Guardians.

Birth Of Rivalry.

Rachel Bo.

Chapter 1: Beloved.

Orphieto, Italy -- 1290 A.D.

Vitale lost himself in the task of brushing his horse, letting the rhythmic strokes quell his irritation. He stiffened at the soft touch on his shoulder.

"Vitale," Ysa murmured. "Tell me what is wrong."

He resumed his stroking, avoiding Ysa's gaze. He could not think clearly when he looked into those liquid brown eyes. "You should not tempt my cousin so, Ysa." He was proud of the fact that his voice was even and low, containing not a hint of the jealousy he always felt with regard to Ysa and his cousin, Pandolfo. "He is not a gentleman."

"Vitale!" Ysa put her arms around him, resting her cheek against his sweat-damp shirt. "It is harmless teasing, my love. Will not my uncle announce our engagement in just two weeks? The whole world will know I am yours."

"What happens in two weeks will not save you if Pan decides to take advantage of you now."

Ysa's hands caressed his chest, fingers traveling down to smooth his shirt just above his breeches -- a gesture that brought the blood rushing to his groin. "Surely you are not jealous?" She slipped the tips of her fingers just inside his pants -- dainty tongue tasting her lips as she looked up at him.

Vitale groaned. Capturing her hand, he brought it up and pressed a light kiss against her soft flesh. "He is dangerous, Ysa. He would not hesitate to take freely what you have offered only in jest."

Ysa jerked her hand away, gazing up at him from beneath long, dark lashes with eyes that contained such a wealth of smoldering desire that Vitale's manhood swelled quickly, painfully. "If he would take me freely, why will you not do so, Vitale?" She took a step forward, pressing her body into his. He shivered as the soft mounds of her b.r.e.a.s.t.s flattened against him. "We are betrothed, are we not?" Her hands roamed his shoulders, his chest, teased at the curly hair peeking out from beneath his shirt. "No one will know," she purred, tugging his shirttail out of his breeches. "I want you, Vitale. I have always wanted you." Her hot lips claimed his.

Vitale lost himself in her kiss, in the tiny, sweet mouth that was so eager, so demanding. Claiming him anew, though he'd always been hers, from the first moment they met when they were children. Shock ran through him as the tips of her insistent fingers crept beneath his breeches yet again and found his manhood -- teasing, caressing. When had his sweet, innocent Ysa become such a vixen? A shudder shook his body, the urge to throw her to the ground and take her there in the hay almost more than he could bear.

Vitale's flesh burned at her touch, his manhood throbbing painfully as her hand closed around it. Groaning, he grasped her wrist. "Ysa, no."

She gazed up at him with unfocused eyes, the pupils huge and dark. "Please, Vitale. We have been waiting so long." She bent over, and before he could react, her warm mouth had surrounded him.

Vitale gasped, savoring the sensation for one magical moment. He shook violently, every fiber of his being urging him to bury his c.o.c.k in her throat and fill her with his seed. Groaning, he wrapped his hands in her hair and pulled her up to face him. "Ysa, no!" He pushed mahogany curls back from her temples, cupping her cheeks with his hands. "I love you. Ours will be a bond of respect and purity such as no other. I love you too much to despoil you now."

Her eyes flashed with annoyance, and Vitale rushed on, trying to stave off the anger. What had happened to his sweet, innocent love? Why must she torment him over and over with their desire, when their wedding night was only months away? It must be thatstrega -- her grandmother. The witch. The gypsy woman had filled Ysa's head with desires of the flesh, as such witches were known to do.

"It has been difficult enough to convince my father, finally, that I will never marry the cousin he had chosen. If your uncle were not who he is, and your reputation without question, he would never have agreed to our engagement. He would cancel the wedding immediately if even a whisper reached him regarding your..." Vitale hesitated, searching for a delicate word.

Ysa pulled away. "My virginity?" Her lips twisted into a bitter frown.

Vitale sighed. Such a strange, compelling mixture of shy and sly, demure and forward, respectable and shocking. His Ysa. Sometimes he wondered if he truly knew her at all. "Yes. And it would not matter to him that I was the one -- it would only matter that people knew you were not a virgin on our wedding night."

