by Emily Bex
He headed up the stairs in search of bel when he heard a beautiful voice, singing a sweet lullaby. He stopped and looked inside the nursery to see Nita rocking Lorenzo in her arms, singing him to sleep. He stood a moment, listening to her song, and was looking at his son when he felt two arms slip around his waist, and Kate’s head leaning against his back. They listened to Nita sing to their son and he knew Lorenzo would always remember this. They’d made a good choice in Nita.
Without warning, he felt Marcello’s pain wash over him. His body stiffened in fear for Marcello as he felt him leave the compound, followed by Aislynn’s voice in his head, telling him what was going on. Shade spun quickly and kissed Kate. "I have to go. It’s Marcello. I will be back as soon as possible."
He teleported inside the barracks where Aislynn filled him in as best she could. He didn’t read the letter, but he knew one thing, Marcello was suffering greatly. He could relate to the warrior’s pain. He followed his senses and teleported out, finding Marcello high in the mountains. He landed near the troubled warrior as he paced in the woods.
“If you were upset, you should have talked to me, Marcello. I know you are in pain over Fiamma. So, let’s talk this out before you do something you regret. Your master is a perfect example of what not to do, si?”
Marcello spun on him, growling in anger. His voice was loud as he shouted at Shade. “I’m in pain over Fee! What did you expect? For me to just pretend it never happened? How can you act like none of it bothers you?”
He stood nose to nose with Shade, venting his anger, almost hoping for an altercation.
Shade let him spill his guts, ignoring the warrior’s blatant disregard of his station. He understood this pain all too well and had a lot more years of experience dealing with it. "Take a deep breath warrior, and step back, because you do not want to test my beast."
Shade watched him turn his back on him and pace. "Marcello, I am hurting as well, we all are. I loved her too. What has you so upset, brother? Talk to me. I know there was a letter."
Marcello sighed heavily. "She was in love with me. I had a feeling about it, but it would have been disastrous if we’d been together and things didn’t work out between us. It’s what you taught us, and I knew that! She did too. But she never told me. Now I wonder if I should have just made the leap. The letter just stirred up a lot of feelings I’ve never addressed."
Shade lit up a smoke and sat down on a large downed tree. "If you didn’t move on the relationship, deep inside, you knew there was a reason, way beyond both of you being warriors, Marcello. I have been in your shoes, except I did go there, twice, once with Adriana, and again with Sabine. Something told me the choice was wrong. My beast kept arguing with me, telling me these females were not my eternal mate. I assume you felt the same. So, you need to stop beating yourself up over that. The beast will know when she comes. He will recognize your mate, Marcello, and he knew Fee was not your mate."
Marcello kept pacing, listening to his master’s words, but his mind was still churning. “Cazzo! I never felt her go down! I should have known she was in trouble! I never knew! How long did she lay there? What if I’d felt it? Could I have gotten to her, saved her somehow? Why the fuck did this happen? She was a damn good warrior. It’s wrong, all wrong!"
Shade took a long drag on the cigarette, letting the wounded warrior vent his anger. This was good, he’d get this out of his system, and only then could he start to heal. "This battle was huge, brother. We were outnumbered, and there was way too much to tackle for any of us to feel the other. When Fee went down, I didn’t feel her either and that bothers me as well. We are here, Marcello…we survived. and I can’t question why. We continue on, keep our species alive. She died doing what she loved, something she was born to do. That’s how I get through it. She died protecting Medici, our coven, and those she loved. And you know as well as I do, she knew she was loved. The letter was what was in her heart. And it’s okay if she loved you. She just wanted you to know it, that’s all. She wanted you to know how much she cared about you. Accept her love. You don’t have to feel a passionate love for her in return to appreciate and acknowledge her love for you. Take it for what it was."
Marcello sat down beside him, taking a cigarette and lighting up. He knew he’d carry her inside him for the rest of his life. Fee wasn’t just another warrior to him, she was his best friend. "I loved her like a sister. She was my sidekick. Hell, we spent so much time together. And what the hell, she isn’t dead long, and you’ve got Aislynn taking her room and her position? It feels like everyone is just moving on, like nothing happened! It just fucking hurts!"
