Then we were inside the palazzo, Dante’s boots thudding against marble as he took the main staircase two steps at a time. I glimpsed faces as we passed landings—shockedservants with open mouths, a pair of Draconi Brotherhood guards parting to let us pass with flat, predatory eyes, hands resting on the hilts of their blades.
Don Marcello’s voice thundered below, ordering, cursing, commanding someone to stop his son.
No one tried.
Of course not. No one had stopped him at the altar either.
Not even me.
My stomach clenched around the blurred memory: the priest’s trembling voice, the flash of a silver knife, the slippery slide of blood between our palms, the power of Dante’s magic flooding the chapel. Gabriel’s stunned, furious face as his brother strode up the wedding aisle as though he owned it, invoking the ancient right of the firstborn son.
The eldest son.
The rightful heir.
Gods…my husband.
I should have donesomething. I should have refused or fought back, or…why the fuck hadn’t I stopped the ceremony? Now my plans were shattered like glass.
“You ruined everything,” I hissed, breath sawing against his back, all too aware of his big, warm hand banded across the back of my thigh, the scrape of his callouses against delicate, untouched skin. “You have no idea what you’ve done.”
He laughed once, a dark, humorless sound. “Oh, I have a very good idea, Emberline DiRavello.”
He purred out my name like a challenge, as if he knew every dark thought, every wicked motive I had against his family and was daring me to carry them out.
Which I fucking planned to, especially now.
This asshole was toast.
At the top of the stairs, Dante turned right, thenslammed through a pair of carved double doors as if they weighed nothing. I shoved my hair out of my face, a tangle of curls and pearls, and all I saw was white.
The bridal chamber.
Candles flickered in every wall sconce, casting soft light over pale walls and frescoed ceilings. A fire crackled in the carved marble hearth, perfuming the air with cloves and old wood. Rose petals—crimson and velvety—were artfully scattered over the massive four-poster bed, like drops of blood against the virginal white sheets.
A setting prepared for Gabriel, the favorite son.
For the alliance we were supposed to consummate tonight. An alliance forged in blood and pain and lies, on my unwilling body.
My throat burned.
“Put me the fuck down,” I snapped, “I don’t care what right you invoked down there, I?—”
“You care,” my captor—my fucking husband—said, closing the doors behind him with a firm click as the lock slid home.
Only then did he set me down, a mess of tumbled fabric and tangled hair, emotions so wild, I could barely catch my breath.
Then, with a flick of his fingers, a new prison locked into place—a low pulse throbbing in the air, like a heartbeat. The hairs on my arms rose as something unseen settled over the walls, the floor, the doors. A shimmer of dark power, familiar, like the shield in the chapel.
He’d warded us inside.
And I didn’t have magic.
But I’d never needed magic to hold my own. I slapped Dante as hard as I could, hand open, putting all my strength and frustration behind the blow. His head snapped back,water flying from his wet hair, then ever so slowly, he turned his head back to me.
“Got that out of your system, tesoro?” he asked roughly, “or do you want to hit me again?”
“I want to pound you into dog meat for what you just did.” My chest was heaving, the edges of my vision dark with fury as I braced myself, waiting for him to retaliate, but all he did was rub his chin, a bright red handprint glowing on his cheek.
