“No, Antony. He wasn’t a dick.” She wiped at the tears that slipped down her cheeks with the back of her hand.
“Did you choose him? Is that why you’re crying?”
“I don’t want to talk about this anymore.” Marchessa just wanted to hold those moments close to her heart. If Cassius wanted him to have those memories, he’d have given them to him.
“How is Armand?” Last thing she knew, he’d been injured.
“He wants to see you when you’re up for it.”
“He does? Let’s go now.” As soon as she’d discovered he was Antony’s son, she’d wondered how he felt about her, an interloper. If she’d somehow tarnished his mother’s memory. Or if he felt she was encroaching on territory that wasn’t meant for her.
“You’ve been so ill, let me carry you.”
“No. I’ll walk.” She tried to stand and for two whole seconds, it was glorious. Then her head spun. “Okay, maybe you can carry me.”
“Thank you for being sensible.”
“I just don’t want your pack to see me as weak.”
“Trust me when I say they would never think that. You fought off silver poisoning from a new weapon that should’ve dissolved you to ash. You’re already a legend.”
“Antony, what are we going to do?” she whispered into his neck.
This was one instance where she wanted him to tell her that he had all the answers. That he’d make it better. Because he was the Alpha and he said so.
“Everything will be fine, Marchessa.”
The way he said it, she believed him. Not just because she wanted to, but because she knew he had that kind of power.
“You saved me,” he added. “I can do no less for you.”
Tell him. Tell him you choose him. Make it final. Make it forever. But she couldn’t find the words. They were ash and dust.
He carried her from the cottage up to the main building. She hadn’t decided if it was a villa or a castle. It was this huge stone beast that rose up imposing and fierce. But it was beautiful. It had wide open gardens, lots of outdoor living spaces, and open airy indoor spaces. There was a pool that ran the length, designed to look like a rushing stream.
People, his people—now her people—stopped to watch as he carried her towards his son’s sick room. The Rommulus stared at her and she was suddenly very self-conscious about her hair, her face, and most especially the silver of her nails and the silver in her mouth. Her instincts were to smile, but she didn’t want to bare all of her silver teeth at them.
It looked like she was going to end up a rogue anyway. His pack would never accept her.
And she would never ask him to choose.
Damn it, but doing the right thing sucked.
He finally stopped before a set of double doors and two guards opened the doors to allow them to pass.
Armand was in the interior, propped up against the headboard and she gasped when she saw him.
He’d gotten the very worst of that deal. His handsome face bore the ravages of claws. Like what had happened to Blake’s uncle, Warner Woolven. A slash to the face. But Armand had gotten a double dose. Ten open gashes seeped and it seemed they’d become infected.
The pain and misery on his face twisted her heart.
That was when she raged, snarling. Her fury gave her strength.
Antony eased her down to her feet and she stood, bolstered by her anger at what had been done to him.
“I need to talk to her alone, Father.”
“Armand, I—”
“Alone.”
Armand would make a fine Alpha some day. She wondered if Antony would give him permission to found his own pack. If he lived through this.
Antony nodded to her. “Are you okay to do this?”
“Yes. Why wouldn’t I be? Armand will take care of me.”
“If she says yes, you call me back here, do you understand?”
“Yes,” Armand agreed, steel in his tone.
Antony backed out of the room and gave them some privacy.
She studied the male on the bed. His golden hair, his silver eyes, and the gaping wounds on his face.
“I thought he told me you were okay.” What was it that he was going to ask her that required such secrecy? And such sadness.
“We thought I was, until I didn’t heal.” He reached forward and took her hand.
“Wait, don’t…”
“No, I need to see.” He inspected her fingers.
A kind of shame welled inside of her. This wasn’t her fault, but she felt like she was toxic to everything she’d come to care for. She thought that maybe she understood a bit of what Antony felt.
“They were like this. Her hands.”
“Her?”
“My father thinks it’s the fever talking. But it was her. Carolina. She did this to me. Now I have silver poisoning and I don’t think I’m going to make it like you did.”
“There has to be something we can do!” Her voice had become a growl and reverberated through the whole room with the kind of power only an Alpha male could command.
He didn’t shrink away, but the surprise showed on his face. “There is. You need to bite me.”
If she says yes, call me back…
Antony might have to hold his son while he died.
The same as he held Carolina.
The same as he’d thought he done with her.
“I can’t do that.” She couldn’t put him through that again.
“Yes, you can. Your venom is different now. You’re what she is.”
“So why do you think that’s going to help you?”
“You can make me what you are.”
“Why would you want that?”
“So I can live. I don’t want to die. Will I take being a breathing outcast with the power to end any wolf who challenges me right at my fingertips? Or would I rather be dead? No. I haven’t had near long enough.”
“What if it doesn’t take? What if it just kills you?”
“I’m already silver poisoned, Marchessa. It would be a kindness. Let me show you.” Armand closed his eyes and breathed.
Shadows fell across the room in thick, squirming waves and slowly, she could see that his wounds were deeper than he’d originally shown her. They were putrid, rotting. His body was decaying while he still lived.
