She lifted her head to gaze around the cozy room. She could still feel Dante’s sense of betrayal reverberating within her. It would be a long time before he accepted this, but she hoped he would one day.
Chapter Fifty-Two
“I gave her the locket,” Dante said as he stared at the ceiling while running Cassidy’s hair through his fingers.
She’d already noticed he wasn’t wearing it when they returned home, but she didn’t get the chance to comment as he’d taken her with a desperation she’d never experienced from him before. He’d been trying to forget, if only for a little bit, everything that happened. And now, reality was returning.
The only time Dante spoke after leaving Maya’s house was to thank Brian for his help when Brian dropped them off at home. Brian told him that he would help anytime Dante needed it. Then, he and Abby left for home.
Cassidy wanted to cry for him and everything he lost, but he wouldn’t want that. So, she did the best she could by simply being there for him. But now, he was finally talking again.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
“No,” he admitted. “But I will be.”
Resting her hand on his chest, she ran her fingers over the thick muscle and wiry hair there. “I know.”
“And I have a sister again.”
“You have many sisters now.”
“And brothers,” he agreed with a chuckle.
Before meeting her, he was alone in the world, but now he had a massive family who would go out of their way to help him. Never once, after his parents’ deaths, did he allow himself to dream of finding love and starting another family, but he had both now.
One day, his anger and resentment toward Maya would fade. Things would never be the same between them as they were twenty years ago, but different wasn’t always a bad thing. Sometimes different was better, and maybe their new different would become better over the years. Time would tell, and they were blessed to have plenty of it.
Pulling his arm out from under her, he rolled over to lift his jacket off the floor. He dug inside the pocket until he found the small box tucked within. He’d been trying to figure out the perfect time to propose; should it be in a garden, on a swan boat, at Fenway, in the common?
Now, all those ideas seemed wrong. Rolling over, he sat up in bed and propped his back against the headboard. She sat up beside him as he turned toward her.
“I love you,” he said.
She didn’t understand the intensity of his chocolate eyes as they bored into hers. “I know. I love you too.”
He lifted his hands to reveal the small, red box in them. With a deft movement, he opened the box to reveal the ruby ring tucked inside. It was simple in its design, but so beautiful it stole her breath.
“I know that, to you, the mate bond is enough,” he said. “And it is everything to me too, but I want to marry you, Cassidy Byrne. I want to watch you walk down the aisle, see you in a wedding dress, and dance with you under the stars. Will you marry me?”
She could barely breathe through the lump in her throat. Rapidly blinking back tears, she managed a choked, “Yes.”
Dante grinned at her as he removed the ring from the box and slid it onto her elegant finger. It was a little loose, but he would get it sized.
“It’s beautiful,” she whispered as she lifted her hand in the air.
“It was my mother’s.”
Fresh tears spilled down her cheeks as she threw her arms around him. The fact he’d given her his mother’s ring meant more to her than the proposal. “I love you!”
He crushed her against him as she rained kisses across his cheeks. “I love you too,” he said between his laughter. “I am so lucky I found you.”
Cassidy lifted her head to look at him; she smiled as she straddled his waist and settled herself over him. When he hardened against her thigh, some of his amusement faded. Her grin turned mischievous as she played with the hair at his nape.
“And don’t you forget it,” she told him.
Dante laughed as he wrapped his arms around her waist and, lifting her off him, rolled to pin her beneath him. Her eyes sparkled as she draped her arms around his neck and drew him down for a kiss.
Chapter Fifty-Three
Cassidy opened the door to her old apartment and poked her head inside. Sitting at the kitchen table, Julian and Aida had a newspaper spread out before them. They stopped talking and lifted their heads to look at her.
“Is Kyle still sleeping?” Cassidy asked.
“Yeah,” Julian answered. “Why?”
Cassidy grinned at him as she stepped out of the apartment and lifted a large, metal container from Dante’s hands.
“Are you really going to do this?” he asked.
“Damn right, I am,” she told him.
“You’re vicious.”
She winked at him. “Oh, this is nothing.”
“Vicious and crazy.”
“You remember that if you ever decide to mess with me.”
He held his hands up. “That will never happen.”
Cassidy kissed his cheek before pushing the door further open and stepping into the apartment.
“What’s that?” Aida asked.
“I have some presents for Kyle,” she replied sweetly.
Aida and Julian exchanged a look before Julian started to chuckle.
“What’s going on?” Aida asked.
Cassidy didn’t answer as she strolled down the hallway to her old room. Chairs scraped against the floor as Julian and Aida rose, and Dante followed her down the hall. She knew from years of living with him that Kyle always slept in shorts and never brought a girl home with him, so she felt it was safe to open the door.
