The Guardian Mist Read Online Free

Cooking. We can always use help if you are looking for a job.”
    A job . Theodosia had to admit that she was very interested. It would be some place for her and Lucia to stay, to be together, and for her to earn a living even though she’d never earned a living in her life. Still, it might be the opportunity she needed. She tried not to seem too eager about it.
    “We can discuss it, I suppose,” she said. “But you should know I have never milked a goat in my life.”
    He grinned, glancing at her lily-white hands. “Is that so?” he said, somewhat wryly. “I would never have guessed. It is easy to learn.”
    “Is it?”
    “I can will teach you.”
    “I cannot cook, either.”
    “I can teach you that, too.”
    Theodosia thought, perhaps, that it all sounded too good to be true. Were the gods sending her a sign or was Hades providing a trap for being a disobedient daughter? She couldn’t be sure, but she was attracted to Gaius’ offer. It was a struggle not to become excited about it.
    “But my daughter must stay with me,” she said. “You do not mind a child about?”
    Gaius shook his head. “My father always wanted a grandchild. He will like having her about.”
    Theodosia didn’t know what to say; she was coming to think that, indeed, the gods knew of her plight and had brought Gaius into her life at precisely the correct time. Was it even possible that all of this could be true? She would soon find out.
    Gaius and his father, Agrippus, lived like two bachelors on a very large farm. There was plenty of work to be done and Theodosia wasn’t afraid to learn. In fact, she rather liked it. Gaius taught her to cook and to milk goats, to press wine and make flour. Theodosia learned quickly. She soon came to love her new life and, in time, love for Gaius bloomed as well. A truly good-hearted man who readily accepted Lucia, Theodosia knew that the decision to leave her parents’ home had been the best decision she had ever made. She knew that Lucius would have approved.
    With the introduction of Gaius, the ring that Lucius had given her those years ago once again turned a deep, rich crimson and would remain so until the day Theodosia passed it on to Lucia on the day of her eighteenth birthday. Fortunately for Lucia, the ring would turn crimson two years later at the introduction of a certain young soldier who happened to cross her path.
    The ring of Lucius’ family, the ring of true love or of lost love, continued to live on through the ages, passed down from Lucia to her daughter, and from her daughter onward. The story of the ring was also passed along with it, an oral tradition for the female members of the family, and through the centuries, the eldest daughter of each generation would hold great hope that the ring would turn crimson for her. Somewhere along the line, it was said that if one spoke the words inscribed upon the ring, with dreams only of you , that a lover would appear within a fortnight. Many a young woman believed in those words. Many a young woman was rewarded for that belief.
    But a few were not. No one could be sure why those spellbound words sometimes worked or sometimes didn’t, or why love would turn the stone to crimson and heartache would turn it to black, but it didn’t really matter. It was a glorious tradition within the females of the family and the mystery of the crimson-stoned ring continued to brand Theodosia’s descendants with its particular kind of magic.
    The lore of the Lucius Ring lived on.

Prologue
    T wenty-Four Years Ago

    “ P ush , Cassia, push. These babies aren’t going to be born by themselves.”
    Cassia Velt bit back a curse and clenched her teeth. If her mom didn’t shut up, she was gonna kill her. It wasn’t as if she hadn’t given birth before. She had…five years ago. But unfortunately, it seemed that the curse that hung over their family wasn’t broken. She had one more shot at getting rid of it once and for all.
    The curse of the family ring that