Elizabeth Hunter - A Hidden Fire

Pushing her up against the door, he leaned down and kissed her. He felt the current of desperation run through him, but he held fast, clutching her back and gripping the nape of her neck. He forced himself to back away, suppressing his instinct to bite and claim her when he saw her red swollen lips and the desire that lit her eyes.

“Gio-”

“We should go,” he breathed out. “Now, tesoro, before I tell the plane to take us back.”

“I want-”

“Your grandmother, Beatrice,” he growled. “She’s waiting for us outside.”

She bit her lip and her eyes narrowed in anger when she picked up the small leather case he had bought for her in Puerto Montt. She pushed past him and opened the thick door that shielded the plane’s sealed compartment.

He closed his eyes, burying his frustration and breathing slowly until he regained his self-control. By the time he left the plane, Beatrice was wrapped in Isadora’s fierce embrace as Caspar watched them with tears in the corners of his eyes.

“Gio,” Caspar said as he strode toward him and embraced his old friend. “It’s such a relief to see you both.”

“Is everyone at the house?” he asked as he patted Caspar’s back.

“Tenzin and Carwyn are both out hunting. They’ll be back before dawn, but you need to rest. Have you fed-”

“I’m fine. We’ll go back to the house. Tomorrow is soon enough to meet with them.”

“Isadora has been staying at the house with me.”

He nodded. “Of course, my friend. Of course.”

They drove to the house and Beatrice sat next to him in the back of the car, keeping her hands carefully folded in her lap. When they arrived, Caspar and Isadora retired to his apartment, and Beatrice and Giovanni went upstairs. Beatrice went to her old room as he slowly climbed the stairs to his. He peeled off his rumpled shirt, petting Doyle as the cat curled around his legs in welcome.

“Hello, Doyle,” he murmured as he bent down to pet the cat. He sat on the edge of the bed in his outer room and inhaled the familiar scents of Houston.

Caspar had left a window open to air out his room and he could smell the faint scent of honeysuckle drift in on the breeze.

Giovanni closed his eyes when he heard her footsteps on the stairs. He sat hunched over, his elbows leaning on his knees as she entered his room and came to stand in front of him. He sighed when he felt her small hands stroke his hair, run down his neck, and trace his shoulders as he lay his cheek against her and put his arms around her waist.

“Beatrice-”

“One night, Gio. One more night?” she asked softly as she placed her hand on his cheek, holding him against her. He closed his eyes for a moment and nodded. Finally looking up to meet her dark gaze, he pulled her into his lap and framed her face with his hands, searching her eyes before he kissed her. Their lips sparked when they met, and he could feel the heat rising on his skin, but he couldn’t pull his mouth away, or stop his hands from pressing her closer as she moved against him.

Standing up, he carried her into the small room where he spent his days, and laid her on the narrow bed.

“One more night,” he whispered before he shut the door.

The following evening, Giovanni, Beatrice, Carwyn and Tenzin gathered in the library. The priest and the small woman greeted her warmly, though Beatrice was annoyed Tenzin didn’t even pretend to be sorry about using her amnis to knock her out in Athens.

“You needed to go. You’re better now.”

“And you knew this? Or you were just being domineering?”

The tiny woman shrugged. “I knew and I was being domineering. I’m much older than you, and far smarter.”

Beatrice narrowed her eyes. “Are you always this arrogant?”

“No,” Carwyn muttered. “Usually she’s much worse.”

“At least I don’t have the arrogance to believe there is only one god, priest.”

“But you do have the arrogance to believe that fate dictates-”

“Hush,” Giovanni broke in. “I doubt Beatrice wants to listen to your old argument.”

He had been sitting in one of the armchairs, sipping a glass of whiskey as he watched the three of them gather around the large library table in the center of the room.

She noticed that both Carwyn and Tenzin looked disappointed to be distracted from their debate. Beatrice pushed back her own smile and hopped on the edge of the table to sit cross-legged as Giovanni watched her from his chair.

“Catch us up,” she said. “What did we miss?”

“Well, other than a sale at the Tommy Bahama store-don’t worry, Gio, I helped myself to your safe when I ran out of cash-most of the big excitement is old news.”

“Did you find Scalia?” Beatrice asked. She had briefed Carwyn on the professor’s role in her abduction while they were on the boat to the Greek mainland, and he had promised he would look into the professor’s background.

“The dear doctor met a rather unfortunate end.” He raised his hands. “Don’t look at me, he was found attacked and killed outside the library the day after you were taken. I didn’t get a chance to question him. It looks like Lorenzo lost patience with the man, or he had just outlived his usefulness.”

“He said he knew my father,” Beatrice said.

“He did,” Tenzin added. “We looked into it while you two were in South America. Robert Scalia had gone to school with your father years ago and must have met him again when he was working in Ferrara.

“As far as we can tell, Scalia had gone to the university as a guest lecturer and stayed, but no one seems able to remember what he did. He was doing some kind of research in the library, but all the humans we found appeared to have had their memories tampered with.”

“So no one could give you any good information?” Giovanni asked.

Carwyn shrugged. “I wouldn’t say that. From what he told B, and from what we could piece together, it seems obvious that Lorenzo was using the university library to hide your collection in plain sight, so to speak. Though nothing appears to be there now.”

“No,” Giovanni muttered. “I’m sure he moved it.”

Beatrice asked, “Was it on the island? There was a huge library.”

“No,” Tenzin shook her head. “I flew back the night after you two left. There was nothing of any real value there. All the humans were gone or dead. The place was destroyed; he won’t be going back there.”

“Good,” she said, shivering at the memory of the compound where she had been held. She glanced up to see Giovanni watching her, but she looked away. Instead, she looked over to Carwyn, who kept glancing between the two of them with a curious expression.

“So, what about Lorenzo? What should we do now? We know he’s still alive, right? Are my grandma and I going to be safe?”

They all seemed to start talking at once.

Carwyn shook his head. “I really don’t like the idea of you going to Los Angeles when he’s still out there. We don’t know-”

“It wouldn’t be that hard to systematically assassinate his allies,” Tenzin mused. “I’m sure between Gio and me, we could kill them all within a few years and then-”

“And I don’t really feel like getting embroiled in more vendettas, Tenzin, no matter how easy it would be to kill them all,” Giovanni said from across the room.

Carwyn snorted. “Besides the moral implications of killing immortals who may have no greater crime than being sired by someone who has allied themselves with Lorenzo a hundred years ago, Tenzin. I know you have your own notions about fate and-”

“It’s not fate I’m talking about, I’m talking about protecting our own interests and-”

Beatrice rolled her eyes as she listened to the three old friends argue. Each had their own ideas about what she should do. Carwyn proposed going to some safe ground until the danger was eliminated, even offering his own isolated home in Wales. Giovanni believed that the political steps he had already taken would protect her until he could hunt down and kill Lorenzo himself; and Tenzin seemed to be suggesting eliminating anyone who’d ever had any sort of alliance with Giovanni’s son-just to be on the safe side.