Page 45 of The Fate of Black Hearts

He sagged. “I thought you were going to ask me to never see you again until we’re free of the curse. I can keep them together. That’s easy.”

She smiled to herself. “Darling, no curse is goingto keep me out of your lives.” She looked him over. “You look nice in that suit. Go gather everyone for dinner. Make sure they’re dressed. I’m going to change for the evening.”

Once in her long black gown, she made her grand entrance to stand at the head of the table. “Welcome to our first full moon meal after…the incident. In the boxes in front of each of you are gifts from Efrem and me. We spent the last few weeks doing a little black market shopping. The round pendants are authentic hexenspiegels. Wear them. They deflect evil curses and spells. Useful for witches and mages. Maybe not useful against artifacts.”

Each of them put on their pendant.

She continued, “I had a dagger fashioned by the elves deep in the high mountain of Naga Parbat for each of you. The blade is unbreakable by any nonhuman in existence and imbued with the light of the Vedic god, Surya. I was promised it should cut through bespelled bindings and kill even the evilest of demons, wraiths, vampires, or necromancers. When you pick up your dagger, say these words to make it so it answers only to you. Any others who try to touch your dagger will be burned by the light. Please recite:Haec pugio mea erit et unicum meum.”This dagger be mine and only mine.

Once they were done binding their daggers, she met Efrem’s gaze where he sat at the opposite head of the table. Then she glanced around. “These bastards in England seek to divide you. You will use your strengths to work together. Roman understands nonhumans and their abilities like no other. Ky, you can master any weapon. Flynn, you are a wiz attechnology and understanding a being’s intentions. Jonas, you must work on your ability to intuit and see into the future, but never let Willem know you can do this. By using it, you can outsmart him.” She grinned. “And Shane. You are my precious baby, a moral compass to keep the rest from getting lost.”

“This is so hard,” Jonas grumped.

Ky looked defeated.

Shane looked offended. “Amoral compass?Ky gets to be the ninja warrior. Roman is the walking encyclopedia of how to kill nonhumans. Even Flynn has a much cooler gift than me with techno stuff.”

She slammed her palm on the tabletop. Everyone jumped. “I raised all of you to be better than this. You got outmaneuvered and cursed. Shame on each of you for believing anything your father says. He’s a selfish, toxic shit.” She pressed her hands together and took a cleansing breath. “Now, we move on. We figure out how to untangle this mess. As of right now, we will be a step ahead. We must be. We will meet once a month on the full moon. Efrem is going to work out with Roman how to communicate where to meet us. Efrem and I must keep moving to avoid Willem and your handlers finding us. Willem can never know where you go on the full moons. He may suspect, but he’s not welcome. Your handler can’t know. This is going to be a dangerous, probably impossible game.”

“It’ll be hard to meet once every three to four weeks,” Roman said.

“We may need to distract Willem or lead him astray to keep him away. The full moon is when all of you are the most vulnerable to seduction and being taken advantage of. I will have you here with us. I’llprovide you with suppression injections so you can avoid the moon’s lure becoming too potent. If you so choose, I have drugs to knock yourselves out for the night.”

They all grabbed their wine in preparation for the usual toast.

“I’m not done,” she commanded. Everyone put down their glasses in unison. “You will wear condoms with humans and stay away from lycans in heat until we get this curse removed. Scratch that.” She waved her hand. “You will wear condoms at all times. That’s the rule. I have a bad feeling you wouldn’t know if a lycan was in heat or not.” She pointed at Flynn. “Don’t give me that look. I will not have some half-baked floozy romance you into giving me a grandchild while you’re under some ridiculous curse. They might have you give the child to them for training or torture or who knows what.”

Flynn’s cheeks flushed.

Roman and Ky chuckled.

Under his breath, Shane said, “She hasn’t forgiven you for hooking up while she was buying black market ammo last year.”

“Damned right I haven’t,” Evie ground out. “I needed you to be ready with the car. Instead, you saw a piece of ass you couldn’t resist.” The few snickers around the table made her point a finger at each of them until she got silence. “Condoms with anyone is the rule. This is more than a rule. It’s a commandment. On full moons, you are here. We will protect you. This one night every few weeks will be your place to recharge.” She raised her glass.

All followed.

“Alla famiglia.”To family.

Chapter Fourteen

1981

Below the altar of the Madonna in Santa Maria Ai Monti in Rome, Evie knelt. Well after midnight and lit only by candlelight, this was her most desperate option.

Sacrilegious for a lycan to bow before a Christian altar, right?

After years of researching every possible way to lift the curse, her sons remained trapped in subservience to the whims of the monarch of England. Fortunately, the curse only allowed the monarch to order they eliminate nonhuman threats. They weren’t human assassins, which meant they couldn’t be used as an elite army in war, not that the queen hadn’t tried to enlist them despite this. They could say no to killing humans, but other than that, they couldn’t go against a direct order from the monarch. The order could be something as stupid asdon’t wear clothes for a week, and her sons would have to obey.

Her children were showing signs of intense stress. Jonas suffered the most. He had no stomach for battle. Jonas teetered on the edge of insanity. The others tried to keep him out of the worst of it, butWillem enjoyed torturing the “weakness” out of him.

Willem continued to posture as if he ran the show, but he dodged any serious confrontations. Somehow, her boys had avoided Willem detecting where they went during full moons, using the excuse that they needed to lay low when the drive for sex hit. They often distracted their father with women since he refused to take a suppression serum. But it was getting harder to shake him in order to visit her once a month.

The sculpture of the Madonna stared down at her judgmentally. “As a mother I plead to you, Mary, to advise me. How do I keep my children safe? I’m not one of the preferred children of God, and I have not prostrated myself before God before. Those two things I’m certain are strikes against me. You may deem me unworthy of your help, but they are brave and noble souls who have been unfairly imprisoned. They put their lives on the line every day to preserve the safety of your blessed humans.”

Nothing.

She swiped at tears. This was silly. To believe Mary existed was a stretch. To think such a being could assume a real form and deign to speak with her, a lycan, was ludicrous. “Would my life in exchange for theirs be amenable?”