Dante rolled his new blue eyes at me and grunted an agreement that said he wasn’t impressed with this game. He cut the engine but left the keys in the ignition as he got out.
I followed him, raising an eyebrow at the cocky King of the Oscuras as he cast a look around at the people on the street, letting them see his expression, knowing they'd understand the unspoken threat in his gaze. Without retrieving the keys, he left the insanely expensive car unlocked and ripe for the picking before moving around to open my door for me like I was a lady or something.
He drew me against him, curling an arm around my waist and murmuring something in Faetalian into my ear which had a shiver running down my spine.
We didn't head around back, instead striding straight through the front doors, past the bouncers who were gaping at me with the huge ass dude hanging off of me without ever even attempting to ask us for ID.
We headed inside and the familiar red carpeted hallway led us into the dimly lit depths of the club. It was no Black Hole and I found myself fighting against a fidget as I glanced at the peeling wallpaper and carpets which were worn and stained from years of use. The place was pretty high end considering its location but in the grand scheme of things it was beyond shabby.
I didn't want to feel ashamed of where I came from, but with Dante and Leon it was hard not to think about the loving families and endless wealth they'd grown up surrounded by. I knew their lives had been by no means perfect but the reality of them seeing the place where I'd had to come if I wanted a decent meal most nights since I was big enough to walk made me self-conscious.
Dante's stride never faltered as he led me into the unfamiliar space, heading across the room without giving the girls on stage more than a cursory glance as we aimed for the bar at the back of the room.
Just before we made it, Old Sal burst out of a door behind the dark bar with her arms raised and a cry of delight escaping her around the cigarette jammed in the corner of her mouth.
"Elise, baby! You're home. I was beginning to worry I'd never see you again after the summer - let me see those eyes of yours."
I stepped out of Dante's hold and he let me go with a slight hesitation. Old Sal pulled me into a hug and I awkwardly patted her back before she pushed me away again to inspect my eyes. I'd messaged her over the summer to tell her about me and Leon, including photo evidence when she'd insisted and she'd sent countless messages about how pleased she was for me and how she wanted us to come for a visit. But for some reason I'd never gotten around to arranging it.
"Stunning!" Sal exclaimed as she peered at the silver rings in my eyes. "So exotic. And with that hair, imagine the price you could fetch."
Dante growled at the odd flattery, but I just laughed it off. Sal always valued people by the price of their flesh. It was her business. Simple math. The more she thought someone would pay to have you the more she would praise you for it.
"I don't think there are any Elysian Mates up for sale," I joked, rolling my eyes.
"I heard of one once. Her mate was in debt to some seriously bad men. She put herself up for sale at the flesh markets to cover the cost of his freedom. I heard there was a bidding war. She made over a million auras. Can you imagine that? Men always want a piece of the forbidden."
"I hope you're not suggesting she start whoring herself," Dante snarled behind me. "Because I consider her mate like a brother, and I won't hesitate to rip you limb from limb if I get the sense you actually mean that."
Sal flinched, a spike of fear hitting me in response to his words as she lost control of her Order gifts for a moment and her Siren powers pushed her own emotions over all of us. Dante may have been hiding his face but his Alpha male, scary fucker persona was harder to conceal.
"She doesn't mean it," I assured Dante, reaching out to take hold of his arm as the tension in him seemed to coil around the room and static made my hair raise and a prickle race down my spine. "It's just talk. That's the way we are."
He didn't remove his penetrating stare from the woman who was the closest thing to family I had in Alestria now. I rolled my eyes at him, ignoring Sal as she began to murmur reassurances and apologies as I took his hand in mine.
"I wanna show you something," I said to him firmly. "Remember?"
"Qualsiasi cosa per te," he murmured, nodding his head graciously to me and letting me pull him towards the end of the bar.
"Is it okay if I show my friend our old spot on the roof?" I asked Sal even though I knew she wouldn't refuse.
She never cared what I did around here, which was another reason I’d wanted Dante to remain disguised. If she realised exactly who I’d just bought into her club then she’d probably be rushing around to serve him herself and wouldn’t have let him out of her sight. She knew who ran this half of the city and she paid her maintenance to his family for protection just like every other business around here did. He was her lord and master even if she'd never laid eyes on him before. And she would have made it her mission to try and milk him for money while he was here too.
“Of course,” she said, cutting Dante a look.
"He was friends with Gareth," I added in response to her confused frown.
I guessed it was pretty fucking weird of me to just casually show up here with him in tow if I didn’t offer something by way of explanation.
Sal nodded easily and I dragged Dante around the bar, through a door marked staff only and we took a short walk towards the staircase at the end of the darkened hall.
"Do you like playing dress up with me? I sometimes forget how famous you are, Drago, so maybe this is nice to be able to go about unseen?" I questioned him as I kept hold of his hand and tugged him up the stairs.
"That's because you have a way of seeing the man instead of the monster, amore mio. It's one of the things I like best about you and hate the most too."
"Why do you hate it?" I teased, turning to look over my shoulder at him.
"Because, you use it to see me, but you use it to see Ryder too. And if I have to believe that there is enough worth looking for in myself then I have to admit that that could be the case for him. Even if it's hard to picture most of the time."
