“Mysterious and graceful?”
“Definitely not. It’s probably because you never sit correctly, and you get visibly annoyed when anyone reads a book in your presence.”
She humphed, uncurling her legs so her feet dangled, toes barely touching the floor. “Most chairs are too tall for me. It’s uncomfortable.”
“Excuses, excuses. Anyway, when you touch me, think like a cat.”
There was no excuse for the vivid mental image of herself in dramatic eyeliner, slinking toward him, hips swaying in a feline prowl, that popped into her head, but there it was.
Dante absently tapped his knee. “It’s like stretching. If you yank someone’s arm back, you could dislocate it. You have to ease in, stopping at the point of good pain. Speed and force make a difference. Like, touching foreheads is fine, but do it fast enough and it’ll get you thrown out of a fight. See what I mean?”
She raised her eyebrows. “I’ve been head-butting people?”
“In a way. Don’t think about power, just focus on touching. You aren’t hurt right now, so you don’t need anything from me.”
Had a sentence ever been so untrue?
She took a deep breath. “Promise me you’ll stop if it’s too much.”
“Cross my heart and hope to die.” He slid his hands across the table.
“You aren’t allowed to.”
Two of her Fontes had made it past two touches, but no one had endured more than four.
Alessa closed her eyes, gathered herself. No taking, no using, no stealing. Just touching.
* * *
Alessa leaned over the back of the couch, her cheek a handspan from Dante’s parted lips, and held her breath until a reassuring gust of air warmed her skin.
Skin to soul, she was wrung out like a wet rag. They’d spent hours practicing, and she needed rest, but every time she got into bed, she panicked and ran back to make sure he was only sleeping.
The whole time, she’d been so scared the next touch would be the one that proved too much. But while her anxiety mounted, Dante had only grown calmer as the hours slipped by and the touches stretched longer.
By the time he’d agreed to stop, she was thrumming with more strains of nervous energy than she could label, and each brush of hands was branded on her memory, her skin tingling and hypersensitive as if she had a fever.
During the last few attempts, he’d claimed it didn’t even bother him anymore, but it had clearly taken a toll, because he’d fallen asleep where he sat, fully clothed.
She checked his breath one more time. Still alive.
This time she managed to get in bed and stay there, to stare at the ceiling in stunned disbelief.
Dante—dark-eyed, tousled hair, sarcastic, stubborn, beautiful Dante—who’d been sleeping in her room for days, could hold her hands without suffering. And if she could touch his hands, she could touch his lips— Focus, Alessa.
This wasn’t the right time, but after Divorando? The thrill racing through her at the possibility wasn’t going to make sleep any easier to find.
Her eyes were sandy from exhaustion, but each aftershock of excitement jolted her fully awake again, leaving her with too much time to remember the slide of his palms against hers, the gentle strength of his fingers around her wrists, his pulse throbbing against her fingertips.
The most wonderful night of her life. And one of the most heartbreaking.
Finally, she could touch someone without hurting him, but his gift was the only kind that couldn’t save Saverio.
Thirty-One
Un diavolo scaccia l’altro.
One devil drives out another.
DAYS BEFORE DIVORANDO: 17
Dante took his new duty as seriously as he did the rest, and they touched a half dozen times before breakfast. He fastened her necklace for her, passed her a muffin, ruffled her hair. She was getting better at sensing the difference between “purring” touches and those that made him wince. She couldn’t describe it, but there was a difference, and the painful moments were already becoming infrequent.
With an hour to kill before training began, and because Dante said he was afraid she’d wear a hole in the floor with her pacing if she didn’t find a productive use for her nervous energy, they returned to the library.
“Do you have a reading compulsion? Should I be concerned?” she asked while he arranged his second armful of books on a table. “Why do you read as though books are about to go extinct?”
“Research.”
She eyed the titles, half in the old language. A few historical, others religious, and a handful appeared to be fairy tales. “On what?”