“He’s in there!” Scarlett screamed, her face pale.
“Who?”
“I don’t—” Scarlett listened, trying to understand. “A guy with a knife. He…Where’s Emilia? Colette!Où se trouveEmilia?Où se trouveEmilia, Colette!”
“She is…gone.” Colette trembled out. “She is dead.”
Colette released the hold she had on my shirt and collapsed to the ground in a heap of wails and screams before she started to rock, holding herself, eerily quiet now.
“Dear God,” Scarlett breathed out, backing up a pace. “It’s him. The man—the man who cut my hair!”
The man’s wild blonde wig stood up like a lion’s mane around his head, his eyes seriously troubled and his body covered in Emilia’s blood.
He held the knife up to the door, hands pressed against the glass, as though he were in prison. Sun glinted off the blade, silver and crimson.
“Danse de Dame!” he yelled from inside, the name trapped in the bottle of the entryway.
He flung the door open, going straight for Scarlett. I grabbed him by the shirt—he was so wild with want for her that he hadn’t even noticed me—and he swung back wildly, almost catching me in the chest. He was possessed by something stronger than drugs. We tangled for a bit before he dropped the knife and began to run toward her. She put her hands up, stricken with a panic I’d never want to see on her face ever again.
Yanking him back once more, turning him towards me, I stuck the knife in his gut. A noise between a crunch and a tear rang out before the metallic scent was borne on the breeze and his blood spilled in the street.
More than the act of killing another human, it was the satisfaction I got from it that hit me the hardest—staring down at his soulless form, I was more than thankful, almost at peace, that at my hands he was dead. It almost didn’t matter, as though this was a small-time occurrence, a simple inconvenience. But it did matter, only because it was done in her honor, to protect her.
They called me a beast. They should. No one threatened or touched mine.
I looked up.
Scarlett’s eyes were not on the dead, but on me. I went to her, standing directly in front, so she didn’t have far to move, and opened my arms.
There was more than one reason I chose to take a path that took sacrifice, one that painted me as the hero—saving lives when my own was in jeopardy. I needed her to not just feel it but to see it—the flash of good. Her softness had brought out the man in me, not just the beast that had lurked since the day I was conceived by another wild animal. Lucious Fausti.
Maybe it had been in vain; Scarlett didn’t need the reminder. I swam through her bloodstream and she felt me in every cell, even down to the most subtle mood change. But for whatever reason, a fucking romantic notion, I needed to prove something to her. Something I had never in my life done before—prove anything to anyone.
The moment I killed, she saw the beast, not only felt him. Her eyes couldn’t lie to me. Still, without an ounce of hesitation, she fell into my arms, all of her weight given over for me to carry. She cried, clinging to me so hard that it seemed like she’d never let go.
Nemours turned the corner, taking in the scene with bright eyes, whistling a tune.
“Ah, he found her at last. What a pity.” He ticked his mouth and shook his head. He was as calm as me, as though he really took an innocent evening stroll. “You see, Fausti, I do not need to bloody my hands to clear the water. I would never allow my angel to be hurt, nor her beast, but to avoid thismess, all she has to do isdanse.”
Chapter Thirty
Brando - One year later
Sous Rosa had become so engorged on the presence ofDanse de Dameand herBeastthat Nemours secured another underground location in Volterra, a town in Tuscany, Italy.
Italy. Of all the fucking places, we ended up in the lion’s den in the arena of gladiators. I was one of their own, lurking on my own, the rogue son who had chosen not to take part in their kingdom, in their hierarchy, to be ruled by a royal decree.
There I was.Man proposes and God disposes?Yeah, something like that.
They wouldn’t reach out to me, of course. There were rules put in place for a reason. And unless Lucious Fausti didn’t mind owing me his blood, more than what he had given to me at birth, they would continue to keep their distance. Lucious Fausti owed no man. As it has been said, pride comes before the fall. He’d bow to no one on this earth but God, and his father. Tradition ran deep.
If Scarlett noticed the change in atmosphere, she hadn’t commented on it. Maybe I noticed because the change was expected. By name alone we were served first, had people tripping over their own feet and words when our last name was uttered. I didn’t miss the attempted secret glances or the total lack of eye contact.
Her peculiar sense, along with her stamina, had taken a beating. We moved back and forth between the two cities, and there were times when Scarlett found herself dancing twice in one night, once for the ballet and once at his seedy club.
After a dance in Volterra, she had gone down, her right leg hurting so badly that she couldn’t bear to put weight on it. The diagnosis: she had seven stress fractures in her right tibia and would need a titanium plate placed in her shin.
This was not an uncommon problem for dancers, but I felt it was exacerbated by the rat’s constant schedule. As much as I hated that she hurt, a small part of me felt relief. The doctor ordered her to take some time off from her professional schedule, which meant that she had earned time off from the underground nightclub, and for the both of us, a break from Nemours.