"But who would tell, darling Vitale?" Ysa licked her lips again, smiling as Vitale suppressed a shiver. Her eyes traveled to the bulge in his pants, to the ripe head peeking out of his waistband. "I won't tell."

She stepped forward as though to take him in her mouth again. Hastily, Vitale tucked himself back into his breeches and grabbed her wrists. "Please. It is only a few months, my love. Think how wonderful it will be on that night."

Her eyes blazed with a determined fire that he admired and yet sometimes dreaded. "I want you, Vitale. I want you now. I don't want to wait, and I shouldn't have to. You are my betrothed, my love."

"And my father is looking for any excuse to call off this marriage. If you were not Maitani's niece --"

"I know." Ysa jerked her arms free, her expression sullen. "How lucky I am that the great Vincenti de Orphieto has such respect for my architect uncle." She stepped back, eyes flashing. "We are not married yet, Vitale de Orphieto. I will speak with whom I please, and I will not censor my words for you."

"I am concerned for your safety, Ysa."

"Yes. Always. My safety. My reputation. My suitability as a prospective wife. My, my, my. Only none of this satisfiesme . What about my joy, my dreams, my desires?"

"I thought Iwas your desire. And our marriage your joy. And our life together your dream." He could not keep the sorrow from his face. "Have I made a mistake, Ysa? Is there nothing between us that is worth the wait?"

Ysa gasped and stepped forward again, embracing him. "Oh, Vitale. My love. Forgive me." She clutched him tightly. "Of course you are worth the wait." Tears trembled in her voice. "I love you for your pure heart, your goodness. It is just that sometimes... I wish to break free. To soar like a bird. I want to do something no one expects, and take joy in it, and not worry about whether it is accepted, or proper. Why can we not just follow our hearts?"

Vitale crushed her to him, inhaling her scent, burying his face in her soft curls. "We will, my Ysa. You will see. Once we are married, we will soar together."

She clung to him like a frightened girl, all trace of seduction gone, like the innocent Ysa of old. Unexpectedly, this frightened him, and he held her for a long time.

Finally, he kissed the top of her head and gently pushed her away. "It is only until the spring, my love."

Ysa looked up at him with fear in her eyes. "Sometimes, I feel as though something terrible is going to happen."

Vitale chuckled. "That is not so strange. Until our wedding day has come and gone, there will always be some part of us that worries it will not happen. All betrothals are like that."

Ysa opened her mouth as though to protest, but Vitale turned her gently toward the door. "You must go. You have spent entirely enough time alone in the stable with the young man of the house. It will set the servants' tongues to wagging."

Ysa hesitated at the stable door, looking back at him. "Pandolfo has invited my uncle and me to join the hunt tomorrow." There was a chiding note in her voice, and Vitale knew that she was very irritated that he had not extended the invitation himself.

"I would have invited you, but I was not aware that you had any interest in the hunt."

Ysa's gaze narrowed. "Oh, yes, Vitale." The sultry look was back, and he stifled a groan as his aching c.o.c.k throbbed anew. "There is nothing quite so..." Her eyes traveled the length of his body, a smile teasing her lips. "Stimulating... as the hunt."

With that, she turned and moved gracefully across the stony earth toward the village. Vitale walked to the door and watched her sway down the path, wondering again when Ysa had become so bold, and whether the change hearkened well or ill for their impending marriage.

Chapter 2: The Hunt.

Vitale heard a rustling in the woods to his right, and turned his horse with a practiced hand. A flash of white in a small clearing ahead brought him down from his mount's back. He tied the stallion's reins to a nearby sapling and readied his bow, moving forward silently through these woods he knew so well.

When he stepped from between the trees, a giant hand seemed to close around his heart like a vise. His cousin, Pandolfo, grunted as he ground his hips against the pale, bare a.s.s before him. Vitale struggled to breathe as his love, his Ysa, cried out, arching her face to the sky. Tears streamed down her cheeks as she knelt on all fours, her skirt gathered about her waist, Pandolfo's urgent thrusts rocking her body.

Without thought, Vitale let the nocked arrow fly. It whipped past his cousin's shoulder, thudding into the oak just behind him.

Pandolfo's head whipped around, eyes narrowing as he focused on Vitale. A hand flew to his boot.

