Chapter 28
EMBERLINE
“Fine,” I conceded.
“You want cooperation? I’ll play the perfect wife in public. I’ll let you use me as your ticket back into polite society. I’ll smile, nod, and pretend you didn’t just blow up my entire life for reasons you won’t explain.” I lifted my chin. “But I have terms, too.”
His expression sharpened. “Go on.”
“One,” I held up a finger. “You do not touch me. Not unless the situation demands it, and I give you my verbal consent. In private, this marriage is nothing but paper. Smoke and mirrors. Convenience. Not real in any way, nor will it ever be.”
Something flickered in his eyes at that—something almost like offense—then was gone so fast, I must have imagined it.
“Two,” I continued, before he could argue. “Once you’ve cemented your position in the Dynasty, you’ll give me what you promised. Once I have the killer’s name, I do with it as I will. No interference, no fucking limitations. You will get out of my way and stay out of my way.”
He inclined his head. “Agreed. What else?”
“Three,” I said, the word scraping my throat. “If it comes down to it—if your family forces me to choose—my loyalty is always to my blood. To Luca. I won’t pretend otherwise.”
I expected that to anger him.
Instead, he nodded once, his expression grave. “I’d have thought less of you if you chose to protect anything but your brother.”
Ever so slowly, Dante smiled, full lips curving into something that wasn’t pleasant. It was sharp and vicious and felt disturbingly like approval.
“Done,” he agreed, too quickly. “We have a deal, moglie mia.” My wife.
“Don’t call me that,” I snapped, my stomach flipping at the endearment, meant for quiet moments and warm, beating hearts, not unholy bargains forged from mutual hatred.
He stepped so close, the scent of him slid over my skin like oil—smoke, leather, and something darker, older. Iron. The heat-drenched pits where he’d fought.
All the blood he’d spilled.
The lives he’d taken.
“There are exceptions, of course, to your no-touching rule. Our marriage must look real. Which means in public,” he rasped, “I’ll call you that and worse.
I’ll kiss you like you belong to me. I’ll put my hand on your back, and everyone will see a male who would burn the world to ash for his beloved bride.
That’s how this game works, Ember. There is no sense in playing if you don’t mean to win. ”
He dragged his nose up the side of my throat, skin on skin, and I shivered, all the way down to my toes. No male had ever been this close, no male had ever taken such liberties, and gods, my entire body softened like butter.
“I know this about you, too, Emberline.” Every rough, whispered word tickled my ear, his bristled jaw scraping the side of my face. “I know you are playing to win. In fact, it wouldn’t surprise me one bit if, when this is all over, you were the last one standing.”
My pulse skittered, yet I didn’t pull away. Why the fuck wasn’t I stepping away from this rain-drenched monster who’d ruined my life?
“You told me what it will be like in public, but…” I asked, hating how rough my voice sounded, the way my body was on fire. “What about in private?” My weapons were right there, only a few feet away, almost within reach.
“In private,”—he dipped his head, shoulders curving in around me like a cage—“I’ll call you whatever you tell me to, tesoro. I will obey your every command. But in public… you are mine.”
Heat licked my cheeks.
“Fine,” I finally conceded that step to him, putting some much-needed breathing room between us. “That still leaves one problem.”
He tilted his head. “Only one? My wife,” he purred, “the optimist.”
I pointed at the bed. “Your family,” I muttered, “expects evidence we consummated this… thing between us.” The words tasted foul. “Blood on the sheets. Something for the gossips out there to talk about for the next month or so.”
“Blood?” Confusion flashed across his face. “Are you…” He looked between my red face and the rose petals on the sheets, awareness slowly dawning. “The vultures seriously expect us to…” He shook his head. “Fucking barbaric. And they call me a monster.”
“Regardless, this must be done, or everything that comes after will be suspect.” As bitter as that truth was, the conclusion was logical. Whatever really happened between us, if we gave these craven people what they wanted, our next steps would be easier.
For a moment, we both stared at the bed together, at the pristine white linens, the artfully scattered petals. The expectation that hung over this room like a shroud.
“We’re not doing that,” I decided firmly. “I don’t care what they expect.”
Not that I knew what that entailed.
I’d never had a mother to usher me through womanhood, never had friends to gossip about boys. I’d only had Luca, who thankfully kept his many conquests to himself, while I… well, I hadn’t gotten the name principessa del ghiaccio for nothing.
“We’re not,” he agreed calmly. “I have no interest in forcing you. When you come to my bed, tesoro, it will be because you’re begging for my cock, not because my father needs a show.”
My body reacted to his coarse language like I was a high-pitched tuning fork, heat spreading like fire through my bones, that forbidden tingle between my legs turning into a roar. Dante’s nostrils flared, his smile deepened into a wolf’s ravening grin.
“They expect to see blood? We’ll give them blood.”
Then he was moving...
Away from me, thank all the gods.
Dante crossed to the bed, perused my knives, then chose one—my very favorite, the one Enzo had gifted me for my sixteenth birthday—testing the keen edge against his finger, blood welling immediately before he walked back to me.
