Destiny Revealed (11 page)

As we started down the hall, they started in on me, “Oh
wow, Sofia, he’s
gorgeous
,” fourteen year old Carolina
said. “No wonder you fell in love with him.”
“Idiota, he can still hear you,” Pietro shouted to our
backs. The three of us started to giggle like little girls and
ignored him.
“I could still hear them even if they were in the
bedroom,” Nick said.
“Yeah, they’re sooo loud,” Pietro agreed.
“Werewolf hearing actually,” Nick chuckled.
I threw my suitcase up on the bed, unzipped it and
pulled out the box of chocolates. Carolina clapped her
hands together and snatched the box out of my hands. “Uh,
you’re welcome,” I laughed.
Gabriela picked up Luca’s picture, “What’s this?”
“It’s our backyard,” I smiled. “Luca took it. It’s for
Nonna and Nonno.”
“
That’s
your backyard? Wow, when can we visit?”
Gabriela asked.
“Anytime you want. Nick and I have our own place
across town, but we live by the woods too.”
“Speaking of Nick,” sixteen year old Gabriela said. “He
is sooo hot. Are all werewolves that gorgeous?” I heard
laughing from the living room and knew that Nick heard
her. She didn’t realize it and kept talking. “I mean, does he
have some friends or something he can hook me up with?
Does he know anyone here? Because if not, I’m prepared to
move to America.”
“Um, well, he does have family here in the Alps. I’m
not sure how good looking they are. Two of his pack
members in Arizona are spoken for, but Tristan and Mateo
don’t have girlfriends,” I smiled.
“Mamma,” she shouted as she took off down the hall
back towards the living room. “Can I go to America for the
summer?” Carolina and I followed behind her, and as soon
as I saw Nick’s face, I started laughing so hard I had to sit
down.
My aunt was arguing with Gabriela about how
expensive it was to go to America, but she wouldn’t have
any of it. She kept telling her mom how it would be a good
experience for her and she had a free place to stay and it
would help her with her English. “You already speak
English,” Fabrizia reminded her.
“But I could get even better at it,” she whined.
“Where’s Zio Vincenzio?” I asked, trying to help out.
“He’s on his way here,” my aunt answered.
Pietro was still asking Nick twenty questions about
being a werewolf and Nick was being a great sport and
answering them all patiently.
The door opened again and five more kids poured in
along with Mamma’s brother and his wife, Mia. All the kids
ran to me and swarmed around me. Aletta and Arabella
were ten year old twins and latched on to me. Alfredo was
only seven and tried to squish in between them to get to
me. Alfonso just gave me an I’m-too-cool-for-hugs twelve
year old boy head nod. And Amadeo reached over the
younger ones for cheek kisses. Apparently fifteen year old
boys weren’t too cool for cheek kisses.
Mia yelled at the little ones to get off me and then she
came in for a giant hug. I introduced Nick to everyone. “I
know you won’t remember the names of my ridiculously
large family, but this is Alessandro, Mia, Alfredo, Amadeo,
Alfonso, and the twins, Aletta and Arabella.
“It’s so great to meet you all,” he said politely before
being attacked by my young cousins. The girls were
wrapped around him in a death grip and wouldn’t let go.
Mia came over and dragged them off.
Nick and I followed Nonno through the backdoor from
the kitchen into a beautiful courtyard. There was a massive
wooden table in the center underneath a trellis covered with
flowers growing up the sides and over the top of it. We took
a seat around the table and immediately got swarmed by
cousins again.
Rapid fire questions came at us from all directions. I
couldn’t stop laughing. It was so comforting to have all the
noise around me. I could hear Nonno’s gravelly voice
talking with my zio Alessandro about his job, Nonna was
yelling out cooking instructions to Fabrizia and Mia in the
kitchen. Pietro was on the other side of Nick rattling off
questions at him. I couldn’t help but stare at Nick and
smile. It brought me so much happiness to see him
surrounded by my family being fully accepted.
The twins kept playing with my hair while Gabriela
drilled me about Arizona. “Can you please talk to Mamma
for me? I really really want to come this summer,” she
pleaded.
“I’m so not getting in the middle of it,” I said. “It would
be so fun if you could come, but maybe you should wait
until you’re finished with school.”
“I already finished,” she whined. I forgot about the
different school system.
“But what about higher secondary school?” I asked.
“Have you thought of what you want to do?” That got her
mind off the States for awhile as she chatted away with me
about how she wanted to go into art.
“Nick is an amazing artist,” I said. Her eyes lit up and
she looked at him with a dreamy expression. I elbowed her
hard in the side and gave her a dirty look. “Eyes off.”
“Sorry, he’s just so damn beautiful,” she said in
English.
“Do you kiss your mother with that mouth?” Amadeo
teased. She stuck her tongue out at him.
“Maybe if Pietro went with me, Mamma would be okay
with it,” she mused. She stood up and walked around to
where Pietro was still talking to Nick. They had moved on
from what it was like to be a wolf and were now discussing
a cute witch that Pietro was dating.
I just sat back and listened to all the chatter for a few
minutes while the twins continued to play with my hair.
They were braiding it and took one of their own hair ties to
finish it off for me. When they were done, I got up and
wandered to the kitchen to see if I could help the aunts and
Nonna. They mostly had everything done, which was good
because I wouldn’t have been much help. I would never
starve to death, but Nick was definitely the cook at our
house.
We had a nice long lunch and the rest of the family left,
but planned to come back the following night for a late
dinner. “I’m going to gain like ten pounds while we’re
here,” I complained. “The food is so good and they eat so
late at night.”
“You’ll always be perfect to me, even if you gain fifty
pounds,” Nick smiled. I rolled my eyes.
Before bed, Nonna handed me her book. I was
surprised, but excited. So far, I hadn’t found anything in
Mamma’s book and I was about three quarters into it, so I
was happy to have something new to look through. I was
hopeful after Nonna had acted so strange earlier in the day.
“What should we do first tomorrow?” Nick asked as we
were settling in our room for the night.
“Beach for sure. I have to see these turquoise waters
Mamma told me about,” I answered.
We set a tentative schedule as we climbed into bed, but
decided to be spontaneous and do whatever sounded good
once we were out.
I couldn’t sleep that first night. Between the nap on
the plane and the eight hour time difference, my inner clock
was all out of whack. “I can go in the other room,” I told
Nick. “I want to stay up and look through Nonna’s book.
She was acting so bizarrely this morning that I want to dig
straight into it.”
“Just stay here. I can sleep with the light on,” Nick said.
I leaned my back against the headboard, pulled my knees
up and rested the book on my lap. Nick snuggled up next to
me and closed his eyes. I moved my eyes from the book to
Nick. I couldn’t help but stare at how beautiful he was. His
profile was perfect to me. I was getting distracted from my
task so I turned back to the book.
I didn’t want to spend all my time in Italy researching
so I hoped I would find something right away.

