Monomaniac

Chapter 14

Ophelia

THROUGHOUT THE YEARS I have learned to accept the ashes sticking to my bones, to lend my hand as an offering to the suffering of others and integrate it in myself like an elixir that purifies through suffering rather than stain.

I have also learned, through held back tears and repressed fears, that I have to remain at a safe distance because I am only human and I cannot make of my soul an orphanage for broken beings; no matter how much I wish I could.

But all my experiences with death, in all its distorted forms, could have never prepared me for the one I now feel in my stomach, in my chest, scraping under my skin with razor sharp teeth. The kind felt for a loved one who has faced the embodiment of hell in human form and survived it while the world was none the wiser, sipping its tea.

Transparent with grief, I watch Dante's passive entity, as if witnessing a forbidden sight. The dim glow of the lamp makes his black eyes appear even more bottomless as he finishes what must be his last cigarette, which he tosses with eerie calm into the overflowing ashtray; a literal metaphor of him smoking away his past after reminiscing about it in agonizing detail.

After every word that has left his mouth – which not long ago had showed me what soul changing passion tastes like – I feel the need, deep in my soul, to carve open my ribcage and lay him there; for him to forget the sharp claws of suffering that have dug a burial ground under his skin.

Tacit tears came and stayed throughout the shock of hearing his harrowing past, along with a sense of recognition and belonging. Each detail left a mark on my spirit, never to be washed away.

What has been done to him, to his family, for whom I know in my heart he would have sacrificed his life for in a heartbeat if given the chance, is beyond devastating.

It further breaks me that I can’t bend time. That I wasn’t there to hold him through the pain, that he has to live with the memory for the rest of his life and carry the weight in spite, in spite… in spite.

So, with tear-filled eyes, I pick up the ashtray and place it on the nightstand, moving towards him on my knees in grief and awe, for we both survived and somehow found each other. Because I can’t breathe for another second without feeling his skin on mine.

I’ll take care of you. Soul deep and beyond. I promise.

Even as the depths of his grief crucify him in place, he still has the strength to take me in his arms and gather me to his chest, shielding me from my own sorrow with a ferocity I have never felt in any other soul.

Bearing the patience of the damned, he runs his fingers through my hair with the soothing touch of someone who has known suffering and integrated it into his being, giving it a name.

I have no words left in me to express something so devoid of humanity, of meaning. This painfully beautiful man, with a heart made of the richest and most potent of essences, has suffered more than my own can grasp even in reflection.

Still, with my whole body embracing him tightly, he feels nothing like thin glass – on the contrary. He is as firm, rooted and strong as a thousand-year-old sequoia, my very own tree of life.

Despite the sheer cruelty he experienced, Dante still speaks through poetry-stained lips, trenchant as the blood others made him swallow. He still allows himself to be driven by instinct, by his passion and obsession in search of something that, as far as I've come to understand, has been me all along.

I am dying to know the meaning behind his cryptic words but I can’t go there just now. Not when my soul wants to absorb him whole and erase from history that small chunk of time that ripped the life out of him. I have to be patient for the both of us, now that I understand what shaped him into the man he is today.

"My love," I whisper in a voice that sounds more like a ghost of my former self, still trapped beneath cold, barren floors and with a mind shaking like a feather stuck under his lips; tormented at the mere thought of the torturous existence he must have crawled through since that day.

"Say that again," he whispers back while his fingers stroke my hair as if I'm the one in need of comfort after all that has been confessed.

"My love, my Dante," I murmur, meeting his gaze and melting under the unyielding force rooted in the pain behind it.

His eyes soften like espresso cream left by the fire when the world gets dark and secrets are safe to be spoken out loud.

He ghosts his lips over mine, before he presses them ever so tenderly, almost chastely; with a reverence that weakens the ego and fortifies the soul as he holds the side of my face with a touch dipped in gratitude.

Kissing in this moment is not about the fire or even us per se. But about leaving an imprint on our souls of something raw and real. Beyond skin and mortality.

"Mia ombra, shadow of mine," he says, brushing his thumb over my cheek and looking at me as if I were the most precious thing this world ever had to offer.

The minutes pass, with my chest a bed to rest his head on and the scent of withheld tears lingering in the air; I gift him the sound of my heartbeat as a humble offering to comfort him in mourning, in a house that is but a sanctuary where death is transient.