“They’ll know if it’s my blood, Emberline,” he explained, with a hint of regret. “I would bleed for you, if I could, but they’ll be able to smell the difference.” He held out his hand. “I will make sure it hurts less than when you cut yourself at the Compact.”
My stomach turned, but I extended my hand, palm up. “You saw that?” I asked, as his fingers closed around my wrist, steady and firm.
He met my eyes once—question, warning, apology—before drawing the blade smoothly across my skin.
Pain flared, sharp and hot.
I hissed, teeth gritted, watching crimson well up from the thin cut, cupping my hand to allow it to pool inside my palm.
Bleeding for the cause seemed to be a thing these days.
“I saw everything, tesoro,” he ground out, pupils dilating as he stared down at the growing puddle of red. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone as brave, or as foolish, as you standing in front of my sire, debating whether or not to slit his throat in front of the entire Dynasty.”
He turned my hand, splattering blood over the sheets, the rose petals, before pressing my hand to the sheets and smearing crimson all over them, creating a garish painting, so brutal in nature, it was almost beautiful.
“Well, in the end, I failed, so I suppose I wasn’t brave after all, just foolish.”
“What stopped you?” He released my wrist, and we both stepped back, inspecting our handiwork.
“Your father’s eyes,” I admitted because we were still alone, and I didn’t have to pretend. “He looked… accepting. Like he knew what I was about to do and welcomed death.”
“We’re vampires.” He was staring at me now, mouth slightly parting, fangs down. “We don’t welcome death. We fight it with every cell of our being.”
“Maybe I was seeing things,” I breathed, as Dante caught my wrist again and lifted it, bringing my palm closer to his face, taking a deep inhale.
“For the record,” he whispered, gaze tracking the slow healing of the cut, “I doubt you were. My father has been alive a long time. Perhaps even immortality gets tiresome.” His voice was slurred, drugged, pupils barely a pinprick in a sea of blue.
Then… a delicious shiver chased down my spine as he raised my hand to his mouth and licked, while I hyper-focused on every last miniscule detail—the way his warm tongue flattened out over my skin, the rough drag against my palm, the way his fingers tightened down like a cage around my wrist, nails digging in.
How it might feel to have him do that same thing between my legs.
My breath stuttered, heat roaring inside me, my pussy throbbing and wet. Humiliatingly wet, soaking the tiny white slip of silk between my legs, the sharp points of my nipples scraping against my cotton dress, every inch of my skin crying for more, more, more.
I didn’t understand these dark, dirty thoughts invading my head right now.
Magic tingled up my arm, not his harsh, thrumming power from the chapel, but something quieter, something almost insidious—because this felt so good. A thread of connection tightened between us, strengthening the bond the ceremony had already forged.
I knew so little about magic—about males—I didn’t even know if these feelings were normal.
They didn’t feel normal.
My mind told me they were depraved and filthy, but my body was on fire, trembling, aching in places it had never ached before.
I jerked my hand back, the cut gone, nothing but a thin pink mark left.
“Consider this a rehearsal,” Dante rasped, voice rougher than ever. “Tomorrow morning, before they unlock the door, you will feed from me. Between the fresh wounds on my neck and the blood,” he nodded to the bed, “the vultures should be satisfied.”
“I’m sleeping in the chair.” I headed back to the fireplace and curled myself into the tightest ball I could manage, trying to ignore the throbbing pressure between my legs that only seemed to increase the more I moved around.
“Go ahead and play the martyr. I’ll take the bed,” he teased, with a wicked grin, gathering up my knives and dropping them on the night table. “I trust you won’t stab me in my sleep?”
“Can’t make you any promises,” I muttered.
“That’s my girl,” he said cheerfully, dragging the shirt over his head, unfastening his pants like I wasn’t standing right the fuck here.
“What are you doing?” I hissed, swinging my gaze to the ceiling. Even so, the sight of his obscenely toned abdomen and the line of hair leading down to… Well, that dark line of hair was now burned into my brain for the rest of my existence.
“Getting comfortable. I’ve been traveling for days to get here in time, and this is the first bed I’ve slept in… for a long while. I’d be a fool to pass up a good thing. Of course, I’d be happy to share…” His lips curled. “We could really give them something to talk about.”
My glare must’ve been lethal because he lifted both hands in surrender.
“Joking,” he said. “Mostly.”
“Fat fucking chance.” I dragged in a breath. Then another, and by the time I took my third, my pretend husband was already snoring, a wall of scarred, tattooed muscle stretched out on a bed of blood and rose petals, one brawny arm thrown over his eyes.
I sat there, staring up at the frescoed ceiling, listening to the sawing rhythm of his breathing from across the room. My life had been derailed, my plans ruined, and now I had to play a waiting game—with no end in sight—to get what I wanted.
But one thing was certain.
Dante Dominico thought he’d stolen me tonight.
He had no idea I was going to steal everything back.