She poked her head inside and smiled when she spotted Kyle lying on his stomach with his face turned toward the wall. Cassidy set the container on the floor and turned it on its side to release the two dozen rats she bought from the pet store.
“Run free, my little friends,” she whispered as she shooed them out of the container.
“Are those rats?” Aida asked in disbelief.
“They are,” Cassidy confirmed. “Don’t worry, I know how many there are, and I already have homes for them.”
“He’s going to kill them.”
“No, he won’t,” Julian and Cassidy said at the same time.
For one thing, he was too afraid of them to get close enough to kill them. For another, he wasn’t cruel to other living things, and this wasn’t her first time torturing him with rats.
She went easier on him this time. Last time, she caught them all and dumped them on him while he was sleeping. They’d been sixteen at the time, and it was the last time she did anything major to him. It was beyond time he had another prank pulled on him, but she couldn’t be as mean as the last time. She blamed Dante for her newfound softness.
She would have loved to superglue his ass to the sofa and his hands to his game controller, but she couldn’t figure out a way to pull it off. Plus, Aida would probably kill her if she ruined their somewhat new couch. She’d figure it out one day, but until then, rats were the perfect revenge.
“Run free, and when you’re done running free, I have lots and lots of treats for you,” Cassidy said as she scooped a cute little black rat from the container and set it down.
The rats waddled around the room, sniffing the air and enjoying their newfound freedom. Cassidy closed the box and set it in the hall. She removed a large, fake rat from inside her pocket. Its bristly hair poked her palms as she kissed the tip of its very realistic nose.
“What are you doing?” Aida asked.
“A rat bomb,” she said.
“What? Why?”
Cassidy smiled at her sister-in-law. “This will teach him to hang out the window and make kissy faces at me.”
Cassidy lobbed the rat toward Kyle’s bed at the same she shouted, “Kyle!”
Kyle jumped, and then the rat landed on the side of his face. “What the…?”
He smacked the rat away, an
d a second passed before he realized what it was. When he did, a strangled cry escaped him, and he bolted upright in bed.
“Holy shit!” he shouted as he leapt up to stand on the bed.
His hair stood on end, and his shorts hung low on his waist as he gazed in slack-jawed horror at the room. When his wild eyes landed on her, Cassidy blew him a kiss and closed the door.
“Cassidy!” Kyle yelled. “Cassidy, get back in here and get these things!”
She laughed as she held the doorknob and planted her foot against the wall to help keep it closed. A few seconds passed before Kyle crashed into the door and started jerking at the knob. His palm slammed against the door.
“Let me out of here!” he shouted.
“Are you ever going to hang out the window and act like an asshole again?” she asked.
“What? Are you…? Is this really about that day? It was weeks ago! Let me out of here. Their little noses are twitching all over the place, and they’re squeaking!”
Julian and Dante burst into loud laughter as Aida shook her head.
“You’re all crazy,” Aida muttered.
“The prank wars were never something to mess around about, and we all knew we’d get payback if we acted like assholes,” Julian said. “Most of us stopped messing with Cassidy years ago; she is the reigning queen.”
“And Kyle needed a reminder of that,” she told Aida with a smile as Kyle jerked at the door.
Cassidy kept her foot braced against the wall as the door opened an inch before she pulled it closed again.
Aida laughed. “I’m never messing with you.”
Kyle banged on the door. “They’re eyeing my stomach as they plot the best way to eat me!”
“Oh, that reminds me. I did forget to feed them for a few days!” Cassidy called back. “That’s a lie,” she whispered to Julian and Aida. “I fed them before we came over.”
“Your whole family is insane,” Aida said.
“It’s true,” Julian confirmed.
“Are you going to screw with me again?” Cassidy called through the door.
“Never!” Kyle shouted back.
Cassidy released the knob, and Kyle flung the door open. Dante, Julian, and Aida jumped out of his way. His knees practically hit his chest as he fled down the hall, slapping at his skin and shuddering while he ran. They laughed at him as he reached the end of the hall and turned back to glower at her.
“You’re fucking nuts!” he shouted.
“That’s what I said,” Aida said as she strolled down the hall toward him. “And she’s also the one who has to go in there to catch them.”
“You better get every last one of them,” Kyle warned.
“I’m going to try, but I might miss one or two,” Cassidy teased.
This time, Julian glowered at her as Kyle vanished into the living room. Kyle’s sounds of disgust continued, and she could picture him pacing the room. He’d probably spend the next two weeks sleeping on the couch again.
“I’ll get them all,” she assured Julian.
“Good,” Julian said and walked away.