"Can I ask you about them?"

"You can ask me anything, tesoro. I'm not afraid to bleed in front of you," he says over my temple before kissing it. "I never told anyone in detail what happened that day. You are the first to know the full extent of it," he continues, my heart bursting in my chest at the vulnerability he must have felt at reliving the cruelty inflicted on him and his loved ones.

"Thank you for giving me your trust. The way you stripped your soul was not only brave but an act of fragility that opened a door for me. One that helped me understand you deeper than you know," I say on a trembling voice.

He doesn’t say anything but his expressive eyes, as always, do. And what I see in them is both gloriously grim and hauntingly solemn.

On steady arms he lowers me on my back until my face hides in his collarbone, as if to protect me from the mere memory of his demons, with whom I know he ate at the same table every moment since that day.

His wet lips kiss my neck and at the feel of his tender skin, still clinging to the echo of that heelish fire, my tears fall on their own.

I burst into raw being, fangs of despair growing out of my canines and drawing blood as I sink my teeth into my lip; quietly sobbing like a wounded animal for his grief that I now adopt as my own.

With my head angled towards the sky or perhaps to the salvation it might offer, my eyes trail over his hypnotizing reflection in the mirrored ceiling above us, pulling me further beneath him and his troubled waters.

"Look at me," he demands in that grave voice of his that both sooths and aligns me in a way no other being was ever able to. "Breathe for me," he whispers above my lips and I obey to his command, mimicking his rhythm.

"For you," only for you.

"I don’t want to see you suffer for what has been," he whispers, resting his forehead against mine while his thumb roams back and forth along my damp cheek, taking a part of me with him with each caress. "I’ve learned to carry it, drag it when life demands it. Above all, I want you to sleep peacefully at night, mia cara," he says, laying the entirety of his body over mine like a blanket of bloodied thorns and the softest of velvets.

"There is no other way and even if it were I wouldn’t want it. Our suffering has shaped us and I’d rather feel this intense pain with you for the rest of my days than fickle happiness with anyone else," I brush my nose to his, our lips a whisper away. "Let me be the tomb for your pain, so you can finally rest."

"Is that what your heart desires, Ombra? To be all mine, beyond the grave?" he asks with a ravenous voice, both sensual and feral, looking at me through long lashes as he kisses my collarbones. "For always?"

"Yes," I breathe the searing word. "I think deep down…I knew from the very beginning it will be like this," I whisper in his hair as I part my legs, allowing him to lay roots along my own.

"Inevitably," he says, resting his head on my chest and breathing deeply, as if for the first time after a long weight has been lifted off his shoulders.

Coblina eventually approaches us after waking up, settling between our tangled limbs, the sound of her content purring filling the silence of the room with a sense of much needed serenity.

"Do you remember the last time you talked to them before everything happened?" I ask after a while, my fingers playing with his curls.

"Hmm…yes. There are times when I’m doing something insignificant and my mind wonders back to those times," he breathes heavily, though I feel a smile forming on his lips. "You see, my mother was a book conservator. Naturally, I grew up in her atelier and among endless stacks of antique stories. Two days prior she warned me not to steal the book left on her desk, telling me she would come to my house, take my bike and lock it in a cellar. I stole it anyway."

"Do you still have it?" I ask curiously, both amused and saddened by their last moments, assimilating every detail with a starved soul.

"The book or the bike?"

"Both."

"The book is in the drawer next to my bed and the bike is in my garage, but I don’t ride it anymore. Too many memories of times better left untouched," he says, gripping me tighter.

"What about your sister?" I ask, my being quivering at the thought of a girl whose life has been so brutally and cold bloodedly taken away.

In my line of work, I have learned to detach myself in order to move forward, to help out of compassion but act with a certain kind of distance; to always be willing to step back and find the core of the rotten thing so that, in the end, truth and divine justice will prevail.

But in Arya’s case, being so tightly bound, so loved by Dante, I somehow feel attached to her too. In a way that deeply reminds me of my own little brother. And it hurts. Immensely.

