Stonebound: Shifters Forever Worlds (Skeleton Key) (2 page)

T
ino unfolded
the thick parchment-like paper. The first thing his senses picked up was the scent. It was his mother’s scent.

It can’t be that long since she wrote it, if it still smells like her.

Sure, shifter senses were supernatural, and that included smell, but to catch her aroma with such potency, as though she were standing next to him, that could only mean that it hadn’t been too long since the envelope was sealed.

He glanced at the writing. Long hand, almost like calligraphy. That was one thing he could always identify about his mother, her handwriting had always been meticulous and an art form in and of itself.

He glanced at the date on the top. Six weeks ago. That was the last time she wrote.

With a deep breath, followed by a long exhale, he began to read.

My Cristiano, my son, the light of my life.

You’ve been more than a son to me. You’ve been my best friend. I guess that comes from having a child when I’d barely reached adulthood myself.

I’ve written you a thousand letters, I think. Yes, I know what you’re thinking: Where are the letters? It doesn’t matter. The only letter that matters is this one. And don’t harass Roberto for the previous letters.

A
smile crept
to Tino’s lips. His mother knew him too well.

Y
ou’ve asked a thousand times
, maybe, who your father is. You’ve always wondered about that side of yourself. It’s time now to share that with you, and to help you protect yourself.

Yes, Cristiano, protect yourself.

Brace yourself, my son for I have a story to tell you. And then I have to beg for your forgiveness. I knew not how else to handle the situation that I found myself in when I had you.

You were more than an average baby. So much more.

A
sound
at the door drew Tino’s attention from the letter. A soft knock came again.

He turned the letter face down on the table top. “Enter.” He expected Roberto, but instead it was his secretary with a tray, a pitcher of water, an empty glass and the cappuccino and biscotti Roberto had ordered earlier.

The secretary glanced at his face with concern and Tino realized he’d been scowling. He wiped the look away and replaced it with nonchalance. “Thank you for the coffee.”

She nodded, murmured a low welcome, then backed out of the room.

Tino glanced at the coffee but opted for water, pouring himself a glass and taking a long sip, then immediately returned to his reading.

T
he first time
I knew something was
wrong—

H
e noticed
she’d crossed out the word wrong.

T
he first time
I knew something was off, was when you were six months or so and still teething. I’d given you a piece of meat from my plate, and you bit down with a ferocity, as if you were starving. That wasn’t the problem. The problem was your teeth were sharp and pierced my skin.

The next day I took you to the doctor for a checkup, and to find out if this was normal, for how would a little one have baby teeth that more closely resembled fangs? I didn’t tell the doctor about the discovery the day before.

Imagine my surprise when he looked in your mouth and the sharp tooth I’d seen there the day before was again a blunt baby tooth.

I was confused. Barely nineteen and unsure of what to do, and who to talk to.

T
ino was confused too
. What did this have to do with his father?

I
couldn’t talk
to your father. I’d never told him about you. I… well, our story is another one. This one is yours. A few months later, this incident was long forgotten, I was busy with you, with whom I was enamored, and performing, which I managed to juggle with the help of an occasional nanny.

One of those nannies was Rina. Rina, as I found out later, had a cousin who was a witch.

Now I can see you wondering what all this has to do with you… I’m getting there. You know I was never good at telling a story without meandering through paths and detours.

G
od knows
, that’s true, Tino thought. It had created many moments of mirth; the way his mother could never get to the punchline of a joke or the point of a story.

R
ina
and I were playing in the garden with you one morning. We were on vacation in the countryside, at a villa one of my fans had offered to us for the week. You were thrilled by the ball we were tossing about, gurgling and laughing. And then you fell silent. You stared into the bushes and made the strangest growling sound. It was strange because it didn’t sound remotely human.

Then, to my shock, your face began to change, it grew wider and peculiar noises came from your body. Sounds of creaking, stretching, popping, and you cried out a fierce grunt. I knelt, sweeping you into my arms and holding you tightly. But you wriggled, pulling free.

Then before my very eyes you became a lion cub.

My child. My son. My baby was now a lion cub.

You growled at the bushes, and a red fox darted out and ran away.

Then you began a process of switching back to your human form. Again with the creaking sounds, the body changing, stretching, contracting.

You were crying, inconsolable. I can only imagine it must have been sheer agony. I held onto you, as confused as you, watching my child suffer, suffering alongside you.

I glanced up at Rina, ready to beg her not to tell anyone what she’d witnessed, unsure what would happen if she did, ready to do whatever I had to in order to protect you.

Rina’s gaze was steady. “You didn’t know,” she said to me matter-of-factly, as if she knew I didn’t know. As if it wasn’t important that you’d turned into a lion cub, but rather that I didn’t know you’d done this.

