Graced

by Amanda Pillar

  Muttering something Anton couldn’t hear, Dante walked past him and his mother. At the door, he released Elle’s arm. She continued after Clay, calling out encouragement.

  “Why are you going outside?” Anton blurted.

  “Werewolves like to show their dominance. I can’t let him think he has rights over me and my role as Elle’s Chooser. Things could turn…nasty, if I do.”

  Anton wasn’t sure he wanted to know what “nasty” entailed.

  Dante took two steps outside the Rose room, then turned back to look inside at Beatrice and Anton. “Stay inside.”

  Since Anton wasn’t sure if that was directed at him or his mother—although he had a feeling it was for both of them—he decided to follow him out. “You’d better stay here, Mother.”

  Anton emerged onto the terrace and blinked in the weak sunlight. Clay and Dante were down in the garden below, and Clay had stripped off his shirt. The werewolf was rolling his shoulders. Anton’s mouth went dry at the sight.

  “Stop drooling,” Elle said from next to him.

  Anton flicked a glance over at her. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Uh-huh. That’s my wolf, so eyes off.”

  “I’m a married man.”

  “Yeah, but you’re married to Dante.” He thought he heard her add, “Sucks to be you,” but he wasn’t sure.

  “You have any uncontrollable urges to bite me?” Anton asked.

  “Not right now.”

  Anton turned back to the garden below the terrace. Dante was standing there, in his breeches and shirt, jacket gone. He looked almost delicate next to Clay, but that was only because the werewolf was so muscled. Dante wasn’t exactly skin and bones, he was in fact lithely built; he’d seen it before by accident when the vamp had been coming from the bathroom.

  Realizing he was drooling, but over a memory, Anton said, “In case you hadn’t noticed, Dante isn’t exactly a trial to look at either.”

  “He’s creepy,” Elle said. “Hard to find that hot.”

  “You’re going to fight in that?” Clay called to Dante, his voice carrying to Anton.

  The vampire shrugged. He was leaning against an ivy-covered stone wall near the side of the garden. Dante crossed his arms. “I don’t need to strip off to fight. Or did you want this to have a happy ending?”

  Anton’s jaw dropped. He’d never heard Dante speak like that before. Out the corner of his eye, he saw that Elle wore the same expression. Then she turned a slight greenish hue.

  “You fucking wish. Fight or not?” Clay called.

  Quick as a flash, Dante moved to stand in the middle of the courtyard.

  Chapter 49

  Dante wondered what had gotten into him. He was outside, without a jacket—something the Countess Maerylina would have fits about—and was preparing to have a fight with a werewolf. And not just any werewolf. Dante could tell an old dog when he saw one, which meant that Clay would be stronger than him. Maybe even faster, although he wasn’t sure about that. Dante was really fast.

  “You don’t have to do this,” Anton called.

  Shaking his head, Dante looked up onto the terrace. “Thought I told you to wait inside.”

  “Aww, is the baron being a bad wifey?” Elle snorted.

  Dante frowned. Actually, Anton was being a rather good husband. Surprisingly so. No stakes, no anger, just acceptance. Even about Dante’s lack of…needs.

  “Keep your teeth to yourself while we’re busy,” Dante said to Elle.

  Clay paused his fist cracking to add, “Don’t bite him!” Then the werewolf turned to Dante. “You ready to fight or you going to just stand there and daydream?”

  Dante blinked. Warm sunshine drifted down over him, and the strong floral scent of the garden wound around him. Maybe he should spend more time out here. When he wasn’t about to get beaten up. Although, he was hoping to avoid that.

  Better get this over with, he thought. Quicker than the time it took to blink, Dante was behind Clay, poking him in the back with a finger. “Too slow.”

  Clay spun around, but Dante was gone. He’d never really been able to enjoy this; his speed, his senses. To his father, anything that marked him as different had meant that he was “delicate.” Although how being super fast was fragile, Dante didn’t know.

  He could hear the whoosh of air as Clay lunged for him, so Dante ran. He was in another spot by the time Clay arrived. But Clay was fast, Dante realized. Really fast. The wolf had only just missed him.

