Inferno's Kiss (38 page)

“You’re mistaking my concern for her as something it isn’t,” he said in a stilted voice. “She’s Marcus’s daughter. That alone warrants concern on my part. My desire to ensure her safety is no different than that of any Sicari under my care in the
Absconditus
.”

“So you say. But I’m not convinced. You’re in love with the woman,” Placido said emphatically.

“You’re wrong,” he growled, ignoring the laughter crashing its way through his head like a loud church bell. “Even if you were right,
which you’re not
, I know where my duty lies. I can have only one mistress. I swore to serve the guild and the Order.”

“The
Absconditus
and the Order have survived almost two thousand years without the reigning Sicari Lord blindly throwing himself on the altar of celibacy,” Placido said with disgust.

“I don’t see myself as a sacrifice, but I do find this conversation as wearisome as the last one we had on the subject.” Dante’s comment made the Sicari Lord snort harshly.

“
Va bene
, but you’re to go to her. Convince her to come out of her rooms before Marcus tells you to do so.” The old man turned and walked away, leaving Dante to glare at his elderly friend’s retreating back.

Cleopatra had refused to let him in all the other times he’d gone to her door. What made Placido think she’d see him now? He exhaled a sharp breath of fury then clenched his jaw. Fine. If the old man wanted him to drag Cleopatra back into the world of the living, he’d do it. But the Sicari Lord was wrong.

The concern he felt for Cleopatra was no different than what he felt for any other Sicari in the
Absconditus.
He wasn’t in love with her. A loud voice in the back of his head argued with him, and he brutally crushed it into silence. With a muttered oath, he strode out of the salon and headed toward Cleopatra’s apartment.

The main salon was some distance from her suite, and as he marched through the corridors, he tried to form a strategy for reaching out to Cleopatra. He was no closer to a plan as he turned into the hallway outside her apartment than he’d been a few moments ago in the main salon. He was only a few feet away from her door when a bleak emotion slammed into him like a nail from a highpowered nail gun.

Over the past several days, their emotional connection had grown in strength despite the door between them, but today her desolation was so stark he went rigid with shock. An instant later, the emotion vanished. She’d obviously sensed him, and whether by design or instinct, she’d shut her emotions off as easily as one might shut off a spigot. He stared at the door for a moment then drew in a deep breath and with a wave of his hand unlocked the deadbolt.

The door opened quietly, and he stepped into her apartment. The small living room resembled twilight, as the drawn curtains blocked out the sunlight. Behind him the door closed with a soft snap, and as his eyes adjusted to the low lighting, he saw her curled up in the corner of the couch with her back to him.

“Go away, Dante,” she said in a voice that was devoid of all emotion.

“You know I can’t do that,” he replied quietly.

“Then say what you came to say and leave.”

The lifeless note in her voice grabbed at him harder than if she’d been sobbing. It emphasized the wall she’d built around her feelings to keep him out. Slowly, he walked toward the sofa to squat in front of her. She averted her gaze, offering him only her profile to study. Although she’d managed to lock him out of feeling her emotional pain, the external effects were plain to see.

Her face was pale, and he could see a slight puffiness at the corner of her eye. It was a clear sign she’d been crying, but she was still beautiful. The acknowledgment tugged at his heart in a way that was strangely familiar and yet unfamiliar at the same time. It made him ache with the need to pull her into his arms.

He wanted to hold her close until her pain eased out of her body into his. He swallowed hard. The thought of her bearing her burden alone struck a nerve deep inside him that he’d never thought anyone could reach. It scared the hell out of him, and he didn’t frighten easily. His muscles tightened and braced themselves against the need to gather her up into his arms. Instead, he rested his forearms on his thighs and clasped his hands in front of him.

“You can’t stay locked up in here forever,
carissima
,” he said softly. “It will only make it worse.”

“I doubt that.” She turned toward him, her face cold and stony. “It doesn’t get any worse than this. Now that you’ve said your piece, please leave.”

“I’m not going anywhere until you understand that I
know
what you’re feeling.” His admission made her eyes narrow as she directed a cold look at him.

