And Tira felt her stomach roll as if she were going to be sick.
She barely noticed Duke and Nic enter the room from the door next to the bar as Lusna’s eyes welled with tears. “Oh, Tira. I’m not saying you did it deliberately. I think… I think it…” She took a deep breath then waved at the table in the corner where they’d been sitting before. “I think we should sit down.”
Strong arms encircled her from behind. Duke. But she couldn’t feel his warmth. She felt only icy cold fear. And isolation.
Even her music was going to be off-limits.
“Tira. Let’s sit.” Duke’s voice rumbled in her ear but his tone was gentle, as if he thought she were damaged.
And she was, wasn’t she? A freak.
Her eyes lit on the keys she’d left on the bar.
“No. My apologies, Lady.” Behind her she felt Duke draw in a short, sharp breath, probably at the tone of her voice. Even she could hear the shock in it. “I need to go somewhere.”
“You need to come home.” Duke again, his voice flat and hard.
“No.” She took a deep breath and walked out of the comfort and safety offered by his arms. Away from the anguished frustration she felt pouring off Nic. “There’s someplace I need to go. And I don’t want you two to follow me this time.”
“Ti—”
“No!” Her voice ripped through the silence of the bar. “Just…no. There’s something I need to do. Somewhere I need to go. And I don’t want you there. Either of you.”
Duke’s expression went stone cold but Nic looked like she’d slapped him. The blood drained from his face, leaving him looking more pale than when he’d been injured.
Tears sprang to her eyes but she blinked them away. She needed to do this. Right now.
She needed…just a little peace.
“Lady, promise me you’ll make them go home. That they won’t follow me.”
Typically, she would have never presumed to demand anything from a goddess. They had a tendency to turn you into furry little creatures with beady eyes. But Lusna only nodded, her expression full of compassion. And sorrow.
“Tira, where are you going?” Duke again, his voice as emotionless as hers.
“I’ll be back to the house later. Go home. Get some sleep. You both need it.”
At the bar, she picked up the keys. She almost felt as if she was floating, no motion registering at all. Or as if she were outside her body, cut off from all sensation.
Without a glance back to see if Nic and Duke were following her, she headed out the door and to the Jeep.
She knew where she was going this time. Knew exactly what she needed to do.
Nic felt as if someone had taken a knife to his guts.
He watched the door close behind Tira, blocking his view of her, heard the Jeep start and heard her drive off. She didn’t peel out like she was speeding away. It sounded controlled. Too controlled.
Like the look on her face when she’d left. Blank. No shock, no fury, no emotion at all.
Fuck that. He couldn’t let her go like this.
He’d taken two steps toward the door before Duke stepped into his path.
Nic didn’t hesitate to shove him out of the way. Or at least try. Duke was an immoveable object when he chose.
So Nic cranked back his arm and hit Duke in the chin with a roundhouse that would’ve flattened anyone else. Duke’s head snapped but he didn’t move. And his expression didn’t alter one bit.
Nic knew that look too well. Duke had shoved every bit of emotion in his body into that tiny black hole in his gut. Nic wanted to hit him until Duke screamed at him, raged, cried. Anything but look like he had when his father had died.
Tira wasn’t dead. He was going after her to bring her back.
“Nic. That’s enough.” Lusna’s voice rang out, stopping him as only the voice of a goddess could. “You’re going nowhere except back to your home.”
He turned a furious look at the Lady of the Silver Light, noting the unnatural brightness of her gray eyes and the faint silver aura surrounding her body.
It made him automatically bow his head, as did Duke, Caeles and the three other lucani in the room.
“You and Duke will return to your home. You will not follow Tira. Do you understand me?”
“Yes, Lady.” Duke’s immediate answer made Nic’s head snap around to look at him. Gods damn traitor.
“Nic.”
The command in Lusna’s voice made his teeth grit with a defiance he dared not utter. His hands clenched at his sides as he nodded. “Yes, Lady.”
Lusna’s shoulders slumped as she turned from them, her head shaking. “Go home. Try to get some sleep. You both need it.”
Fury still raging in his blood, Nic sketched a bow, just this side of deference, and turned to walk back to the mudroom.
Behind him, he heard Duke say, “I need to make a stop at Kyle’s, Lady. We have things to discuss.”
“That’s fine,” Lusna said. “Just do not go after her. She needs space.”
Nic had shifted by the time Duke caught up to him and Duke made no attempt to call him back when he raced out the back door.
Heading for home.
Tira made sure she saw no one on Fifth Street when she parked her car in front of the three-story brownstone housing Marelli’s Trattoria.
The restaurant had been a Reading institution for forty-five years. Before that, the building had housed apartments, and a few still remained on the top floor. Of course, only Etruscans lived there, keeping the secret of Uni’s Temple.
Rather than hide the Great Mother Goddess’ temple somewhere in the countryside, the Etruscans had chosen to build it directly over the ley line that ran through the center of the city. That vein of magical energy had drawn the Etruscans to settle here when they’d moved from Italy and set about rebuilding their civilization.
They’d chosen this neighborhood because, in the late eighteen hundreds and early nineteen hundreds, it had been populated almost solely by Italian immigrants.
Though that wasn’t the case today, the Etruscans continued to hide their most sacred temple in plain sight.
Built into the back of the building, no eteri had ever suspected the treasure hidden there.
Though the restaurant was closed at this time of night, the temple was always open to those of Etruscan blood.
With a softly whispered unlocking spell, she slipped past the iron gate at the tiny breezeway that separated the restaurant from the next building. Hurrying through the darkness of the early morning into the small courtyard at the rear, Tira reached the heavy iron door that guarded the temple.
Placing her palm on the handle, she felt the metal warm beneath her skin before she depressed the lever and pushed open the door.
Making sure it shut securely behind her, Tira leaned back against the door and took a deep breath before pushing away and entering the temple proper.
Open to the third floor, the temple had beautiful white marble walls imported from Italy almost two centuries ago. Three columns on each side of a center aisle led to the wooden altar decorated with gold leaf.
Wooden benches lined the sides of the temple, leaving the floor mosaic bare for everyone to see. Crafted by the some of the most skilled Etruscan artists, the mosaic showed a Tuscan forest populated by the various members of the Fata and Enu.
A half-hided salbinelli chased a winged folletta. A mass of tiny human-shaped candelas glowed like fireflies and danced around a tree stump. A linchetti couple, their pointed ears prominently displayed, lay entwined on a moonlit patch of grass.
Several lucani versipelli howled at the bright moon, the wolves a sleek gray, while a strega bent over a moon bowl and her male companion held an athame in his hands.