Prologue
Sometime in the fall…
GIANNA
There’sblood on my hands and it’s not my own.Thick, dark red blood, sticking to my skin, trickling between my fingers.It only covers the imaginary blood beneath the real one.My curse.The thing that led to this.
It’s Matteo’s blood.
Flowing from a wound in his chest.Making a perfect red rose bloom over the front of his white shirt.
I’m pressing down on his wound as hard as I can.But more and more hot blood bubbles through my fingers, covering the back of my hands while my palms swim in it.
I can’t feel his heartbeat anymore and that sun in his eyes that shines just for me is growing fainter and fainter.Yet the blood just keeps gushing.
“Hold on, Matteo,” I whisper.“Please hold on.”
I’m whispering because I have no right to be saying this.
It’s my fault he’s bleeding out in my arms.
My fault because I knew my curse would kill him like it had killed every other man who tried to make me his.And despite that, I let him claim me, gave myself to him.
His eyes are open and fixed on mine.But there’s no sun in them now, no heat like the kind that always warmed me whenever he looked at me.The sunshine is covered by winter clouds.
“I love you,” I whisper.“Don’t leave me, I can’t live without you.”
His lips, almost as pale as his face, curl up a little at the edges and relief floods his eyes, before they turn glassy.
He groans as he lifts his hand to grip mine that’s pressing down over his heart.His touch is always fire.But now that fire barely burns.
“Not as much as I love you,” he says.“You’ll be fine without me.This was always meant to happen.”
His eyes blink shut.He tries to keep then open, but can’t.I lean down and kiss him, but he doesn’t return it.Can’t return it.If he’s still breathing, I can’t feel it.
But his hot blood keeps gushing over our hands.It’s like glue, sticking our hands together, binding us forever.
People are talking around us, the room is pleasantly warm, the light soft, the scent of a good dinner lingering in the air.All should be perfect in the world.
But all is terrible.
It’s over.
He’s dying.
And his blood is on my hands.
It might as well be my own blood gushing from my chest.
Because when he dies, I will die too.
I can’t live without him.And I won’t.
I just wish I accepted that sooner.
Because it’s not just late now.
It’s too late.
