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He must feel my scrutiny, as he looks up to meet my gaze. He tries to put on a brave face, but I see him gulp. He’s scared, as he should be, and he’s ashamed. Which he also should be. I aim to keep him feeling both those things whenever he’s around.
Rosa looks back over her shoulder at me, and there’s a flicker of conflict in her eyes. She loves me, and against all odds, she also loves him, despite everything he’s done to her. Or tried to do to her. I nod, telling her it’s okay. One day I might rip the bastard’s head off and drain him of his life’s blood—but not today.
Donna is on one side of Minnie, Freya on the other. Freya does not do well with seeing her friends hurt or upset, and for that I will always be grateful. After all, if not for that fucked-up loyalty of hers, she might not have found the courage to do what she did. To creep up on a centuries-old vampire and stake him through the heart. This skinny, messed-up human kid did what thousands of other creatures, including myself, had failed to do. Strength, if I need reminding of it, comes in many different packages.
She’s stroking Minnie’s short hair, clearing it of the smoke-glitter shit, jittery and jumping from one leg to the other. Donatella might have made her look more normal, but there’s still a world of confusion going on beneath Freya’s surface.
“I’m okay, sweetie,” the witch says, patting her hand and treating her to a reassuring smile. She casts her eyes around the whole room, lets every single one of us know that she’s all right. I nod in acknowledgement. I’m glad she’s good, but really, there’s only one person I care about in this moment—and that’s my woman. My woman. A thrill runs through me at the words. I had faith, I believed in us, but was I one hundred percent certain breaking the blood spell wouldn’t change anything? Fuck, no. It’s both a relief and a question—bearing in mind what just happened, was it only the spell that was broken? What the hell is going on with me, with Rosa, with her amulet?
She’s staring at the broken chain. “I’ll buy you a new one, baby,” I tell her. She grins up at me, a sparkle back in her eye. “Damn right you will. And by my reckoning, you owe me a whole new wardrobe after all the clothes you’ve ripped off me ...”
Pietro looks disgusted and I laugh at him. Small pleasures.
“So, Minnie. Did you actually break the spell then?” Matteo asks. We’ve all been thinking it but giving the witch time to gather her wits. She looked pretty deep in her trance earlier, and not going to lie, part of me thought she was on her way out. I knew she wasn’t dead—I could still hear her heartbeat and the blood pulsing through her body—but it was slow. Like, vampire-level slow. Shit, if I’m going to carry on having houseguests, I’d better get a damn defibrillator installed, because we’re not the kind of people who just sit around playing Clue.
“Yes, I broke it,” Minnie says, gratefully drinking the glass of OJ that Rosa thinks to get her from the fridge. Right. Witches might not be quite human, but they have human bodies, human functions. OJ, fluids, sugar, all that stuff that I constantly forget about. “But, huh, well ... it kind of fought back?”
Freya is still picking shiny fragments from her hair and looking increasingly distressed. “Matteo,” I say, giving him a look. “Why don’t you take Moonface for a walk to the park? Maybe Freya can help you?”
Both girls look delighted at hearing the word walk, Matteo less so. He saw me so weak I fell to the floor, and he’s like a brother to me. “Now,” I say firmly, reminding him that it wasn’t a request. He nods, gives me a quick salute. “Whatever you say, boss.”
Once they’re gone, we all settle around the kitchen table. Donna produces bags of chips from one of the cupboards and a bottle of red wine. Some long-stemmed glasses that I definitely do not own. What the fuck? When did all this happen? How did my safe house turn into Donatella Agostini’s den? She raises her eyebrows at my expression. I realize she’s still just wearing a towel, the tops of her breasts shining with water, her hair loose. Like I give a fuck—only one woman exists in that way for me, and she knows it. Pietro is very deliberately not looking at her though, the pathetic shitbag.
“What?” Donna asks, pouting as I shake my head. “You needed civilizing. You can’t possibly expect me to stay in a house that doesn’t even have wine glasses.”
“I don’t expect you to stay here at all. In fact, I’d prefer it if you didn’t. That goes for all of you.”