“
No
,” she bit out. “You
don’t
. No one knows what this feels like.”

“
I
do.” He didn’t move. Instead, he reached out with his thoughts to touch the back of her hand in a light caress. “The rage, the sorrow, the pain, the helplessness. I felt everything before you closed yourself off to me.”

“Even if you did feel some of those things, you’re not me. You can’t possibly know what
I’m
feeling. No one can.” This time the contempt in her voice was raw and brutal despite her stoic expression. Gently, he reached out and caught her hands in his. He half expected her to jerk away from him, but she just stared at him as if he wasn’t even there. It made his heart ache that much more.

“I know exactly what you’re feeling, because ever since that day outside of the training room, we’ve been connected. It’s how I knew where to find you in the convent the other night.”

His throat tightened as he remembered the violence of her emotions when he’d raced toward the nursery then to the room where he’d found her torturing the Praetorian. Despite the distance between them, her horror, torment, and raw fury had pulsed through him as if he’d been at her side deliberately reading her thoughts.

“We don’t have a connection,” she said with the icy reserve of an automaton. “You’re imagining things.”

“Then why did you shut down your emotions the minute you sensed my presence outside your door?” he asked with an edge to his voice.

He hadn’t meant to speak so roughly to her, but her emotionless manner was slowly eating away at his restraint. This was a stranger staring back at him, her violet eyes dark and unreadable. He wanted the feisty, confident Cleopatra back. The fearless woman who saw what she wanted and reached out for it. A flicker of emotion brightened her eyes before she turned her head away from him.

“Go away, Dante,” she said in that dispassionate voice. “Just go away and don’t come back.”

“I’m not going anywhere, Cleopatra,” he growled as he instinctively reached for her and dragged her out of the corner of the couch to the edge of the cushion. The stoic expression on her face vanished as his movement startled her.

“Let. Me. Go.” She enunciated the words fiercely and shoved hard against his chest in an attempt to break free of his grasp.

Her struggle knocked him off balance, and he tumbled back onto the floor, dragging her with him. As she fell on top of him, her angry gaze met his, and relief streaked through him. The fury in her eyes was the first real emotion he’d seen her exhibit since he’d entered the room. It meant he’d reached her. The realization strengthened as her violent emotions reverberated against him with the same sledgehammer force he’d experienced outside her apartment a short time ago.

“I’m not letting go of you until you agree to stop hiding from what happened the other night.” He kept his voice soft yet inflexible.

“Hiding? You think you have me all figured out, don’t you?” she snarled with a ferocity that gave him an even greater sense of the rage boiling inside her.

“Figured you out?”
Deus
, if the woman only knew how clueless he was. He released a harsh snort of laughter. “Half the time I don’t know whether I’m coming or going where you’re concerned. The only thing I know is that you’re hurting, and I can’t stand the thought of you in pain.”

The confession pounded its way through him as if a car had struck him from behind. Her beautiful violet eyes widened with surprise, and his mind reeled at the significance of his admission. It wasn’t possible. Placido couldn’t be right.

His throat began to swell closed, and his chest felt like someone was standing on it. He saw her gaze narrow at him, and in a swift move she was free of his arms. With a lithe movement, she rolled away to come up in a low crouch before springing into an upright position. Arms folded, she watched him as he got to his feet.

“Thanks for the sympathy, but I don’t need it,” she said quietly, her stoic expression in place once more. “What I
do
need is for you to get the hell out of here and leave me alone.”

“Why? So you can crawl back into your hole and feel sorry for yourself?” He blew out a harsh breath at the way his sharp words made her head jerk back as if he’d struck her.

“Who the fuck do you think you are?” Her voice was little more than a whisper, but her eyes were blazing with the same anger he’d seen just moments ago.

“Someone who’s not going to let you keep running away from the fact that you can’t control everything that happens to you,” he rasped.

Was he pushing her too hard? He sensed the rising anger that covered the pain she fought to keep locked away from him. From herself. The bleak despair he’d sensed in her earlier had only emphasized to him how much she was struggling with.