It felt like I had been searching forever. And now, here
it was in front of me. The reason we were meant to be
together. I was so excited I had to read it three times. I
wanted to make sure I got the translation right.

The prophecy was in Theban, an ancient alphabet
witches often used to hide the contents of their Book of
Shadows from non-magic people. I was a little rusty,
though I learned the letters as soon as I could write.

“I found it, Nick!” I couldn’t help but shake him awake.
“Hmm..?” he mumbled, rolling over to face me.
“A prophecy here in Nonna's book!” I couldn’t contain

He looked over my shoulder at the writing on the thin,
delicate page as he blinked his eyes open. “What is that
language?” he asked, scrunching his face up.

“It’s Theban,” I answered. When he gave me a confused
look, I added, “It’s an ancient witches’ alphabet.”
“Well, are you going to read it to me because I sure
can’t read it.”
“Of course. I might be a little off on the exact
translation, but the gist of it says,
In the land of the free where the desert and forest
collide above the valley of the sun beyond the great canyon,
the white witch will be born out of love between a shifter
and witch who have broken the curse and united our
peoples once again.
Her powers will equal those of Mother Hecate, she will
have the ability to shift to her true form. She will bring light
to the darkness and guard and protect our peoples.

I looked up at Nick when I finished. “So, how do you
know this is talking about us? It’s talking about someone
being born. Is that you?”

“You don’t get it?” When he gave me a confused look I
explained. “The land of the free is America, the desert,
valley of the sun, great canyon? Duh, that’s Arizona. And it
talks about a witch and shifter who break ‘the curse’.”

“So the baby?” he raised his eyebrows at me.
“Yes,” I nodded. “Is going to be ours.”
“A girl,” he smiled. “What should we name her?”
“Uh, hold on there cowboy. We just got married a

couple months ago and we’re only eighteen,” I said. I felt
like I was going to have a panic attack at the thought of
having a baby. Nick put his hand on my chest where my
heart was racing.

