TWENTY-ONE
Rain drums on the roof, filling the spacious bedroom with a dull, comforting roar.
We’ve been lucky to stumble across lodgings that offered substantially more luxurious amenities than our last several stops.
A private room cost a fortune, but of course, that hadn’t been an issue.
It’s bizarre, not having to worry over resources like that.
Dante spends money like he is trying to get rid of it.
I sit on the colossal ebony-framed four poster bed, knees tucked to my chest—staring at the half-penned letter in my lap like it might finish itself. I tap my quill to the page, my coded message blurring as frustrated tears sting my eyes again.
Corvus has let me believe I am easy to discard for decades. Quietly, I’d adopted it as a facet of my identity. That my value comes from what I can do, not who I am.
Snarling in my throat, I crumple the parchment and toss it aside. I can’t focus on my next assignment update. My mind is plagued with relentless images, over and over—my mother and father begging Mother Superior to release me. Threatening to find me themselves. Blades drawn.
It is a holy honor to be honed as a member of the Corvus Order, but heroism had never been able to fully numb the sting of knowing my parents’ affection had somehow expired, and the duty toward defending humanity was greater than their love for our small family.
But that had been a lie. They had fought for me. They’d loved me so much, they’d died trying to get me back.
I rub the bridge of my nose, fighting down another sob. They might’ve been just across the side of the abbey while I was sleeping in blissful ignorance.
And now, they’re gone.
I shudder, wiping away tears on the wide, flowing sleeve of my gown.
A hurricane of anger shakes my very center when I think of Mother Superior.
I’ve given everything for her, fawned for her praise for over a decade.
Corvus is still the only home I have left, but right now, the idea of crawling back and falling in line makes me queasy.
What if Dante is right?
Not for the first time, the possibility darkens my thoughts.
What if this whole assignment has been based not on their faith in me, but my ability to obey as willing bait?
Fodder, not a glorious warrior destined for a tapestry of my likeness.
After everything I had done to prove myself, is that really all I am to her?
I trace the scars on my palms, clenching my jaw. I’ve sacrificed fathoms of myself for people who didn’t care the same for me. People who took my only real family away from me.
And yet… Who am I without the Order? What else am I meant to do with my life—discard my role in disgrace and become a common housemaid? I know no other life. No connections. As far as most of the country knows, I don’t really exist at all.
I snap up a blank piece of parchment and plunge my quill into the inkpot, starting another letter with furious strokes:
Dear Mother Superior, go fuck yourself in a ditch, you hateful, murderous cow—
I growl, crumpling this letter too and chucking it as far across the room as I can.
Footsteps pad toward our room. I have only a few moments to hastily wipe my puffy eyes before the door scrapes open and Dante saunters inside, laden with refreshments.
“Look what I got the contessa in the neighboring room to give us,” he declares, looking utterly pleased with himself.
He sets a bottle of wine down on the side table and tosses me a plum from the bowl in his other hand.
I catch it deftly as it sails near my head.
At least grief isn’t tainting my reflexes.
I turn it over in my hand before sinking my teeth into it.
Tart juice flows over my tongue, perfectly ripe.
Dante sets the rest of the bowl by the wine—brimming with grapes, a loaf of herbed bread, and a generous portion of gorgonzola.
“Did she really offer this all to you, or did you just steal it?” I ask around my next bite.
“You know how people love to give me things. She was practically throwing herself at me with the deed to her estate.” He pulls off his doublet, draping it over the back of the chair. “Alright, the wine I stole, but that was just for fun.”
He flashes me a shit-eating grin. I laugh softly, nibbling on a few grapes though I have little appetite.
“You can’t even enjoy these,” I point out. “Are you trying to flavor me to your liking?”
The playful gleam in Dante’s eyes darkens into a smoldering intrigue that makes my pulse quicken. “Now isn’t that a fascinating concept.”
Dante takes a seat at the table, arm’s reach from the bedside.
The simple movement of pulling out the chair briefly stretches the white fabric of his tunic taut across his shoulders—giving a fleeting glimpse of the defined muscles beneath, shifting with easy power.
It dawns on me on how there’s a shade of vulnerability here, with his doublet off and the ties of his tunic loosened.
Dante is unraveled just enough, in a way that few others probably witness.
