exploded toward them. Theresa and Violante both screamed and retreated behind their husbands. The captains backed up. Francesca covered her face. In that split second, time stopped for Isabella. Terror was a living, breathing beast in her heart. But this was the man who had rescued her brother from certain death. The man who carried the weight of his people on his back, carried a legacy others would have crumbled beneath. This was Nicolai. Her Nicolai. Her heart and soul, the laughter in her life, the love. This creature was her man.
Isabella flung herself forward to meet the attack. She would not allow the entity to take him from her without a fight. “Nicolai!” She called his name, wrapped her arms securely around the shaggy neck, and embraced death.
The great lion snarled and shook his head to throw her off. Her hands bunched tightly in the mane. Isabella buried her face in the wealth of hair. She felt the jaws close around her ribs and shut her eyes, breathing a final prayer.
“Nicolai!” Francesca launched herself forward, her arms circling the lion’s massive head. “Mio fratello. Ti amo!”
The great beast shuddered with indecision.
Rolando Bartolmei and Sergio Drannacia followed the lead of Nicolai’s betrothed, braving certain death to close their arms around the large creature. Their wives stumbled forward in their wake, touching the monstrous animal, praying to keep up their courage.
“Sophia’s here,” Francesca said, awed. “Sophia and Alexander. They’re together, touching Nicolai. And the ‘others.’ All of them. They’re here with us.”
Isabella felt them, the spirits surrounding her, surrounding Nicolai, lending their strength to hers to battle for possession of Don DeMarco.
“My boy.” Sarina and Betto were there, tears in their eyes. They led the servants to the courtyard. “We see only the man, Nicolai, nothing else.”
The hot, panting breath heating her side was all at once against Isabella’s neck. She could feel his face, not a muzzle, pressed tightly into her shoulder. She clung to him with every ounce of strength she possessed, whispering words of love, of hope.
The entity had pulled back, realizing it was fighting for its life, not just power. But, regrouped, it struck at Nicolai again with all its energy, pouring the malevolence, the hatred, the dark, twisted power into the being shimmering somewhere between beast and man.
Isabella felt the fur, the teeth, the claws, but she held her ground. Nicolai could have killed her in seconds, yet he hadn’t. “Listen to me, my beloved,” she whispered against the shaggy mane. “You never lied to me. I’ve always known of your legacy, and I’ve always chosen you. You, Nicolai. Beast or man, you and I are one. I haven’t run, and I won’t run. Choose for us. I love you enough to accept your decision. This thing that threatens us can’t take that from either of us.”
She heard a growl first, a rumbling. The words were raspy as they reached her ears. “Ti amo, cara mia, I love you. I can’t harm you. I can’t allow anything else to harm you.” Nicolai’s lips moved up her neck, her chin, and his mouth found hers, settling there to devour the sweet taste of her.
His kiss rocked the earth beneath her feet. His arms were hard bands around her, his body solid, muscular, the frame of a man. The ground shifted and rolled again.
“Nicolai! Isabella!” Francesca screamed the warning even as the captains dragged the couple from the courtyard.
They stumbled back out of the area, watching in horror as the ground buckled and split apart to form a deep chasm. Rain poured down. Jagged streaks of lightning danced across the roiling sky, veins of white-hot energy.
“Get back!” Francesca called as she rushed for the safety of the palazzo.
A bolt from the heavens slammed to earth, deep into the yawning chasm in the courtyard. The blinding impact knocked some of them off their feet. The sound was deafening. The air crackled around them. Noxious smoke arose from the deep hole, then dissipated in the cool, clean rain.
Nicolai pressed Isabella tightly against the wall of the castello, protectively shielding her. The ground buckled and rolled. Isabella attempted to peek under Nicolai’s arm. Reluctantly, he moved slightly to allow her to watch the earth roll and heave, to cave in on itself to repair the deep crack. She breathed deeply, dazed by the events, her fists clenched tightly in Nicolai’s shirt to anchor him to her.
There was a stunned silence while they looked at the courtyard and each other. For a long moment no one spoke. No one moved. The rain poured down on them, not dark and dismal but clean and refreshing.