  A shout from the terrace reached them—“Go Clay!”—and it distracted him for a moment. Next thing he knew, he was being thrown back against the garden wall. Stone crumbled behind him, and a bone broke.

  Elle yelped.

  “No biting!” Dante and Clay yelled at her.

  Clay was in his face in the next second, yellow eyes glowing, teeth bared. He wrapped a hand around Dante’s throat and squeezed before letting go. “Pay attention, leech.”

  Dante hissed in a breath as his shoulder blade began to knit itself together again. Then Dante was gone; he ran through the sweet-smelling garden until he was standing on the other side of the terrace. “Come get me, dog.”

  He landed a few punches here and there, but mostly, Clay chased, Dante ran. Dante hit, Clay chased. It was a game of cat and mouse, with very few hits landed. It was almost…fun.

  Dante leaped over a stone wall and heard Clay curse and follow. “We’re meant to be fighting, leech.”

  “Gotta catch me first,” Dante yelled over his now-healed shoulder.

  “Enough!” Anton’s voice thundered through the courtyard.

  Dante stopped, Clay slamming into his back, both of them spinning to the ground in a cloud of torn flowers and dust. He landed against the roots of a woody honeysuckle vine. Thankfully, he thought, it wasn’t the rose bush, or Dante’s life may have been in danger.

  Winded, Dante tried to suck air in through resisting lungs. “Get off,” he hissed at Clay, who hadn’t moved.

  “Slight problem here,” Clay said.

  Craning his neck at an awkward angle, he saw and smelled blood dripping from a cut. Which was odd. Frowning, Dante tried to get a better look and then understood why he couldn’t. Elle was lying on top of Clay.

  “What the—?” Dante gasped.

  “Elle, get your teeth out of my neck,” Clay snapped.

  Ahh, the dripping blood. Elle was biting Clay. Dante wheezed a laugh.

  “Shut up,” Clay said. “Elle, if you don’t stop now, I’m going to stop you. You won’t like it.”

  Dante wondered why Elle had launched herself on them in the first place. Clay must have been cut at some point.

  She’s fast, Dante realized. For her to have made it here when they spilled to the ground… Almost as fast as me.

  Anton’s voice was cold as it said, “Eleanor Greystoke, remove your fangs from your fiancé this instant.”

  “Get Anton away from here,” Dante hissed.

  “Little busy. I don’t think she’ll bite him since she’s got her fangs in me,” Clay said.

  Dante shut his eyes then opened them to find Anton’s boots and cane planted on the ground in front of Dante’s face. At least they hadn’t landed on his head. Anton set the cane against the crumpled honeysuckle and then grabbed the back of Elle’s neck, like she was a naughty kitten.

  Elle hissed.

  “Do not make me pick you up,” Anton said.

  Clay grunted, then heaved himself up. Not before he shoved a hand on Dante’s back and used it to lever himself upright. Dante could barely breathe.

  A second later, the weight had lifted off Dante and he managed to draw in a proper breath. Sitting up, Dante turned and saw Clay standing, wearing a rather thunderous frown, while he pried Elle from his neck. Anton reached over and picked up his cane.

  “Elle.”

  Something about Clay’s voice seemed to penetrate her haze, and she let go. She stared at Clay’s neck for a few seconds, hunger warping her
face, before a warm tint spread up her neck and into her cheeks. She wiped her mouth with the back of her sleeve. “I’m sorry,” she muttered.

  “Did you drink the pig’s blood I left for you this morning?” Clay demanded.

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “It tastes bad.”

  Dante had to screw his face up in sympathy. It did taste bad. In comparison. But most vampires never noticed the difference. He’d figured once again it was due to his “sensitivity.” Looked like Elle had inherited that, too. But he was also living on pig’s blood at the moment. He hadn’t wanted to drink from any of the servants, didn’t want to risk making them bit-ridden.

  “I don’t mind you drinking from me if you absolutely have to; better me than the countess or Darla,” Clay said. “But you were putting their lives in danger by not drinking what I left for you. What if the leech here hadn’t stopped you? Maybe it was your ass I should have been kicking, rather than his.”

