LUCA
Irace up the stairs after her, fighting the desire to strangle Minnie all the way. Except it’s not Minnie’s fault. It’s mine.
As soon as I saw the witch sitting there, surrounded by fucking ice cream, I realized I’d made a mistake. I should have told Rosa about the blood spell sooner—or I at least should have told Minnie to stay quiet until I had the chance to break it to her myself. Like the asshole I am, I did neither.
Now I have to deal with the worst possible outcome, and the fallout is going to be nuclear. One look at Rosa’s calm, still face as she listened to Minnie’s brief explanation of the possible spell that binds us together told me how upset she was.
After the conversation about the Grand Ball Sack, it was like a double-whammy punch to the gut.
Yeah, I’m right back to wanting to strangle Minnie.
By the time I reach the landing outside my room, she’s already in there. She heard Minnie out, nodded, then without any warning, she bolted. As if it was all some kind of game, Moonface chased after her and blocked me on the stairs when I followed. I had to leap over the pit bull, and that gave Rosa a head start. The locked door is the price I’m now paying for being so slow.
“Rosa!” I yell. “Open the fucking door.”
Aggression might not be the best approach here, but it’s all I’ve got.
I hear no reply from her, and I raise my foot and kick the damn thing in. As I burst into the room, off-balance, three things happen in rapid succession.
First, she trips me. She’s waiting at the side of the door, obviously two steps ahead of me. She sticks out her leg, and I go ass-forward over it onto the carpet. After that, she hits me in the head with a hardback copy of an Agatha Christie book, using all her Vecchissime strength and power. The spine cracks as it connects with my skull, and I roll onto my back with blood running down my face. Then, while I’m on the floor and seeing stars, she straddles me and sticks a stake in my chest.
Not all the way in. She doesn’t want to kill me. At least not yet. But it’s piercing the skin, down into my flesh, hovering right above my heart. She’s a pro, and she won’t fumble it. A few more inches of pressure and it’s game over.
Her green eyes glow with a predatory shine, her expression completely devoid of emotion. I see her now the way countless other vampires must have seen her—as an efficient, ruthless killing machine.
I grab her wrists and hold them tight, then I push the stake deeper inside my own body. “Do it,” I snarl. “If you’re going to kill me, just fucking do it.”
I’m taking a risk here, I know. I don’t think she hates me quite that much yet, but I can’t be sure. Conflicting emotions run over her beautiful face as I continue to slowly plunge the stake farther inside me. I have maybe three seconds’ worth of muscle and tissue left before she hits home.
After two of those seconds, she growls and throws herself off me. She slings the stake across the room so hard it lodges in the wall above the bed and drips blood down toward the brass frame.
Agony rips through me, but I suck in a breath and tell myself to push past it. It’s only physical pain, and it will pass. It will heal. There are more important matters to deal with right now.
I drag myself upright and scoot over to her side. She’s sitting in a crumpled heap on the floor, her arms wrapped around her knees, hair dangling around her face like a curtain.
I reach out, knowing that if I pull back that curtain I will see her crying. Knowing it and hating myself for having caused it. I vowed to protect this woman, and now I’ve hurt her.
“Don’t fucking touch me!” she shrieks. “If you fucking touch me, Luca da Firenze, I swear I won’t need a stake. I’ll pull your stinking heart out with my bare hands.”
She sounds like she means it, and I remind myself that I’m not dealing with an ordinary woman here. With her skill, her experience, the fury she’s feeling right now, she could well be able to do it. I ignore the blood that’s still pouring from my wound.
“I won’t touch you,” I say. “But I’ve got to talk to you, Rosa.”
She takes a breath, calms herself. “Talk as much as you like. That doesn’t mean I have to listen. Or can you make me, Luca? Can you just, poof, magic word, blood spell bullshit compel me to listen to you? In the same way you’ve been in my head all this time, manipulating me? The same way you’ve made me … want you, the way I’ve wanted you? Has this all been some fucking sick game you’ve been playing with me, seeing far you could push me? How far you could make the Seer fall?”
Her words hurt more than the stake. “No! Rosa, that’s not what this is. You have to believe me.”
“Do I? Do I really? Will the blood spell make me believe you? Do I have any free will left at all?”
I force myself to stay still. To remain calm. To let her anger flow over me, because I deserve it. All of it. “Rosa, I don’t think there’s any spell in the world that could make you do something you don’t want to do. And we don’t even know if it’s true. At this point, it’s only a theory, something that Minnie thought might explain how I felt when I met you. There might not be any fucking blood spell. We don’t know if it’s real. I didn’t know if it was real…”
“That’s the thing, though, isn’t it?” She glares at me. “You didn’t know if it was real, but you knew it was possible, which is more than I did. How long have you known? And do not make this worse by lying to me, you devious bastard.”
I’m burning with the need to reach out to her, to take away some of her suffering. My hands edge toward hers, but she slaps them away viciously. “No,” she says firmly. “You don’t get to do that. You don’t get to be the person who causes me pain and also the person who consoles me. That ship has sailed. Now talk. When did you first find out about this blood spell?”
I sigh and rub my healing chest as I think it through. There’s no point trying to lie to her—she’d find out the truth in the end anyway. She already thinks I’m the scum of the earth, and she’s probably fucking right.
“The first day I was in Chicago,” I reply. “That’s when it was first mentioned.”
