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But I am proved to be a liar when I say I can protect her and yet another gunshot rings out, striking me in the back. It bounces off, but still.
I turn around with a roar, spin and grasp the second gun the human male has produced from somewhere, tearing it from his hand and in front of his face, crumpling the metal as if it is no more than a cotton ball.
His eyes widen at the distorted piece of metal I drop in his lap.
The beast inside me wants nothing more than to tear him to shreds for endangering my consort again, but I have just sworn to her than I am changing.
Only cowards use force.
So instead, I get right in his face, bear all of my fangs, and hiss, “Run.”
The little male pisses his pants, scrambles to his feet, and flees out the door.
When I turn back to Hannah, she is beaming at me. She flings her arms around me, and then her sweet breath is on my ear. “Take me home, beloved.”
Chapter Fifty-Four
ABADDON
The orchestral music playing over the device Hannah-consort insisted on Romulus flying to the city to acquire fills the dining hall.
Though I suppose she will not be Hannah-consort for much longer. I smile, feeling pleasant heat inside my chest at the thought: soon she will be Hannah-wife.
As soon as I think it, my Hannah appears at the opposite end of the room in the large white dress that pools on the ground behind her. I was confused when she insisted on bringing it with us, along with many of her other clothing, but now I am filled with joy and pride.
My mouth goes dry at how beautiful she is.
I only brought her back here once Romulus assured me he had set an impenetrable net of protection runes over the entire castle. It took him a month to prepare himself, then to set all the runes and double and triple check them. I have much to be grateful to my brothers for, in addition to him keeping watch over her from the shadows while she was away from me.
While Romulus did his work to protect the castle, I took Hannah-consort on vacation in Italy. There is an abandoned island there I know well. Hannah-consort could not believe such a place existed, so close to the mainland that we could see the bright lights of the city as we walked through the ghostlike structures of the old sanitorium.
There was no choice but to confess my long history with the island, but I had determined to no longer be afraid of my past, and to trust her with the truth. She had shared with me the words of a philosopher of her world, that a “wound is where the light enters.” I think of the many wounds left all over my body made by my father and hope that one day, I may be full of light. Even though now, all I feel is full of wounds.
As we sat on the stone steps of what had once been a terrible hospital for the ill, I told her about how during Napoleon’s time and before, this was a place where they brought those I’d given the plague to quarantine. And thus, to die.
“Following my father’s orders, I brought sickness to many,” I said, staring off into the sea beyond the shore. “Humans did not seem of much consequence and my father said their numbers must be cleansed on occasion. That was what he called my work. Cleansing.”
And then I looked at her, feeling the weight of sadness in my soul I had so long ignored. “Perhaps it is wrong to bring you to a place full of such ghosts, but these are the only places in your world that welcome me any longer.”
“You didn’t know better.”
I shrugged, stung by her words. “In my innermost heart I suppose I always felt it was wrong. But my father told me such thoughts were weakness, and he did his best to beat it out of me.” Then I looked around and wondered if any spirits lingered here among the forgotten stone structures. “And the dead do not forgive.”
But then my sweet consort stroked her fingers through the fur at the base of my neck. “They do not have to. All creatures are allowed to change. You get a second chance. So, take it, and do good now.”
The sun was setting over the city in the distance, and I interlaced my hand with hers. “While you are by my side,” I vowed, “I will be best.”
She laid her head on my shoulder. And then, when the stars came out overhead, she climbed onto my lap and kissed me. Drawing out my passion until I finally flipped her and made love to her underneath the stars.
