Chapter 28
EMBERLINE
Ismoothed my hand down Dante’s hollow chest, furious that I could count every rib. “I told you we would get you out,” I told him, then raised my brow. “Seriously, I don’t know why you doubt me when you know I’m always right.”
He huffed out a quiet laugh, the first sound he’d made since his brother left.
The house felt safe. Thick stone walls muffled the city outside. The shutters were drawn on every window. Wards hummed faintly in the seams of the block like a low, steady breath. After the brutality of the Fossa, this place was a refuge.
But I didn’t know what to do with all this silence.
“Let’s get you cleaned up,” I nudged him toward the steps, then into my messy bedroom, navigating the piles of clothes and shoes to get to the bathroom. I turned on the water, plugged up the old clawfoot tub, wondering if he’d even fit inside.
“Okay,” I reached for his waistband, “I think…”
Dante captured my wrists, and all I could do for a moment was stare at his big, tanned, scarred hands around my pale skin, both of us caked in enough grime that every pore stood out in stark relief.
“I can do this myself.” The words came slow, groggy, as though he was running on the very last of energy, his eyes now the color of a stormy sky, not the clear blue of the Adriatic.
“Just…” I squeezed my eyes shut. “Let me take care of you, please?” I worked my hands free and unbuttoned his pants—the same ones he’d worn to the palazzo to confront my uncle weeks and weeks ago, nothing but stiff, filthy rags now.
“I just need to…” Tears clogged my eyes, my nose, fingers shaking as I peeled everything off, then nudged him toward the tub.
“Come on, get in the tub. If you fit.” I tried to smile, but my lips wouldn’t move in the right direction, eyes glued to the ribs sticking out of his torso, the ropey muscle stretched over bone, and the dry, cracked skin.
That leg.
He would need a healer. A good one. The fucking best one we could find.
Too tired to fight, he obeyed, water sloshing over the edges as I fumbled with the spigot.
Kneeling beside the tub, I picked up a washcloth, debating where to even start. He watched me, something dark brewing in his face, as if he had too much to say but couldn’t find the words.
“What hurts the worst?” I asked. “Because the last thing I want to do is make this worse.”
“Mostly my leg.” He was hunched forward, hair hanging down like a dark, matted curtain, so I couldn’t see his face at all. “Everything else isn’t so bad.”
“I’ll go slow.” I dunked the cloth in the water and dragged it down the center of his spine, leaving a clean stripe of tanned, battered skin behind. Rage burned a hole in my belly.
When his back was clean, I moved to his shoulders, then his arms, the water in the tub so dark brown, I could practically taste the Fossa—sand, blood, the reek of death—as if that place had lodged itself in the back of my throat and decided to live there.
“Lean back a little,” I urged, moving to his chest, swallowing at the way his beautiful pagan tattoos had been shredded apart, like it was done almost purposefully.
Not a sound—not a word—escaped him as I worked.
Once I had him reasonably clean, I pressed down on his shoulders. “Slide down, I want to wash your hair.”
He didn’t budge. “My hair?” His shoulders turned rock hard, stubbornly set in stone. “You don’t need to treat me like an invalid, Emberline.”
“How about treating you like my husband?” He was so tense beneath my fingers, I dug my thumbs into rigid muscle, feeling him relax slightly.
“What if I want to take care of the male I love? The one I never thought I’d see again?
” My voice broke, and I swallowed before I could go on.
“What if I need to make myself believe you’re really here, and this isn’t a dream? ”
He turned to face me—not an easy feat, crammed into the tub—and our gazes clashed, something wild burning in his. “I shouldn’t even be here. I’m…” he snapped his lips together. “I should go.”
Now I did laugh. “Like I’m ever letting you out of my sight again.”
“I’m not safe to be around,” he said so quietly, I had to strain to hear him.
“Nonsense. You reek, but you’re not…”
“I’m not fucking safe for you to be around. I shouldn’t be here.” He shoved to his feet, filling up the entire bathroom, water streaming down his ruined body, steam rolling off his shoulders. My heart was in my throat as I stared up at him, suddenly frozen by a different kind of dread.
Something stared out at me from behind his eyes.
Something foreign, consuming and hungry, the gaze of a wild animal starving for too long, willing to risk anything for a meal.
“You don’t understand what it was like, surviving in there,” he rasped. “The things I had to do, what they turned me into…” His blue eyes glowed, lit by an inner light, hands constantly moving, as if he couldn’t keep them still, and I realized… he believed every word coming out of his mouth.
“Last time, I stayed away for a year. It took me a full fucking year to screw my head back on right. Enough that I could be around… without hurting anyone. But everything is different this time.” His admission was full of shame.
“Now, I have you, and all I can think about is what if I lost control and hurt you? What then? And that’s why I need to go.”
I burst to my feet. Angry.
No, furious. Dante wasn’t going to be saddled with a bunch of baggage because he’d been betrayed, locked away, and tortured.
“You would never hurt me. You did what you had to in order to survive, and I am glad,” I told him fiercely.
“I am glad for everything you did if it brought you back to me. Now sit down, caro marito, and let me wash your hair, or I am going to become a very cranky wife, and trust me, neither of us wants that right now.”
He drew one shuddering breath and sank back down, stayed still as I drained the tub and refilled it with clean water, tipping his head back so he was comfortable.
“Tell me everything that happened when you asked Giovanni about my disappearance,” I prompted, dripping handfuls of water through his filthy hair.
“Your uncle is a fucktwat.” He cracked his eye open when I snorted at his new favorite word, reaching over him for the shampoo.
“He fed me the expected line of bullshit. Your brother was really worried, though. I felt bad about leaving Luca like that, wondering what happened to you. But then I walked out the doors and our house exploded. I got there as fast as I could, but when I found your blood, I… if anything happened to you, Emberline, I would never forgive myself.”
“Nico got me out in time,” I started massaging his scalp, willing this stubborn male to just relax.
“I thought I’d failed you, tesoro.” I didn’t think my heart was beating as he opened his eyes and stared up into mine. “The whole time I was in the Fossa, I never knew for sure…”
I nodded wordlessly because I’d lived with those same unknowns.
“All I kept thinking was how I’d caged you to keep you safe, but that cage had become your tomb. And that’s when I knew the truth.” He ran his fingers down my cheek as I held my breath for whatever he was about to say next.
“I realized that keeping you safe is a privilege, not a duty, and I swore then… swore on my mother’s grave that if I got another chance, if I could,”—his fingertips paused on my cheek—“touch you again, I would do everything differently. So… no more cages. No more protections. You and me, Emberline, against the world. Side by side. Will you join me?”
“Gods, yes,” I breathed. “I will join you, Dante.”