The discovery that Marcus was her father had simply strengthened the irrational notion that because she lacked special abilities she wasn’t Sicari. Then the slaughter she’d witnessed in the nursery had only magnified the pain and anger she’d been feeling about the loss of her own child as well as the consequences of her injury.

Again, the overwhelming need to draw the pain out of her and into his own body flooded his senses. He closed the distance between them, his eyes locked with hers. She flinched but didn’t back away from him. Gently, he cupped the side of her face with his hand.

“I told you the truth when I said I could feel everything you were feeling,” he said softly. A pulse of electric current zipped through his fingers to spread through his entire body as he grasped her by the arms and pulled her toward him. “I don’t understand how that’s possible. But what I do know is that I can’t stand by watching you deal with all the pain alone.”

“Don’t,” she murmured as her eyes closed. “Please don’t ask me to bare my soul to you.”

“You already have,
carissima
,” he rasped.

He didn’t tell her how hard he’d fought not to come to her in the dark of night when her emotions had been so strong they’d woken him out of a sound sleep. Not that he’d had a good night’s sleep since the first night they’d met. A shudder rippled through her as she sagged against him. The sharp bitterness of her pain was a tidal wave engulfing him. His senses reeled, but he simply tightened his embrace and held her close.

Deep, agonizing sobs echoed out of her as she trembled violently in his arms. With each tear she shed, she opened herself up to him freely, and the trust she placed in him was humbling. Her darkest emotions became his as he experienced the horror she felt the moment she entered the nursery. The sensation was so acute it was as if he were standing in that silent room seeing the bloodbath all over again. But this time he saw it through her eyes and felt the agony that had assaulted her from the innocence lost. Just as knifelike was her rage and vicious satisfaction as she’d tortured the Praetorian before taking his life.

Dante wasn’t sure how long she sobbed in his arms, but the depth of emotion she released drained him. If he’d battled more than a dozen Praetorians he couldn’t have been any more exhausted. Even his reserves were depleted.

Ever so slowly, she grew quiet and still in his embrace, and relief spread through him as her savage emotions ebbed away from them both. As her crying abated, she didn’t stir. If anything, she clung to him as if afraid to let go. Her vulnerability made him tighten his hold on her. It was a silent signal that he wouldn’t let go of her until she was ready.

Time stood still, and with his senses completely open to her, he could feel her turmoil give way to a serenity he knew she’d not experienced for a long time. He offered up thanks to the gods that her pain had subsided to a dull ache as he pressed his face into the soft silk of her hair. The scent of exotic fruit filled his nostrils, and the smell quickly banished all thoughts of the gods.

Desire and something else he didn’t want to confess to surged its way through him. The sensation was already a well-defined one where she was concerned. No matter how hard he fought the emotions stirring deep inside him, they’d become impossible to ignore. If it weren’t for his oath—a shock wave of emotion slammed its way through him as he crushed his thoughts.

He froze as Cleopatra lifted her head off his shoulder to stare up at him with a hint of surprise before her eyes softened to a deep purple. The emotion he saw shimmering in her gaze made his gut clench with something that bordered on the edge of fear and excitement.

Christus
, she knew. Almost as if she didn’t trust her senses, she hesitantly reached up to trace his mouth with her fingertip. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he knew he was about to cross the dangerous line between sanity and madness.

With a low groan, he bent his head and caught her lips in a hard kiss. She tasted as sweet as she smelled. How in the hell had he managed to resist her this long? Pleasure swept through him as her teeth gently tugged at his lip so he would grant her access to his mouth. In an instant, her tongue danced with his. Tentatively, he responded to the intimate caress.

Hot and sultry, the kiss made him tremble with a need that left him helpless to fight her or himself, even if he’d wanted to. Instinct and a primal craving were the only things guiding him as his hands slid beneath her blouse to explore the softness of her skin. A small mewl escaped her when his mouth brushed across her cheek and lightly nipped at the side of her neck. Pomegranates. That’s what she tasted like. Tart, sweet, and exotic. The frantic movements of her hands against his shirt made him quickly shrug it off and toss it aside.