I shake my head. “No. I think I need to do this on my own. They’re not going to be happy.” Cielo looks upset, but he doesn’t argue, and I climb out of the car, waiting for him. When he meets me at the curb, I pull him against me, and we walk to the apartment together. But this time it feels weird.
Hollow.
Empty, because now Luca is gone.
Cielo presses me to the wall and kisses me, then takes me into his arms, lifting me mostly with his tail as he walks me back to the bedroom. I know this isn’t a moment of intimacy. At least, not one for sex.
When he strips me down and presses my naked body against his, he begins to purr, comforting me the same way he did that first night he saw me in pain.
It helps now, too. Not in the same way, but being able to press my face into his neck and feel him this way, it keeps me from feeling like I’m dying. Like my heart is being torn apart in strips.
It helps. In a small, significant way.
“I love you. Thank you,” I murmur into his rippling skin.
“My Dante,” he murmurs back.
“Yes,” I tell him. “I am completely yours.”
thirty-one
CIELO
There is something in my chest that aches. A feeling that was hidden behind profound relief that Luca was alive and would not perish from his wounds. A feeling hidden behind Dante’s grief at losing his brother, and his anger at everything that happened.
And it is a feeling—an emotion—I am not used to. It burns like fury, but it is not fury. It’s tender like grief, but it is not that either.
I would ask my Dante, but he is speaking to his family about his brother, repeating the lie he spent the rest of the night trying to create. A story he can tell them that they will believe and not go searching for Luca.
And I know that he also wishes to take comfort in knowing that Everest will be on Erethar from time to time and can ensure that Luca is safe and happy, but he cannot. Not fully.
I could feel from him that he is angry at Everest for Zane’s actions. He is angry that Everest would still defend the man who participated in nearly killing his brother.
And I…
I am angry, too.
No. It really isn’t anger. It’s this other unknown thing that I have never experienced before. When I think about Everest, the feeling is the same as when I think about Zane, just not as powerful.
Sitting on the ground of my room, I let Niaus crawl into my lap. It is still the middle of the day, so she is sleepy, but she is growing bigger. My first thought is to take a photo and show Zane.
Because he helped find her.
Because he was my friend.
And ah…that feeling gets stronger.
“Betrayal,”comes a voice in my head. It is not my own. It is my Dante from far away.“The feeling is betrayal, and I’m sorry.”
“I love you,”I tell him, because his pain is greater.
He sends me a nearly overwhelming wave of affection, and I nearly lose my breath from it.“I can’t wait to be home.”
The feeling of Dante fades, though it is never gone now that I have tasted his blood and he is mine. My VySytheh. But in the moment, I realize I need this quiet.
I stroke my clawless fingers over Niaus’s little back as she nestles into the side of my neck, and I stand up once more, letting my claws scrape along the floor as I begin to pace.
I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror that hangs from the closet door, and I freeze. Most Vyastil do not have these. They are not unheard of, but I was several dozen moon cycles old before I saw myself in my reflection, and that was only to observe my adornments.
