Page 24

“What is this place?” Giorgio asked the moment their cells had reformed in a totally different environment. Instead of the night sky of Tuscany, wherever it was they’d landed in Japan, it appeared to be early afternoon. Giorgio immediately searched the area, his hound seeking out any form of threat. But there wasn’t anything. It was as if they had landed in the middle of nowhere.

There were natural bush and trees all around, all overgrown and fighting each other for dominance. Giorgio could hear the sound of water in the distance but there were no sounds of people, cars or anything else. “Did you used to live near here?” he asked.

“I remember the one time I came here, it took about an hour, I think, maybe longer to get here. I know it was a long walk. But I’d only come here the once. Damn, the trees and all the undergrowth have all got so much thicker than I remember.”

“It’s been fifteen years, babe, that’s probably why. That’s a lot of time for trees and undergrowth to grow.”

Giorgio kept scanning the immediate area. He couldn’t feel any threat, but he felt threatened – a strange feeling when there was absolutely nothing around except the trees, vines, and some beautiful flowers, and his hound confirmed there was nothing else.

There were a couple of rocks, partially buried by decomposing leaves and twigs. They were large and flat, and Giorgio imagined they had probably been left from a time when the river he could hear was a lot wider. He didn’t know for sure. He wasn’t a geologist, but that was the impression he’d gotten. He couldn’t get past the idea there was something decidedly “off” about the place.

It took a few minutes, but Giorgio finally worked out what it was. The only thing he could hear, aside from Enda moving around, was the water. There was no breeze in the leaves, no animals, no birds in the trees, no sounds of insects. There was nothing at all except the sound of that water. That can’t be natural.

“Babe, have you found the box? We need to get going.”

Giorgio had a sudden need to go back to Tuscany. He couldn’t say why, but he just knew the place they were in wasn’t welcoming and he’d trusted his gut a long time.

“I’m just trying to remember. I know the rock was under a big tree, but now they’ve grown, they’re all big trees.” Enda rested his hand on the closest trunk. “There was a big flat slab of rock…”

“As I said, that was fifteen years ago. There’s a rock over there, and another one over that side.”

But Enda was shaking his head. “It was definitely near these trees.”

“Then it could have been covered up by leaves or debris or anything else by now. Are you sure we’re in the right place?”

“We’re close,” Enda insisted. “Really close.” He started kicking at the debris on the ground with his boot. “It’s got to be here somewhere, I know it is. It shouldn’t be difficult to find. The rock was absolutely huge.”

Giorgio was starting to question Enda’s memories. “Little bird, you said your grandmother was an older woman. There’s no way she’d be able to move a huge rock on her own.”

Enda looked up, his eyes flashing. “My grandmother was a shifter. She could move anything. She might have looked like a frail old lady, but you better believe she wasn’t. That’s why I don’t understand… You know what, that’s not important now. I’m going to find that box.” He dropped to his knees and started feeling through the debris within the vicinity of three tall trees.

“Should I let my hound out?” Giorgio suggested. “Maybe he could sniff for it.”

“He could try.” Enda sat back on his heels, wiping his arm across his face to move his hair from his brow. “Can he smell rock? As you keep pointing out, it’s been years since a person had been around here, and I’m not sure anyone’s scent would last that long in a natural environment.”

Enda was probably right, and there was also a large bush of sweet, scented flowers not far from where Enda was still searching through the debris, which would make scenting anything more difficult. Giorgio was still uneasy – there was just something about the place - but if Enda felt he was being proactive about something, then Giorgio wasn’t going to take that away from him either.

Hearing Enda scream when he’d been shot, listening to Lord Hades go on about how Enda wasn’t being responsible by threatening to shift in public. It was only the fact that Lord Hades got diverted when he learned they still had no leads on the people they were looking for that allowed for Giorgio and Enda to leave there when they did. Later, chatting with Lamont and Damon, Giorgio realized they were just as in the dark as he was.

But watching Enda scraping through debris with his bare hands, Giorgio was starting to worry that maybe his little bird’s mind had been fractured. He’s been through so much. Is it possible he’s losing track of what’s an actual memory and what might be random scenes his mind has tried to fill in for him?

What Enda had said about the burning didn’t make any sense without the magic. Again, there were still so many holes in Enda’s story, just as there had been from day one. Giorgio wasn’t blaming his little mate for any of it, but his own frustration was rising without a proper lead to follow. As far as Giorgio was concerned, that was all they needed. Give him a name, give him an address, give him something to track and hold on to, and Giorgio would find that asshole masquerading as Enda’s father, and he’d make sure his mate was safe for evermore.