As though in a dream, Vitale watched Ysa turn her head to look at Pan. Smiling. Wriggling her hips with a questioning expression on her face. That expression turned to horror as she followed the direction of his gaze and saw Vitale. And then the blade from Pan's boot slammed into his chest.

The bow fell from his nerveless fingers. Vitale dropped to his knees, a fire burning deep in his lungs.

"No!" Ysa scrambled to her feet.

He could not feel his hands, his arms. He toppled and would have hit the ground had Ysa not caught him. Staggering, she lowered him to the gra.s.s, his head and shoulders pillowed by her white-skirted legs. "Vitale!"

Ysa clawed at his chest, pulling his shirt off. Pandolfo's knife protruded from a wound around which bright red blood flowed. Vitale gasped as ice seemed to creep along his veins.

"Vitale, my love," Ysa sobbed. "Don't leave me!"

Vitale tried to focus on her face -- her beautiful, once-innocent face -- but a gray fog obscured his vision. From a long way off, he heard a familiar, laconic voice say, "He should not have loosed the arrow."

The gentle hand stroking his brow faltered, and even in his muddled state, Vitale winced as his betrothed gathered breath for a tirade.You'll feel the lash of her tongue now, Pan . Vitale chuckled, but the sound became a gurgle as something warm and coppery filled his mouth.

"You." Ysa's voice was deep, filled with rage. Herstrega voice. "You knew it was Vitale when you threw the blade. Youmeant to kill him." Her controlled tone made Vitale shiver. Ysa's anger could shrivel the leaves on a mature oak to ash. He would not want to be in Pan's position right now.

Some small part of him realized he was dying. That actually, being in Pan's position would be much preferable to where he was now. But his thoughts were muddled. Foggy. Still, hewas lying in Ysa's lap, her upper body poised over him. Shielding him, and offering a very enticing view of the b.r.e.a.s.t.s that had worked free of her bodice. A wave of sorrow washed over him, then a violent urge to laugh.Shock , he thought, even as he gave in to the urge and started to chuckle. The sound turned into a moan as pain lanced through him.

Pan's expression was calm as he straightened his breeches and tucked his shirt inside them. "Perhaps now you'll dispense with your romantic notions of life as the wife of Orphieto's eldest son, and come to Genoa as the mistress of one with true power."

She can't be your mistress, she's going to be my wife. Vitale struggled to speak, and managed only a grunt. Immediately, Ysa bent her head over him, her ear close to his mouth. "I --"I love you , he wanted to say, but a shaft of darkness swept toward him, and he tumbled in before he could finish.

"Vitale?" Ysa sat up, registering for the first time the incredible amount of blood surrounding his body, staining her dress. Fear clutched her so tightly she couldn't breathe. She looked up at Pandolfo. One sandy lock tumbled across his forehead like a scar and he watched his cousin with empty eyes, his lips turned up slightly at the corners. An eerie calm settled over her. Looking up at Pandolfo, she spoke in the husky, atonal voice her grandmother had taught her, her gypsy lilt adding a strange singsong quality to her words.

Reaching out with a steady hand, she dipped her fingers in Vitale's blood and shook them at the man she confronted. Pan started involuntarily as the red fluid dotted his leggings. "I curse you, Pandolfo Villani." Ysa struggled to remember her grandmother's teachings -- things learned as a young girl, and only half-believed.Three times will invoke the power of the G.o.ddess, and bind the spell , her grandmother's voice whispered in her mind. Ysa dipped her fingers in her betrothed's blood again. "I curse you, Pandolfo Villani." And again. "I curse you, Pandolfo Villani, in the name of the Maiden, the Mother, the Crone. For as long as a single descendant of the Orphieto bloodline walks this earth, the family Villani will have no happiness, reap no gain, andyou will never have that which you desire most."

The sky darkened, the muted gold light of dusk turning to the angry green-gray of a bruise. The air stilled and seemed to thicken, the drawing of each breath becoming a challenge. Ysa felt a surge of satisfaction as Pan shifted uneasily, his mocking gaze beginning to show a hint of fear.

A dark cloud coalesced above them. Swirling, elongated, the roiling mist resolved into the form of a young maid of ethereal beauty. Beside that visage Ysa felt plain, even ugly, for the first time in her life.