“Shh… deep breath, Bella. I was only joking. I
am
almost nineteen though,” he smiled.
“Well, I’m not! Mamma was twenty-one when she had
Luca.”
“Tell me about this Hecate. I’ve heard the name, but that’s
it,” Nick said, changing the subject. I was grateful for the
distraction. This was something I could handle talking
about.
“She’s basically the mother of witchcraft, the first to
use her powers. And did you catch how it said the baby
would be able to shift to her true form?”
“Yeah, I noticed that,” Nick nodded.
“Well, Hecate is associated with dogs. And before you
get mad, no I am not saying that’s what you are.”
“I know you have never thought of me that way. Even
when you hated me,” he smiled and kissed me softly.
“I never hated you,” I said. He raised his eyebrows at
me in disbelief. “I didn’t! I was confused and definitely
thought you were annoying, but I never really hated you.”
“Okay, you’re right. When you kissed me back, you
definitely didn’t have feelings of hate,” he grinned.
“OMG,” I said.
“What is it?” Nick startled.
“Dogs were associated with birth and very sacred. I just
realized that we’ve always been connected to weres. I
mean, Hecate thought they were sacred. How is it that our
ancestors got away from that?”
“Scorned lovers ruin everything,” Nick laughed,
referring to our discovery of the story of Henri and Adelina.
“This is big, Nick. I really don’t want to tell Mamma
though.”
“Perchè?” he asked.
“Because she’s going to expect a grand baby now!”
Nick laughed at me. “Well she would eventually want
one anyway.”
“I know, but I don’t want her thinking we’re going to
start right now,” I argued.
“You have to tell her about it. You’ve been searching
for weeks and she’ll be excited for you. I’m sure she won’t
say anything about having a baby right now,” he reassured
me.
“Hopefully not, but if she does, I’m blaming you.” I
really couldn’t sleep after that, but Nick passed out again
right away. I got up and went to the kitchen. It was close to
five a.m. already and Nonna was sitting at the kitchen table
with a cup of steaming milk.
“You found it,” she smiled.
“Yes! You knew it was there all along. Why wouldn’t
you just tell me?”
“I wanted you to find it for yourself. You needed to see.
I didn’t know if you would believe me about a baby. I know
you are still young,” she answered.
“I might’ve been upset about that because I’m not
ready, but I still would’ve believed you.” I sat down at the
table with her and poured myself some hot milk. “Wait a
second, are you the one who had the prophecy? Or is it just
something you wrote down from somewhere else?”
“It was me,” she grinned.
“And you never told anyone about it?” I couldn’t
believe she would have kept it to herself all these years.
“No one would have believed me. There was such
hatred towards the wolves. They would think I was going
crazy,” she said.
“I’ve wanted to ask for awhile now why our families all
moved to America. Is this why?”
“Yes,” she smiled softly and put her hand on top of
mine.
“And no one ever asked why they should go? They just
listened to you?” I thought it was odd that half the coven
would move to America just because Nonna said they
should.
“I told them I had seen it. It was very important for
them to go because great things would happen for our
coven there. I am the leader after all. I say go, and they go,”
she answered. She was right. Everyone would listen to the
coven leader no matter what. If she told them things were
supposed to happen there that wouldn’t in Italy or France
where our coven was, then they would go.
“And did you know the wolves would follow?”
“Sì, I did,” she answered simply.
“Do you know why the wolves went? I mean, obviously
they wouldn’t have known about your vision and followed
it,” I asked the question that had been on my mind since
Nick and I got together.
“I’m not completely sure, but I believe it is because
they stay close to witches to make sure we don’t ‘out
ourselves’ as you might say,” she shrugged. “Maybe you
could ask Aberto.” I nodded. It made sense. Nick didn’t
know why, but maybe his father had never said anything
about it. We were both born in America and it never
occurred to either one of us to ask why our families moved
there until now.
Nonno wandered in then and I asked him right away if
he knew about Nonna’s prophecy. “Which one?” he asked.
“The one about Nick and I,” I answered with a smile.
“No,” he shook his head. “What is it?”
I was a little surprised that she wouldn’t have told him,
so I explained it to him. He smiled and was thrilled for me
that I found it. I asked him if he was bothered by the fact
that she hadn’t ever told him.
“No, why would I be? She leads us, and when
something is important, she tells me,” he answered with a
smile. Though I had grown up with Babbo having the same
attitude, it still seemed weird at times that our world put
women higher than men. I wondered if Nick would have a
problem with it since weres were a male dominant people.
I told my grandparents our plan to go to the beach for
the day and asked if they had anything else to add to
Mamma’s sight-seeing list. Nonna suggested the Cattedrale
di Santa Maria Assunta. “Make sure you go downstairs to
see the crypt and baptistry,” she added. Nonno told us we
had to visit the Roman ruins as well. There was even a