"Ballet Recital. Camille’s Court. Eight o’clock sharp. I remember every detail perfectly because I lost three quarters of the show, working on some museum’s floor plans that ended up in the trash. She looked at me, with her swan like eyes and that caramel head of hers held high, just before she stepped forward and danced her soul out on that too small of a stage compared to her talent. When the show was over and we met backstage she said only two words, 'You’re forgiven'."

"How I wish I could have met her," I say with tears in my eyes, for both of their unforgiving fates.

"Arya would’ve adored you. Both of you share a sensitivity that is unheard of in this muddied world of ours," he says with fondness, further melting me with every word before continuing. "She would have dominated every stage she set her mind to with just her pointe shoes and passion alone. But now, the world will never know a whisper of it," he says pensively.

I could ask him about his father, but I have an idea of how he might feel when it comes to him. I'd rather see Dante with a contented look on his face as he remembers the untainted. Most of all I want to comfort him in these moments, not further carve an open wound by asking him a question that would only answer the obvious.

Drowning in him comes naturally and I am left in awe. This man, who by some miracle is anything but broken in spite of everything, is an experience in itself – his ocean threatening to swallow me alive in its depths and never again bring me to the surface.

He buries himself further into me and my breath falters. I let my nails sink into his forearm as my tongue seeks his velvety one. Now that it had a taste, I became instantly and completely dependent.

I travel avidly over his inked masculine features, my mind becoming a blank canvas at the mercy of both the divine and unholy terrains covering the work of art that is his face.

'The man with the skull, trust him' . Penelope’s voice that had appeared in my dream makes a sudden apparition and I can’t help but feel like the entire universe conspired for us to be together.

With trembling fingers, I cup his sharp jaw, covered to his high cheekbones in slightly faded ink, giving him that much more character. Behind the dark shadowed spaces and the scar tissue that monster left behind, his skin still feels tender to the touch yet ever so captivating beyond the painful history that will forever mark his face.

I raise my eyes higher in fascination, my hand gliding up and down his arm before resting in his hair as if it were an anchor that could keep me afloat while getting lost into his perfectly flawed details; adrift and yet found.

Somehow, past his efforts, I knew something irresistible was hiding underneath that dark mask. But nothing could’ve prepared me for the reality of him.

He possesses the kind of face that inspires creation, beyond captivating in its intrigue and grave intensity, each detail appearing that more beautiful in its imperfection.

I close my eyes for a brief second, breathing in his scent of cigarettes and woodsy smoke before I meet his gaze, looking at me both like the embodiment of a martyr’s sacrifice and my execution floor – ready to consume me until I’m fully integrated within him.

"How you scream for me, mia cara," he whispers while taking hold of my waist, the other one tangling in my hair as I feel him grow hard against my inner thigh. So close yet so far from where I desperately need him.

God, he is pure sin and I can’t abstain, nor will I ever want to.

The bottomless nights encased in those predatory feline eyes, framed by thick eyebrows entrap me into their unholy territory with an ancestral hunger that weakens my libs to the point where they become pillows for his head to rest on; my bones a home for all his secrets.

With tears that sting and purify, because his beauty invites my soul to the sweetest of sorrows, I touch the skin beneath his eyes that speak only of his desire to have me; to steal me into his violent darkness, into the climax of his distressed soul.

He mirrors me, caressing my heated skin and transfixing me in place just through the relentless power of his existence alone.

"Vieni, piangi con me. Portami a casa," he murmurs before stealing my lips, drowning my tears in silent waves and entwining them with his. Two oceans meeting in the middle of nowhere and creating an island built on the ashes of the past.

"I could look at your face for a lifetime and still, it wouldn’t be enough," I breathe down his neck as I come back for air. "You are the most terrifyingly beautiful sight my eyes have ever known."

He looks at me, his jaw visibly trembling at my admission, as if I’m his only path to salvation as well as his sole potential executioner.

Lost, he tugs my hair before biting my lower lip, sucking away the sweet sting he left in his trail with the worship of a saint for his altar, inhaling deeply my perfume now mixed with his. Because lovers trade scents, morphing them into a new language for the senses, until they become indistinguishable one from the other.

"Why did you hide from me?" I ask, running my long nails down his back and feeling his strained muscles both tense and relax.

"Because I wanted you to feel me first, like I did from the distance," he whispers, absently stroking my scalp.