I shook my head at her. “I did not. What—do—where—how—?” I had so many questions, but I couldn’t even compose a single one.

Rina wrapped her arms around me and you. “Your little one is a lion shifter. His father must have been one.”

One thought ran through my mind. If your father was the same thing as you were, when he turned into an animal, he would be a full grown, very dangerous lion.

I decided at that moment I had to keep you a secret from him. He’d want you. He’d claim you. I’d be powerless to keep you from him.

Your father, you see, is the very wealthy shipping magnate, Marco Ricoletti. And clearly, he’s a lion shifter.

Oh, as that sweet baby that you were, sobbing in my arms while my tears merged with yours, one thought came to me.

Protecting my son. I looked up at Rina, and I know she could see the resolve in my eyes.

Rina nodded. “We will take care of this. We will protect him.”

That was all Rina had to say. Then she took me to her cousin, Esme. Esme, dear Tino, was a powerful witch. With Esme’s assistance, a spell was cast upon you that kept your lion at bay.

You were now a “normal” baby. And you grew up into a “normal” child, and then later, as you are now, a “normal” man.

So why am I sharing this with you?

With me gone, there is no one to get the spell renewed. Esme’s spell, which kept your lion away, had to be recast every year.

She couldn’t—or wouldn’t, I’m not sure which—make the spell permanent. So every year, I’d visit her. Yes, when I told you I was going to the country for a weekend with the girls, I was traveling to Rome to visit Esme and pay her for the extension of the witchcraft that kept you from being your father’s son.

It’s your decision now. If you want to be what you have been, or if you want to explore the world of your father. I wish I knew more about it, but Rina didn’t know and Esme said that shifters kept to themselves and kept their ways and secrets private.

Cristiano, forgive me, sweet son. Forgive me for my deception. Forgive me for never bringing it to light. Once started, I never knew if I should keep it a secret from you, or make it part of your life.

I hope I chose correctly. But in the event I did not. I apologize and seek your clemency. Be merciful and know, when you judge me, that everything was done out of love.

Your loving mother. Always.

T
ino sat back
in the chair, the arms seemed to almost reach around him, as though trying to embrace him. He held the letter at arm’s length, eyeing it like one would a dangerous snake.

Lion? He glanced at the downy hairs on his arms. Hardly hairy enough to be a lion man. His mother was talking about this as if he could be a werewolf. No. Not werewolf. That would be a werelion.

A scoffing laugh escaped him. As if that shit really exists.

He knew his mother had been sick, she’d been stricken with cancer and it had progressed quickly, fiercely, and mercilessly to her brain.

Maybe Mom wasn’t all there when she wrote this?

He pushed the thought aside. Who wanted to have a thought like that.

More than ever, now he felt the need to be alone. Rising to his full height, well over six foot, he tucked the letter back in its envelope, folded the envelope in half and tucked it into his pocket.

He’d read that again. Later. When he was alone.

A
na crumpled
the tissue into her fist and leaned against the dark wood of the desk her father had always used for business in their library at home. She let her eyes trail over the books. All of Papa’s books.

Who will read them now?

The doctors had performed last rites on Papa. And yet, as close as he was to death, he had the resolve to keep asking for one thing.

One thing, and one thing only. And Ana had granted him that one wish.

What else could I do? He’s on his deathbed.

Her mother’s crying and praying that Ana would relent hadn’t helped Ana’s dilemma.

Ana relented.

Begrudgingly.

Very much so.

She shredded the tissue moistened with her grief and sorrow.

Grief over her father’s impending death.

Sorrow over her looming nuptials.

“He’s here,” Isabel whispered, eyes glued to the rain-misted window.

Outside, the weather was dreary, rain falling in half-hearted spurts, just enough to ruin a day.

Even the weather’s miserable, just like me.

Ana peeked around Isabel’s shoulder. Sure enough, without an umbrella, walking as if he owned the place, Bruno Vergo, the bull shifter, in an expensive, tailored brown suit, shouldered his way up the walk leading to their front door.

Following Bruno was a smaller man, clad in black, not nearly as expensive, but holding an umbrella above his balding head.

Seconds later they were out of sight, under the covered front door, and a demanding rap of knuckles on wood echoed in the front vestibule.

A shudder rippled through Ana, she tugged the gray skirt down, smoothing the non-existent ripples out.

“At least you’re not wearing white,” Isabel snickered.

Bruno would be pissed. He’d asked—ordered—that Ana be in white.

Ana had donated every article of clothing in her armoire that was white. She’d be damned if she was going to give into his demands.

