Keeping my head held up high I walked with my shoulders back as I made my way to his table. I looked like someone you didn’t want to mess with as I walked with an air of confidence. My eyes shot straight to Dante’s as he was giving me a strange look and I’ll be damned if it didn’t make my heart pound for him. it was such a different look he was giving me as it was a mixture of respect and dare, I say affection?
An emotion I through was entirely impossible for him to feel. The way he smiled at me added a different edge to his eyes as it made me feel powerful and sexy at the same time. But then I remember how angry and annoyed I was at him, so I shut down my facial features leaving a blank look.
He didn’t like this as he frowned hard before his eyes lost the light. A wave of sadness hit me as I had already missed the way they shined just for me… But it was time to be strong and steel myself for what’s to come in the coming days.
“Belle, your looking rather eatable tonight” Dante said in a flat tone. Dressed in the club shirt with a few buttons undone and a pair skinny quarter length. I wouldn’t say I had dressed to impress but I did want to make a statement as I added in a golden tie which hang between my breasts.
“Thanks” I said as I walked around the table placing both the bottles in front of Dante. I was going to make a quick exit until he snagged his arm around me and dragged me into his lap.
“Is that anyway to greet me…?” He hummed as a few low chuckles rang around the table.
I had to bite my tongue from what I really wanted to say and instead opted for a different reply “I’m working” Truth.
His eyes narrowed as he noticed how stiff my body was. “Belle” He warned as I refuse to look away from his intense eyes.
“Yes Dante” I said dragging his name out.
“Something is different about you tonight and I can’t put my finger on it” He whispers over my skin.
“Did you want to have a conversation? Or did you want to stamp your claim on me? Because you have already done that permanently I might add” I said in a bitter tone letting it slip that I was pissed at him. Guess I should never go into playing poker.
Fast like a snake he wraps his black metallic hand around my neck before forcing it to the side. “Care to tell me what this disrespect or disobedience is about?” He growls low making everyone around us tense in fear.
“Don’t be controlling or possessive it doesn’t suit you”
Surprise enters his eyes, but he masks it before anyone can see “I will say this once, careful what you say and do when you’re at my table” A silent threat that I purposely ignore.
“If you were a king them maybe I would listen, but you are not. And even if you were, you are not my king” I sneered out. Before he could reply I grabbed his head and pulled him down for brutal kiss that burned. I needed to distract him before I could make my exit and what better way than to do it with a steamy kiss that curled my toes and had him groaning into my mouth.
I pulled back to a stunned man who had to do a double check on me. I gave him a saucy smile before taking my leave. It was easy to do as I had taken him by surprise as I initiated it, which was a first for me. I mentally patted myself on the back as I left him lost for words before swaying my hips.
It wasn’t fair the effect he had on me when I was near him as I wanted to melt into a puddle of goo. Yet with space between us I started to hate him for the lies and deceit he had wrapped me in. He could build a giant spiders web with the amount of lies he told. But such is the way of Fae which I wouldn’t have minded however, he knew how different I was from my own kin.
I through I had made it back to the safety of behind the bar until Kyle pointed behind me. I let out a groan of annoyance before turning around. I was about to curse the person behind me as they grabbed my side until I saw him.
“Isabella?” He asked in a silky voiced that washed over me. Past emotions raised up in me, but they were weak compared to what I regretfully felt for Dante.
“Blue?” I said as faded images flash before my eyes. He may have recognised me, but I didn’t know him. I know I should have as he looked at me with such love and sorrow. I felt bad as I didn’t recuperate his feeling.
“I have been searching for you for so long Izzy, I through you was dead. I did everything I could. I filled out a missing person’s report and even hired a few personal detectives, but no one could find you. To think all this time, you had been in Oxford. You could have called to let me know you was alright” there was so much hurt in his voice as his unique eyes showed how heart-broken he was. One was an emerald colour while the other was a sapphire colour. He had such a gently looking face with a slightly crooked nose and fully soft lips. He was very tall as he dwarfed me in size with well-built muscle and bronze skin.
To think the past me had him all to myself yet I don’t feel any attraction or chemistry between us.
“Bella is this man bothering you?” Ty said as he still hadn’t removed his soft hands from my waist, yet I didn’t pull away. I wanted to know what he knew about me but now wasn’t the time or place.
“No Ty were fine” I said over my shoulder. I nodded my head to let him know I was fine as he didn’t look convinced.
“Belle?” He questioned.
“I think there is-“
Blue was roughly sent flying off of me as Dante throw him across the room. “You dare put your hands on my property” He bellowed out.
“Touch me again and you will regret that filth” A hushed silent swept through the room as Blue stood up to Dante.