  Dante hauled himself to his feet. Now he was going to have to drink more of that awful stuff as well, to make up for the healing his body had just done.

  He heard Anton come to stand beside him. The gentle scent of the human’s aftershave wreathed in the air around him, adding to the garden’s fragrance. Dante flicked a glance at him, but part of him was fascinated by the argument unfolding in front of him.

  “They don’t sound so lover-like, huh?” Anton said.

  Dante shook his head. Clay had squared off against Elle and they were standing almost nose to nose, growling at each other. “You’re not the boss of me. I can make my own choices,” Elle almost hissed.

  “Bad ones,” Clay snapped back.

  “How did Elle manage to get the drop on you when she arrived here? You know, that first day,” Anton asked Dante.

  Dante turned to look at his husband and frowned. “I thought it wouldn’t be polite to fight back. And she surprised me.”

  It had been a bit embarrassing, Elle flattening him that first day. But she was fast as well. And she’d been trained as a guard before he’d Chosen her. Add her previous knowledge, body’s fitness and his blood, and it seemed you got a very quick vampire.

  Anton’s lips were thinned and he looked fatigued. Dante quickly glanced down at the hand that was holding the cane and saw it was white-knuckled. Again. Humans shouldn’t be allowed to get too tired, he thought. That had been one of the lessons he’d learned. “Come on, let’s go inside. They can argue out here without us.”

  Grabbing the arm that was cane-free, Dante led Anton up the porch steps and back inside to the drawing room. Beatrice wasn’t there, which was probably a good thing right now. He forced Anton to sit on a chair in the delicate pink-tinged room, and then rang the bell for a servant.

  “Do you want a drink?”

  Anton grunted.

  When the servant arrived, Dante asked for a decanter of brandy and a pitcher of pig’s blood. The servant tried to keep the disgust from their face, but even Dante noticed it. In fact, Dante thought, he was generally improving on reading expressions. He’d try to work out why later.

  “Mother will have a heart attack if she sees you sitting on her furniture in clothes like that,” Anton said.

  Dante looked down at himself and noticed he was covered in mud and scratches. “Do you mean literally or figuratively?” Dante asked.

  “Figuratively. Probably.”

  He rang the bell for another servant and sent them off for a rug, so he could throw it over the chair. He couldn’t be bothered getting changed. He had to do that too many times a day as it was. Breakfast clothing, lunch clothing, dinner clothing, going-out clothing. It was all too much.

  Anton sat and Dante stood in silence until the servant returned with the rug, which Dante arranged on the chaise next to Anton. Another servant arrived shortly after, bringing the alcohol and the blood.

  “Thank you, Amy,” Anton said.

  Dante blinked. After the servant was gone, he asked, “How do you tell them apart?”

  Anton poured some brandy into a tumbler. “What?”

  “How do you tell them apart? The servants? They all look the same.” Dante picked up the black glass he’d been given and poured blood into it. Obviously the servants assumed that his drinking blood would be off-putting for the humans. He hadn’t thought of that before. Anton had a clear crystal tumbler.

  “Servants or humans?”

  “Both, I guess. Although some humans stand out.” Dante took a sip. They’d warmed it. It didn’t taste half so horrible as a result.

  “Good thing you know what address to come home to then,” Anton said.

  Dante thought he was being sarcastic. “I can tell you and your family apart from everyone else.”

  “How lucky for us.”

  Now that was definitely sarcasm.

  “Why are you annoyed?” He figured that was a safe question.

  Anton put his now empty glass down on the silver tray that it had been brought in on.

  “Why do you think?”

  Dante thought fast. “Because I had a fight with Clay? We didn’t really hurt each other.”

  “Guess again.”

  Dante shrugged and downed the rest of his beverage. “I don’t know.”

  Anton opened his mouth, but Elle and Clay stormed into the room just then.

  “Fine!” Elle snarled.

  “I just want you to make sure you don’t get too hungry. You can’t put the Greystokes at risk—or Emmie.”

