This Vicious Grace (The Last Finestra #1)(114)

“But you’ve seen some improvement, right?” Alessa said. “Small cuts healing, bruises fading?”

It wasn’t unusual for someone to waver on the verge of death for days or even weeks after a grievous injury. It was, however, unusual for a ghiotte.

“I’m afraid not, Finestra. If anything, he’s had a bit of backsliding, but we caught it before it got too bad.”

Alessa frowned. It was still early. And he had come back from the dead. It was a lot to ask of one man. It wasn’t much to cling to, but she held on to a sliver of hope.





Fifty-Six


Tutto sapere è niente sapere.

To know everything is to know nothing.



“Porca troia,” Dante cursed, waking with a start—the only way he woke these days.

Every time he closed his eyes, he died all over again, and every time he opened them, it felt like being born from the fire again.

Asleep, awake, it didn’t matter. There was no relief.

The never-ceasing noise plucked at his nerves. Labored breathing, soft moans, low-pitched voices. One more day on this cot, inhaling disinfectant and waking to other people’s misery, would kill him.

“Puttana la miseria,” he said through gritted teeth.

Dottoressa Agostino shot him a dark look.

“Mi scusi,” Dante said, only half sarcastically. He’d heard worse from other patients in the common tongue every damn day, but she held this against him?

He didn’t feel pain, he was pain. Every damn hair on his head hurt. But he’d put it off long enough. Choking down another groan, he sat up.

Alessa drew his gaze like a magnet. Sitting on a cot across the room, her face lit with joy when she saw him.

She jumped up, excused herself, and hurried toward him, leaving the soldier she’d been talking to gaping at her back. Dante fought a smile. She did that all the time, and she had no idea, flitting from one person or thought to another with no clue that anyone might not be able to keep up.

“How are you feeling?” She kneeled beside him and took his hand, silk gloves against bare skin.

“Take them off,” he said softly.

Her eyes, more green than brown today, went wide, long lashes fluttering with nerves. “Later. You’re still recovering, and—”

“Please,” he begged. “Take them off.”

She paled. Her hands shook as she removed her gloves and brushed the back of his hand with her fingers.

His muscles seized. He bit his lip, hard. Che palle.

Alessa leapt to her feet, blinking away tears. “It’s too soon. You need more time to heal. I’m going to find Adrick and Josef. They promised to help you up the stairs, and the doctor says you’re ready—” She hurried away mid-sentence.

Dante dropped his head back against the stone wall and stared up at the metal filigree over the courtyard.

No point denying it.

He wasn’t getting worse, but he wasn’t getting better. At least, no faster than anyone else.

A nurse strode toward him with a bowl of something steaming, a smile on her face that he couldn’t return.

They treated him like a normal person, and at first, he’d assumed they didn’t know. But they did. Hell, they fought over who got to tend to the Ghiotte Fonte. His lip curled at the phrase.

They knew exactly what he was.

Or at least, what he had been.





Fifty-Seven


Traduttore, traditore.

Translator, traitor. All translation is flawed.



A month after Divorando, Alessa watched as Kaleb and Dante helped each other stand, swaying until they found their balance. In bandages and loose-fitting robes, they looked like a pair of drunken pirates who’d lost their pants.

Dante caught Alessa watching, and his gaze slid away a bit too fast.

Inhaling through her nose, she tamped down the frequent urge to shake him.

Her feelings hadn’t changed. If anything, she cared even more than she had before, but Dante’s pride had taken a hit more brutal than the one to his body, and his demons refused to grant him peace, whispering threats or promises he shared with no one.

Time might not be enough to heal all wounds, but it was the only thing she could offer.

Kaleb tipped, grasping open air for a handhold, and Alessa lurched to her feet, ready to help. Dante steadied him before she could, and the two men steeled themselves to begin walking.

The other Fontes and wounded soldiers had returned to their homes to recuperate, but Kaleb claimed he’d grown too used to the luxury of the Cittadella to give it up, and technically, he was Alessa’s official Fonte.

Dante had no home.

So, they’d stayed.

Kaleb fashioned hats out of bandages, demanding the nurses tell him he was prettier than Dante. He complained dramatically that the soup was too soupy and the cakes were too sweet until they brought him something else, then he’d eat all of his food and steal bites from Dante’s untouched tray until Dante got annoyed and ate something out of spite.

Kaleb didn’t perform despite Dante’s glares, but because of them. Dante needed a distraction, and Kaleb provided it.

More important, Kaleb offered the sort of obnoxious encouragement via insult that Dante needed, baffling as it was. Her chosen Fonte and her chosen love spent their days frustrating the physical therapists and nurses who put them through their exercises and monitored their recovery, while tormenting each other in a bizarre contest to see who could express their suffering with the most creative use of swear words.