28. TWENTY-EIGHT
twenty-eight
Alessandro looks every bit the disappointed father as he takes in the scene before him.
Despite his richly-made clothes, there’s something warm and rugged in the way he carries himself.
He could blend in with the most humble of sharecroppers or the most distinguished of nobles with equal ease.
His cropped wavy hair, once jet black, is now streaked with plenty of hard-earned silver that sets pleasantly against his olive skin.
His eyes are dark, intelligent, and piercing, and my skin crawls as they rest over Dante and me with keen intrigue.
Dante shuffles back a step closer to me, his breaths quickening. The dagger in his hand trembles slightly.
“You’re shaking, boy. Is it hunger or guilt that wracks you so?” Alessandro’s sharp eyes soften slightly as he slowly looks Dante up and down. There’s a faint pinch to the corners of his mouth. “What a relief, to see you intact and well.”
“Oh, I’m sure,” Dante barks, lips curling. “So you can have the satisfaction of my flesh searing freshly?”
“I take no joy in disciplining you—any of you,” Alessandro says. “But we all must take our penance to learn. Discipline is survival. I, too, learned so many lessons at the hands of my master. It forged me to be stronger, better. I only wish the same for you.”
“You can’t intimidate me into crawling back. I’ll die first,” Dante says, low and ground-down.
Alessandro shakes his head, gaze pleading. “Why must it be like this between us? Don’t you remember those first few years? Let us go back to those times—free of this needless rebellion. Happy.”
Dante breathes heavily, shuddering. Alessandro seems to read something deeper in his furious, tear-glazed eyes that has his shoulders sagging. Bitter disappointment and something else—irritation—creases his brow.
“This again. You still blame me,” Alessandro sighs.
“It’s your fault they’re dead,” Dante spits out. He juts his chin at Clémence. “She was there. She saw it, too—all of it.”
I frown, my body still tensed as I track each vampire, gauging their expressions closely. Clémence—how old is she? Had she been there the night of Dante’s fledgling massacre?
“Your mourning is wasted,” Alessandro says, like he’s said it a dozen times before. “They were utterly ordinary lessers. They were destined for a brief flicker on this mortal plane—and instead served a greater purpose. You, my son.”
Dante makes a noise of disgust. “I should have died with them.”
Alessandro chuckles, glancing toward the ceiling as though praying for patience.
“Don’t bluster to me and pretend you don’t fear death.
You were, and always have been destined for greatness.
Maybe in the coming decades, you will come to finally understand I am trying to help you, not harm you.
I’m shaping you into the man you always should’ve been. What you still can be, at my side.”
Alessandro offers a small, hopeful smile that crinkles the corners of his eyes. And truly, I can see he believes his own words. He thinks this is love.
“No. I’m done playing the captive heir to a tyrant,” Dante spits.
Something shifts in the air—a sharp spike of tension as Alessandro straightens. Even Clémence’s unshakable posture turns uneasy, eyes widening like she’s bracing for a reaction.
“A tyrant?” Alessandro echoes—softer, wounded.
Hurt melts into fury. His expression twists into something cruel, his jaw squaring dangerously.
Another step closer, to which Dante throws an arm in front of me fully.
“Need I remind you how I found you in that bed? Reeking of pus-ridden sores and so delirious with fever, you could not speak? Three simple rules I gave you, that is all. Recite them to me.”
Dante’s gaze cuts away, darkened, and Alessandro’s voice lifts into a roar. “Look me in the eye when I speak to you!”
I see furious tears wetting Dante’s eyes when he does force his gaze back up. I’ve never seen him like this—shaking with this rage he’s carried for so many years.
“What are the rules?” Alessandro repeats.
Dante looks at him with such revulsion, I’m certain he’ll refuse, even if it kills him. But something small and fragile in him breaks, and his voice lowers.
“The Hunt and Making are yours to grant,” Dante intones.
“Speak up. The second?”
“Obedience is preservation.” The words are spat like bile. A pause before Dante finally adds, “Protect the Family at all costs.”
“So simple. Perhaps I ought to carve our tenets into your back so you don’t let them slip from mind again.
I ask so little, and somehow, you shatter all three in a matter of months.
And now this…” Alessandro gestures at me, expression clouding—like I am an enigma beyond comprehension.
“This little beast has you cutting down your own family.”
