Carpathian 00 - The Scarletti Curse

don's unholy spell over her. She faltered, but she couldn't look away from his gleaming black gaze. He did look a predator, intent on his prey, staring fixedly, with a demand as old as time.
    Giovanni moved then, gliding in his deceptively casual way toward Nicoletta. That simple ripple of his power surged through the cathedral, controlled the crowd, and stopped the hysteria, a measure of his utter domination. His gaze never left Nicoletta's face; rather it intensified. He strode the short remaining distance to her side and took her ice-cold hand. Still holding her gaze, he brought her fingers to the warmth of his lips, then tucked her hand into the crook of his elbow and walked her to the altar and the waiting priest.
    The ceremony was long, the scents of the precious incense and the chant of ancient Latin reassuring.
    Nicoletta knelt with the don, bowing her head as the ritual continued. All the while the wind raged at the cathedral in a frenzy to get in. All the while she felt the venomous stares of her enemies boring into her back. She was in a holy place, yet something or someone was plotting unspeakable evil to punish her audacity for daring to join in marriage to the don.
    The heavens opened and poured a savage fury of windswept rain over the cathedral as the holy father performed the vows binding her to Giovanni Scarletti. Wind howled and gnashed at the windows, and the deluge pounded the roof and sides of the building. The earth had ceased trembling, but lightning zigzagged across the sky, arcing from black cloud to black cloud, and thunder reverberated so loudly that the church shook.
    As the cathedral shuddered under the storm's wild fury, the priest stammered, his voice trailing off, unable to proclaim the couple wed. His hands trembled visibly, and he glanced in fright at the rattling windows. The rain was pelting the stained glass in a pounding flood. The large crowd whispered of unholy practices, crossing themselves and kissing the crucifixes hanging around their necks. No one dared use the term Il Demonio, but that unspoken whisper was the loudest. Giovanni Scarletti stirred then—a ripple of movement, no more—but it was clearly a movement of aggression, of pure menace.
    The whispers ceased instantly, and the priest made the sign of the cross several times, sprinkling holy water over the couple for good measure.
    Nicoletta kept her head bowed, forcing her breath in and out. No one could save her, not the good Madonna and not the holy father. Even the wind and rain protested their marriage, slashing at the church in rage. Nicoletta was acutely aware of the man beside her. His strength. His power. The heat of his body. The way his mind was so intimately bound to hers. Her fingers were tangled with his, his thumb feathering along her inner wrist, a silent encouragement with nature's fury shunning their union. She tried to pray, tried to ask for help to defeat the don's mesmerizing spell over her, but, in truth, she wasn't certain she wanted to be free of him.
    The priest blessed the small gold ring lying in the middle of his open book of Scripture. He held it out to the don. Those in attendance saw the holy father's hand shake so badly that Don Scarletti had to steady it as he took the tiny golden circle. Nicoletta closed her eyes as the band of his ownership encircled her finger. Lightning struck, ricocheting down the tower so that for one terrible moment the sky seemed to Generated by ABC Amber LIT Conv erter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
    rain fire. Again the priest froze, indecisive, his voice wavering. The don's black gaze gleamed almost eerily in the flashes of lightning.
    Looking warily at the rain pelting the windows and then at the elite guards standing shoulder to shoulder at the rear of the church, the holy father pronounced them wed and raised his hand to bless their marriage. Lightning ripped the sky apart, lighting the cathedral, throwing strange, colored shadows to dance grotesquely across the wall. Thunder shook, drowning out anything the priest might be saying.
    Giovanni never faltered, lifting Nicoletta's veil and bending his head to hers.
    "You are very brave, piccola" he whispered against her lips. Then he gently kissed her upturned mouth, a mere feathering of his lips over hers. He caught her firmly to him, pulling her beneath the protection of his shoulder. "At last you are my wife, Nicoletta Scarletti," he pronounced, a wealth of purring satisfaction in his