Dante cracks his neck from side to side as a dangerous glint enters his eyes “I’m going to eye skinning you alive and making a rug out of your hide” He threatens.
I can’t let him kill Blue as it isn’t his fault as he doesn’t know. So, what do I do? I do something irrational and complete suicidal as I jumped between them before they get a chance to hit each other.
“ENOUGH” I scream out as I place my hands on both of their chests before pushing them. I look at them both before I am roughly man handled as Dante pushes me behind him. Whether its done in a protective gesture or annoyance I never know as Blue had swung the first hit. It left a sickening sound as it connected with Dante’s face. I expected him to make a sound as it sounded like it hurt. But as ever with him I am always second guessing him as he just chuckles in dark amusement.
“You have to do better than that to hurt me vermin” He spits out before heading butting him cracking Blues nose as blood spurts out.
“Enough! The pair of you” I try to be the voice of reasoning, but it falls on death ears.
“Silence woman!” He shouts at me with venom lacing his words. “You dare let another man touch you so intimately when you belong to me?”
“Its not like that Dante, his from my past please” I pleaded with him but once more he had cotton in his ears as the words didn’t get through to him.
Fist started flying as Blue goes on the defences as Dante is relentless in his bloody assault. I fear for Blue as each punch Dante lands makes a sickening crunch. I watch on I horror as his tanned skin gets coated in Blues blood. I pull my hair out in frustration as I scream at him to stop as Blue falls to the floor. I pray his not dead as my body kicks into overdrive with the need to protect him.
“Dante stop” I jump on his back to prevent him from doing any more damage as I hang onto him. For once the roles are reversed as I wrap my arms around Dante trying to stop him from giving to final blow.
“Is this how it is Belle? You choose him” He snarled as he halted his attack to listen to my answer.
“No Dante” I said in a broken voice. “When someone from my forgotten past walks right up to me and calls me by a different name. How would you react when it turns out that they cared so much for you that they had searched for you over the last five years? Even if it meant wasting time and money on a search that seems hopeless, one that yielded no results as every stone was turned? Do I not deserve to know? Do we both, not deserve the
closure we both clearly need as look at him. He is not a man who has come to take what you clearly think is yours but to defend someone he truly cares about” My words seemed to have an effect on Dante as he looked through narrow eyes on Blue. But his eyes were filled full of hurt and pain as I watched all his emotions play out. I could see the love he held for me as I watched his heart break with sorrow.
Whatever he saw in my eyes gave him to strength to move away from Dante before using the bar to stand up. My eyes filled with unshed tears as I take in the state of him. His left eye is swollen as it is already turning purple, a cheek below his right eye seeps with blood as it runs down his handsome face, a busted lip that has begun to swell as blood pours freely from his nose. He looks terrible as he struggles to stand.
Dante shrugs me off as I almost fall to the floor, its lucky I have quick reflexes as I land on my feet.
“If you ever get try and stop me again Belle- “
“Don’t fucking finishes that sentence as there is a lot you owe me. But tonight, isn’t that night to get into it” I snap out.
“You know?”
“Oh yes Dante I do, and I know more than you think!”
“Belle-“He says in a soft tone before I cut him off.
“Don’t Belle me Dante. After this has been sorted, me and you will be having a serious fucking conversation as I am not your property. You have never treated me as your fucking equal since we have gotten together! Instead you think you can walk all over me and mould me into that fucking bitch! But guess what”
“Belle calm”
“Don’t fucking tell me to calm down!” I shout as magic waves explode out of me, sending people and objects flying. I think someone even went flying over the banisters … Oops my bad.
I take in the destruction I had caused as nothing was left untouched, the beautifully bar I worked behind has been smashed as liquid pours over the shelfs and bar, tables has been blasted into pieces as people pick themselves up off the ground. Those who are able to stand up scatter off and run for their lives as I take in my glowing skin. It has a silver glow to it as I watch swirls and pattens rise up before fading back it. I literally blinked and they were gone, so was the glow that dulled down before returning back to my normal pale skin.
Guess that’s one way to empty a room when you need privacy.
Dante goes to grab me, but I take a step back in fear he will take this away from me… again.
“Belle, I would never hurt you. Just come to me” He says softly where warmth envelopes me.
Tears slip out from my eyes, ones I never gave permission to fall “Don’t you see Dante? You already have from all the times you had stolen my memories, my power, all the lies you feed me”
“Don’t” He takes a step forward as I take another back.
“If you truly care for me in anyway or even have the slightest emotion for me… then please show it now by telling me everything I need to know.” I don’t need to hear his words as I already know what he will say.