But even as he thought that, Giorgio’s mind went back to when Lord Hades said the Enda was the one who had to find his truth. Much the same as what his hound had been saying when he wanted to know what type of shifter Enda was.

Is this just a ruse? he wondered. No, ruse was the wrong word. Lord Hades wouldn’t deliberately deceive him. But Giorgio did wonder if perhaps the issue with Coda, with the Zeus network, and everything else that had gone on, if those obstacles were put up as part of the Fates’ plan where Enda would unearth his truth in his own time.

Speaking of which… “Quick, quick, give me a hand, I’m almost certain this is the one. Can you feel the magic on the rock? This has to be the one.”

“Where did your grandmother get magic from?”

“I don’t know, but it’s friendly magic, can’t you feel it?”

“Hellhounds aren’t affected by magic,” Giorgio reminded his mate as he knelt down and curled his fingers under the edge of the large gray slab of stone that Enda had found. “What are we expecting to find underneath this? A tunnel? Is there going to be steps? Or is it just a slab over a box?”

“I’m not sure,” Enda said. “I just know it’s here. Lift, lift, lift, lift, come on, use your muscles.”

Giorgio heaved the stone out of the way, the edge of it hitting a tree as it fell back, making a loud, dull clang in an otherwise silent place. Just the noise alone sent a shiver down Giorgio’s spine.

“Is that it?” He pointed to a large, battered tin chest that was resting under where the stone had been.

“That’s it, that’s it, that’s a keepsake box, isn’t it?”

It could also be a damn bomb , Giorgio thought. But the hound wasn’t sending him any warnings about the contents. So, Giorgio did what any hellhound would do. He grabbed Enda’s hand with one of his hands and placed the other one on the trunk. “Let’s get back to Tuscany.”

Seconds later, they were back in their bedroom, as if they hadn’t even left. The only difference was the large trunk that now sat in the middle of the floor and the dust on the bottom of Enda’s trousers and coating his knees.

“That is so disconcerting, going from a daylight scene back to the nighttime again.” Enda brushed off his knees and the bottoms of his pants and then looked at the trunk. “This has to be it.”

“Well, if it isn’t, we’re probably in trouble for taking somebody else’s goods.” Bending down in front of the trunk, Giorgio examined the locks. They were rusty and clearly hadn’t been opened for a while. There were two of them that were typically opened with a key, securing two latches on the front side of the trunk.

Realizing there was no way that Enda would have a key or even know where there was one, Giorgio sent a little zap of magic through the padlocks, and they both sprung open as though they’d just been freshly oiled. Stepping back, he said to Enda, “As far as we know, this is yours now. Did you want to open it?”

Enda looked at him sideways but then quickly moved in place in front of the trunk, taking the padlocks out of their hooks and flipping open the catches. “Is there any chance there’d be a body in here?” he asked suddenly looking up at Giorgio.

“Hmm, it would have to have been cut up,” Giorgio said with a chuckle. “The box isn’t that big.”

Clearly, Giorgio needed to work on what he considered funny. Scrunching his nose up, Enda gingerly opened the trunk, pushing the lid up until it was at ninety degrees to the trunk itself. The lid fell backward with a loud crash, falling backward until the top of it rested on the floor. The leather straps that might have held it in an upright position in the past had clearly worn through with time.

There wasn’t a lot in the box, from what Giorgio could see. He got a glimpse of some yellowed papers, a stack of cash, and a small book that looked as if it could be a notebook or a journal of some kind. Giorgio’s fingers itched to pick it up, but again, he reminded himself that Enda had nothing beyond what Giorgio had given him so far. Yes, they shared all that Giorgio had because of their mating, but Enda himself had no keepsakes, no treasured items, nothing at all relating to his life before he and Giorgio had claimed each other.

It was a sobering thought. Giorgio knew that the contents of the box might be Enda’s only inheritance. At the very least, it could be that the contents of the box were the only things he might have that connected him to his mother or grandmother. “What did you find, hon?” he asked softly as Enda seemed fixated on the notebook that he’d plucked out of the box. “Are these your family things?”

Enda nodded, a solitary tear falling down his cheek as he clutched the notebook to his chest. “I can smell my grandmother,” he sobbed.