A loud roar of a laugh came from the just outside the library it was followed by another laugh that sounded more like a crow’s caw.

“Where’s my lovely bride?” Bruno’s voice came closer.

Bile, viscous and thick, rose up Ana’s throat. She pushed it back.

Isabel wrapped her arms around Ana. “At least we’ll be together.”

Together. In hell.

Bruno had “graciously” agreed to let Isabel and their mother stay with them. He’d agreed to give them a home, though the home would be the family home she grew up with.

“Why,” Ana had hissed at her mother two months ago, after ensuring that her father was asleep. “Why does Papa insist on this?”

“He wants the family to have a man. A protector.”

Her tigress had growled at the insult of the old school ways.

As if I can’t take care of myself.

Just because society here was patriarchal and made women second class citizens didn’t mean that Ana couldn’t handle the family businesses.

She’d opened her mouth to protest, but her father’s groans of pain had ended the conversation there.

So she yielded. She’d be the bull shifter’s mate.

The shudder was back. Ana’s teeth chattered, but not from cold, no, not in the spring.

Spring is supposed to be a time of hope.

“There she is.” Bruno was standing in the doorway.

The lecherous look he gave her bothered her, but when he turned that look onto her sister, Ana’s tigress roared, pushing for a shift, wanting to hurt the bastard.

He better not ever,
Ana thought.
Or I will let my tigress loose on him.

She didn’t want to stress her mother out, especially not with Papa so close to death’s door, so she plastered a smile on her face.

Bruno turned his gaze back to Ana. His eyes narrowed as he took her outfit in—clearly looking for the white she was instructed—ordered—to wear.

Luckily he didn’t say a word, as seconds later, from the hallway came the sounds of her mother’s wheelchair.

“Bruno. Welcome.” Mama’s voice came from behind Bruno.

He whirled his bulk around. “Madame Valenti. Thank you.”

“My husband is just up from his nap. This would be a good time. I see you brought—”

“Filippo will be officiating,” Bruno cut her off.

Seething, Ana took a step forward. Isabel grabbed her hand, squeezed, shook her head when Ana glanced at her.

“No,” Isabel hissed in a whisper.

Isabel was right. It was important to her parents that she go through with this. So that her father could feel that she would be taken care of. That the family would be taken care of.

As soon as I can, I will have this annulled and take control of our companies. If he doesn’t run them into the ground with his bullheaded ways.

“Let’s go.” Bruno’s order was rough.

Isabel winced and shook her head.

Consider yourself lucky you won’t have to share the nightly bed with him.

Another shudder racked Ana’s body.

* * *

T
he ceremony was brief
, thankfully. They clustered about Papa’s bed, and vows were made.

Vows that Ana didn’t believe in, and could hardly utter in agreement.

Yet that’s exactly what she did, with Isabel holding her arm tightly, reminding her that they were in this together. They hadn’t spoken about it much. Isabel had been gone, preparing her ballet students for their recital.

And if Ana were to admit it out loud, she didn’t want to talk about it. She had wanted to pretend it wasn’t real.

But it is real.

She was now Signora. Bruno Vergo. She glanced at the ring that Bruno had wrenched on her finger with his thick stubby hands. A heavy white gold creation that felt like a shackle had been placed on her hand, an even heavier one had wrapped itself around her heart.

As Isabel, Ana, and Mama had been shuffled out the door, a group of men were waiting outside Papa’s room.

Ana recognized his lawyers. But she didn’t know the other four men. Though they seemed to know Bruno.

She glanced at her mother, a questioning look in her eyes.

“Men’s stuff,” her mother said. “Your father is seeing to our wellbeing.”

As if that answer was good enough.

Ana frowned at Isabel, noting her sister was frowning as well.

“I’m tired.” Mama’s eyes were glazed with fatigue. “I’m going to close my eyes in the sitting room for a short bit. Will you let me know when the lawyers are gone? I’d like to sit with your father.”

She didn’t say it, but Ana knew she wanted to be there for his final hours. The doctors said no more than twenty-four hours. At the most, thirty-six.

“Maria, let’s go.” Mama indicated for her nurse/helper who waited by the door. “Take me to the sitting room. On this gloomy day, I’ll nap next to the window.”

As soon as their mother was out of hearing range, Isabel leaned in to Ana. “What do you think the lawyers are there for?”

Ana grimaced. “Helping Bruno find ways to screw Papa over.”

“Hellfire.” Isabel stomped her foot. “Not if I have anything to say about it.”

Ana bit back the morbid laughter bubbling in her throat. As if Isabel could do anything against a gathering of shifters. Being a white tigress shifter meant nothing when faced with a roomful of shifters at a Shifter Council meeting.

“I’m sure everything will be fine.”.