Shade threw his arm around his shoulder. "Marcello, I am master here, I take care of many. I need to keep all of us protected. I did not blow it off. How in the hell do you blow off that raving redhead? I never saw anything like her. I doubt we ever will again. That’s what made her special. I will always keep her in my heart, but I can’t leave positions unfilled. There are jobs to be done here. Give Aislynn a chance. She is a good warrior too. She trained with Fiamma and you know Fiamma would be the first to champion her. Fiamma lives in the spirit realm, Marcello, and she is legend now. And if I know Fiamma, she won’t let either one of our sorry asses alone. Her spirit will probably haunt us both."
Marcello smiled at that remark. He couldn’t help it, and it was the truth. "She knew how to keep our asses’ inline, that’s for sure. I’m sorry for blowing up. But I didn’t know where to go with all this inside me. I never lost someone I loved and cared about so much."
Shade gave Marcello a hug. "No need for apologies. It hurts, it’s supposed to hurt. I wish I could tell you she will be the last, but there will be more you love and care about that you lose. It’s our life. We won’t ever forget her. She is forever in our hearts. Now come on, let’s get back home."
The two of them returned back to the camp. Shade knew Marcello would be okay with time. And Marcello would learn what every warrior was forced to learn—how to keep the lost ones in his heart, and how to be a better warrior for knowing them.
146
Walking back into the house, Shade looked down at his muddy boots and the trail of mud he’d left behind him. "Damn!"
He unlaced the boots and kicked them off. Running up the stairs in his stocking feet, he remembered how much he hated this cold weather. Going into the bedroom, he started rummaging for a sweater, anything to keep him warm, when he heard Kate come into the room. He stopped digging through the drawer as he smiled at her. "Lorenzo asleep?"
She looked at him with amusement. "He is. Can I help you find something? Where are your boots?"
"Boots? Oh, downstairs. They were muddy, I was up on the mountain with Marcello, and now I am cold! Is there a sweater someplace in this armoire?" Throwing his hands up in frustration, he grumbled, "You know I can never find any damn thing!"
She smiled and slipped in front of him, pulling a sweater from the drawer. “Wear this one…the blue brings out your eyes. Is Marcello okay?"
"Ah si, sweater!" Kissing her quickly, he shrugged out of his jacket and stripped off the tee shirt, slipping the sweater over his head, pulling it down over his washboard abs. He pulled her into his arms and sighed. "Marcello will be fine. He is better than he was a few hours ago, that is for sure. He has a lot on his mind right now, mainly Fiamma."
Kate laid her head against his chest. "Fee. I can't believe she’s gone. She was larger than life. She was the first female vamp...the only female vamp who reached out to me. She helped me so much when you left for Paris, whether you’d approve or not. But I know she was close to the warriors. Their pain must be even greater than mine, though it’s hard to imagine."
He took her hand and led her downstairs to the living room where he made a blazing fire and pulled her to sit next to him on the couch. "Fiamma left him a letter. She wrote to him before the battle in case anything should happen. Maybe she sensed something, I don’t know, it bothers me a bit. But she told Marcello of her feelings for him.
Did Fiamma ever speak to you of Marcello?”
Kate sat up, looking into his eyes. "She wrote him a letter? No, she never spoke of him. She referred to all the warriors as her brothers. I’d often see her with Marcello, but no, she never mentioned anything to me about him. Did you read the letter?"
He shook his head. "No. She left it in her room. Aislynn found it when she was moving in. The letter said she’d always loved him. It rattled him bad. It opened up a lot of things he’d been holding in since her death."
Kate stroked his face. "Oh Fiamma! She never told him? Did he know? Does he love her? Lover, this breaks my heart."
Caressing her, he rubbed her back. "Shh, do not upset yourself, I know you love happy endings. You want everyone to be in love like us, but that does not happen easily with warriors. You need to learn that. They dedicate their life to their craft and their masters. But no, he did not know of her feelings for him, and he loved her as a sister, as a warrior. Granted, they spent a lot of time together. Marcello said he felt an attraction, but he knew, deep inside, she was not the one.”
