Venice Vampyr - The Beginning

At that, even Isabella raised an eyebrow. It appeared that his new sister-in-law had already figured out he wasn’t the good Samaritan kind.

“Since when are you so charitable, Dante?” his brother mocked.

Dante took a deep breath. “May I remind you that this is my house too, and that it’s my business what I do?”

“Granted. However, I’d like to assure myself of the girl’s safety while she’s in our house.”

Dante’s patience snapped. “Well, look at my suddenly proper brother. No offense, Isabella, but it appears your husband has forgotten what he was like before he married you. I distinctly remember that—”

“Be that as it may, but things have changed.” Raphael led Isabella’s hand to his lips and kissed her knuckles. “We agreed that we wouldn’t subject Isabella to the more gruesome aspects of our kind. And that includes bringing unsuspecting humans into our home and—”

Dante took a step closer. “And what?” Then he looked down at Viola’s face, which was cradled against his chest. “I mean her no harm. If you must know, she tried to take her own life tonight.”

Isabella gasped in shock. “Oh, no. Poor girl!”

“What happened?” Raphael asked, his voice full of compassion now.

Dante closed his eyes, warring with himself about how much to tell his brother. “She was a virgin. But she lied to me and told me that she was a widow looking for some … carnal diversions.” He looked at Isabella’s face, wondering how much more he should say. His brother’s wife merely listened with bated breath. “It wasn’t … well, it wasn’t pleasant for her. She tried to kill herself ten minutes later. I was lucky to stop her. The bullet only grazed her temple.”

For a moment, nobody spoke. The silence in the foyer was deafening.

He waited for a snide remark from his brother, but it didn’t come. “What, no comeback?” Dante asked.

“You’d better take her upstairs. I’ll inform the servants to watch what they say. I’m assuming she doesn’t know what you are?” Raphael’s voice was calm and collected.

Dante shook his head. “No. It’s bad enough she thinks sex is a terrible thing. How do you think she’ll react if she realized one of our kind took her virginity?”

He gazed into Viola’s face and drew her tighter to his body. She seemed so fragile, and he felt like a beast that had attacked her.

And he wanted to do it again.





Chapter Seven




Viola felt a warm cocoon surround her and snuggled deeper into the softness. She hadn’t expected the afterlife to feel so soft and warm. In fact, she’d rather thought that her desperate act of committing suicide would make her go to hell. But this didn’t feel like hell. There was no smell of sulfur. Instead, she could smell a lingering scent of cologne—a man’s cologne—and a little smoke from a fire burning nearby. It was odd.

She opened her eyes to take in her new surroundings. Shock made her sit up.

She was in a large four poster bed in the middle of a richly decorated bedchamber—a very masculine bedchamber.

“Ah, you’re finally awake.”

Viola snapped her head toward the male voice and froze. Dante. He sat in an armchair near the fireplace and now rose to walk toward the bed. She grabbed the sheets and pressed them against her body, realizing instantly that she only wore her chemise.

“I had to make you more comfortable.” His tone was apologetic, and even his eyes looked sincere.

“Where am I?” she pressed out, panic gripping her. Had he kidnapped her? What had happened? She distinctly remembered pressing the gun against her temple and pulling the trigger.

Dante reached the bed and sat down at the edge. Viola eyed him suspiciously. “You’re in my home. I didn’t know where you lived, so I brought you here.”

Instinctively her hand went to her temple. She felt a tiny abrasion, but nothing else.

His eyes followed her hand. “The bullet only grazed you. I jerked it from your hand.”

Her heart pounded at the knowledge that he knew what she’d done and that he’d prevented her from succeeding. “How dare you?”

“Excuse me?” His forehead crinkled with confusion.

“You heard me. How dare you stop me? It was my choice.” She hit him with a furious glare.

“Choice?” He stood up with a start. “You didn’t know what you were doing. You can’t just kill yourself over something so trivial.”

“Trivial?”

“Yes, trivial. No woman’s first sexual experience is all that enjoyable. Don’t you know that?”

He thought she’d wanted to kill herself because it had hurt when he’d penetrated her? She’d had to deal with more severe pain in her life than the little ache that had lasted only a few seconds. How self-absorbed was he? “You pompous, arrogant rake! This has nothing to do with you.”