He had no idea I was going to steal everything back.
29
DANTE DOMINICO
Ihadn’t slept in weeks.
Technically, vampires didn’tneedsleep, but I usually let my body shut down for an hour or two after a fight to get my head in order. Last night had been nothing but one long fight dressed up as a wedding, and still I lay there, flat on my back in a bed of crushed rose petals and Emberline’s fragrant blood, my cock hard as a rock, staring up at the carved canopy.
Across the room, Ember didn’t sleep either.
Watching me as I pretended to doze.
The impenetrable ward I’d woven around the room hummed against my skin while the rest of my insufferable family poked and prodded at the edges, nosy and offended and plotting all manner of violence, but they would never get through my magic.
Not Don Marcello, not his guards, not even my brother.
No, my magic wasn’t strictly vampire anymore and didn’t answer to their demands, even on their own territory. Even under the Don’s own roof.
One of the DiSangue priests might be able to unravel the spell—given time and a shit ton of effort.
As things stood, no one entered this room until I let them.
Good.After the chaotic scene I’d manufactured in the chapel, I needed a few hours of peace.
We both did.
I turned my head ever so slightly.
Ember curled in the chair, alert and wary, dark eyes gleaming like a cat in the darkness. Around her beautiful face, dark hair became a riot of curls and silver threading and pearls tangled together, her tiny, bare feet a pale outline against the expensive leather.
Her hand was curled on the chair arm, fingers flexing, like she was trying not to dive for one of the knives I’d dropped on the bedside table. Her own personal armory. Almost within arm’s reach.
It had to be so fucking tempting to stab me in my sleep.
Almost as tempting as my little wife was proving to be.
I took another shallow breath. Every fucking inhale dripped with her scent, every exhale had me tasting citrus and lavender, fresh, clean, and filled with sunshine. All I wanted was to put my mouth on her again, lick her soft, perfect skin, but…
The way she’d blushed before explaining to me this bullshit about the sheets, how nervous she’d been around me, told me she was inexperienced.
And while Emberline was a succulent, tempting treat to a starving male who’d lived in the desert for half his life, I didn’t want her body.Well, I didn’t only want her body.
My father thought he’d caged a lamb.
But I’d seen the truth the moment I’d watched her on that dais during the Blood Compact, seen the skillful way her hand gripped the knife, the way she positioned herself to deal a fatal blow.
And that was the moment Emberline DiRavello became my entire strategy.
Ember wasn’t prey. She wasn’t a pawn for her uncle or a convenient mafia bride for my brother… I’d married a wolf insheep’s clothing, and I could not wait to unleash her on this entire Dynasty and see the havoc she would wreak.
Her eyes slipped shut, and her head nodded forward, a small, helpless sound whimpering in her throat before she jerked awake with a quick indrawn breath, scanning the room with a single sweep of her dark eyes, her bare feet disappearing beneath the long skirts.
For a long moment, those eyes pinned me down, counting every breath, every twitch, before she relaxed again, the leather creaking softly as she sank back into the chair.
I wished she would go to sleep.
After I’d stolen that one small taste of her blood, hunger gnawed at me like a stabbing wound, insistent and demanding. The smell of her shoving up my nose, coating my skin, was testing every ounce of my shredding self-control.