"I would’ve seen you under any light. Your eyes have told me everything I needed to know," I whisper against the seam of his mouth, wishing I could encapsulate somehow the intimacy of the moment in a glass bottle and keep it close to my chest until the world would eventually collapse under my feet.

"Wouldn't you have found me somewhat shocking if we hadn't had a connection beforehand?" he asks, squeezing my ribs almost imperceptibly at the thought.

I lean my head away, putting some distance between us and letting him see my incredulity at his question; the impossibility of such a reality when it comes to him.

"You’re the epitome of raw beauty, a man in the real sense of the word, whose soul cannot be contained in the simplicity of empty standards. Not everyone knows how to appreciate such contours, but I do. I see you, for who you really are and what you represent, with all your fine nuances and dim glooms."

I barely finish my profession before his lips crush into mine with a force that could rebuild entire lives, stealing my stray spirit inside a vortex of hunger and need.

His devilish tongue pushes against my lips and I greedily taste him like a mad woman who has been forbidden the heaven of her lover’s mouth for millennia. I savor the sensation with a hedonistic appetite; getting drunk on it as if it were the oldest of liquors, so very lost in him that I almost let go of my body's strings to the earth.

In the middle of this sacred moment, he tastes like the death of all that hurt in passing and yet stayed behind the curtain. Like the very personification of a graveyard’s resurrected lust for life – tobacco mixed with the sins of all mankind wrapped in the most decadent of soul tormenting touches.

My inner world shifts, the ancient voice in my head quiets, something within me that I have no name for imploding as his tongue brushes over my being with such intimacy that I feel naked even if layers of fabric are between us.

The intoxicating flavor of his smooth lips, the hunger of his touch while he grips me possessively as if I’ve been his since the beginnings of time, the shape of his essence expanding the furthest corners of my universe – all of it becomes a palpable safe haven for my body to hold on to.

Celestial, I sense wings budding at my back, but not out of fear. For the first time in my life I feel…loved. Not for my body, my talents or what I can offer but simply for being.

And what a godly and soul elevating feeling it is.

He inhales me deeply, absorbing my soul within his mouth as he bites into my bottom lip, eliciting a loud moan from deep within me. I hiss when the tip of his tongue trails a path of molten wax over the wet flash, tracing my cupids bow as if outlining a sigil; so that no one but him will ever have access to me again.

His hands travel over my body, enveloping me wholly under his much larger frame, our feverish hips grinding in violent waves.

The feel of his palm settling over my breasts and squeezing them with famished fingers is both divine and sinful, the tip of his tongue licking the exposed flesh peeking through my top as he takes down my satin shorts in one swift move.

Fluid fingers slip under the thin straps of my thong, cupping my burning flesh and molding me to him roughly. Somehow I feel him as if he were inside me as he teases my aching core.

"Posso sentire il tuo corpo urlare per me da lontano," he groans and even though I don’t have the faintest idea of what his words might represent, their meaning is a crystal clear call my soul and body recognize.

He is both cruel and merciful as I finally feel him settling fully between my legs, right where I need him most. Desperate, his hips sink into mine, making me crave him inside me until he chews me up into something far from holy.

"Opium, please," I groan in protest when he removes his mouth from mine, in less than a second finding myself moaning when he bites the base of my neck until I feel skin breaking; his tongue lapping at the crimson of my blood like a manic looking for his lost sanity.

"I want you so bad it hurts, puoi sentirlo?" he rasps with his head tilted towards the mirrored ceiling before coming back, his darker than life eyes entrapping mine in a drunken haze.

I almost don't recognize him...or myself.

That wicked tongue of his finds mine again, making me forget my humanity as he licks what he prayed off my veins.

I believe he is writing poetry on my skin.

I am also convinced that no man has reached this level of the absolute, all others seeming mere mortals compared to him – the one whose soul knows no confines, no borders, no margins.

Dante, my Dante grips my hair tightly, circling the entire length around his fist and tagging hard enough for me to feel it in my core; pleasuring me with pain as his erratic breath fans over my face.

"Mine," his gravelly voice cascades over me. "Mine only."

"Yours," I moan, angling my neck toward the ceiling because I feel him, us everywhere.

Our eyes meet there, hypnotized in place by each other’s drunk gazes barely contained within the reflection. The image seems almost surreal with our ravenous limbs frantic for more and his mark on my bloodied neck – a testament for the madness hiding in both of us when it comes to the other.