“Go fuck yourself,” Dante says, seemingly with great effort behind each syllable.
Alessandro releases a heavy, furious growl—all traces of the doting father banished far, far away.
“You stupid boy! You are not a lord anymore,” Alessandro’s shout reverberates off the walls, the sudden outburst making me flinch closer to Dante. Wild-eyed, Alessandro jabs a finger at Dante. “You are mine! I would prefer to think of you as a son, but I will have you as property if I must.”
This is the final snap. The air turns brittle around us, a vein throbbing dangerously at the side of Dante’s neck.
Faster than I can track, Dante winds back and hurls his dagger at Alessandro.
It’s a brutal, clean shot. The steel blade embeds into the vampire lord’s stomach with a slick sound of metal slicing through flesh.
The siblings recoil—Clémence shouts a string of profanity at Dante while Nico gives a wide-eyed stagger backward.
Alessandro tips his head down to regard the wound, blood slowly seeping through his onyx-colored clothes. With a thoughtful hum, he pulls the dagger free, looking at his own dark blood curiously before tossing the weapon flippantly into the water.
It isn’t a killing blow—Dante hadn’t meant it to be. It’s a furious, desperate warning. The wound is already stitching up.
“You still have much to learn. Just remember—you forced my hand.” With a heavy sigh, Alessandro runs a hand down his face. “Clémence, collect your brother—”
In the very same instant, she charges at Dante like the order has untethered her.
With shocking strength given her willowy build, she strikes him.
Dante blocks, but it’s like she knows where he will move before he does.
She evades his attempt to throw his body into hers, slamming her elbow into the side of his head.
He staggers, and she seizes the opening—gripping his tunic to throw him to the other side of the tunnel.
Throws him, like his six-one frame weighs no more than a few cinder blocks.
Dante groans, picking himself up off the musty ground—and I’m left exposed.
“And Nico, don’t bother feeding on the girl—her blood isn’t worth the trouble. Snap her neck and be done with it.”
As Nico lowers the torch, there is no time to rethink strategy, to work out how we can kill three vampires—one of them being a lord, no less.
Alessandro doesn’t even lift a finger to fight, but his mere presence sends shockwaves through every inch of my nerves.
Very well. He can watch me murder another of his sons.
Nico stalks toward me, long strides corralling me back.
He moves to seize my body, to end this swiftly.
This, at least I am trained for. Despite the advantage of the forty additional pounds of muscle he has on me, I’ve got speed on my side.
I duck low to the ground, sidestepping him and lashing my blade to greet him in the same instant.
The silver edge catches his right arm, slicing through wool and flesh with a sizzling hiss.
Nico snarls and backpedals, circling me cautiously.
I take the next opening—diving to strike at his head while kicking at his legs in the same instant.
I manage to get him on the ground, his back hitting the stone with a painful clap.
With a shriek of pure, animalistic survival, I’m on top of him.
I raise my wooden stake over my head, digging my knees into his waist so I can get a clean blow to his heart.
In the next blink, stars explode in my vision—Nico has landed a hook under my chin, knocking my grasp. A coppery tang washes over my tongue as blood fills my mouth. I’ve bitten the side of my cheek. With a single, powerful thrust, Nico throws me off him and scrambles back onto his feet.
Head throbbing, I stand and spit blood at his boots—watching with a sick satisfaction as he briefly shudders at the sight of it.
Hungry, always so hungry, these creatures.
Nico forces his focus back onto me, boots braced to ground himself from my next attempt to unseat his footing.
But he has no biting remarks for me, no threats.
Although he has been tasked with killing me, he regards me with those sad eyes.
I lower my stake half an inch, a whisper of hope curling through me.
“You don’t have to do this,” I whisper. I resist the urge to tear my gaze from him when I hear Dante and Clémence landing brutal blows against each other like rabid wolves.
The walls of the dark tunnel quake with their fight—gutteral shouts, the wet crack of a blow to the ribs, the thud of a boot striking a side.
Nico falters for a moment—pausing to look me over.
“Sorry,” he rasps.
He launches forward with an open hand, catching the side of my head in an explosion of pain that throws me near the water. I land poorly on my ankle and crumple to the floor, my clavicle bright with pain from being wrenched.
I scramble haphazardly for my dropped weapons. Nico kicks them into the water and kneels over me. The air’s been knocked out of me—fuck, I can barely draw in a breath. Fuck!