"Do you want to know what I see in him?" I asked curiously, wondering if he was really willing to listen to that.
We'd reached the top of the staircase on the third floor, but Dante tugged me to a halt before I could open the door which led out onto the roof. He ran a hand down his face as he removed the concealment spell and I couldn’t say I was going to complain about being reunited with his gorgeous face again.
"Not here. I don't think I will particularly enjoy that conversation so maybe it’s best saved for another time. Perhaps when I'm drunk-"
"So that you can flip out Dragon style and destroy a load of shit if you don't like what you hear?" I teased.
"Maybe," he agreed with that easy smile which had me wanting to grab hold of him and make him drop the mask.
"You're always so strong, Dante," I breathed, looking down at him from my position a few steps above him. "You know you don't have to be with me, right? Not if you don't want to be. You can crack and shatter and break and I’ll hold you through it all until you're ready to build yourself back up again. You can lean on me, rely on me, ask anything of me that you need and I'll be there to offer it up."
Dante let the smile slip and his gaze ran down my body as he released a low growl. "Only if you promise to do the same, bella. When you need something from me, you don't even have to ask. I want you to take it and always know you can, without question."
"Okay," I agreed, the intensity of his gaze allowing no other answer to pass my lips.
"Tell me then," he purred, his accent melting me into a puddle at his feet as he slowly ascended the stairs that divided us and curled his hands around my waist. "Why have you been salivating since the moment I laid eyes on you in the boathouse, but your fangs still haven't made their way into my neck yet?"
His teasing made a laugh spill from my lips but th
e sinfully dark look in his eyes stopped it short. He started backing me up until I was pressed against the door, his hard body caging me in and making me his prisoner. But I had no desire to get free.
"Because," I began slowly, my gaze sliding from his eyes to his lips and then his throat. "If I take a bite of you, I'm going to want to take it all. You're too irresistible, amore mio."
He growled at me as he pressed forwards, always loving it when I spoke his language even though I could only claim to understand a handful of words.
"I will always look after you, Elise. Which means, I won’t see you go thirsty. If you have no self-control then I'll have it for you. I'll make sure the only thing you take from me is blood."
Before I could reply, he caught my wrists in one of his large hands and raised them above my head, pressing them against the door above me. I gasped as he shifted closer, his knee forcing my knees apart until his thigh was firmly clamped between mine and the aching heat I was feeling for him quadrupled at the press of his body immobilising me.
He looked down at me with a dark and forbidding expression as my lips parted over my already lengthened fangs and my chest rose and fell deeply against his.
I was completely at his mercy and the electricity that crackled off of his body and the racing of his heart which my gifted hearing could detect said he liked that. I was forcibly reminded of the way he’d pinned me to the bed the first time he'd claimed my body fully. The way the Alpha in him had risen to the challenge of dominating me, owning me, consuming me.
A pleading moan slid from my lips as he kept me there and the electrical current that covered his body made the place where his thigh was pressed to the aching heat at the core of me burn with a need so keen I almost begged him to satisfy it.
"Bite me, bella," he commanded. "Adesso."
He tipped his chin back and I instantly followed his command, my fangs piercing his flesh so that the living thunderstorm of his blood slid between my lips and down my throat.
I'd never bitten anyone like that before. Where I wasn't in control of it. Where taking felt somehow like submitting and it set my pulse racing with a need for more. I wanted to relinquish full control of myself to him, follow his commands, escape into his desire.
Even as Dante's grip on me weakened from the effect of my venom in his system, his dominance over me didn't lessen. He leaned forward, his weight crushing me against the door as my hips bucked against him and it felt like I lost control of myself and my desire for him.
The seam of my jeans rode right over my clit as I ground myself against his leg and a heady moan escaped me as I felt the hard press of his erection driving into my stomach.
I drank deeply, selfishly, bathing in the feeling of his blood consuming me. He suddenly dropped the barriers around his magic and the surge of power crashing through my body became a tide as I let down my own walls with no resistance at all.
Sparks of electricity rode across my body, stinging my hard nipples which pressed through my shirt and rubbed against his chest. I didn't know if he was in control of the current that ran through him but I swear almost all of it was finding its way between my thighs, thrumming, vibrating, sparking against that little bundle of nerves as I ground myself against him until my fangs fell from his neck and a loud moan of ecstasy spilled from my lips.
I was trembling beneath him, my body aching for him to finish me, shatter me, destroy me. My hungry gaze fell on his mouth and for a moment I thought he'd give me what I wanted as he leaned down close so that our lips almost touched, the wash of his warm breath over mine making my back arch and my chin lift.
"You're making it hard to believe you're destined for someone else right now, bella," Dante murmured, the deep rumble of his voice vibrating against my chest where we were locked together.
"I told you I still feel the same," I replied, and a long silence fell before Dante gripped the door handle beside my ass and turned it.
I fell backwards but his grip on my wrists kept me from hitting the ground. I stayed on my feet, but the contact between us was lost and he released me as soon as he was sure I wouldn't fall.
