“You’d probably name them and talk to them constantly.”
“I’d have to, or I’d drive you up the wall with my chatter.”
Dante ran his thumb over her cheek. “We could get a cat.”
He was offering her everything she’d ever wanted. But there would be no friends visiting for supper. No family. No strangers, even. Only her and Dante and a little house on a perfect beach. Her dream, broken and warped.
She crashed into him, kissing him so fiercely he fell back. Her knees scraped the stone on either side of him, and he caught a breath, but instead of talking sense into her, his hands found her waist.
Hot, insistent, demanding, she dared him to try and soothe her, but instead of dousing her fire, he met it with his own. She burned hotter and brighter until she was sure she’d flame out like a dying star and destroy everything around her.
Then, shuddering breaths became shuddering sobs and he held her as she cried.
Running his fingers through her hair, he whispered dreams that would never come true and sunny days they’d never see, in the whiskey-sweet voice she loved so much, his words slow and languorous, as though they had forever.
When her body was wrung out and she’d run out of tears, Alessa let Dante help her into a sitting position. “If we don’t die, can we come back here?”
Dante looked up at the moon, vulnerability in his expression. “You really think you’ll want to be with a ghiotte when you’re everyone’s favorite savior?”
“I haven’t saved anyone yet.”
He lifted her hand to his lips. “I don’t know about that.”
Forty
L’armi dei poltroni non tagliano, né forano.
Cowards’ weapons neither cut nor pierce.
DAYS BEFORE DIVORANDO: 12
It was after midnight when they returned to the Cittadella, but Alessa had to see for herself.
A woman dressed in medical whites dropped a quick curtsy as Alessa entered the Fonte suite. The Cittadella’s attending doctor, bent over the large, four-poster bed, didn’t immediately look up, busy with whatever task she was performing.
Kaleb lay motionless beneath crisp white sheets, his eyelids blue and his lips pale.
The walls closed in around Alessa.
They lied.
She groped behind her for a hand to hold, but Dante was waiting in the hall. She had to face this alone.
“How is he?” she asked, holding her breath for the answer. Surely, a corpse wouldn’t need medical care.
“Stable.” The doctor’s clipped response and her expression held Alessa fully responsible. “He was quite dehydrated and overtired. I would have advised him against any strenuous activity, if I’d been consulted. Which, obviously, I was not.”
“So, you don’t think … I mean, he’d been fine previous times.”
“In my professional opinion, his collapse was a result of multiple factors. Divine or not, your profession is physically taxing, and Mr. Toporovsky should have taken better care of himself. I do hope when you are called to train the next Duo, you prevail upon the Consiglio to assemble a team of medical consultants. Despite what some may say, it is not an insult to Dea to use the wisdom she granted us.”
Alessa bowed her head like a guilty child, though she’d never objected in the first place. The Consiglio were the ones who got their robes in a bunch when Tomo had suggested seeking outside opinions about Alessa’s little problem.
“I expect he’ll make a full recovery, but until then, he needs rest. Complete rest.”
“Yes, Dottoressa. Of course.”
The nurse gave a sorrowful look at Kaleb’s angelic profile, as though she suspected Alessa was there to finish him off.
Alessa closed the door too fast, and the sound rang out in the quiet.
Dante, leaning against the stone banisters, raised his eyebrows as if to say, “See? I told you.”
She wanted to laugh. Or cry. Or both.
Dante held out his arms, and Alessa walked in. Her harbor in stormy seas, warm and solid and hard to kill.
Kaleb was alive. And he’d remain that way as long as she stayed away from him. She still had a Fonte. Technically. He might not be strong enough to fight, and they’d have to replace him with one of the others for the actual battle, but she hadn’t killed him.
Startled by a sudden shout, they leapt apart, Dante’s face mirroring Alessa’s alarm.
Afraid to look, but needing to know who’d spotted their ill-timed embrace, Alessa peered over the railing.
Renata stood in the courtyard below, her hand pressed over her mouth.