Chapter 29
EMBERLINE
Waking up alone and traumatized was definitely not the way to start the day.
What the fuck did I just see?
Surely not an eight-foot-tall skeletal male with blue-gray skin barely covering ivory bone, a face carved of cruelty and night, obsidian eyes that devoured, and a tooth-lined smile that turned my blood to ice.
But no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t wish that figment of my imagination out of existence.
Somehow, my sexy dream turned into a nightmare, as some dreams do, and I shouldn’t entertain my wild imaginings as anything but what they were.
Illusions.
Fantasies.
Hallucinations.
I got out of bed, splashed cold water on my face, pulled on clean clothes, comfortable and loose and perfect for a summer spent lounging poolside. I frowned, turning sideways in the mirror. Pinched the extra roll around my stomach.
I hadn’t been training every day like I was used to. Hadn’t raced across a rooftop or an alleyway in weeks, and the lack of activity was catching up to me. That, plus Valeria’s cooking, which was… shit. Everything from yesterday came flooding back.
Valeria.
And Luca, kissing in the kitchen.
Gods. Now that was truly a fucking nightmare.
I slipped my feet in some slippers, and two seconds later, I stood outside his door, fist raised to knock, knuckles an inch from rapping. I pressed my ear to the wood instead, feeling like a freaking stalker.
I’d just open the door, but the last thing I wanted to witness—especially after last night’s clusterfuck—was my brother and my enemy in bed together. Not that Valeria was still my enemy, but it was the principle of the thing.
I mean, we’d just gotten over hating each other—okay, that might have been slightly one-sided—and she was jumping into bed with my brother. I pressed my ear hard enough against the door to make my eardrum bleed.
Nothing. No sounds, not even heavy breathing, thank the gods. I knocked. “Luca. Are you in there?”
“He’s in the kitchen, eatin'.” Dante strolled up, a knowing grin on his face. “I swear, that kid can consume more than the rest of us combined. We should take him to America, put him in one of those competitive eating contests.”
“He’s my twin.” I gave him a stern glare that should have had him shaking in his steel-toed boots. He just grinned. “Luca is hardly a kid.”
“Yeah, well…” My husband rolled his shoulders. “The nickname irritates him and amuses me, so I’ll keep using it.” He paused, the grin falling off his face. “Unless it really bothers you, and then I’ll stop.”
I narrowed my eyes. “Is this sudden concern part of your personal growth campaign? I told you, I don’t need special handling.”
“This isn’t special handling, Emberline,” he explained with a patience I found inexplicably irritating. “This is me, asking if the nickname bothers you. If it does, I’ll stop.”
“No, it doesn’t really bother me,” I sighed. “It’s just… I’m not used to anyone respecting my feelings. Or even thinking about them, really.”
“Well, I’m trying to do better.” He laid his big, heavy hands on my shoulders and turned me toward the kitchen. “Let’s go see the kid so you can satisfy yourself he’s fine.”
“But he’s not fine, Dante.”
“No, he isn’t,” Dante agreed. “But he’s been through a lot this past week. Lived through shit most people don’t see in their entire lifetimes. It’s normal to not sleep. To see things in your dreams you’d rather forget. If I don’t see another one of those Drax again, it will be too soon.”
“I think it’s more than that.” I paused just before we reached the kitchen, where clanging pots and pans drifted out around the corner.
“This goes beyond exhaustion,” I whispered. “And while you’re right about Luca being baptized by fire, it’s not like him to hide from the world. Or sleep all day. I’m telling you, he’s acting strange.”
“And you spend a lot of time protecting him, tesoro,” he scolded gently.
“That’s because I’m his sister. Luca isn’t like us, Dante. I don’t want him to be like us. Luca is good, his heart is still pure, and I want my brother to stay just the way he is, with an unjaded view of the world.”
“I’m not sure if that’s possible. The world is a dangerous place where it pays to know your enemies and how to defend yourself against them. For vampires, being cynical isn’t a character flaw.”
“Constant distrust turns you brittle and hard. Call me naive, but I want Luca to keep his poetry and his paintings and his dreams alive. Like you said, it’s a cruel world, and if Luca can still find the wonder in it, then I’ll have done my job.”
Nico was in the kitchen cooking, my brother eating. Valeria was nowhere in sight, and I breathed out a sigh of relief. Seriously, those two banging would throw a serious wrench into the gears of my already-complicated life.