museum that held quite a few statues, tombs and other
ancient remains of the Romans.
I felt the need to let Nick sleep, but I was excited to
start the day as well. I needed to make sure we gave
ourselves plenty of time to go visit Nick’s family in the
Alps as well and a week didn’t seem long enough. I wanted
to spend time with my family, but we were there to see as
much of Italy as we could in our short stay.
I waited until seven to wake him and we both got ready
for the day. I thought it would be a better idea to end the
day with a stroll on the beach, so we started at the church
Nonna told me about, hit the museum before it closed for
lunch (like half the town), and finished up with some prehistoric caves. Dinner wouldn’t be until 9 pm or so and we
stayed on the beach until the sun went down.
When we got back to the house, my extended family
was just showing up to begin the dinner preparations. They
planned for us to have the traditional full Italian meal. It
was rare to have anything so large at home with just the
four of us and Babbo’s ever-changing work schedule, so I
was excited.
I was surprised the women let Nick in the small kitchen
to help. I think they wanted to see what he could actually
do and he was happy to show off. I went out back to set the
table while the younger cousins ran around and my uncles
sat with Nonno talking.
Dinner started with a Caprese salad, fettuccine with
prosciutto made by Nick for the main course, Nonna’s fish
stew for the second course with roasted bell peppers for the
side. To top things off, my aunts made hazelnut chocolate
cake for dessert.
“Is it just me, or does anyone else need to unbutton
their pants now?” I asked with a grin.
“You mean Giuliana doesn’t cook like this for you
every night?” Fabrizia teased.
“She does it for birthdays and that’s about it,” I
answered. “Well, I guess Christmas too.”
“Nico, your fettuccine was amazing,” Vincenzio praised
in Italian.
“Grazie,” Nick smiled. “I’m glad I could help out.”
“Is it your own sauce recipe?” Gabriela asked. I didn’t
like the wistful look she always got when she spoke to
Nick, but at the same time, I couldn’t blame her.
“It’s close to my babbo’s recipe, but I tweaked it a
little,” he answered.
“Do both your parents cook?” Nonna asked.
“Sì, they run the restaurant together. I’ve worked there
since I could stand on a stool, so I’ve learned everything
from them.”
“Do you think you’ll take over someday?” Pietro
wondered.
“Most likely. It’s a lot of work, but I really enjoy it. I’m
going to help in the kitchen now that school is done,” he
finished.
After visiting for almost two more hours, everyone left
and we went to bed. I asked Nick if he was doing okay
without shifting, but he insisted he was fine. It wasn’t like
he could wander around town as a were.
“Yeah, but my grandparents wouldn’t mind if you
wandered around the backyard and house,” I insisted.
“That would just be weird. Besides, the whole reason I
shift most of the time is because I need to run and stretch,”
he answered. “I can shift once we get to Aosta. My
grandfather lives in the mountains.”
We settled into bed instead and fell asleep almost
instantly. I got a text from Jack around midnight that night.
It was only four in the afternoon in Arizona and he was at
the jewelry store. He had chickened out on the tattoo ring
idea and decided to buy Nat a diamond ring instead. He
sent a picture of the one he was thinking about.
u know her better. will she like?
my
phone chirped with the text.
“Who’s texting so late?” Nick asked, rolling over in
bed.
“Jack; he’s ring shopping and needs my opinion,” I
answered. “Go back to sleep.”
“No, I’m awake. Lemme see,” he mumbled. I showed
him the picture of the ring. There was a single diamond in
the center and small diamonds in the band on the sides.
pretty. she’ll like,
I texted back.
“That’s really stunning,” Nick said over my shoulder.
“Are you sure you didn’t want anything like that?”
I turned to look right at him. “No way. I’ve never been
a huge jewelry person. And I love the necklace you gave
me for my birthday. That’s good enough for me. Plus, I
have your name on me forever,” I gave him a big smile and
a kiss.
don’t want her just to like. will she
love?
my phone chirped again.
Nick started to kiss my neck as I tried to type a reply.
of corpse.
??
, Jack replied.
“Stop it, you’re distracting me,” I told Nick. He kept
nuzzling my neck.
course
, I corrected. I turned my head
to tell Nick to stop again, but he caught my mouth. The kiss
deepened quickly and my phone rolled off the bed onto the
floor.
here’s the band
, Jack continued to text. I ignored
it, and when I didn’t respond right away, he sent another
one.
u still there? is it ok?
“I need to get it or he’ll keep texting,” I mumbled
against Nick’s full lips. He kissed me again in reply. I
pulled away and reached down to grab my phone before he
could stop me. The band was a plain silver one to match the
diamond ring. It had the phrase “As long as love shall last”
in Theban. “Ooh, I really like that,” I said out loud. That
made Nick look over my shoulder again.
“Cool,” he said before moving his lips to my bare
shoulder.
i love. perfect
, I texted one last time and set my
phone down on the nightstand. Nick’s lips moved back up
to my neck and then found my mouth again.