This Vicious Grace (The Last Finestra #1)(59)

Ever the grumpy chaperone, Dante did not steer them into a darkened alley, but half carried her, with an insider’s knowledge of the winding, unnamed streets, until the harbor cave loomed before them.

Inside, Dante maneuvered her down the path. The brisk walk had not cleared her head, but done the opposite, and stars burst in her vision as he leaned her against the wall. Vaguely aware she was sliding down, Alessa couldn’t stop herself. Dante caught her, propping her up with a knee between her legs.

“Oh, dear. You haven’t even bought me dinner,” she said with a snort.

He sighed, all taut muscles and jerky movement as he fished beneath her cloak for the key in her dress pockets.

Pressing her face into Dante’s shirt, she breathed him in. It seemed like a perfectly normal thing to do, but on second thought, probably wasn’t. Hard to blame her, though. Whatever magic had healed her wounds had not replenished the blood she’d lost, and the deficit was taking a toll on her already subpar impulse control.

“Whoops,” she mumbled, lifting her head. “Little dizzy.”

Dante didn’t respond, his eyes darting everywhere as he unlocked the gate, his breath fast and shallow. This wasn’t the boy who’d teased her about racy novels or offered to hug her to save the world. This was the trapped animal she’d seen on her balcony the night she brought him home.

He was frightened of her. Of course. Everyone was. And now that he’d experienced the excruciating pain she caused everyone who got too close, he’d forever be scared of her, too.

“I’m sorry.” She stuffed her hands in her pockets. “I won’t touch you again.”

“Huh?” He blinked, focused on her. “No. It’s not—That’s not—Do I need to carry you?”

“Relax,” she said with what she hoped looked like a confident wave of her hand. “I can walk.” She wasn’t steady, but she kept herself moving forward.

There was something else bothering her. Something she had been angry about or wanted to understand. Her thoughts were sluggish and disjointed, but she seized on it at last as Dante closed the gate behind them. “Who was that man? And why were you arguing with him?”

Dante tensed. “It doesn’t matter.”

“It most certainly does. You met with one of Ivini’s supplicants, who wants me dead, and then you almost killed me. I deserve to know what’s going on.”

He’d also healed her, which somewhat negated her argument, but Dante must have wanted to avoid that subject.

“He’s the guy who took me in after my parents died. Told the mob that a child could be reformed, and he would take care of it. You know, save my immortal soul.” He urged her forward with a hand on her lower back. “I saw him in the crowd the night I met you. It’s been years, so I wasn’t sure if he recognized me, but I figured I should make sure he was keeping his mouth shut, so no one would find out. So much for that plan.” Dante opened the last gate and put the key in her hand. “Lock the gate behind you.”

Why did it sound like goodbye?

“You aren’t coming?”

“I—” He raked his fingers through his hair. “I have to—I can’t—”

The man who fought opponents twice his size without flinching, who stared down angry Fontes, who never shied away from a girl whose hands brought pain and death, was trembling because she knew his secret.

“Dante, I would never tell anyone.”

He let out a ragged breath. “You know what’ll happen if this gets out?”

A ghiotte in the Cittadella. A rat in the kitchen. Angry mobs, torches blazing and pitchforks at the ready. She’d be lucky if they didn’t toss her on the pyre with him.

His eyes flashed. “Pick your damn Fonte, stay in the Cittadella, and forget you ever knew me.”

“At least come in for your things,” she said, her voice soft.

“I’ll buy new things.”

“Please. Let’s talk about this.”

“There’s nothing to talk about.”

It was too much, too fast. He was slipping away, and she hadn’t even processed what had just happened and who he was. She needed a moment, dammit.

“Then my blood will be on your hands again,” she said. “I give myself a seventy percent chance of collapsing on my way up the stairs, tumbling all the way down, breaking half my bones and cracking my skull, and you won’t be there to heal me, so I’ll die for the second time today in a puddle of my own blood. What a tragic end to the day’s story of survival.”

He kept glaring, but there was a hint of something else behind the anger and fear.

It might have been hope.

“Please?” She raised a shaky hand to her face, sagging against the gate. It really wasn’t fair to use his weakness against him, but desperate times demanded desperate measures.



* * *



Dante washed his blades in the sink, dried them with clean towels, then washed and dried them again before returning them to their sheaths.

He was pacing when Alessa left to bathe, and he was pacing when she peered around the screen before getting dressed.

He was a ghiotte.

A person considered barely human.

Demon-touched, selfish, and cruel to the core.

She was supposed to fear him. Hate him. It should have changed everything.