Nicolai spoke first. “Is everyone all right? No injuries? Sarina, check inside. See to Isabella’s brother, please.”
They all looked at one another, inspecting for damage.
“It’s over,” Francesca announced. “You did it, Isabella. You freed us all. Sophia is with Alexander, and she says to convey the gratitude of all the ‘others.’ She thanks you for releasing her and Alexander from their torment.”
“The entity’s gone?” Isabella stared at the blackened courtyard. “It was locked in the earth, then?” It was nearly impossible for her to take it in. Now that it was over, her legs refused to support her. She leaned heavily against Nicolai. “Is it over? Can you tell? Are you certain?” She looked into his mesmerizing eyes and was caught and held by the mixture of sorrow and joy she saw there.
“I can hear the lions and communicate with them, but when I reach for the beast, it is no longer there.” He looked lost.
Isabella tightened her arms around him. “It must be frightening to have a part of you missing.”
“I don’t feel it either,” Francesca admitted.
“I could never become the beast unless I was violently angry,” Theresa whispered from the safety of Rolando’s arms. “I’m glad it’s gone. It terrified me.”
Nicolai gathered Isabella to him. His salvation. His love. A tremor ran through his body. “It terrifies me that it’s gone.” His whisper was against her ear, for her alone, his face buried in her hair. “It terrifies me that you are mine when I’ll never deserve you.”
“You’ll get through this. We’ll get through this together.” Isabella framed his face with her hands. She went up on tiptoes to rub her lips gently against his. A soft caress. The merest contact.
And it shook him right to his soul. His fingers tangled in her hair and bunched there tightly. “You’re my life, Isabella. You know you’re my life.” He kissed her with exquisite tenderness. “Ti amo, cara mia. For all time.”
“Don DeMarco?” Rolando Bartolmei spoke gruffly. “I ask for an official pardon for my wife.”
Nicolai lifted his head and swung to face his cousin, Isabella beneath his shoulder. “Theresa, we all made mistakes. I hope you forgive mine.”
Theresa cuddled closer to her husband, tears glittering. “I’m truly sorry.”
“None of us are blameless,” Nicolai said, looking straight into Isabella’s eyes. He smiled at her.
And took her breath away. Their fingers tangled together.
“We have much to celebrate,” Sergio pointed out. “We defeated an invasion, brought justice to a rogue, overcame the curse, and banished the entity. Not bad for a single day’s work.” He bent to kiss his wife, right there in front of everyone.
“Betto, go get the priest and bring him to me,” Nicolai ordered. Unable to keep his hands from Isabella, he buried his hands in her hair to drag her head back, giving him access to her soft, inviting mouth. He felt desperate, disoriented without that part of him that had always been. But her mouth was hot with promise, with temptation, as she met him kiss for kiss, oblivious of their interested audience.
At last, when Nicolai lifted his head, Isabella smiled at him, her heart shining in her eyes. “I think it’s over,” she said. “I don’t think we need the priest, Nicolai.”
Nicolai groaned and pulled her back against his aching body. “Believe me, Isabella, we need that priest immediately.”
“I should say so.” Sarina was scandalized. What did spirits and lions and the ground opening matter? Propriety was important in front of the servants. “Betto, get him at once! And, Isabella, come out of the rain this minute!”
Isabella glanced down at her wet gown, showing entirely too much beneath the now nearly transparent material. “I’m getting married now, like this?”
Nicolai bent his head to hers, his mouth inches from hers. “I’m giving you a bambino tonight, wed or not. If you prefer unwed and an audience…” he added wickedly.
Isabella tried to look scandalized, but she couldn’t copy Sarina’s expression. Happiness was blossoming, the realization that she had a future with the man she loved. She leaned close to him and tilted her head to look up at him. “Unwed is fine, Nicolai, and if we must wait much longer…” There was pure seduction in her voice.
His eyes glinted at her for a long moment. He raked a hand through his hair in agitation, making it wilder than ever. “Betto!” he roared it, ever the lion. “Where is that priest?”