Even if the impatient side of me would love to unveil him, the other enjoys the mystery, the slow discovery. And something tells me, that even when at some point in the future we’ll know each other’s skin with religious devotion, there will always be one more thing to witness and decipher.

"Give me your shadows," he says alluringly before placing two fingers at the entrance of my mouth and pushing them inside, massaging my tongue sinfully slow.

Something starved awakens deep inside me at the sound of his demand, my secret self being summoned by his ominous obscurity to come closer and not fear. Panting, I arch my back, surrendering all control.

His groan reaches the tips of my toes, making me forget what I'm made of as our teeth clash with abandon, tongues meeting and sucking while nails leave their mark on newly mapped skin.

Looking for unexplored territories, I feel for the hard ridges of his abdomen that keep contracting as I run my long nails over it in sync with him tracing the curve of my hip.

My breath hitches when he squeezes my flesh with hedonic passion, his fingers grazing my sensitive folds as his tongue latches on the tip of my silk covered nipple.

I taste copper while my teeth tease his clavicle, both of us humming while my tongue laps with insatiable thirst at the newly formed wound, stirring him to grind into me with that much more violent need.

As if possessed, I can't get enough of him, my nails looking for blood – a signature to have for later under the sharp tips. Shaking, he licks my lower ribs until his tongue tastes the valley leading to my belly button.

Both of us hiss and shiver when his hands remove my top and free my breasts, the cold air hardening my nipples against the velvet of his tongue.

His voice…God; it sounds darker and rougher than I’ve ever heard it, making me quiver like an animal of prey under him. One that begs to be devoured.

He’s impatient, wild and deranged as he thrusts the two fingers I just wet inside me, his other hand snaking its way around my neck and squeezing hard enough to let me know he’s the one in control and has always been. Yes.

I've never known a desire like this existed. Nor the kind of animalistic need that now makes me flourish in my feral femaleness, granting me the freedom of simply owning my sexuality without shame, barriers or holding back.

In his lustrous eyes I find the same ecstatic abandon, letting me know that he is swimming in his own corner of euphoric bliss.

Lightly, my teeth scrape along his scarred jaw before his own explore my heated flesh, sinking them in the sensitive skin of my left breast and mirroring the mark that had yet to fully heal from that night on the ledge.

To eat and be eaten, to hold and be held.

Suddenly, he removes his fingers, making me gasp for air. In a daze, he positions us both in the middle of the bed with me in his lap, resting my hypersensitive core against him, my nipple a whisper away from his open mouth.

There’s a veiled vulnerability in the fact that apart from my thong, I am bare while he remained fully clothed, as always. Yet despite this, I feel powerful, decadent, resplendent.

He devours my breasts, dissolving me with each bite, suck, open mouthed kiss. Soothing with both devilish and apologetic eyes the sweet sting he just marked me with, but still appearing visibly pleased that he left his imprint.

Sealed to him, I burn so hot, my glazed eyes rolling back as mouthfuls of air drunken the lungs, my cliffs crumbling into the depths of his relentless ocean. Close, so close…

The depraved sound of our ragged breaths is the only one in the darkened room, maybe in the entire universe; the places he touches me, being the sole ones I know with definiteness are real, now that they are his.

"Please, I need more of you…"I moan with desperation in his ear, before exploring it with fervid licks.

"Seduttrice, mi stai uccidendo," he shudders the words, barely able to speak before he turns me around and grips me tightly by the waist, his chest now facing my back.

I feel my knees buckle when he cups my dripping lips, his fingers blindly seeking my entrance before he plunges back into my heat. Deep, so deep that I go limp with pleasure before he grips my neck and keeps me upright. More.

He makes a strangled noise as he leans my head on his shoulder, so his tongue can reach for my own, searching desperately for me in a primal claim between bites and licks on my chin – making sure no other man will ever know the taste of my skin ever again.

Vicious in his desire, Dante makes me his sole victim and how I love the searing pain of no longer belonging to myself as he brands me as his.

He yanks me higher in his arms, before pushing me back down between the rumpled sheets. In the following second, the air is ripped out of my lungs along with my lingerie, leaving me completely naked under his famished eyes.