I’d love nothing more than to have this place to myself again, and by that, I mean me and Rosa. I’d love to just fuck and feed and sleep, for maybe a million years. But our world is too complicated, at least right now. Donna sticks her tongue out, then offers me some wine. I nod. What the hell? It won’t get me drunk but it might take the edge off.
I sniff the wine, and bam, I’m blasted by a ... memory? A sense, a replaying? Déjà vu? Whatever the fuck it is, it’s powerful. I grip the edge of the table, frowning as it plays out. Another time, another place. Another me. Human me, I realize—young, wild. I’d stolen the wine from a well-stocked cellar, desperate to impress a girl. I blink it away. I have never had any memory of my human years. I was transformed well over four centuries ago in my teens. The same day the Bargain between witches, Vecchissime, and vampires was signed in blood. I’ve never understood why I lost those memories, but I’ve never really given a shit either—what’s the point hankering after something you can never have again? Remembering human pleasures, the touch of sun on my skin? Not going to do me any good.
Why now, I wonder? Why that memory? It’s got to have something to do with this damn spell being broken. Rosa looks at me, her mouth quirked at the corner. “You okay?” she asks, touching my hand. Nobody else will have noticed my glitch, but she notices everything. I nod. I need to set it aside for now.
I wait until Minnie has eaten a handful of snacks, because that’s what a decent person would do. I’m not a decent person, and I’m growling inside, but I know Rosa won’t let me interrogate her until she’s ready. Neither will Minnie now I think about it. She might be tiny, but she’s no pushover. She could probably turn me into a fucking frog at ten paces.
“So,” Minnie eventually says, dabbing her face with a silk napkin. When the fuck did I get silk napkins? Donna gives me a smile and a little finger wave. Jesus Christ, I definitely need a new safe house. “I found the blood spell again, and I did break it. But then something happened. Something I wasn’t really prepared for.”
She frowns at the memory. “I was about to be annoyed with myself, but really, I don’t deserve it. I’ve never heard of this before, but the spell ... well, when I broke it, it should have disappeared. Gone poof, spell no more. Magic begone. But this one didn’t. I broke it, felt the power drain from it, but then it … uh, the only word I can think of is dispersed? It shattered but didn’t entirely evaporate like normal.”
She shakes her head in confusion, and I clench my fists on the table. I want to smash something. Rosa nudges her thigh into mine, gives me a look that calms me.
“So, is it gone or not, Minnie?” she asks.
“It’s gone in one way—definitely broken. I can promise you that there is no longer a blood spell holding you two together. But its fragments are still inside you both, and that felt … weirdly right. I know it’s not what you want to hear, but everything about me as a witch said it was meant to be. That they belong there. Truthfully, there’s no way to remove them anyway. No way to separate them. I think, in fact, that the spell is somehow part of you—so deeply ingrained that it will always be there in one form or another. Did you, uh, feel anything?”
Rosa nods, looks thoughtful. “My amulet turned silver and went cold. And Luca’s eyes turned silver as well. Like, completely silver.”
“They did?” I ask, confused. I didn’t notice anything happening at all.
“Yeah. When we were both lying on the floor like babies. So, the spell is broken. But it’s still there?”
Minnie nods, then shakes her head. Fuck’s sake. “Well, it’s hard to explain—but you two are no longer bound by a blood spell. You still both have spells active within you, but they’re doing different things now. So, like, imagine a house made of bricks. You demolish the building, and it’s gone—no more house. But maybe those bricks get used again, and maybe they become a bridge, or a road, or an ornamental koi carp pond … it’s the same with the spell. It can become something else.”
“Like what?” Pietro asks, stealing the words from my mouth. “And how do you know it’s not making them want to, still, you know ...”
“Fuck like bunnies?” Donatella supplies, making him squirm. Maybe she’s not all bad.
“You’ll just have to trust me on that,” Minnie answers. “I absolutely definitely broke that strand of the spell. But I had no idea that it could, um, I want to say mutate like that? I honestly do think it’s part of you both. You know, like some people have an extra nipple or five toes?”