No one else in the inn can see him like this. Only me.
“Go on, eat something. You’ve barely touched a thing all night,” Dante says, giving an impatient wave toward the food.
I scoot to the edge of the bed, uncorking the wine and wondering when on earth I’d become pleased to see him and not revolted by his very existence.
I raise the bottle to him in a half-hearted toast before bringing it to my lips, forgoing the goblets on the tray altogether. Alcohol may be forbidden to slayers, but tonight is mine. I am too weary to obey. The Order’s commands can wait until tomorrow. They will never know.
And tonight… Somehow, the rules seem so less consequential.
The first sip of red wine is painful—dry and acidic. I swish it over my tongue, swallow, and take another gulp. The next taste is more palletable, and I’m slowly able to appreciate notes of berries and smoke.
Dante’s gaze is burrowing into me when I lower the bottle, as though he’s hypnotized by the unsubtle display of my throat tipped back. A disturbing, yet oddly flattering notion.
“If I drink enough of this, will you feel its effects, too, when you feed on me?” I ask, swirling the bottle’s content thoughtfully.
Dante gives a coarse laugh. “It’s the only way I can now. Do you think it’s a coincidence that my kin hunt for quarries at alehouses and brothels so often?”
We share a little snort of laughter at this, and I take another sip.
“I thought you didn’t drink,” Dante comments.
“I don’t. But it’s growing on me.”
A brow quirks, and he wrestles back a smile. “Careful, darling—you might start enjoying yourself, and I’m fairly certain that would kill you.”
“No chance of that,” I say, waving my hand dismissively, “with you sitting there, watching my every move like a crow.”
“Well, I’m not exactly spoilt for entertainment. And you’re such a delightfully perplexing little thing.”
I shift my gaze away then, unsure how to respond. My grip tightens on the neck of the bottle.
“You should get some rest,” Dante announces, leaning back in the chair.
“I’ll sleep here, before you get all pink-cheeked and pointing daggers at me.
Next nightfall should bring us to the grove.
We’re not far.” He pauses, as though his own words reverberate through him.
After decades of searching, he is this close.
I glance at the door, double-checking that it’s latched. And Dante—his seat like a sentry between the bed and the rest of the world. I find myself… feeling safe. Safe with him. How surreal that my own body betrays me, so familiar with a monster.
“I’m not tired,” I say, voice lowered. “Are you?”
Hesitation creases his brow—trying to read through me, catching the weight in my tone. “No.”
My mouth goes dry as I hold his searching stare, and all I know is that suddenly the five feet of space between us is ruining my life.
Feeling unlike myself, I drop my half-finished plum on the tray along with the wine and climb out of bed. I position by myself against the wall, leaning against the dark wood paneling—a relaxed, accessible posture.
Oh God, if my sisters saw me…
Pulling my half-braided hair to the side, I expose my throat with a playful tilt of my head. I brush my fingers over the half-scarred bite marks at the base of my neck, feeling my own pulse hammering under my fingertips as I offer Dante a smile that is more shy than sheepish.
“You must be hungry, too,” I murmur.
His eyebrows shoot up, momentarily frozen by the shock of my invitation. Only a beat passes before the corners of his eyes begin to crinkle, and a slow, dawning smile takes hold.
“Always,” he says.
He’s out of his chair, prowling toward me.
I count his heavy strides—five—before he’s standing over me, brushing his knuckles over the fang marks he’d left before.
He hasn’t fed on me since Terralta. He must be ravenous.
It’s been days since we've been this close, and already, my body lights up in response.
I note a particular gentleness in his touch tonight as he clasps me—a position to anchor me as he feeds that I’m becoming accustomed to. Maybe he feels sorry for me and is sparing me some unpleasantness of being a human chalice as best he can.
His lips take a slow, agonizing path to their destination. It’s maddening. I stifle a gasp, goosebumps rising on my arms and the back of my neck—all of it involuntary.
“As I said,” Dante’s voice is a low rumble against my collarbone. “Perplexing.”
Raw need floods me. Oh God, the need. Maybe this is a terrible idea. I know he can smell the arousal on me—the way he’s always been able to hear my heart beating. I’m humiliating myself just being near him now.
There’s a pause, a warm exhale on my neck—and then Dante’s fangs pierce my skin.