Not that I begrudged anyone happiness—especially after my little speech—but they didn’t make sense together. Those two were like if pure ambition married the professor who kept pushing his slutty glasses up on his nose.
Not that my brother was slutty.
Or wore glasses.
But still.
Nico dropped two more pancakes onto the staggeringly large plate of food in front of my brother, who was shoving bite after bite into his mouth as if he hadn’t eaten in months.
“It’s like we don’t feed you around here,” I teased, wrapping my arms around him. “You can take a breath, Luca.”
But what if he wasn’t hungry for food… but for blood? I’d been feeding plenty from my three men, but Luca… I hadn’t so much as thought about his situation. And Valeria was not an option, I decided.
Behind me, Dante stiffened when he spotted Nico, but stayed quiet as I hugged my brother, ruffled his hair, and studied his face for any sign of wrongness. But other than the tired smudges under his eyes, he looked… good.
Happy.
Dante was right; he was just processing.
And Nico… I faced him with cool composure and a racing heart, trying to parse out any reminders from the monster I’d glimpsed last night. That skeletal frame, a cruelly carved face, black, consuming gaze.
But there was only Nico.
Long hair messily pulled back, expertly flipping pancakes in a too-hot pan, totally focused on his task. The scars on his forearm were silvery slashes against his tan skin, and I wondered how many of them were courtesy of his father.
Oh, I’d heard everything last night in my dream.
Crept out of bed the moment Blackwood and Nico had disappeared, and while I might be struggling with the idea of Nico turning into a monster, I remembered everything else just fine. Suddenly, it became difficult to breathe.
I remember your leashes… how they burned and choked… broke my bones… bled on the floor. Gods, what had he endured for the first twelve years of his life? I opened my mouth to fill the silence, but Nico beat me to it. He glanced up briefly from his task to Dante.
“I should have told you the truth from the beginning, but I was afraid if you knew who my father was, I’d lose your friendship and the respect of your brother. That everything I’d worked so hard to build would be gone because of some bastard I’d walked away from years before I ever met you.”
He flipped the pancakes.
“A few years ago, several high-ranking members of a trade negotiating team disappeared in Rome. I was sent to investigate.”
I knew exactly what he was talking about. I’d been part of that negotiating team. Had begged Enzo to leave early because Lord Blackwood spooked me so badly in the handful of hours I’d spent with him, I couldn’t get out of Rome fast enough.
The members who stayed… we never saw them again.
My father and I… could just have easily ended up gone, too.
“Blackwood recognized me, of course. The moment he did, I cursed myself for risking years of secrecy, but so much time had passed since I’d last seen him, I thought I was safe. And part of me wanted to hold him responsible for his crimes. An arrogant misstep, and one I’ve regretted ever since.”
“You really hadn’t seen him in years?” Dante asked flatly.
“He had reason to think I was dead. Good reason.” For a moment, Nico paused, spatula gripped in his trembling hand.
“Anyway, he was… delighted to discover I was alive. Told me he’d keep in touch.
He had his guards follow me. I killed so many of them over the next few years, I lost count.
Then, a few years ago, he came to Venice.
Told me he wanted me back in the fold. Like old times.
” Nico’s lips curled back from his fangs.
“I told him to fuck off. He threatened Gabriel. I decided it was… prudent to continue keeping the secret. The more you and your brother knew, the more likely he would use the truth against you. Severin knew about my twisted past, and that, I convinced myself, was enough. But if I had it to do over again, I would have told you everything. From the very beginning.”
“I get it.” Dante leaned onto the island, big hands braced on the countertop. “I do. Fuck knows, I kept my own secrets long enough. For a lot of the same reasons.”
Nico stopped moving, just the smallest hesitation, but I caught it. The freezing of his hand, the way his breath stilled, how his attention flicked to me, face filled with hope.
“So,” my husband went on, “I forgive you for being a stonewalling asshole and not trusting us. And I’m sorry I sent you through the window.”
“Valeria says she’s going to send you a bill for the doors,” Luca said cheerfully, between bites. “They were expensive.”
“That fall was a bitch, not going to lie.” Some of the tension eased out of Nico, his shoulders relaxing. “But not half as bad as you, dropping on top of me. You weigh as much as a fucking truck, by the way. Next time, land somewhere else.”
Dante’s lips quirked. “I’ll do my best.”
“I’m not my father,” Nico said quietly. “No matter what else happens… I am not him. I will never be him.”