Chapter 4 #2
“The fuck I’m not,” I said, jerking free of Orion’s restraining hand and striding forward. “Why don’t you yank your head out of your ass before I have to do something about it myself?”
Dante moved, coming for me with deadly speed and grace I’d never seen.
I had no protection against him. Dante moved faster than all of us, even Orion as the Hunter grabbed me by the throat and slammed me into the wall. Pain shot up my spine as one of my wings caught behind my back and crumped against the blow. My cry was cut short when Dante squeezed.
My magic had always responded to instinct—and most of all, to fear.
And right now? Dante scared the shit out of me. Yuri hadn’t been kidding.
“You’re dead!” he cried as he slammed a fist into my gut, catching my ribs that cracked under the blow.
Golden energy poured out of me and rolled across my wings, forcing my spine into an arch at the sudden onslaught. My wings flared and I gasped, unable to contain the wave of heavenly power.
The power wasn’t an offensive measure, but one to heal my broken body that Dante had so crudely damaged. I wouldn’t blame him for this. He thought I was a trick, that I was dead and gone and I was just a specter designed to torment him.
Cole was responsible for this. I added one more slash to his growing list of grievances.
I screamed again as my bones reformed into their correct position and Dante finally let me go.
Confusion filled his golden eyes, briefly flashing with desperate, bewildered hope.
I felt the snap in the Virtue bond a moment later along with Dante’s mournful voice in my head.
Rage is all Cole permits me to feel.
His entire demeanor changed as his jaw flexed and murder painted his molten gaze.
“Dante…” I begged.
“You’re not real,” he whispered.
“I am real,” I assured him, daring to take his fingers and press them to my throat again. I risked his rage because I loved him.
Squeezing gently, I stroked my fingers over his pulse and reached for him across the Virtue bond. “I’m real and I’m here, Dante. You’re not hallucinating.”
“You died,” he said as if it was a mantra he couldn’t let go. “We all saw you die.”
“Yes,” I agreed. I tried to smile, but it wasn’t a very good one. “I guess it didn’t take.”
Hendrik lingered in my peripheral, his focus on me rapt and desperate, even more so than the glimpse I’d seen from Dante. “You must have awoken the third and final part of yourself—the immortal, angelic part.” Hendrik adjusted his cufflink. “It’s the only explanation.”
Dante’s eyes burned brighter, but he still wouldn’t let himself believe. “Let me go, Dark Mage.”
The tang of blood and roses wafted over me and I realized that Hendrik had been holding Dante back with his magic.
“Think about it, Dante,” Hendrik explained, ignoring his request. “Angels are immortal.”
“But she died,” Dante ground out.
“Yes,” Hendrik agreed, then winced as Dante flexed, fighting against him. “Hear me out. Given Lily’s heritage, coming back from the dead isn’t an impossibility. Kaito explained it better, but that was the gist during all his lectures that you missed.”
Dante stroked his thumb along my skin, still staring at me as if he wasn’t ready to believe Hendrik—but he wasn’t ready to give up the chance Hendrik was telling the truth, either.
Gripping his wrist, I stared back and willed him to believe me. Reaching along the damaged Virtue bond, I whispered, “Dante, it’s me.”
His lids flickered.
For the first time, I felt him reach out to me through our frayed Virtue bond, seeking me, and holding onto me tight when he realized I was real.
“Lily,” he breathed. A split second later, he crushed his mouth to mine and the walls between us collapsed.
He gripped my hair by the roots and tugged, exposing my throat. I clung to him as I he clamped down his teeth, claiming me.
“You left me,” he said, accusation in every word as the pain of the bite radiated down my throat, disappearing under a wave of golden heat.
Accusation, pain, and misery filled our connection, then his mouth was on mine again, a bruising possession as he thrust his tongue past the barrier of my lips, bringing me the taste of him.
