13. THIRTEEN #3
“Am I seeing a ghost?” Thomas calls. Blood coats his dazzling smile crimson as he grins, looking utterly delighted. “I’ve been searching for you for weeks, brother. We’ve been worried sick.”
There’s something otherworldly that makes my heart stammer as I take him in up close. After Dante’s harrowing stories about his family, it’s surreal to see a member of it finally materialize before me.
Thomas matches his adoptive brother in stature, but he’s wider in the shoulders like he’s been built for violence.
His light brown hair is cropped shorter, with a clean shaven jaw accentuating high cheekbones.
His clothes are deceptively simple; even from here I can see they’re expensively made, with silver stitching on the lapels and cuffs that glitters in the dim light.
“Don’t fret, it must be an awful lot of effort for you,” Dante says in a drawl. His voice is colder than I’ve yet heard it, and it sends a chill down my spine. I can’t be imagining the hatred behind the cold smile that curves his lips.
The man at Thomas’ feet whimpers, begging—whether for life or death now, I can’t hear.
“Shhh,” Thomas purrs. He puts a boot to the man’s back, pressing him against the floor.
“Feeding without Father’s permission?” Dante remarks. “Hardly like you to bend the rules.”
Thomas grins, conceding like this is a joke. “Special dispensation. Only enough sustenance for the journey—all to find you. But God, I could get used to this. Wild game just whets the appetite different, doesn’t it? But I hardly need to tell you that.”
He steps over the stableboy’s body, puddled blood squelching under his long stride.
“It’s good to see you,” Thomas says, stopping a few feet from us, raking his gaze over Dante. “You actually look a little less world-weary than last I saw you.”
His gaze flickers to me, like I was a trivial curiosity. I slip my hands into my pockets in silence, closing my fingers around a stake and a silver dagger.
“And you’ve found a little whore to snack on, too,” Thomas says, smiling and giving a friendly waggle of his fingers. It would be considerably more friendly if they weren’t caked in blood.
His gaze moves back to Dante. “He’ll be thrilled I found you.
After all this time, I was starting to lose hope.
I didn’t expect to be so lucky that our paths should cross.
” His smile sharpens. “Those hunters outside would wet themselves if they knew there were two of us here, right under their roof.”
Fuck. So it was hunters who’d drawn him here. Those clumsy idiots. This is why Corvus operates with discretion.
“What did Father offer you to drag me back?” Dante asks, an air of inconceivable boredom about it. “The chance to turn someone? To be the architect of my punishment?”
Thomas’ smile widens, like he wants to say more, but muscles it back.
“I was surprised when you ran—just when all our hard work was falling into place. Here I’d thought you’d given up fighting entirely.
Marco and I were placing bets on whether you’d finally been broken in.
And then… You were gone.” He shakes his head, lips pressing together. “It’s… Well, it’s just sad, isn’t it?”
“And what a good pup you are,” Dante says. “Sniffing around for me at Daddy’s orders.”
Thomas’ eyes darken. “I don’t know what he sees in you. You’ve always been the most ungrateful of all of us, yet he gives you chance after chance. It’s not fair.”
Dante gives a cold, harsh laugh. “Fair? Alessandro punished every disobedience! He had me lashed until the scourge hit bone. You call that mercy?”
“Better than you deserved. We all know broken rules demand death,” Thomas takes another step closer, and I can smell the metallic tang of the stableboy’s blood on him now. “Father doesn’t seem in a forgiving mood this time.”
“I’m not going back.” Dante’s words are low and ground out, finality dripping from every syllable.
“You can come on your own two feet, or be dragged,” Thomas responds, tilting his head. “Your choice.”
He makes another step toward Dante, as though to grab his shoulder, and I don’t think—I react, moving in front of him. My curved silver blade glints between us. Thomas staggers back a step, eyes wide—and then, he laughs. Rage makes me see red.
“What a fiery pet you’ve found.”