Kate laid her head on his shoulder, allowing him to caress her back. "Then she never knew real love. We spoke about love often. I know it was something she wanted in her life, but she was also proud to be a warrior. She was so proud when she was promoted in rank. I know the other females looked up to her, aspired to be like her. She gave up everything for us. How do we ever repay that? How do we deserve that?"
"I don’t know, mi amore. We have her sword. It is a tradition to give the sword to her familia. But Fee had no familia; we were her familia. She loved being a warrior. It was her true heart. I knew in the first five minutes of meeting her. Her sword is locked in the weapons bunker for safekeeping. Maybe we should do something with it. What do you think?"
Kate sat up straight. "Lover, yes. Her sword should be on display in the camp somehow. The warriors will see it and remember her and honor her sacrifice. But she wasn’t the only one who sacrificed. Luca said the others were buried in a shallow grave together, the sun turning them to ash before they were covered. He said the battle would be known in vampire history as the Battle of Bel Rosso. We need a stone there, something that honors all of them, a large boulder, with a plague. Can we do that?"
He hugged her to his chest as the pain washed over him for the loss of so many. "We will place her sword in a glass case inside the barracks, a place where she will always reign. As for the others, we will never forget those that made the ultimate sacrifice for us. We will mark the battlefield where they were the victors, and now lie in peace in the ground they fought to defend."
Kate stroked his face, her voice a soft whisper. "Let me take care of it. The others fought. Let me do this."
He stood and took her hand, leading her to the rug in front of the fire where he lay down with her. She curled on her side to look at him. "Take care of it, mi amore. They all loved you."
He kissed her gently, a soft adoring kiss that was meant to show her how grateful he was for all she did for him. "I need to talk to you about something. There is something I need to make up to you."
She looked at him quizzically. "What do you need to make up to me? I can think of nothing."
He wrapped a tendril of her crimson around his finger before reaching into his jeans pocket to withdraw the padlock he’d asked the artisans of the coven to make for him. The lock was shaped like a heart, like the original one she’d found for them. On the front of the heart was etched their names, and on the back, the simple words, ‘Ti amo.’ Keeping his hand tightly closed around the lock, he extended his closed hand to her. "Kiss my hand and I will reveal it to you.”
She took his fist in her hands, kissing his closed fist. When he opened his hand, he held a padlock, similar to the one they’d locked onto the bridge in Paris.
"It’s beautiful, lover. Is there someplace you have in mind for this one?"
"Si, the same place except this time, it won’t be removed. There is something that goes with it.” He pulled the small charm from his pocket engraved with Lorenzo’s name and birthdate. He slipped the charm on the lock and dangled it in front of her.
She held the lock in her hand, their son’s name attached. "Fiamma told me she saw your image on the bridge. She said you crushed our lock.”
He sat up, and knew he had to explain to her what he’d done in Paris in his rage. "I was torn so deep, mi amore. When I was in Paris, I ripped the lock from the bridge. I crushed it to dust in my hand. I did not know how to fix us. I am so sorry, forgive me, please. I want us to begin again. Will you come with me to Paris? Bring Lorenzo with us. Let me make this up to you."
She clutched the padlock to her heart as she rolled away from him, and faced the fire, feeling the heat against her skin. She remembered the pain they’d both felt and remained silent, letting the thoughts run through her head. Closing her eyes, she sighed heavily. "Why do we do this? I’m always afraid you’ll be tempted by another and leave me for a female born immortal. You always fear your actions will send me away, make me stop loving you. We hurt each other with our doubt."
She sat up and turned to him. "Promise me, we’re through with the doubt. When we place this lock on the bridge, we both leave the doubt behind. Can you do that?"
He sat next to her, laying his head on his knees. "Kate, I know I keep hurting you, and it is the last thing I want. I can’t explain why I do this. I wish I could. I only know I can never love you enough. You have stolen me, all of me. Sometimes, I think you deserve so much more, that it was selfish of me to bring you into this life. But I would change nothing.”