His taste had changed. Before I could process that, Dante broke away, this time to kiss a stinging path along my jawline up to my ear where he bit me again. “I gave up everything for you and now that demon is inside me all the fucking time—and you still left me.”
“I didn’t mean to,” I said, tears thickening my voice. “I didn’t want to.”
But he didn’t hear me. Maybe he didn’t want to. Maybe the year he’d been bound to Cole had destroyed everything that had been kind and patient in him.
“Do you know what it’s been like?” he snarled.
“Do you know what it’s like to be a demon’s toy?
” He laughed bitterly. “Or maybe you do—you’re a Princess of Hell.
Maybe you deal in lies just like Lucifer.
For all we know, you’ve been stringing all of us along and making us dance to your tune.
Maybe you only needed us to help you free Cole and now that you have him, we don’t matter. ”
Appalled, I shoved at his chest. His fury had given him strength and he didn’t move.
Pinching my chin, he studied me with cold eyes. “Did you fool us all along? Maybe you spent the past year in Hell with him fucking him while I suffered.”
The bitterness inside him spilled into me and I wanted to scream and break things. I wanted to murder everyone in this room with my bare hands.
Power fluctuated inside of me and Dante’s nostrils flared at the challenge. Curling my fingers into fists, I contained this rage because… this wasn’t me.
It was Dante’s emotions I felt—and he had every right to feel them even if it was Cole exacerbating matters. I couldn’t imagine the misery of the past year.
“Dante, just listen.” I pressed my hands to his chest, stroking him as I locked eyes with him. If he would just hear me, maybe I could get through to him. I reached out across the bond, desperate to make a connection.
His reaction was instantaneous. Hot fury boiled out of him and into me. With a snarl, he yanked me closer. Mouth covering mine once more, he murmured, “I don’t think so, Lily. You yanked me around like a puppet on a string with that bond too much already.”
He bit me then. Hard. And I felt the agonizing pain of his rage and the truth I hadn’t wanted to see—Dante despised me. He might still love me, but it wasn’t what we’d once had and it ran side by side with pure, utter hatred.
Tears burned my eyes and I almost gave in, almost let him take that fury and guilt out on me.
But that wouldn’t help. It would do nothing to fix Dante and it sure as hell wouldn’t help anyone else.
I bit him back and shoved at him, using all the strength I had in me.
Which, these days? Was a lot.
He flew back, crashing hard into the stone wall across the room.
Blood trickled down his lip from where I’d scored him and he shook his head to clear it.
He growled, body tensing for another attack.
“No,” I said, keeping my voice level through sheer will, both to him and to Hendrik and Orion who looked like they were ready to step in. “You don’t get to do this, Dante. You don’t get to blame me. I never asked for any of it! So fuck you for trying to blame me.”
“Poor little princess,” Dante said scathingly as he edged closer. Red mingled with the normal glow of his eyes.
Cole… the bastard. He was going to pay for this.
Another strike on his list.
Dante’s eyes flashed and that was the only warning I got.
It was enough. Feeling like a piece of me had been ripped out as Dante lunged to attack, I blocked him, my arm going numb from the impact with his arm. With my free hand, I clawed his chest, my talons laying his flesh open. The metallic tang of blood painted the air but Dante didn’t seem affected.
With a cry, I threw a fireball at him, trusting his Hunter powers to help him survive.
Or perhaps in that moment, I didn’t care.
He went flying back, hitting the wall once more.
“Get out!” I screamed as he pushed to his feet and the remnants of his shirt disintegrated and fell to the floor. He brushed the soot off his chest, revealing skin bearing new scars in a spiral pattern from the scorching fire.
With blazing eyes, he stared at me. Blood trickled from one corner of his mouth.
“I said get out!”
To my surprise, he turned and left.
None too soon because the moment he was out of sight, I lost the battle with my will.
Spinning so that I had my back to the room, I covered my face with hands as the tears fell.
Because for the first time, one of my Virtues had broken me.