My whimper migrates into his waiting mouth the second he lunges forward and settles fully between my open legs.

The pressure of his hand around my neck leaves me inconsolable in my need as he applies a mouthwatering pressure that makes me feel both desired and protected under his control; the tension between us climbing higher and higher.

"Ombra, you’ve swallowed my soul," he confesses with heavy breaths falling over my heaving breasts in waves.

Intoxicated, all I can do is let the blackness engulf me as it all narrows down to feeling and taste. I immerse myself deeper, where pure instinct reigns.

The feel of his desperation strips me to sea foam, spreading me thin like caviar under the butter of his touch. Ruining me in all the places I secretly longed to be discovered when all I ever did was hide, hoping that one day he’ll find me and eat me alive.

Ravenous, I extend my hand, blindly unbuttoning his jeans and finding him hot and bare underneath. Both of us moan loudly at the contact.

Pinned in place, I can’t watch the object of my desire, his tight hold over my neck keeping me under his delicious control. But I still manage to touch the tip coated in his liquid need, the pulsing veins on his length, the heavy weight searing my trembling palm. All in, don’t stop.

"Hmm," I vibrate when I remove my hand for a brief second and taste his precum as I spread it over my lips.

"Fuck, you are so…" he swallows his words, along with my lips, saliva, tongue, chin, skin…

In sync with the smooth thrust of his fingers, I grip him firmly between my own once again, stroking him in the rhythm of our heartbeats. Hard, fast and so hot, he squeezes my neck tighter, our flow becoming that more desperate, while our moans mixed with profanities grow louder.

"Ophelia, what are you doing to me?" the sound of my name falling from his lips spills like ink over me, his rough voice crossing the abyss I was born in.

Even if our bodies are new, creating cataclysms with every touch, both of our souls already know the answer to his question.

"What I was born for," I proclaim before I fall apart.

White noise and a pleasure that is not of this world take full possession of my being as I reach an earthly paradisiac state, the thin distance between us becoming nonexistent. I can vaguely feel my core pulsing, my thighs trembling, my toes curling against the sheets. This, this is…

"Opium," I moan as I fall into the void.

"Ombra," he groans drunk with emotion.

He laces our fingers, his breath washing over my face like a torrid breeze as I feel him grow impossibly harder in my hold. Over the edge, his hips thrust into mine once, gazing my dripping folds before he comes violently with a broken scream over my pubic bone in long, burning streams that reach my stomach.

Breathless, I try to align my senses as he spreads his seed over my skin, painting me with life and marking me as his.

"My ravishing beauty, the entire world should throw roses at your feet," he whispers adoringly, making me shiver.

Never once in my existence have I experienced this feeling of appurtenance, nor this overwhelming attachment gripping my heart. But now I do, and for the life of me, I can't remember a time when I didn't live within his eyes.

He stands up, taking my limp ankle in his hand and kissing it before heading for the bathroom, the sound of the running faucet putting me further into a drowsy state.

My enigma, possessing a lifetime of resilience, comes back with a washcloth, reluctantly erasing himself from my skin.

"You’ll do it often my opium, no need to be sad about it," I say contently, brushing my fingers over his knee.

"I can’t sleep at night, knowing that other men even look at you in passing, as you cross the street. God, woman…" he clenches his jaw as he runs a hand over his mouth in apparent frustration coated in desire.

"Will you lock me in a citadel?" I tease as he finishes cleaning me up.

"I think I will. You leave me no other choice, since you are my living, breathing treasure," he says as he tears the collar of his black shirt sharply, his intense eyes never leaving mine. "And you would love every minute of it, wouldn’t you, mia cara?" he continues, peeling the duvet away from under my body and pulling in the burgundy velvet curtains of the canopy; shutting us completely into a world of our own.

"Every second," I murmur as he raises the bottom of his shirt, a glimpse of that magnificent inked body peeking in the obscure space.

Dante nudges me with his gaze and I, both confused and warm-hearted, lower my head and slip into the space between his shirt and torso, kissing his chest before exiting through the ripped gap he had just created.

When I reach his face, our noses bump into each other. Heat pulls at the small of my back as I relax completely in the cocoon made of him only, surrounding me protectively from all angles as he hugs me tight to him.

He feels so wide, so large and powerful compared to my small frame, my breasts pressing into the hard planes of his chest while my arms seek to give him the same comfort he so naturally offers me.

