Chapter 5
Marcella kept her head high as she walked through the Uffizi Gallery and out the private staff exit. On the street, she tilted her face to the sun and took a deep breath. Her palms were dry, but her heart was racing.
She took the napkin from her bra, dabbed the sweat off her forehead, and dropped it into a nearby trash can.
No man as young as the waiter could interest any part of her.
She had only taken the napkin because it seemed to annoy Cosimo so much.
Her mind was whirling as she tried to pull herself together with each deep inhale.
That was the man who had been her unseen rival for years? She had expected someone full of self-importance, old, bald, and boring. Cosimo Greatdrakes had to irritate her even more by being none of those things.
He was casual and confident in his power, and so handsome with all that thick salt-and-pepper hair and his perfectly trimmed beard that it bordered on offensive.
In the light of the sunny day, his eyes were more violet than gray, and they saw through her usual tricks.
At least if they worked together, he wouldn't underestimate her just because she was a beautiful woman.
It had been a problem with her and her colleagues in the past. That, and they always assumed she would sleep with them.
Idiots.
Marcella had looked up Cosimo in the past when he had first started to outbid her in private auctions. There had been no photos, just credentials and a lot of gossip from anyone in the magical community about him being a widower who charmed everyone and who had too much magic in his blood.
The Greatdrakes were an ancient magician family from Ireland, and there were rumors that they had dragon blood. There was something in his magic that wasn't human, but it wasn't something she had seen before.
Marcella had gone to the meeting only to look at his smug face and tell him no, and now she was reconsidering her decision. And he had books she needed for her research...
"Goddamn him," she hissed, turning on her heels and heading home.
Marcella had lived in her apartment in Santo Spirito since her divorce ten years ago. It was the only good thing she had gotten out of her marriage to Carlo the Stronzo. She liked the neighborhood and always got a good discount at the antiques store beneath her.
Once she was safely behind the door and protective wards, Marcella kicked off her heels and slid her feet into a pair of slippers with a sigh of contentment. She had been dressed for a war she didn't get.
Cosimo Greatdrakes was too...intriguing. She had heard him out instead of crushing him under her heels.
"You're too weak for a pretty face," she sighed and headed for her kitchen.
She lit a small tealight candle by her statue of San Lorenzo, patron saint of cooks, and poured herself a glass of Chianti.
Usually, she only drank wine in the evening, but she was unsettled, her fingertips tingling with magic and her mind buzzing with possibilities.
Wine in hand, Marcella went to a wall in her study and stared at it.
A portrait of her ancestor Caterina that had been painted by Botticelli sat in the middle of it, with red string branching out of it to other pieces of information.
Many of the strings led back to a section of the wall dedicated to the Medici family, and to Cosimo the Elder specifically.
"The last thing I need is another Cosimo in my life to vex me," Marcella said and sipped her wine.
The promise of book sharing was the perfect bait to lure her.
Her hunting and all her research had ground to a halt in the past few months.
She was stuck, and Cosimo Greatdrakes could have the answers she needed.
Marcella was looking for the impossible, and he would have to convince her that finding it for her was in his power. He was related to fae and elf royalty and would have access to knowledge and resources she could only dream about.
The real problem was what Cosimo was asking of her in return.
It would be dangerous and painful to open up the old connections around Forli.
Her ex-husband's family had been the leaders of the streghe in that area for years.
It had cost her everything to be free of Carlo and his controlling mother, Renata.
Marcella's hand rested on her stomach, the memory of old pain tearing into her.
Forli was her ancestral home, and she hadn't been back there in ten years.
She had been exiled when she had chosen her freedom, and it had taken her a long time to stop feeling like her spirit and magic weren't a shredded mess.
Now, Cosimo Greatdrakes wanted her to reopen all those wounds. It would expose her all over again to Renata's scorn and her congrega di streghe.
Marcella straightened her shoulders. She wasn't the beaten-down girl they had treated like shit and cast out. If she returned to Forli, it would be someone confident in her power and body.