She brought her hand to cover her mouth and she closed her eyes. Marchessa couldn’t bear to look.
“So you see, your bite is my last hope. You’ve taken my father’s venom, and developed an antibody for silver, and made it all your own. That will be in your venom. If it doesn’t kill me, it will heal me.”
“And if it does kill you? How am I supposed to look your father in the face? How am I supposed to live with that?”
“That’s why you can say no. But if you do say no, there’s no maybe about it. I will die.”
She sank down on the edge of the bed. “You said the woman who attacked you, that she had hands like mine?”
“Yes.”
“Did she know you?”
“Oh yes. She called me by name and said this was a message for my father. That she was coming for him.”
He’d loved Carolina. If she was alive… If she was alive, the fucker had just tried to murder Antony’s son. He wouldn’t forgive that. Nor should he.
“I don’t want to hurt you,” she said finally.
“I don’t want to die.”
His words weren’t impassioned, they were just matter-of-fact. He faced this with such bravery, how could she do any less.
All of her talk about being an Alpha bitch it was time to put up or shut up. “Yes, I’ll do it.”
“Send for my father,” he called out, his voice carrying with authority that no male on his deathbed should be capable of. At her expression, he added, “My mother was a witch. That wasn’t all me.”
She smiled. Oh hell, what was she going to do if he died?
“You’ll do it?” Antony asked.
“Yes.”
/>
He wasn’t shy about pulling his son into his arms and holding him tightly.
“Do it now,” Armand directed.
She dug deep, but found her wolf at the ready and waiting to respond to her commands. For a moment, she’d feared the silver had killed her wolf, or maimed it somehow. But it hadn’t. She was as loud and strong as ever, maybe more so.
Marchessa wondered if her flesh would smoke as she Turned? If the silver in her body would try to end her.
But it didn’t.
It was part of her now.
As she partially transformed, strength infusing her from the change, she bent forward and bit his neck.
The taste of charred meat filled her mouth and twisted her guts.
She jerked back and realized he was screaming.
It was the most terrible sound she’d ever heard, some strange explosion of pain combined with the sad sound of a howl.
She watched as Antony held his son while he spasmed, kept him from breaking his own bones as he thrashed and tore at his father’s flesh with his claws. His body jerked until finally, his mouth opened and his eyes went wide and his heart stopped.
He fell still and silent.
Horror dawned slow and terrible on Marchessa, threatening to pull her down to the dark. Antony held his son close and sang some child’s song to him in Italian.
If her heart kept breaking like this, she’d never get all the pieces to fit back together.
She wondered how Antony did it. How he’d lost so much and still had the courage to ever love anyone again.
Then, something happened.
Something unexpected.
As the glamor fell away and the true extent of his wounds were revealed, they began to fill with silver as they knitted back together. It was a wondrous awful sight, seeing flesh and fascia rebuild and the hard scars fill with metal.
Armand spasmed again, his mouth open wide and his teeth elongating to silver daggers. His hands, his nails, they were suddenly like hers and he drew in a deep, shuddering breath.
His hair turned to a black, inky shadow and when he opened his eyes, there was no pupil, no iris, only silver.
She’d done that to him.
But it had healed all that was wounded, all that was broken. All that was killing him.
“The light,” he hissed. “It burns my eyes.”
They wrapped a blanket around him and Antony didn’t let go. “My son, my son,” he kept muttering.
Marchessa could only see the bottom half of his face, but Armand mouthed, “Carolina.”
If the bitch wasn’t dead, Marchessa was going to kill her.
Chapter Eight
News of Marchessa’s and Armand’s transformation was kept quiet on Roluscany. They all agreed it would start a kind of panic. If there were wolves who were immune to silver, it gave them a distinct advantage over those who were not. Antony feared that the sheer numbers of those who wanted the gift for themselves would start a war.
Marchessa agreed that it was important to keep the peace as long as was possible. She wouldn’t hide forever, but if she could hide long enough to draw Carolina out of hiding, if it was in fact her.
But it made sense.
If she had silver in her bloodstream as well as Antony’s venom, why couldn’t the same thing have happened to her that happened to Marchessa?
Marchessa wanted to believe she was special, that she was an Alpha bitch worthy of forever with a wolf like Antony, but maybe Carolina had been, too. She didn’t like that thought, but liking or not liking didn’t change facts. So she had to be open to the possibility.
She was convinced that Carolina was on Roluscany.
She’d gone to ground and needed to be found.
And put down like the rabid mutt she was.
Marchessa met Armand outside the cottage in the lemon orchard to discuss their plans since Antony refused to believe what they’d said about Carolina. She understood that he needed more proof. Digging into old scars was hard, but again, not liking it didn’t make it any less necessary.
“Luc Ardennes wants to meet on the mainland. He heard what happened to me.” Armand rolled his eyes and they glinted bright under the halo of the full moon that hung fat and happy in the night sky.
“What did Antony say to the meet?” She didn’t like where this was going.
“He doesn’t know. I intercepted the message.”
“You know you’re undermining his Alpha status, right?” She couldn’t help but point that out because whether Armand knew it or not, that’s what he was doing.
