EIGHTEEN #2
My throat nearly closes. Dante flirts like it's his first language, but the image of him entangled with someone against his will—merely because it's expected of him… It takes the breath out of me. No one deserves that. Not even him.
“It sounds like he didn’t leave you much choice,” I say, quiet horror in every syllable.
“My early rebellions when the memories came back to me… It was ugly. I’d lash out, and Father would torment me in his way of reeducation—and then I’d drown myself in obedient routine with the others for a time.
Over and over.” The self-loathing that twists his handsome features nearly steals the words from my lips.
His eyes shine with furious, unshed tears.
“Weak. I’ve been so weak. Until I first heard a whisper about Callistia twenty years ago, I’d rather lost hope I’d ever break this fucking cycle. ”
“You’re here now, aren’t you?”
He swallows, nodding, still not looking at me directly. “I spent so long under Alessandro’s thumb. It’s strange. I wonder sometimes if there’s any use defying fate. Perhaps I’m a damn idiot for thinking I can escape him at all.”
My throat tightens as I drink him in—this monster reduced to a lost child.
I can see it now; how reclaiming his humanity is the only way he can truly escape the tether of his master.
Dante could start again, reclaim a life that had been cut short too soon.
He could seek penance for the countless horrors he’d committed—or try to, at least.
Wetting my lips, I stop thinking and take his hand, threading my fingers through his. An electric charge rushes through me at the contact, nearly making me pull away just as quickly. His hand is larger than mine, but I clasp him firmly nonetheless, grounding him.
“This is real. And…you’re not alone,” I say.
Dante’s eyes widen slightly. The unguarded expression on his face, the slight part of his perfect lips… It nearly unravels me. I lean closer, lifting my eyebrows with a gentle, conspiring look.
“We’re never going to be friends. We will always loathe each other,” I murmur, giving his hand a squeeze to punctuate the words.
“But I promised the Order I would see this through—whatever your doubts about them, they’re the only family I have, and I owe them that much.
And more importantly, I promised myself. So… I’m here.”
Dante gives a soft snort, corners of his mouth twitching in a wry smile. I feel some relief, seeing a little gleam re-surfacing in his eyes—and awe, that I have made it happen.
“Very noble,” Dante murmurs, a little melodramatic as he shakes his head at me. “I really must beat the heroism out of you someday.”
I smirk at him. “Prick.”
He hums in his throat, glancing down at our woven fingers.
He turns his hand over so mine is resting on his palm, and he traces his thumb over the back of it.
Another shiver runs down my spine. Though there’s barely any pressure behind the movement, I am all too aware of the unspeakable violence his hands are capable of.
But right now, he’s gentle. He’s touching me like I’m made of glass.
“I knew you’d come around to me eventually.” The half joke is meant to diffuse the tension, but the look he gives me is disarmingly meaningful. “Tragedy aside, and all.”
I prise my hand away from his. But I’m fighting a smile—it’s like that stupid smirk of his is contagious. “Don’t do that. I’m in your corner, but you know I’m merely using you as fodder to find this cure.”
“I expect no less,” he purrs. The corner of Dante’s mouth stays lifted in a lopsided smile—undaunted, thoughtful, like he can see straight through my callous words.
For a second, I hope he does.
“You’re never prettier than when you’re being cruel, anyway,” he adds, giving me a fleeting once-over. A little more strength threads his voice, sounding almost like himself again. “It really brings out the crazy in your eyes.”
Don’t look at me like that, I want to tell him.
“I was being serious, Dante,” I chide—utterly refusing to acknowledge the heat now staining my cheeks.
“So am I.”
I’m still fumbling for what to even say to that when something small and furry rubs up against my ankles, making me startle in my seat.
“Oh. Henri, isn’t it?” I lean down to scoop the grey cat into my lap, giving him a gentle pet between his ears. Henri purrs at my touch, but tenses in my arms when Dante shifts beside me. He’s tracking the vampire’s every movement, seeming to be utterly aware of what he is.
Dante leans closer, expression flat. “You could be a snack,” he tells it. “Don’t forget that.”
With that, Dante stands. I’m relieved to see the tremble has left him, and he’s sauntering the cottage with his usual swaggering purpose again.
I hush Henri, giving him a few more reassuring strokes before setting him down.
It’s a shame I can’t bring him back to the abbey after all this.
We only keep horses and hunting hounds on the premises, and they aren’t to be coddled like lap pets.
“We should take advantage of any resources we can salvage here before leaving. And we’ll need new horses,” I remark.
“Starting with a bath,” Dante tacks on. “I don’t know how to put this sensitively, darling, but you reek.”
I roll my eyes, but I can’t argue with him. Right now, we both smell like something that washed up under a bridge.
As we search the cottage, we discover the chaos does have a pattern. The witch apparently wasn’t lying about her recent studies, as gruesome as her methods were.
“All of this to pursue immortality?” I mutter, using a fire poker to nudge a severed reptilian tail away from the cabinet behind the table. “Vile work.”