  Dante wondered who Emmie was. “Is Emmie a servant?” he asked Anton.

  Anton glanced at him. “Not that I know of.”

  “Fine. Get me some of that muck.” Elle plopped down onto a chair and folded her arms. Dante was about to tell her not to dirty the cushions, but didn’t manage to slip a word in between the rising domestic feud.

  “You need more now? After you tried to suck me dry?” Clay looked incredulous.

  Elle rolled her eyes. “Prevention, idiot.”

  “You shouldn’t sit on the chair, you’re dirty,” Dante said quickly.

  “You!” Elle pointed a finger at him.

  He looked around, but her finger was aimed firmly in his direction. “Me?”

  “This is all your fault.”

  He couldn’t really deny that.

  “Will everyone just shut up!”

  They all turned to stare at Anton. His face was white and he was massaging the muscles in his bad leg. His human really wasn’t doing very well, Dante gathered. He reached over and went to massage the limb for him, but Anton slapped his hand away.

  “I can do it myself.” Anton glared at him.

  “Not hard enough,” Dante returned.

  Elle snickered.

  “What?” Dante snapped at her, surprising himself. He never snapped. Well, rarely. Only lately.

  “Nothing,” she said with a close-mouthed smile.

  Dante turned back to Anton. “You are in pain, let me help you.”

  “Why do you insist on this?” Anton said, voice low.

  “It’s my job to help you,” Dante said, confused.

  “Job.”

  “Yes?”

  “Fine, but don’t do it in public. Leave me some dignity.”

  Dante frowned, trying to work out what Anton wasn’t saying, because he was sure there was a message there.

  “It makes him horny, you idiot.”

  “What?” Dante turned to Elle.

  “I didn’t say anything,” she said, but her face was whiter than normal.

  “Yes, you did. I heard you.”

  “No, she didn’t,” Anton and Clay said.

  “I heard her, she said…” Dante grasped he probably shouldn’t repeat it. Not if it would make Anton uncomfortable, which he assumed it would. “She said something,” he finished lamely.

  “What did I say?” Elle demanded.

  “I don’t want to repeat it,” Dante said.

  “We all would have heard it then, if I said it,”
Elle said. She looked smug.

  Dante shook his head. “I heard you say it, loud and clear. It was your voice.”

  “You imagined it,” Elle insisted.

  “No, it’s not something I would have thought of.”

  Elle’s face had a pinched expression. “You just imagined it. Let’s move on.”

  Cornered, not wanting to appear like he was deranged, he said, “You said it makes him horny when I massage his leg.”

  A gasp, a choking sound and a chuckle emerged. The laugh was from Clay. Dante guessed Elle was the gasper, since Anton was still choking.

  Clutching his brandy tumbler, Anton edged toward the end of the seat; almost climbing onto the arm of the chair to get away from him. For some reason, Dante found that he didn’t like that.

  “I did not say that out loud,” Elle muttered.

  “But you did say it, or thought it. I heard it,” Dante insisted.

  Elle looked at Clay, then at Dante.

  “Aww, shit.”

  Chapter 50

  Elle had managed to put her foot in it this time. With a royal-sized shoe covered in horse shit.

  “I’m sorry, I’m not following,” Anton said.

  The four of them were still seated in the Rose drawing room, and Elle realized belatedly that the servants were probably going to have to scrub the seat she was sitting on. When she’d lost control and jumped Clay—he’d been cut and then she’d been there in a flash, mouth fastened, teeth biting, biting, biting—she’d managed to get herself covered in dirt and blood. She hated making a mess that other people would have to clean up. When would she learn? Her mother had been fussy about this stuff, as well.

  “I think that Elle thought it and I heard it,” Dante said.

  Elle felt her jaw fall open, and noticed Clay’s had done the same. How had Dante managed to deduce that from their conversation?

  Dante swung his violet stare to her, and seemed to answer her thought. “I spent a number of years trying to work out why you people were different. I had a lot of theories. Psychic powers were in the top three.”

  “You heard that, too?” she asked Dante. She turned to Clay. “I’m not even thinking at him like I have to for you.”