“I can’t”
“Why?! I deserve to know. God Damn it Dante! If you even want this to work or want to keep me then just tell me”
“What is the point in telling you? When in just a few days, you will no longer be the beauty I once knew”
“What the fuck is that supposed to mean”
“You will find out”
“NO, I WON’T” I scream out. I know what I must do as I close the short distance between us. I grab him by the face before giving him one last hot kiss, one that seers right into my brain and brand me with the memory. It’s all consuming as I pour everything into this kiss. One that tells him how much I love him. One that tells him how much he has hurt me, how much I can no longer trust him. But most importantly one that tells him that this is goodbye between us.
As I pull back, I can see his cold mask slip back on, one where his walls shot back up, not that he ever dropped them around me.
“I can’t do this anymore, I’m sorry” I say with tear streaming down my face as were locked in our own world.
“I understand, for I cannot give you want you want but that doesn’t mean I will let you go or leave me for good… I will give you four days to come to terms with this” He says as if it’s a negotiation.
“No Dante. This is goodbye. There will no longer be an us, there never was”
“Why because I don’t love you?” He scoffs as if that’s the problem.
“No because you don’t not give me the respect I deserve. You do not treat me as the equal you should have. Instead you fill my head with lies” he looks at me like a child who needs to be put in the naughty corner. As if that shit ever worked on a child. The filter between my brain and mouth manual functions as I confess my emotions. “I fucking love you Dante. I shouldn’t but I fucking do. I let you walk all over me in hopes that one day you would recuperate the same emotions and intensity I felt for you. But my mind is finally clear as I can see you never will”
“Tell me Belle? Would you still love me if you knew the truth? Would your feeling still stay the same in 5, 10 or even a hundred years?” He pauses for me to answer but I never got a chance as he continued. “What is the point in love when it gives someone else power of you? What is the point when the person you feel anything for ends up changing, becoming someone, you despise as they continue to change?”
“I’m sorry she hurt you so bad that you cannot see what is right in front of you. I’m sorry that she broke your heart and crush it into nothing” I have never truly loathed someone as I loathe this woman that robbed Dante of his heart and me of who I once was.
“Yet here you stand with tears down your face begging to have my heart, but I don’t have one. To love you as you love me. But I will never love you, care for you… yes. Make sure your looked after?... yes, but anything else then no. So, what is the point in loving anyone?”
“Because Dante, it is better to have loved and lost then to never love at all. It’s better to experience it then never experiencing it as you learn from past mistakes and grow as a person. I feel sorry for you as a man you will never understand that feeling, even as the beast you would never understand the drive and motivation behind a person’s emotions. For you think it is a weakness but its not. It gives you strength when you least expect it, it pushes you to be the best person you can be and when you love someone. When you truly love them, it can be the driving force that gives you the future you deserve… but what is the point in telling you this as your nothing but a stone, cold cruel heartless man that will never be anything other than empty, devoid of any emotions”
I begin to walk away as I leave a confused Ty behind the bar, a beat-up Blue who struggles to walk and an emotionless man that will never love me. Blue tries to catch up to me as limps towards me. I slow enough to take his weight as me gives me a smile as a thanks. But I don’t see it as my heart shatters apart as I leave the broken pieces with the man who trampled all over it.
“Four days Belle, then I’m coming for you” Dante says like he didn’t just rip me heart out.
There’s no point arguing back as he isn’t listening to a word I had said.
“I’m warning you Draco, if you even think about stealing her from me. Then I will wipe you and your horde from the face of the earth, hunt you down until your nothing but a myth once more”
Fuck me! Does he want to piss on me as well to mark me? He doesn’t understand that I’m not longer his! Not that I want to jump into another mans bed. But this is taking the piss.
“Thanks for saving me back their Izzy” Blue says once were out of earshot.
“Its ok, but can you please call me Belle?” Its weird hearing a name that should have been familiar.
“You will always be my Izzy even if another man owns your heart. I will always be here for you” Its sweet how he tries to lift my spirt up.
“I’m sorry I don’t remember you” I general am sorry as he seems to be the most sweetest and most caring man I have meet by far. A stark
contest to what I am used to, it’s so foreign but yet its pleasant. His like another Alex.
“It’s ok. Maybe in another life we could meet again” Somehow, I doubt that as my soul is firmly tried to, he who will not be named right now.
“Could you possible, one day tell me about my old life?” I need a distraction and while I feel like I hit rock bottom. I might as well go all the way, that way I can burn this vulnerability and rise stronger than before.
“Sure, if you don’t mind telling me what happened all those years ago”
Lost Girl (Soul Bound Book 1) Page 28