If safety were a living entity, he would embody it.

"I want to stay here for all eternity," I say, brushing my lips over his chin, covered in what appears from the tattoo design, the fissure lines on the surface of the skull.

"Good, because there was never another option, tesoro," he says, intertwining our legs and covering us both with the duvet.

A yawning Coblina materializes through the curtains, her big inquisitive eyes looking at us, as if struggling to choose who to sit next to.

"What have you done to my sweet girl? In the five years of her life I have never seen her behave like this. She dislikes the company of others, especially strangers, with a passion," I say, running my fingers over his lower back and finding a long scar line there. Though it appears to be healed, I can't help but think of all the pain this beautiful man went through before we found each other.

"You already know the answer," he whispers secretively. "I think some eyes just recognize each other and never let go," he continues, the double meaning of his words stealing my breath as my purring sphynx settles above my head and into the crook of his arm, bone-inked fingers petting her raised chin.

"The first night I saw you in my kitchen I was terrified of having a stranger breaking into my home, but when my eyes landed on you, my soul knew something I didn’t. I can’t fear you, even though I know in my bones how lethal you can be. There’s this inherent knowledge that you won’t hurt me, not even with a gun pointed at your head," I say, my lips brushing the corner of his eye.

"I wish that even for a second you could see yourself through my eyes and understand…" he swallows, his voice so raw and sincere that I can feel the unsaid.

I raise my head and meet his gaze, trying to tell him without empty words or grand promises that I’ll be the sanctuary for his beaten soul, a table where his demons could dine freely, a hand that will only heal his wounds.

In response, he graces my sight with the greatest of gifts, over his lips spreading a genuine smile that touches his dark orbs fixed on mine. So beautiful.

I run my fingers over the sharp contours of his face as he places the end of the cigarette he just lit to my lips. I inhale while trying to smooth away the worry lines on his forehead, created by all the years that haunted him into the man he is today.

"What happened after it was all over?" I ask, in a way dreading the answer, knowing that the aftermath was the catalyst that ultimately shaped him.

He swallows dryly, taking a meditative drag from the cigarette. Mesmerized, I watch the smoke pouring out of his mouth glide towards the mirrored ceiling, creating the image of a spirit trapped by millennia finding, for the briefest of moments, a window to a gentler world from which it can finally escape.

"Tommy, my cousin, was the one who found me in critical condition. From what I’ve been told, when he got wind of what happened, he was inspired enough to bring in our family doctor who managed by some miracle to stop the bleeding. They brought bags of my blood type and did a rudimentary surgery on the spot so that I was stable enough to be moved to a private clinic," he says with eyes focused forward, lost in memories that I wish were just a piece of fiction.

He clears his throat before continuing, "I spent the first few days in an induced coma, and the next ones in a state of sedation for my own physical and mental safety since the trauma I had to live with was initially too extreme for my sanity," Dante says, his energy getting gradually grimmer at the memory of what must have been the hardest days of his life.

"When I woke up and was unable to speak, they feared the worst," he says, tilting his head back. "Taking my own life has never been an option, especially after what my family went throug h . I had to live because I had a duty to fulfill in their memory. My extended relatives preserved their bodies for a little over two weeks, just so I could attend their funeral," he says, his arms starting to tremble all around me.

"Dante…" I whisper, feeling his pain enter me as I caress the side of his face.

"I was so out of it that day, barely managing to say goodbye, as I was both rejecting reality and imagining the ashes of those fuckers under my feet after burning them all alive. I regret to this day that I didn’t spend every waking second by their coffins but the truth is I couldn’t be truly present for years to come – too consumed with washing their blood off my hands," he says with eyes eaten by emptiness.

"Was the police involved?" I ask, momentarily avoiding what his last words just hinted at while also trying to get him out of that mental space; I think it will be years before I could even digest the full extent of what happened to him.

"We had people in the system under our payroll, who put together a realistic script for those curious enough to meddle in our business. You can imagine that an execution of this magnitude would have left a glaring gap for too many questions, and just the thought of other people seeking justice on my behalf – well, that's nothing but a child's bedtime story," he says bitterly, his resent for the world we had been born into palpable.

"So, what did you do?" I whisper, my heart beating painfully in my chest.

