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If I die now, then let death come, I thought to myself as Vela careened wildly, nearly losing her footing on the slick, loose shards of shale on the cliff’s edge. If I couldn’t have Valeria, I didn’t care what happened to me. Live, die. I don’t give a fuck. None of it mattered. She was heaven itself. Imagining a life without her was pure hell.
Before I knew it, though, Vela was thundering down the drive to the manor house. I might want to escape my pain, but my mare was having none of it, and she skidded to a stop right in front of the front steps. She damn near threw me off of her, and she backed away from me angrily, wild eyed and scared. You bastard, she seemed to say, tossing her head and stamping her front feet. How dare you take your shit out on me?
True enough. Inhaling hard, I steadied myself to keep her calm, which worked just long enough for me to get the saddle off of her back and the bit out of her mouth. I settled her in her stall with fresh hay and water. “None of this is your fault. I’m sorry if I was hard on you. Rest now…”
With that, I left her safe and secure, making my way in a blind rage back to the house.
Once inside, I went straight for the library. The blanket draped over the sofa still showed where Valeria had sat—the impression of her fucking voluptuous hips, the narrow curve of her waist. Angrily, I kicked off my boots and ripped off my jacket, letting them fall in a dirty pile on the expensive rug.
I moved to rip off my bloodstained shirt as well, so that I could get a look at my wounds, but the fabric had stuck firmly to the bloody gash. One of Petre’s men had shot me before Daniel got there, and the pain was so intense that I thought I might puke, but somehow I kept my head and teased the fabric off the open wound, a quarter-inch at a time.
Grimacing, I looked down at the wound. I’d been really fucking lucky. It was a damned good thing my brother employed such stupid pieces of shit as his hired muscle. The bullet had grazed my left trapezius, halfway between my neck and my shoulder. A handful of inches lower, and it would’ve been a kill shot, straight through the heart.
Daniel rode in like a storm. He had a few tricks up his sleeve. Stableboy-thief he may have been, but he was a skilled horseman. He’d trained his horse to buck on command, which he did and laid out two of my brother’s guards before they could get a hold on the situation.
They were so stunned, it gave me a moment to take another by surprise, centering my short blade on the back of one’s neck, dropping him within seconds. Between Daniel, his horse and myself, we finished off the lot of them, then rode hard for the cathedral.
Using my teeth, I yanked the cork out of a bottle of vodka and poured it onto my wound. It hurt like a motherfucker, but as I groaned in pain, I found I was grateful. At least I could do something about this pain, unlike the fucking ache in my heart.
CHAPTER 28
Vasile
Carrying the vodka with me, I headed for the kitchen, where I cleaned the wound with soap and water and then vodka again. Everywhere around me were reminders of her—the food she’d eaten, the glasses she’d drunk from.
On a champagne glass by the sink, I saw that sweet imprint of her lips on the rim of the glass. Fuck almighty, I could hardly believe it. Just hours ago, she’d been there with me. Just hours ago, we’d been fucking happy. In her arms, in her presence, I had felt real joy, real contentment, for the first fucking time in my life.
Now, she was gone. And the contentedness she brought was gone with her, leaving me empty, angry, and raw.
From a drawer in one of the cupboards, I found a needle and thread, which I cleaned with the vodka and the flame from a match. Sitting down at the big pine table in the middle of the kitchen, I forced myself to drink as much of the vodka as possible. I hated the shit—the taste, the burn, the smell. But it helped dull my senses just enough to pinch the wound closed and start stitching myself up.
I went slowly, being careful to close the wound tightly and cleanly. The first two stitches were fucking brutal, mind-numbingly painful. But somehow, there in that place of agony, between the vodka and the wound, I was able to think through what had happened that day. And to see a little bit of truth
