Read Online Seduced by Danger by Stephanie Julian - Free Book Online Page B

fingers on the table, as if thinking. “Too much for you today?”
    “Just a little.”
    “ Wanna go on a field trip, babe?”
    She shrugged. “Where would I go?”
    “How about an all-expenses-paid trip to Uni’s Temple? No ritual today. Should be quiet.”
    “What about Aron ?”
    Sal snorted. “Hon, there are two goddesses watching his every move. They’ll have him worn out in no time. And Michael’s here. Nothing will happen to the boy while you’re gone.”
    She smiled. “Thanks. I think I’d like that.”
    * * * * *
    Cara materialized at the back of the temple, not really knowing what to expect.
    She’d never been in Uni’s Temple. The small village where she and Aron had lived for the past year held their weekly rituals to the Great Etruscan Mother Goddess outside in the center of the village. Even in the depths of winter, that area had been a temperate zone that never dropped below sixty-five degrees or went above eighty-five.
    That area was nice. This…this was spectacular.
    She knew she was still in Reading, not even a mile from Sal’s house. Yet she felt like she’d been transported to Tuscany three millennia ago when the Etruscans still ruled their ancestral lands.
    From the street, the building looked like any other three-story brownstone. Marelli’s Trattoria occupied the front half of the building. The restaurant had been a Reading institution for forty-five years. Before that, the building had been apartments. Of course, only Etruscans had lived there, keeping the secret of the temple.
    In the late 1800s and early 1900s, this neighborhood had been populated almost solely by Italian immigrants though that wasn’t the case today. Still, the Etruscans managed to keep the temple safe with the help of the magic inherent in the earth.
    A ley line ran beneath the city, which was what had drawn the Etruscans to settle here when they’d moved from Italy and set about rebuilding their civilization.
    The temple was open to the top of the building with beautiful white marble walls that could only have been imported from Italy. 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. The mosaic showed a Tuscan forest populated by the various members of the Fata and Enu .
    A half-hided salbinelli chased after a winged folletta . A mass of tiny human-shaped candelas, glowing like fireflies, danced around a tree stump as 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. The conical hat on his head made her frown and she stepped forward to examine it more closely.
    “The male represents a netsvis , kind of like a priest, though it’s been a long time since one’s been born. At least, that’s what I was told.”
    Cara gasped and spun around to confront whoever had snuck up on her. The voice had been female but Cara knew women could be just as prone to violence as men.
    The beautiful teenager standing behind her had a sunny smile and huge brown eyes and immediately put Cara at ease.
    “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you,” the girl said. “I didn’t think anyone would be here now. I’m Dilby .”
    She stuck out her hand and Cara took it immediately. “Cara. And I don’t want to interrupt you. I can leave—”
    “Oh no, please don’t go. I just stopped for a few minutes, a little quiet time before work.”
    Cara’s brows lifted. The girl didn’t look old enough to vote much less hold down a job. “Where do you work?”
    The words were out before Cara could stop them and she wanted to kick herself. She’d been so careful since she’d escaped not to ask too many questions of others because people invariably wanted to ask you one in