“I’m just taking care of his light work.”
“No, you’re not. You’re an Alpha, Armand.” As if he didn’t know that. Maybe he didn’t, maybe he’d pushed it down so far that he’d forgotten.
“I’m not ready to leave and never return to Roluscany. If I start my own pack, my own line, I can never come home. This is my home.”
“Then I guess you better stomp that Alpha down some more and keep him quiet.” Marchessa truly felt bad for him, trying to deny his nature to match his choices.
“I’m really not trying to undermine him. I just know that if this really is Carolina, he shouldn’t have to face that. He may be my Alpha, but he’s my father.”
Marchessa’s heart softened. She understood where he was coming from and his intentions.
“You didn’t see him after she died. I thought it was the end for him. So did he. He started grooming me to take over. I wasn’t ready then. I’m not ready now. I don’t want to lead Rommulus. I just don’t want him to be in pain.”
“Me either. But her? Her I want in pain. I’m ready to put this bitch down. She could’ve come to him in all of these years. She could’ve eased his burden. But she chose not to. Then she tried to kill you? She’s obviously working with whoever was behind the attempt on Antony’s life. She deserves every ounce of pain we can give her,” Marchessa snarled.
“Do you have a plan?”
“We need to draw her out. While Antony is at the meet.” She was fairly drooling at the idea of knocking this female for a loop.
“The meet has to be a setup. Another attempt on his life.”
“He’ll be able to take care of himself.” Marchessa nodded. “But maybe, maybe if someone else just happened to be in Positano.”
“Someone like Woolven? It’s their tech. I think they’d want to know if it was in the hands of hunters.”
“I think so too. I’m sure Blake isn’t interested in hearing from me, but he might want to know about that. He’s got a little human he’s been playing with.”
“I hear that it was her father who designed this technology.”
“Oh, really? That’s interesting. For Woolven or for Breslin?”
“The verdict is still out on that.” He looked up at the sky and then back at her. “Marchessa, there’s been some whispers that Vittorio ordered her father’s death. That’s how they got the tech.”
She sighed. “I wouldn’t doubt it. He’d do anything to win this stupid war with Woolven.”
“Even turn on his own?”
“Yes.” Marchessa hated that she didn’t hesitate to answer that in the affirmative. She wanted to think well of her sire, but it just wasn’t possible. She knew what he was capable of.
“Okay. I’ll get the message to my father. You get in touch with Woolven. And then we’ll—”
The presence in the orchard grove changed. It was suddenly heavy, oppressive and filled with the cold, silent fury of an Alpha.
“Betray me?” Antony asked quietly.
“No one is betraying you,” Marchessa said.
“Oh? You weren’t planning on lying to me?” He cocked his head to the side and standing there, even in this moment, he was beautiful. “A lie of omission is still a lie.”
Marchessa lifted her chin, even though Armand looked down at the ground to show his subservience. “You don’t say, Antony Cassius Rommulus?” She supposed she shouldn’t have thrown that back in his face.
“That is most assuredly different.”
“It is,” she agreed. “You did that for your own benefit and I’m doing this for yours.”
“That’s not your place or Armand’s place to decide. It’s mine.”
“No, it’s not,” she argued. “Why did you choose an Alpha female if you didn’t want to be a partner?”
“I could say the same of you, Marchessa. Why didn’t you trust me enough that if you told me your plan, I wouldn’t see the wisdom in it? That’s you not believing in me or trusting me.”
“Can you blame me? You lied to me, Antony.”
He sighed and turned to his son. “I see you meeting my mate in the lemon grove. What do you think that looks like to the rest of the pack.”
“I didn’t… I wouldn’t.”
“I know that. But being an Alpha is as much about appearances as it is truth. After I kill Ardennes, you will take over his pack.”
“No!” Armand cried.
“Yes. Your mother was an Ardennes witch. You are of the bloodline.”
“Roluscany is my home.”
Marchessa’s heart broke for him.
“Of your childhood. You are an Alpha. Have been for a long time. The greenhouse is full of a thousand sapling lemon trees. You will take them with you.”
“Don’t send me away, Father. Whip me. Punish me. But don’t make me leave you and Roluscany.”
Antony squared his jaw, his hand hovering above his son’s shoulder. When it fell to touch him, the words that followed were like a hammer. “Then challenge me for the right for Rommulus.”
“No. NO.”
“It’s past time. I love you, my son. I’m proud of you. I’d keep you with me always if I could. But that wouldn’t be doing you any service. Leadership is in your blood. Become who and what you were meant to be. The wolf nation needs you. It’s your duty to serve. If the Ardennes pack falls to anarchy, it’s bad for everyone.”
Armand said nothing. He nodded silently and strode back up to the villa.
Antony sagged. “I almost lost him. Only to send him away.”
“Why won’t you let him come back? Does this mean you won’t ever see him again?” She touched his arm.
“Not for some time. He needs time to grow into his power. To become the leader he was meant to be without any interference from me. The Ardennes need to know that I’m not their Alpha. His power doesn’t come from me. It comes from him. I can only hope that he’ll take the lemon trees, plant them, and know I love him.”
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