“You’re on your own for this part,” Dante told her as he kissed her temple and walked away.
Cassidy laughed as she entered the room and collected the rats. Once she had them all back in the container, she pulled the bag of treats out of her pocket and made sure they all received one. Then she lifted the box and returned to the living room.
Julian and Aida had returned to the kitchen table; Kyle sat on the back of the couch with his feet on the cushions. Dante was trying not to laugh as he sat beside him. Kyle glared at her and then the container as she set it on the floor.
“I can still hear them squeaking,” Kyle said.
“They tend to do that,” Cassidy said as Julian and Aida laughed.
“Did you get all of them?” Kyle asked.
“Every last one,” Cassidy assured him though she did leave the fake rat in his sock drawer.
“I hate you.”
“I love you too.”
Kyle gave her the finger but muttered, “I love you, asshole.”
Dante leaned back against the sofa as he relished the antics of his family. And that family would continue to grow every year and in many different ways because not only did he have the Byrnes, but Maya called him yesterday while he and Cassidy were visiting pet stores around the city. He talked to her while Cassidy gathered her friends.
They made plans to meet next weekend, and he was looking forward to getting to know her family better. But he loved being a part of this family, even if they were insane. And his mate was the queen of that insanity.
Epilogue
Kyle watched Melanie as she walked across the campus with her head bent and her hair spilling over the books clutched against her chest. He shouldn’t be here; this wasn’t his world, and he was acting like an idiot, but ever since he met her, he couldn’t get her out of his head.
The only problem was, she’d made it clear she wasn’t interested.
Still, he couldn’t resist seeing her again; so, he was standing under a tree and acting like a moron while watching a stranger.
No, he wasn’t acting like an idiot; he was behaving like a psycho stalker. Still, he couldn’t bring himself to turn away as Melanie jogged up the stairs of her dorm.
The door closed behind her, and she vanished inside, but he could recall her lovely, delicate features, the cinnamon color of her hair, and her tawny eyes. Those eyes were strangely sad and scared when they met his.
They also touched something deep inside him. Something he hadn’t known could be touched, and now he couldn’t get it to turn off.
He waited a few more minutes, but when she didn’t reemerge, he forced himself to walk away. He was acting crazy, but as he strode across the campus, he couldn’t help wondering how difficult it was to enroll in college.
The End
Thank you for taking the time to read Dante and Cassidy’s story. If you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it, you can preorder the final book in the Vampire Awakenings Series, Legacy now: brendakdavies.com/Lgwb
Legacy will focus on Kyle and Melanie. Preorder their story to find out how it all ends!
Note to readers: Many people have asked what order to read the Awakenings and Alliance series. However, the two series are meant to be read independently of each other and do not have to be read in any specific order. In fact, they are no longer on the same timeline and the Awakenings series is now a year ahead of the Alliance, but no matter how you read them, I hope you enjoy them!
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Also from the Author
Books written under the pen name
Brenda K. Davies
The Vampire Awakenings Series
Awakened (Book 1)
Destined (Book 2)
Untamed (Book 3)
Enraptured (Book 4)
Undone (Book 5)
Fractured (Book 6)
Ravaged (Book 7)
Consumed (Book 8)
Unforeseen (Book 9)
Forsaken (Book 10)
>
Relentless (Book 11)
Legacy (Book 12)
The Alliance Series
Eternally Bound (Book 1)
Bound by Vengeance (Book 2)
Bound by Darkness (Book 3)
Bound by Passion (Book 4)
Bound by Torment (Book 5)
Bound by Danger (Book 6)
Coming 2020
The Road to Hell Series
Good Intentions (Book 1)
Carved (Book 2)
The Road (Book 3)
Into Hell (Book 4)
Hell on Earth Series
Hell on Earth (Book 1)
Into the Abyss (Book 2)
Kiss of Death (Book 3)
The Edge of the Darkness
Coming 2020
Historical Romance
A Stolen Heart
Books written under the pen name
Erica Stevens
The Coven Series
Nightmares (Book 1)
The Maze (Book 2)
Dream Walker (Book 3)
The Captive Series
Captured (Book 1)
Renegade (Book 2)
Refugee (Book 3)
Salvation (Book 4)
Redemption (Book 5)
Broken (The Captive Series Prequel)
Vengeance (Book 6)
Unbound (Book 7)
The Kindred Series
Kindred (Book 1)
Ashes (Book 2)
Kindled (Book 3)
Inferno (Book 4)
Phoenix Rising (Book 5)
The Fire & Ice Series
Frost Burn (Book 1)
Arctic Fire (Book 2)
Relentless (Vampire Awakenings Book 11) Page 28