Page 18 of A Betrothal So Bloody

Dante tilts his head, eyeing my throat. My ivory nightgown has slipped down my left shoulder, exposing even more skin to the slivers of moonlight filtering into the bedroom.

The mask of an eccentric gentleman is gone. He’s not hiding how my drumming pulse tempts him now, and his jaw feathers with the effort of restraint. “But you… No one’s counting on you each night. Besides, you’re younger than them by decades. Your blood is far more vital. And… Well, to put it bluntly, more appealing. But you already know that, don’t you, slayer?”

My eyes widen—provoking a cold chuckle from him. “You think I didn’t sniff out what that damn woman was doing from the start? When you’re used to hunting people, you can see someone on the prowl a mile off.”

Catarina. My heart thuds. When she’d first met him at the arts district—he had caught onto her intentions from the moment she approached him. I play it all through my head again, horror rippling through me deeper with every flickering memory. The dinner. His proposal. The wedding. We’d underestimated his restraint. He’s been playing us like pieces in a chess match from the start.

“I very nearly killed her, you know. Your little Order is getting quite arrogant—sending out missionaries into the dark corners of Florence unaccompanied. But I realized our missions may have a very convenient overlap,” Dante says, still adamantly trying to hold my gaze. I refused to give him this—it was the only control I had left in this position. “And then she brought you along… Younger. Wickedly eager. Perhaps more open to a… civil conversation.”

“Why the fuck would you want a slayer in your home?” I grit out.

He takes a breath. “For protection.”

“Bullshit.”

I writhe again, doing anything to break his hold even knowing I’m fighting the strength of ten men. Dante’s grip tightens on my wrists painfully—a warning.

“Do I look like I’m fucking joking?” he snaps, deep voice heating. “Who better to stop a nest of powerful, dick-headed vampires from gutting me than someone who’s devoted their entire life to ousting our kind, hm?”

This gives me pause—if only for the sheer oddness of it. I stop fighting, breathing heavily as I search his face.

“You— You’re running from other vampires?” I ask.

Is adrenaline clouding my brain? Vampires are selfish beasts, but survivalists. Turning on their own kind is practically unheard of.

“My dear siblings.” Venom drips from the word. There’s something stormy in his eyes now, almost manic. “I want something they’ll never give me. Leaving as I did… Let’s just say it wasn’t exactly sanctioned. They’re dangerous like you can’t imagine.”

“More dangerous than you?” I shift pointedly beneath him.

Dante’s face darkens into something that chills me to my core. “Yes.”

Silence stretches between us. I no longer have to pretend he is some air-headed noble I’m meant to fawn over. I can let him see every ounce of hatred in me.

A hopeful glint sparks in his stormy eyes, searching me desperately for some shred of understanding. Hope is the fool’s undoing. I writhe beneath him with a pointed, vicious movement—earning just enough leeway to loosen my right leg and knee him in the groin.

Dante’s eyes bulge, a hoarse groan clawing from his throat. I shove from beneath him and scramble to my feet, snatching up the largest shard of blessed pine on the tile floor. My nightgown tangles around my ankles as I brace into an offensive stance, and I curse as I violently pull it aside.

Dante is still muttering a string of colorful phrases under his breath, standing unsteadily on his feet with his hands on his knees. His scathing look angled toward me could sear flesh.

“That hurt, you fucking bitch.”

“Why should I give two shits if you’re hunted by your own kind?” I snarl. A cruel laugh escapes me—the sheer absurdity of this, of him, is overwhelming. “I’ll sooner cleave your head from your shoulders before I lift a finger to protect a devil.”

My position is a tactical nightmare—the door too far to bolt in time—and Dante knows it, too.

His lips curl at my weapon. “Do you ever stop swinging pointy things around long enough to listen?”

With two strides, he’s corralled me against the wall, looming over me. Stone cuts into my lower back painfully, but my grip on what’s left of my stake is steady, pressing to that window of his bare chest, just under his collarbone.

Dante clenches his jaw, gaze flickering between the stake and my unyielding expression. There’s something about this unmasked pleading that terrifies me more than a physical blow, something I don’t expect from him. Desperation.

“I don’t want to be like this,” he rasps. “There’s a cure. I’ve been searching for two fucking decades, and at long last, I have a lead. All I need” —Dante’s hand is at my throat faster than I can blink—“is your lovely blade at my side to make sure I survive the journey.”

He’s lying. Vampires lie.

But I can’t push the stake into his flesh. Missing nothing, his lips tug up at the corners.

“Listen to that heart hammering away. Interesting. Am I your first?”