“You have no idea,” Dante says under his breath.
Thomas lowers his chin, sizing me up with heat building behind his eyes.
The tension snaps as he lunges, moving to eliminate me in a single, powerful blow.
His sort always aims for the head first. I duck, diving for his legs.
I kick his knees and drive my blade into his chest with an upward thrust. His bellow of pain is better than any music.
I wrench the blade free and drive it in a second time—a quick, twisting blow to disorient and agonize. I get to my feet while he’s doubled over, his handsome face morphed into a vicious snarl. I withdraw one of my stakes in my left hand, sharpened to a point—but he recovers rapidly.
Thomas strikes with more caution, anticipating my sidestep but not the speed of my swing.
The tip scrapes against his collarbone, though I have no time to adjust a second attempt into his heart before his palm connects with the side of my face.
A burning sting explodes behind my cheekbone, and the world tilts on its side.
I come down hard on my side, my lungs empty of air and a small graze where my temple scraped on the floorboards.
A thin smear of blood comes away when I brush the throbbing area–but Thomas is advancing again.
I scramble to get back to my feet, swallowing down my groan.I will not let him get atop me.
But before I take another step, a large hand closes around my wrist. Dante wrenches me backward out of Thomas’s path—so hard that I catch myself against the wall as he notches himself seamlessly into my place.
He moves so quickly, it’s dizzying. Dante lunges, seizing Thomas by the collar of his shirt, and slams him onto his back. The reverberation rattles the floor. It’s suddenly very clear how much he’d been holding back when we had grappled at the villa.
I push myself away from the wall but stand back, watching as Dante kneels over his brother, pressing his weight down on him mercilessly.
Thomas connects a blow to Dante’s face, but is unable to shake him off.
Dante knots fingers into Thomas’ hair and slams his skull into the floor—twisting his head hard and to the side at a painful angle.
“Just like old times,” Dante says through gritted teeth, breathing heavily. “Me on top, you with your face in the dirt. When has it ended any differently?”
He presses down, fingers gripping hard enough to make Thomas bare his teeth, fangs flashing uselessly in the lamplight as Dante grounds his face against the wood.
Even through his struggle, Thomas’ eyes find me—and the stake clutched in my hand. He groans through heavy breaths, his words choking out in a rasp. “She’s no thrall, is she? You revealed your nature to a slayer and let her live?”
Whatever he tries to say next is drowned in a garbled mess as Dante applies crushing pressure to his windpipe.
For a moment, I am certain Dante will decapitate him with fingers alone—but he removes one hand and snatches his dagger.
Thomas gives a wheeze of protest, his struggles growing panicked.
Something odd shivers in the air around Thomas—mist gathering desperately.
He’s trying to shadow-step, but Dante’s hold is too tight to allow it.
With an anguished cry, Thomas manages to squirm one arm free, raking one of Dante’s hands away long enough to deliver a devastating blow to the head.
He knocks Dante off and staggers to his feet.
Bleeding from the throat and chest, one eye swollen from being ground into the floor, he appears genuinely frightened by my approach.
He throws a disgusted glare at Dante. “Death is too good for you. You should have just crawled back home.”
Before I’m anywhere within swinging distance, Thomas' body tenses, losing its defined edges.
With a faint hiss like a sweeping draft of wind, his form collapses in on itself, leaving a swirling cloud of mist in its place.
Were I not already fed up with the evening, I might have been wonderstruck by the impossible sight.
The mist shoots towards the open balcony like a ghost shooting out of hell itself, leaving the ajar doors to bang on their hinges.
I race for the balcony, breathless as I peer around the dimly lit courtyard below—stables, a well, and not a single soul in sight. Thomas is gone.
Cursing, I lower my stake and raise my eyebrows at Dante. “So he can do that, but you can’t?”
“Oh, shut it.” He gives me a withering look as he stands, then considers the stableboy’s body, which is now unmoving. “Wonderful. I suppose you expect me to clean that up?”