Pandolfo's features brightened, lighted by a l.u.s.tful grin. "Oho! What have we here?" He made as though to reach for the vision, but her eyes turned to meet his, blazing with anger. The color drained from his face, and he began to tremble.

"As our Daughter has spoken, so shall it be. Let the curse of the Villani begin."

"What are you talking about, witch?" Pan's cheeks flushed with anger, though Ysa knew him well enough to see that he was truly frightened by this apparition. "I'll show you a curse." He raised his hand as though to strike the maid.

A muted crack pierced the unearthly silence surrounding them, accompanied by a bolt of lightning. Pan roared, doubling over, holding his right forearm against his stomach. The stench of burned flesh permeated the air.

A howl sounded in the distance, and the Maiden's gaze flickered. "Run, Pandolfo Villani. They are coming."

Pan's eyes widened in terror, yet he had never been one to bow to the will of any man, and certainly no woman. He sneered. "They will not harm me. I am a son of one of the richest families in Genoa."

The Maiden's cold features began to change. Her cheeks became rounder. Her hips widened, her body becoming plump and ripe, and her flowing golden locks wrapped around themselves as though worked by a dozen phantom hands, settling against her back in a matron's braid. Her dark eyes flashed. "I would rid this world of you now, Pandolfo Villani, if there were not other G.o.ds who had some use for you." She waved a hand. "Run, I say."

He started to laugh, but his expression changed to confusion, then horror, as his feet began to move, jerking as though he were a puppet on a string. "Run!" An awkward marionette, he crossed the clearing, fighting all the way.

The Lady watched him into the woods, her gaze sharp and scornful. Then she turned those shrewd eyes to the woman on the ground before her.

"Mother." Ysa bowed her head in respect.

"What would you ask of me, Daughter?"

Ysa raised her eyes. "Let himlive ." She hugged Vitale's body tight, swallowing tears as his shallow breathing faltered.

The G.o.ddess gestured, and Vitale shuddered in Ysa's arms.

"Vitale de Orphieto." The Mother's voice rang out, clear and commanding. "I offer you a choice. Open your eyes."

Vitale's eyelids fluttered.

"Open them!"

Vitale obeyed, his gaze locking onto the vision.

"You may pa.s.s on -- into the realm of Light, as is your reward. Or remain, and become Guardian -- a hand of the G.o.ds here on earth. Protector, and Judge."

"I'll --" Vitale coughed, choking on his own rapidly congealing blood. "Live?"

"Not as you do now. You will change, into a form better suited for carrying out our purpose."

"What --"

Ysa took Vitale's hand in hers, the heat of her flesh like a hot coal against his cold palm. "Please, Vitale. Live. I cannot lose you."

Vitale looked into the pleading gaze of the one he loved. The hysterical confusion that had gripped him earlier was gone, leaving an unwelcome clarity in its place. His betrothed, now pleading for his life, had betrayed him with another. He had loosed the arrow in haste, thinking that Pan was raping her. The haunting reality was that when she had turned to his cousin the expression on her face had been one of pleasure. Hunger. Eagerness.

Ysa cried out, as though she read his thoughts in his eyes.

"Vitale, please! I am still for you. I love you. He never touched that part of me meant only for you."

Vitale shook his head, not understanding.

"Please, my love." A tear trembled on her lashes, then dropped, wetting his mouth. Vitale licked his lips, drank her sorrow. "Please. I do love you. I do."

Despite his doubts, he could not refuse her. He had loved her all his life, and he would love her even after he and this earth parted. If he lived, perhaps there would still be a chance for them. "Yes," he croaked.

The Mother eyed him with approval, yet Vitale detected a trace of pity in her regard. "I will be Guardian," she prompted. "You must speak these words three times."

"Three times to bind," Ysa whispered.

"Yes."

Though filled with a great sense of foreboding, Vitale repeated the words three times in an awful, gurgling croak. In the old tales, bargains with the G.o.ds were never quite what they seemed to be. He could not help wondering what hidden disaster would befall him.

Before the last whisper faded from his lips, agony seared his limbs. Vitale screamed, thrashing violently. Ysa scrambled away as his body shook.