28. TWENTY-EIGHT #3
It’s faint, indescribable. The pressure on my neck vanishes with Dante’s fangs pressing on my throat—just shy of breaking skin.
With a deep-seated groan, he pulls away as though he’s moving a mountain through sheer force.
He still holds me, but he can’t seem to look at me, eyes squeezed shut—as though that might break his control.
“I—won’t,” Dante gasps.
Even in my dizzy state, I catch the shock on Alessandro’s face. For a moment, it’s like he forgets how to speak, brow furrowed as he looks between us.
“Take her, Dante. Now.”
Dante’s arms twitch tighter, and he snaps his head toward me. I flinch, more tears spilling down my cheeks and blurring my vision of him. But his eyes don’t blanch this time, and he’s almost weeping as he forces his face back toward the ground, away from my exposed throat.
“No!” Dante rasps out. “No.”
Alessandro makes a soft noise, his jaw feathering. The silence that hangs is heavy, suddenly uncertain.
“Come now,” Alessandro says, his voice eerily calm in the wake of our joined, stifled sobs. I force myself to look at him, finding an odd sort of intrigue painting his features. “She can’t possibly be worth your suffering. She’s not a person, she’s food.”
“Perhaps she can join the Family instead,” Nico says quietly. “Wouldn’t a slayer be a worthwhile addition? Imagine infiltrating the Order with one of our own. Eliminating them once and for all.”
Even Alessandro seems surprised that he has spoken so much.
He frowns, considering the option while I reel at the prospect.
I won’t allow it. I’ll plunge my dagger into my heart before I let this vampire lord turn me, claim me.
I nearly scream in protest, but there is no need.
Like a firm parent, Alessandro sighs and shakes his head.
“I simply can’t reward such behavior. The girl must die. No way around it.” His eyes barely skate over me on their way to Dante. “Pity.”
“What if I come back?” Dante blurts, his voice breaking. “Without fuss. Without a word of complaint. I will never try to run again.” Each word lands upon me like the stab of a blade. “I… I’ll be as loyal as a dog and kill whomever you point me at.”
“No,” I whisper, clawing at the front of Dante’s tunic.
“But not her,” Dante lays in over my plea. “Never her. Let her live. Let her have a life, and I will be the perfect son. Yours to command until the end of time.”
I expect another laugh from Alessandro—or perhaps another burst of rage followed by a compulsive command for Dante to drown me, strangle me with his bare hands. But he has gone unsettingly still, looking at us with odd curiosity.
Alessandro rubs his jaw in thought. “I can foresee decades of outbursts should we kill the girl, I suppose,” he muses. “Do you truly wish to enter this bargain, boy? This slayer girl’s life—a nobody, who’s killed so many of our kin—for your unwavering obedience?”
I pull at him harder. “No!”
“Yes,” Dante says at once.
Alessandro’s frown deepens as he disappears into his thoughts for a long stretch of silence. “I have never seen you like this, my son.” Finally, he dips his head in a nod. “Very well. It is done.”
“Please,” I whisper to Dante, my voice riding on a frantic whimper. “You can’t—you can’t do this. You got away. You were so close—you can’t agree to such a thing, I won’t let you—”
He shushes me and ducks closer, whispering into my hair. “It’s alright. It is.”
“They’ll hurt you,” I croak, shaking my head like an adamant child.
He rocks me slightly, head resting against mine. “Never forget that I can find a shadow in the darkest night. I will find you.”
But it feels like a placating lie. Alessandro will never let him go, and I understand with agonizing clarity that Dante will do anything—even lose himself—to keep me safe now.
He pulls back to look at me, offering a broken, flickering smile. He traces my face with his gaze—those pretty, storm-blue eyes that had ever so briefly been mine.
“Save a dance for me. Perhaps not stepping on my feet next time, if you can manage it.”
My laugh catches into another sob.
Dante gently places me against the wall and presses one last kiss to my lips—and I’m too overwrought to memorize the feeling. He presses his forehead to mine.
“Goodbye, stellina.”
Alessandro gives Clémence and Nico the order to bring him—at last, it is time to return home.
I grip Dante’s hands with all my might, as though I might be able to keep him here, keep him from being torn away.
He is wrenched up to his feet, and though he’s all but dragged away, he’s not fighting back.
Dante walks between his siblings of his own accord, trailing behind their father and leaving me behind.
It takes me several minutes to get on my feet. Shock and pain and grief war so thoroughly, I’m almost paralyzed. Leaning heavily against the damp wall, I stagger after them with sobs wracking me. But the tunnels are already vacant, and my calls for him go unheard.
He’s gone.
I fall to my knees and stare into the darkness with only the slow drip of water for company.
But one thought roars above the suffocating quiet—Venice.