A mewl of pain catches in my throat, my hands gripping the front of his tunic to steady myself.
The numbing haze washes over me, and I release a grateful sigh.
That strange sensation courses through me as Dante takes and takes, temporarily transforming my anxiety and grief into strangers.
It’s tempting to be washed into an ocean of the drugging sensation, but I force myself to stay grounded. Tonight, I want to be aware of every sensation.
He’s holding me so firmly right now—but so carefully.
I know, because I know what he’s capable of.
One of Dante’s hands is buried in my hair, holding the dark locks in a fist, while the other is splayed over my upper back.
The hard wall of his body is pressed over mine, entangling and all but pinning me to the wall.
This body which has become such a familiar sight, the object of my most unspoken desires, and yet utterly still a mystery to me.
He’s not letting his full weight rest against me, but fuck—I’m imagining what it might feel like.
Enjoying being bitten. I could hardly imagine a greater sin in the eyes of the Order.
But I won’t lie to myself anymore. I’m not afraid to admit what I want—something just for me—perhaps for the first time in my life. If I were to choose one beautiful sin, it would be him.
Strange, how the thing I once feared is now a welcome question in my mind. Desperate, even.
I shutter my eyes and move my focus to my neck, aware enough to notice how restrained he is, exercising incomprehensible willpower to prise himself off me—all of it, so he won’t hurt me more than he has to.
Dante is panting a little when he surfaces, his chest heaving against mine.
Affection spills through me as the blues of his irises return and our gazes lock, labored breaths mingling. I can’t loathe him as I should. Not anymore.
Fuck.
Our noses are practically brushing, still grasping each other like he might duck his head at any second and feast again. He’s finished, and he should step away—but I don’t want him to.
I want him.
“Can I tell you a secret?” I whisper in the sputtering candlelight. “I’ve been sending letters to the Order to update them, and—”
“You think that’s a secret?” Dante interrupts. Of course he’s noticed my sneaking off. He’d already seen a glimpse of one such coded letter back at the D’Agonisto villa.
I shake my head. My fingers flex against his chest, gingerly gathering handfuls of fabric and releasing it again. My heart races like I’m running toward the edge of a cliff.
“My last letters to the order threw them off-course. I declined backup forces.”
Dante gives me a bemused smile, true surprise alighting behind curiosity. “Naughty. And why would you do that?”
I offer him perhaps the most valuable thing in my possession—an honest, unguarded expression.
My shields lowered, I let him see it all: confusion, desire, the swirl of tenderness I don’t even fully understand myself.
Rain continues to pound behind the window, filling the silence as I reach up to brush blood from the corner of his mouth with my thumb.
“Because I hope you don’t die again when we find the cure,” I tell him. “I hope you find what you’re looking for.”
I let my hand linger there, cradling his jaw. Dante shudders out a breath like I’ve punched him.
“Believe me, you couldn’t offer a greater gift,” he says, his voice low and ground down.
His eyes roam my face with an inquiring intensity, disbelief and something molten warring there. I’ve never realized how lonely I’ve been until he’s looking at me like this—like he’s drunk on me.
Even if I’m not sure he wants me the same way. If he ever could in a way that’s real.
I wait for him to laugh again, to close me out and pretend that the air isn’t suffocating the both of us with that invisible charge.
Dante’s arms wrap around me, a testing pressure, but still enough to make my breath catch.
He leans close, cheek brushing mine. I feel his lips part, hovering close like an unresolved kiss near my temple—holding himself back by a single, straining thread.
Anticipation grips me. For a few tense moments, it’s just our ragged breathing, the charge in me rising to a roar, drowning out everything else.
“Tell me you hate me,” Dante whispers against my skin.
Tears prick my eyes—the sheer truth of it spilling over me.
“I can’t,” I rasp.
Dante pulls back, just enough to pin me with a look so darkened with desire, I feel I could melt into the ground. Those perfect, pretty eyes.
I wonder if I’ll ever find forgiveness for wanting more than anything to taste him back. I feel like I’ll die if I don’t get to, and I don’t care that Dante is a monster, that there’s still my blood smeared on his mouth.
Fuck it.
Cupping the back of his head, I surge onto my tiptoes and kiss him.