23. Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-One
N icolono could not take one single second of inept behavior from his followers. Not one had come back with good news, and it was starting to wear on his nerves. Frank hadn’t come back at all. He was either dead or he had deserted Nicolono. Either way, he wasn’t surprised.
There was dissension in the coven also. He could see it in the way some of them had stared at him the last few days with mistrust in their eyes. He blamed Silvia. Her curse changed Angel, made him see Nicolono differently.
He knew for a fact it was Angel who had created the rebellion. He hadn’t thought of a proper punishment. After he did he would make Angel wish he had never started questioning Nicolono’s leadership.
Nicolono absently patted Jules’ hair, running a hand down him as if he was a dog. Jules was at his feet, kneeling the way Nicolono had taught him. Jules had become his pet, of sorts. He had always wanted one.
He should kill his wife, but he couldn’t live the rest of his life without her. The longing and loneliness were getting worse. She was the only one who could save him. He knew what Thomas’ curse entailed. Longing for a woman who hated him, and was crazy with it, was the worst kind of torture.
They had been together for seventy years.
He had always thought they were kindred spirits.
At the time they’d met, it was a custom for a man to take a woman as a wife, even in a coven.
The war had ended, and all those fine boys were coming back.
Women like Silvia got married because they were shoved out of jobs.
Silvia hadn’t escaped the same fate and Nicolono had taken advantage of her situation.
He had seen her walk into a dress shop and decided she made an easy mark. He had been wrong. Very, very wrong. It had turned out okay. They’d fucked in one of the changing rooms and then had gone back to his place. She had never left his side.
He had never had a connection like that with anyone else in his long life.
He looked down at Jules, who wouldn’t meet his eyes.
The boy was far too timid for his liking.
It was too bad he saw that after everything he went through to have Jules for himself.
Now, he didn’t even want him. He would’ve liked to have fucked him.
Just once would do and then he would send him down with the blood whores to be used by his followers.
No. What he really wanted was Silvia.
“Why can’t you be more like Silvia? Curse me and yell like she does. Instead, you sit there like a scared, trembling child.” Nicolono looked at him with disgust. “Get away from me. As soon as the male witch is found, I’m sending you down with the other blood whores. You’re pathetic and useless. ”
Nicolono brought his hand up and backhanded Jules across the face. Jules cried out and fell back on his ass.
“I said get away from me.” Nicolono raised his hand again, intending to strike him a second time if he didn’t obey.
Jules scrambled away, running for his corner of the room. He curled up on himself. Nicolono could hear him sob.
Silvia had never been so timid. She’d learned when to push Nicolono and when to back off.
He stood from his spot in front of the fireplace and went to the door.
Someone knocked as he was reaching for the handle.
Damian was on the other side. As of yet, Damian hadn’t shown the same signs of rebellion that Angel had.
Nicolono knew the man was cursed, he just didn’t know how.
Damian had always had a stony look on his face.
He was one of those men who was hard for Nicolono to read, and he couldn’t very well push his buttons if he didn’t know what those buttons were.
“The witch has been captured.” Damian walked away without a word.
“You just walk away from your leader?” Nicolono asked, following him down the hall.
“You’ve been told. My job is done,” Damian said without turning around.
So he was affected by the curse, it seemed.
“Tell me, Damian. When my wife cursed you, what did it feel like?”
“It didn’t feel like anything.”
“What did she have you do?”
“She made me see the life I’m supposed to live. And I saw my mate.”
“How is that possible? That isn’t one of her abilities. How do you feel? ”
Damian stopped at the end of the hall right at the foot of the stairs, which was the direction Nicolono had to go.
“Incomplete,” Damian said and continued on his way as if Nicolono was any other vampire.
Yes, that was it exactly. Nicolono felt incomplete and his bitch of a wife was to blame. Nicolono walked up the stairs quickly and almost ran down the hall to the fancy door.
He turned the knob and stood in front of the cell. There was a blond human lying on the straw in the corner of the room and a shifter sitting in front of him. “Well, well. Two for the price of one.”
“Fuck you.” His eyes turned reptilian and his tongue flicked out when he hissed.
“Aahh, little snake.” Nicolono smiled. “You will make a nice snack for my coven.”
He hissed again and drew nearer to the witch, sleeping on his stomach.
Nicolono laughed. “Not to worry, snake. I didn’t come to visit with him just yet.”
He walked over to the next cell, where his wife sat in the middle of the floor. She had her legs crossed and her eyes were closed as if she meditated. He knew she wasn’t because she had never practiced that before.
“What do you want, Nicolono? I’m busy.”
“I want to know what kind of curse you put on Angel and Damian.”
She opened her eyes and laughed. “It was no curse. Thomas helped me make you all see your very own truth. Is it hard to swallow, Nicolono? Witches working with Warlocks.”
“No. I have my connections. ”
“You aren’t the center of your followers’ universe. Pretty soon you will be nothing to them at all, just like you are nothing to me. I know about the curse that little warlock put on you.”
Nicolono swore and Silvia cackled. “You will pay for this. I wanted that boy as my very own.”
“I know,” Silvia said around her laughter. “And now you want me. Let me out, Nicolono and I’ll wait for you to go to sleep before I plunge a knife in your heart.” Silvia had tears in her eyes she was laughing so hard.
“Prison life has made you crazy.”
She sobered instantly. He left the room when she started chanting.