"I think you already know, mia cara," he says in a somber tone, his fingers stroking the crown of my head so tenderly I can feel him in my toes.

My eyes widen in dread while my pulse quickens at his non confession, which essentially said it all as I crane my neck. He holds my chilled gaze, facing me in all his ungodly glory, my hot breath now feeling ice cold over my teeth.

Even though I knew deep in the morrow of my bones, he is far from being a saint, it doesn't make the thought of him having so much blood on his hands any easier.

His admission, laid at my feet like flowers on a grave, renders my mind empty and my heart in a twisted state. Not because it has changed the way I perceive him, but because, despite the gruesome implications …it simply doesn't matter to me .

Because everything is about him and him alone – all else pales in comparison.

Above all, I understand Dante in all his complexities and flaws that ultimately played a part in creating the man before me, mortal flaws and all. If by crimsoning his hands with the blood of those savages brings him an ounce of peace, then morals of this world be damned.

In all truthfulness, I’m the one I fear.

"You can drain every last drop of my blood; hate me with a passion for crossing your ethics, forbid me from ever touching you, but never again look at me with fear in your eyes, tesoro mio," he says firmly and gently all at once as he brushes his fingers over my cheek.

"Would you really stay away if I asked you to?" I question, my heart squeezing painfully at the thought.

"You’d never ask that of me," he says with dead certainty, his eyes digging into my soul. "You're mine and have always been. But make no mistake. No one in this world will ever be able to keep me away from you. I don’t care what I have to do, who I have to eradicate, ruin or bribe. Nothing will ever part us again," he says with an intensity that fills my heart with devotion.

To be this desired, this needed, with no line too low or dark enough to cross – I've never known this kind of passion and it's simply beautiful, pure in its raw need to have and to hold above all else.

"The blood on my hands, I understand why it would be upsetting to you, considering…" he pauses, taking a stray strand of my hair and tucking it behind my ear. "If it helps, know that I don’t find pleasure in it. But I do feel a deep sense of duty and to avenge what was so senselessly and cruelly done to them."

"Does it weight heavy on your shoulders?" I ask, wondering if his soul feels burdened at night, when the silence is thick and the thoughts are at their loudest.

"I don’t regret their dried blood under my nails. They deserved nothing but the most dragged and painful of deaths known to men for what they took, not only from me but from the world. They didn't spare a second before pulling the trigger, so why should I? Greed doesn’t come for free and in the end they paid with their lives," he declares, with an eerie detachment; the one a man possesses after a lifetime of struggle that has made him silent and reserved with his inner demons, both in relation to himself and to the outside world.

I close my eyes, soaking my morality into his heavy words dripping with unapologetic honesty and letting them trickle into my mind until I see the grander picture – the essence of it all.

"I am not a hypocrite, nor do I have delusions of self- righteousness. The path I chose may have made me just another variety of their breed, but I can live with that. What matters to me is whether you perceive me as one of them," he says with raw vulnerability, stripping away the idea of a life in black and white, my soul whispering in my ear to follow the grey; for it is transparent in its truth, however bloody at the corners.

As I contemplate him, a part of me dies and is reborn into something I knew nothing of until he came into my life and made me his.

Dante is the epitome of human nature, seeking something that calls to him in spite of the world and its two faceted character. That side of him won’t let him rest until his self-written prophecy won’t be fulfilled beyond the laws of men or morals.

Yet, where it matters most, his heart has remained untainted; still loyal and with a potency that could drown me under its untamed emotion.

And…I understand, abundantly. Looking back, I’ve accepted him, soul deep, before a word was spoken.

"You are mine, just like I am yours. Scarred, tormented, beaten down. I’ll take you as you are, no matter what coat you’ll choose to wear tomorrow," I whisper before my lips crush into his, giving him a taste of the truth slipping from my tongue like the thickest of syrups.

As we merge our souls, only God knows how we slowly die for each other and how we love every second of the fall.

"Vieni, piangi con me. Portami a casa" it. Come, cry with me. Take me home.

"Posso sentire il tuo corpo urlare per me da lontano " it. I can hear your body screaming for me from afar.

"puoi sentirlo?", it. can you feel it?

"Seduttrice, mi stai uccidendo" it. Seductress, you are killing me.