He held my gaze, growling deeply as he pushed his hand beneath his waistband and made no attempt to hide the fact that he was rearranging his hard on.
"Am I going to have to fight you off?" he teased as I continued to stare and I tipped my head back to the sky, groaning in frustration before turning and shooting away from him.
Dante's self-satisfied chuckle followed me as I ran from him and I silently swore to have him begging beneath me one day soon to pay him back for that.
I made it to the far side of the roof where a jumble of old wooden pallets were assembled into what me and Gareth used to call our fort. Every year, the wind and rain half destroyed the little play area and every year we used to find more crap lying around in the streets and drag it up here to fix it up. Once we'd gotten older it had become less of a play zone and more of a place for us to hang out.
"You used to spend your free time playing on the roof of a strip club?" Dante asked as he followed me over to what was admittedly a pile of crap with a few dog-eared cushions sat on it. I hadn't been up here since Gareth had died and even when we used to come up frequently, the place had never exactly been a palace.
"When we were little, Mom didn't want us wandering too far while we played, because, well, Alestria is a shithole and the Fae around here are all at least a little depraved. Plus it’s not like there are any parks nearby. Our apartment block didn't have any outdoor space and if I'm honest, this place felt like a damn luxury. We didn't know any other kids who had free run of such a huge area. Sometimes, we'd steal props from the strippers to use for dressing up. And when we were really young, Gareth used to steal these huge green Dragon dick dildos so that we could pretend they were swords...we stopped doing that fairly sharpish when Mom caught us with them and informed us of where people usually liked to stick them though..."
Dante half laughed and gave a half-strangled noise in the back of his throat all at once as he moved towards me.
"I don't know if that's the saddest or funniest story I've ever heard," he admitted and I rolled my eyes at him, smirking too.
"Well, we can't all be princes born to rule empires with more people to love us than fingers and toes," I mused, the teasing fading from my words as they reminded me that I’d lost the only boy I ever really had to love me in that undeniable, limitless way that family were supposed to.
"So, what makes you think his journal was leading you here?" Dante asked softly, reminding me of why I’d come to this place filled with memories and heartache.
"The clue he left me mentioned the place we used to watch the sky. And when we were here last summer we spent a lot of evenings up here just passing time, watching the stars and wondering if they even gave a shit about us at all..."
It was coming up on a year since I’d lost him already. I wouldn't be able to say last summer much longer when talking about him. I wouldn't even be able to say last year. Sometimes when I remembered our time together, I felt like the edges of my memories were blurred, some details lost in translation, already forgotten. Time was stealing him from me piece by piece. Only the love I carried in my heart remaining as constant as the day he'd gone. But even the pain was dulling now. It wasn't the raw and bloody thing it had once been, more an ever-present ache which throbbed from time to time. I didn't wake up expecting him to be there anymore. The grief didn't come crashing back in as I fought to deny that he was truly gone. My heart had accepted it even though it had destroyed me in the process.
I allowed myself to feel my grief for a moment, bathing in it, only noticing the wetness on my cheeks when Dante gently brushed the tears away.
"Gareth sarà per sempre nel tuo cuore," he promised and I sighed as I reached for my magic to search this place for a sense of my brother.
I walked away from Dante as I felt a tug in my gut, the familiar brush of Gareth's magic tingling against my senses.
I followed the taste of his power until I found myself standing by the low wall which ringed the roof, my fingertips brushing along one of the big, white bricks as his power caressed mine.
"Do you sense that?" I asked, glancing back around at Dante only to find he'd stepped away from me again.
He frowned, taking a few steps closer before abruptly spinning on his heel and murmuring an apology because he had somewhere else to be.
"What?" I called after him and he halted again suddenly.
"I didn't know Gareth was so good at creating diversion spells," he murmured, shaking his head like he was trying to clear it before twisting his fingers in a complex pattern as he frowned in concentration. "I've broken it now, but I didn't even detect the magic at work," he explained as he moved to join me.
"He had a spell stopping you from approaching this?" I asked, realising that Gareth must have built it to recognise my magical signature to let me pass through it.
"He clearly only wanted you to see this," Dante said. "If you want me to leave you to-"
"Stay," I insisted as I placed my palm flat on the brick and began unravelling the concealment spells that had been placed over it. "I trust you, Dante."
Gareth's magic was strong and had clearly been strengthened more than once to keep this hidden so it took me a few minutes to break through it. I was pretty sure I only managed it at all because he'd built in magical sensors which recognised my power and let me through.
Finally, I was able to lift the huge brick from the wall and my lips parted as I looked at the hollowed out space beneath it where an ancient looking black leather-bound book sat.
My skin crawled as I lifted it from the hiding place and I was struck with the desire to throw it the fuck away.
Dante frowned at it like he could feel the dark intentions of the thing too and I read the words across the title with a shiver of anticipation and fear. Magicae Mortuorum.
"There's something else," Dante pointed out and I placed the book down before I could spend much time trying to puzzle it out.
Beneath the book was a black duffel bag which I pulled out of the dark space with interest. I placed it down between me and Dante, carefully unzipping it and gasping as I spotted the heap of cash inside.
Broken Fae Page 24