Page 1 of Their UnBearable Destiny

Chapter One

He’d only been backin his hometown for less than an hour when Uberto had his first revelation. The cobblestone streets of Santa Biago were hell on his shoes. New York streets were bad, but this was going to take some getting used to.

Ten years should have felt like a lifetime, and yet it almost felt like he’d only made a quick trip outside of town and turned right back around a few minutes ago. The market at the end of the street looked like it always did. The stalls out in front of the market had a fresh coat of paint. And Mrs. Mancini was standing beside the door, her broom in her hands as she swept at the invisible specks of dust on her front step.

She looked up and smiled at him as if she did it every morning.

He returned the grin because Mrs. Mancini had always been a sweet lady. And on the worst day of his life, she’d taken him in, sat him down on a chair beside her counter and gave him a soda. She let him sit there staring at the open mouth of the bottle for hours before he finally drained the thing in one long gulp, stood up, and walked home.

Wasn’t that exactly what he was doing here? Walking home. There were a few people standing outside the butcher and the conversation stopped as he walked by. He gave them all a nod and kept walking. To be honest, it was a better reaction than he had expected since he hadn’t told anyone that he was coming.

If he had called to say that he was coming back, he would have been told to stay away, or he’d find his family jewels in a box. He should have stayed back in New York for that alone, because he was kind of attached to his family jewels, even though they were particularly blue. Bluer than the Hope Diamond, but that was a problem for another time.

A window shot up down the street and an older man looked out, leaning on the window frame. “Uberto!”

He stopped and lifted his hand up in a greeting. Mr. Cassini had taught him as a child.

“What are you doing back? Tired of the big city?”

Uberto opened his mouth to reply and found himself silent and rooted to the spot. At the end of the street, a big red door opened into the house. He didn’t have to ask himself who it was behind the door. He knew exactly who it was.

But he didn’t expect her to look… like that.

The woman who stepped out into the warm midday sun wore red heels, with little bows at the back, drawing his gaze to her ankles and then her calves.

By the time his eyes met the flirty box-pleats just south of her knees, he was shaking. When he got around the sweet curves of her thighs he was ready to fall on his knees and beg her for another chance. That’s exactly why he didn’t move.

He was far enough away from her that if she did see him, he’d have a few moments to enjoy the view before she sank fangs into his throat and tried to kill him.

Emiliana turned around on those gorgeous heels and nailed him with a look. A look that said she knew exactly what he’d been thinking and the smile on her face said, she was ready for a fight.

When she started to move it wasn’t a run, it wasn’t even a fast walk. Instead, the woman who’d made every night that they’d been apart a nightmare, walked toward him like a model on a catwalk. Her heels, the flirty skirt, and the deep V of her blouse gave him a view that would be forever emblazoned in his memory until the end of time. A form to worship in his head if she turned him away… again.

Her face. There was no one in the world who could make hate look so good.

Really, Emiliana Bruno should have been a snake shifter. She knew how to pin a man to the spot with those eyes and while he was standing there dreaming of her naked and writhing in the sheets, she could get close enough to rip out his throat.

He just hoped that he’d get to kiss her first.

“Hello, Emiliana.”

“Hello?” Her voice dripped with venom and he couldn’t help the smile that twisted at his lips. “You’re American now?”

“I’m the same man that I was the last time we… saw each other.”

Damn if she didn’t look disappointed. “Well, it was to be expected.”

“Expected.” What he wouldn’t give to turn her over his knee, and show her how unexpected he could be.

“And don’t you look at me that way, Uberto.”

Oh, he heard a hint of fire in her tone. He’d rather that than the frostbite he’d had a moment before. Holding up his hands in surrender he let out a pent-up breath. “Ana, I-”

“Don’t you call me that, ‘Berto!” She was suddenly close enough to breathe in and hot enough to melt him into a little puddle. Her hands were fisted in his shirt and the top button had come undone and still they weren’t close enough. Not nearly close enough.

His bear raged at him, clawed at him from the inside until he felt raw and bleeding. One look into her midnight-dark eyes said she felt the same thing. Their bears had more sense than they did, but he wasn’t going to say that to her. He liked having his body in one piece.

“We can’t keep going like this,” he told her, his whole body was begging him to pull her closer, tell her everything was going to be okay, that he’d fix everything for her, but telling her that was going to put them on opposite sides again.

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