She leaned her head against his shoulder. "So, we’ll go back to Paris, with Lorenzo this time, and place the lock on the bridge. This lock must stay, and we’ll add a charm to it with each new child. But this lock is missing a charm.”
He slid his hand in his jeans pocket and withdrew the second charm that bore Cory’s name. “Mi amore, I was not sure how you would feel. He is my son, and you have accepted him with open arms, but I feel like it is one more thing I have forced on you.”
Kate took the charm from his hand and slipped it on the lock. “Family, our family, our sons. Per sempre...remember?"
He took her hand, letting his fingers slide over the diamond he gave her, the ring his madre had worn. He whispered, “Per sempre."
Lifting her hand, he kissed her ring before pulling her into him. "No one can love me like you do, my walking sin.”
147
Kate was busy packing. Shade said they had to visit Council again to establish his new territory and the expansion of his coven to include Virginia, and then they’d stop in Paris on the way home. They’d placed Fee's sword behind glass and had it mounted in the main meeting room in the barracks. All of the warriors at Bel Rosso had attended, paying homage to their fallen sister. Kate had worked with a landscaper to find a massive boulder and had it moved to the field where the battle had been fought. They had forged a steel plague engraved simply, ‘Bel Rosso’ and the date of the battle. They could not make any reference to the battle in the event some mortal should wander onto the property. Each warrior had walked past the boulder, in single file, and struck the stone with their sword. It seemed too little, but Kate didn’t know what else she could do to honor them, other than to make sure the dynasty stayed strong, so they hadn’t given up their lives for nothing.
She called out to Theresa, "Do you have Lorenzo's things packed? How about you? Are you ready?"
She responded, "Yes, my lady. We have everything."
Kate sent a message to Shade in the camp, letting him know they were ready to leave.
Shade was going over last minutes instructions with Marcello, Theo and Aislynn, and stopped in Cory’s shop to give him a final goodbye, letting them all know he could return on a moment’s notice if they needed him.
He kept looking at his watch, waiting for bel. Finally, he heard her call to him, letting him know they were ready. Teleporting to the house, he saw the luggage pil
ed at the door as Dante loaded up the car. Kate and Theresa walked down the stairs and he stood staring. "Is there going to be room in the car for me? Seriously, mi amore, what is all this stuff?"
Kate looked at him with exasperation. "Clearly, you’ve never traveled with a baby before. And we need Theresa."
He tried to corral them out the door. "I don’t want to argue, but when will you learn you can have anything you need without dragging it to and fro?" He watched as Theresa hid a giggle. "Come on then, we are losing precious time!"
Kate continued toward the door, placing Lorenzo in his arms while she put her coat on. "Then make yourself useful."
Gi carried the remaining bags to the car where Dante was loading the trunk. Theresa was biting her lip not to laugh at Shade juggling the baby. She looked at him over her shoulder as Shade dragged Kate to the car, Kate muttering under her breath. "I don't know why he hates flying so much. We schedule it to coordinate with his death slumber."
He followed her out the door in all the chaos. "I heard that, Katherine! Don’t think I did not, and so did our son!"
Lorenzo wiggled in his arms like a worm, his head on a swivel trying to keep track of his mother. Shade addressed his son as Lorenzo looked back at him like he understood every word. "Learn a lesson, figlio, females never go anywhere without taking everything they own.”
They finally got everything loaded into the car. Shade climbed into the back, holding Lorenzo on his lap as he fussed from the snowsuit Kate insisted on strapping him into. He looked so uncomfortable. Shade laid him across his lap and began to unzip and unbutton, trying to release his son from this contraption when Lorenzo began to wail. "I feel you son, totally!"
Kate leaned across the seat, soothing Lorenzo. "Shh, my beautiful boy."
He looked up at her, kicking his legs and flailing his arms, glad to be free from the constraints of the snowsuit, when he laughed the sweetest laugh. He melted her heart and eased the tension from the rush to get packed and on the road.