Marcella moved over to a tall wooden cabinet and opened the doors to her altar. A Black Madonna, Our Lady of the Underground, sat as the centerpiece. Portraits and statues of her family's patron saints, angels, gods, and goddesses surrounded it.
A picture of her mother and father on their wedding day sat to one side. They had both passed away before she was thirty, and the ache of their absence had never eased. Neither of them had liked Carlo because they were much better at seeing through his bullshit than she had been.
Marcella lit candles and incense, the ritual of it centering her. She picked up her deck of tarot cards from beside La Madonna and sat down at her desk.
If Marcella was going to open herself up to her past, she needed to know if she could trust Cosimo and the promises he made.
She whispered a prayer over the cards before she began to shuffle them. The cards were soft and familiar in her hands. It had been a deck she painted herself, and they never lied to her or led her astray.
Thinking of Cosimo and their possible future partnership, she laid out four cards.
She sipped her wine and flipped the first one: The Magician.
She huffed out a laugh. She had painted Cosimo Medici as the magician.
He was an older man with piles of books and scrolls around him representing the magical knowledge and resources he cultivated.
"I'm talking about Cosimo Greatdrakes, not Medici, thank you," Marcella said, tapping her nail on the next card before flipping it.
The Devil. She had painted it as a roaring dragon.
Her eyes narrowed. The card had multiple meanings from feelings of entrapment to problems with addiction.
Often it meant the loss of control and obsession.
Marcella knew the stories of his family being involved with dragons...
"I'll come back to you," she told it and turned the third card. She pinched the bridge of her nose. "Seriously?"
The card was The High Priestess. She had used a picture of her mother as a model for it because her mother had been her teacher. As Marcella aged, she could see her own face in the card more and more. She quickly turned the last card: The Lovers.
"Cazzo," she swore, heat streaking over her body.
She couldn't deny that Cosimo Greatdrakes had an aura about him that suggested he would be very good at…
No, no, no. She wouldn't let her mind go there.
The Lovers could also mean strong partnerships.
They would work well together if she decided to help him. That was all it meant.
Marcella shuffled her cards again. "What will I get if I agree to help him?
" she asked before flipping the top card.
On it was painted a large table set for a family meal.
Ten of Cups. It was a card representing security, happiness, and domestic harmony.
She couldn't remember the last time she had pulled it.
Happy families hadn't been a part of her life in a long, long time.
Marcella glanced over at the picture of her parents on her altar. She had tried to fill the loss of them with Carlo and had learned not all families had the same love in them that hers did.
Marcella picked up the Devil card and stared at the dragon. Shutting her eyes, she slowed her breathing and whispered a prayer, "Sant'Antonio, show me what he is hiding..."
Marcella was considering petitioning someone else when her inner eye widened and she saw a dragon.
She grabbed hold of the vision, drawing it to her.
No, it wasn't one dragon; it was six dragons.
Their roars shook her right out of the vision and back into her apartment.
Marcella's heart pounded, sweat dotting her brow.
"Mio Dio, you really are dragons," she whispered. Her hands shook as she dropped the card and picked up her wine. She drained her glass and let the alcohol calm her. Real dragons changed everything.
After a few minutes, a small smile appeared on her lips.
If she were forced to deal with Carlo the Stronzo again, then returning with a dragon would ensure that no one would fuck with her.
There hadn't been a strega allied with a dragon in Italy for centuries.
It might even ensure that she could go back to Forli when she wished without worrying about being bothered by anyone.
Marcella's smile widened. She would get more out of the bargain with Cosimo Greatdrakes than she thought. She was reaching for her phone when she thought of that knowing, sexy smirk of his that said, 'Of course you will help me because I'm amazing.'
Marcella put her phone down again and stared at the Magician card. She wasn't about to forget all the times he had messed with her research, and maybe it would do him good not to get his way immediately.
Marcella stroked the dragon on the other card. "I'll help you, but I am still going to make you wait." She knew it was petty, but she didn't care.
She was a witch, not a saint, after all.