“I’ll provide for you. I’ll be true to you even if you aren’t to me. There won’t be anyone else. If you need me, I’ll be there. If you or your family needs me—”
“Dante, wait. Please just slow down.”
He paused but that intense gaze remained on me. “If we’re doing this, Adrian, I’m going to do it right.”
I watched him for a moment longer, lips parted in surprise at the sincerity in his tone. I blinked against it, coming back to the present, remembering my plan.
“I only agreed to buy us more time, Dante,” I told him. “After the Trials, we can find a way out of it. You could leave the First Ring and come down to the Second with me or we could even hide out in the Third for a while. He knows where my apartment is but Graham and Sophie have a place by…what?”
I trailed off when I realized he was just standing there, grinning at me.
“What is it?” I asked, brows furrowed in confusion.
“Ironically, I’m starting to think the Geist know what they’re doing after all.”
“What do you—“
He cut me off with a kiss, pressing his lips against mine with such force I found myself backed against the wall behind me. His body crowded mine as our mouths moved together and I thought, perhaps, I might have understood what he meant.
Honor and freedom. Those were the things that mattered most to Dante of House Viper. Family loyalties, wealth, friendship, all of that seemed to come and go for him, and he allowed it, hardly bothered by their passing. But when someone questioned his honor or backed him into a corner and forced him to make a decision he otherwise wouldn’t, that was when he would get emotional, that was when he would rise to the occasion and take action.
My plan wasn’t perfect. In fact, I could point out a dozen possible ways it could turn out poorly for us. And I recognized that it was really just pushing our problems aside for later, problems we would still have to face eventually, decisions we’d have to make someday. But still, I knew he recognized my option for what it was. The only one that gave him even a chance of freedom.
So he kissed me gratefully, our bodies connecting alongside our souls. Because I was the only one who understood how trapped he felt. And I was the only one trying to free him.
When his lips moved to the soft skin of my neck, I suppressed a shiver and pushed him away.
He raised a brow in surprise at my withdrawal but I only grinned back, hand still firmly on his chest.
“We’re late for training.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
“Do not fight amongst yourselves. Do not diminish the mission or the purpose of Sanctuary. Worthiness starts from within. Violence is the tool of an ignorant man.”
-Recorded Speech of Rhea, First Matriarch of House Avus; 43 Genesis Age
Two months later, Dante and I still hadn’t figured out exactly what blessing we’d received for successfully completing the bizarre shifting Trial. Dante thought it had something to do with light or fire because of our constant being a lantern, but after a few weeks of sitting pointlessly in the dark and a few burns which may have scarred my arms forever if we didn’t have the ability to heal them, it became clear that such things weren’t our gift. We tried teleporting, too. But all we really accomplished was giving ourselves migraines from our overzealous focus as we sat in the garden and thought hard of other places, near and far.
Four weeks in, I resigned myself to never knowing what blessing we’d been given from the seventh Trial, and I was content to live with the mystery. Dante didn’t have the same compulsion. Convinced that sometime in the coming Trials wewould need to be able to access and harness all of our rewarded abilities, he wouldn’t rest until he determined what the seventh one was. It made training tense and breaks frustrating. If I could even call them breaks at all.
His nerves were fraying more and more with every passing day. Dante was becoming a nuisance to everyone in the house. Even Bria lost her temper with him once, and Dante’s cousin had always had the patience of a saint.
After their outburst in the main hall for all the servants and visitors to hear, Cosmo had decided it would be best to throw a celebration for Dante’s upcoming birthday as a way to alleviate some of the tension the Trials were creating. Though I didn’t have much faith in the venture, I was Dante’s partner, now in more ways than one, so it wasn’t possible for me to excuse myself from attendance. And Cosmo had made a point of mentioning to his grandson that he’d invited Olympia, who no one had seen outside of House Avus since the announcement had been made about mine and Dante’s betrothal. If she indeed decided to brave the outside world long enough to attend her former training partner’s birthday, I wouldn’t leave him to face that alone.
I stood amidst the same crowd that had been attending Cosmo’s various events for months. As always, they stared, they whispered, some had the audacity to approach. When they did, they congratulated me on both my success in the Trials and my engagement. I thanked them as graciously as I could, but my smile faded the moment they sauntered away. Despite how fully integrated I was in their society, I knew they still saw me as the girl from the Third Ring who’d made it all this way on the coattails of a strong First Ring son of the greats. It frustrated me sometimes, that I could never tell them what happened in the Trials, that they could never see that I’d held my own just as well as Dante. But I reminded myself that I’d never cared whatthe pretentious First Ringers thought before, so why start caring now?
“Boring crowd, aren’t they?”
I smiled at Milo.
“I’m tired of parties.” I sighed. I didn’t have the energy to respond with any more than that.
“Then stop being so damn successful.” He pat my back, and I snorted. “This one’s for Dante though, isn’t it?”
I hummed and took a sip of my drink.
“He’s twenty-three now, right?” Milo asked, and I nodded, my eyes easily finding him in the crowd. Dante was on the opposite side of the room, hidden behind a rather large gentleman in a red doublet. “He looks angry.”
