As his brown eyes shifted back and forth from my left eye to my right, I remembered what Elda said about the glow. I closed my eyes, cursing inwardly and searching for a way to turn off the red light. It was then that I could feel it, like a burning line of fuel. It traveled from my guts, up my spine, through my neck and through the thin stems of my eyes. I took a deep breath, kept my eyes closed. Mastering my emotions was supposed to be the secret.
"No," he said. "You never have to hide your power from me. Don't you realize?"
I opened my eyes and the look of adoration and desire on his face was so intense it made me gasp.
He bent even closer to whisper, "I've been searching for you my whole life."
Twenty-Three
My skin crawled and I stepped back. Dante seemed really unstable now. He knew what I was, and even though I had power in my control, I understood that he could use this knowledge against me.
"I need to think," I said. I felt like I was in over my head, and the only thing that kept me from running away from him was the fire and the power that came along with it. It gave me a feeling of security that I'd never had before.
I thought of the turn of events that had put me into this position, and a spark of rage went flying up from my pelvis. It spiraled through me and then went out like an ember from a bonfire. I had a moment of fear at the intensity of that spark, thankful that it disappeared as quickly as it had come.
"You don't need to think," Dante was saying. "You just need to trust me. No one knows what you are better than I do. I'll take care of you. We'll be unstoppable together. I'll give you everything, and you..." He broke off, naked hunger and ambition lit his face. "You'll be my everything. My Inferno."
Dante's Inferno.
It was too much. I burst out laughing.
His face contorted with frustration. "You're failing to grasp what this can mean for you, Saxony. You'll be a Queen in Venezia, and at the rate my family's territory was increasing when we had Nicodemo, you'll be a Queen of Italy within a decade."
He was talking faster, his accent thicker because of his excitement and earnestness. The laugher died in my throat.
"Our rivals thought things equalized when Nic died. We'll show them how wrong they are. They will not be expecting you. Neither will my father." He took a step closer, reached for my hands. "It's too beautiful. It's... what do they call it in English? Poetic justice."
My stomach clenched as he grasped my fingertips. He wanted what he wanted, whatever the cost.
"Dante, what are you talking about? I can't... I'm not going to help you take over Italy." I fought and failed to keep the incredulity out of my voice.
He blinking at me like he hadn't heard me properly. "Of course you are. Surely you can feel it, too. We are meant for each other. This is destiny."
"I don't know what you think destiny looks like but you're sadly mistaken, this is accident. A week ago I wasn't a magus, I was just a regular girl."
He looked like I'd slapped him. "What do you mean? That's not possible."
"It is possible," I continued. "I wasn't born this way—it was forced upon me. I didn't ask for it and I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy."
When he grabbed my upper arms, his fingers dug into my flesh. His eyes narrowed. "Saxony, don't bullshit me. We don't have time for this garbage."
Anger flared. I pushed his hands off. "It's not garbage," I said, seething. "It's what happened. You remember the day my voice changed? It's never been the same since. That's when it happened, and I wasn't sick. Now, if you'll excuse me, we're done here."
"We're done when I say we're done, and I say we're not done," he said, grabbing my arms once again.
I looked down at his hand on my bicep and back up at his face pointedly, letting my expression do the talking. How dare you threaten a magus. Again. I knew what he was doing. He’d been so angry at me for responding to Elda's requests—he’d wanted me to manipulate her by ignoring her. I could see now how Dante worked people. He was trying to jockey into place as my dominant.
Screw that. I glared at him.
Fear flashed across his face, just for a second. He released me and held his hands up. "Sorry, I'm sorry. Just..." he sat on the bench. "Please let’s sit and talk like adults. We can figure this out." He patted the bench beside him, and then held out a hand.
My confidence boosted, I seized my chance. "Dante, no amount of talking is going to change my mind. I'm not going to help you take over Italy."
His eyes flashed with anger again, but it evaporated as quickly as it had appeared.
"Okay, okay," he said, holding his hands up in a gesture of surrender. "Then just tell me what you meant by it being forced on you. I didn't think that was possible. At least, Nicodemo never told me that could happen."
I sighed. "I can't explain it to you, Dante. I'm collateral damage in all of this madness. I just have to figure out how to live with it."
"But don't you see, I can help you with that." He stood again, since I still hadn't sat.
"How?"
"Nic was part of my family for a long time. I know what a magus can do, I'll teach you. I can make it so that you never have to be afraid of your power, and so that you can use it to help people."
I scoffed. "Help people? Is that what you call what your family does?" The fire was crackling merrily in me now, melting my caution away.
His face hardened. "Careful. You don't know anything about my family, not yet." Then he smiled and said, "But you will, I'll tell you everything. You'll be my partner, my closest confidante. You'll have access to all of the resources at my family's disposal."
"Stop talking like that. I'm not interested. I know enough about the Barberini family—"
"What do you know?" he interrupted me.
I had already said too much. I turned away. "I have to go, Dante. I have somewhere I need to be." I made a show of checking my watch. I did have to pick up the boys from the pool, but I still had forty minutes.
"Who have you been talking to?"
"No one," I said, cursing myself. "Your family is infamous, you know that."
His eyes narrowed.
"Goodbye, Dante. Don't contact me again." I hadn't taken more than three steps when he grabbed me by the arm and spun me around. Rage blinded me but before I could react—
BAM!
A tightly coiled fist slammed into my stomach. Fireworks popped in front of my eyes. All the air whooshed out of me in one sickening, forced exhale. I dropped to my knees, my face an inch from the ground. Breathe, Saxony. Breathe. It felt as though the walls of my lungs were stuck to each other. My stomach churned and I thought I might throw up. Even as I was fighting for breath, the fire roared to life inside me, flooding my limbs with fury. I wanted to get up, to defend myself, but I couldn't breathe, couldn't move.
Finally, my lungs unstuck. I sucked in a painful breath. I coughed, and a spray of embers littered the grass. My eyes cleared and Dante's shoes came into focus. Adidas. White, with three black stripes. Just standing there. One shoe moved to snuff the embers I had spewed, one by one.
Hands jacked me up by my armpits. I coughed again, but this time only smoke curled from my lips. I sucked in more oxygen, starved for it. With every gulp of air, the fire inside me licked higher, hotter.
His body telegraphed another punch—the fingers curling, the fist drawing back, the shoulders turning. My eyes widened. Nope.
The fire shot to my right shoulder and elbow and exploded in my joints. I sent my fist into Dante's face with the force of a cannon. I heard Dante's nose break as his head snapped sideways. He flew off his feet and landed hard in a heap several feet away.
I covered my mouth, in shock at the power of my own punch. The feeling of breaking bone against my knuckles made me feel queasy. A wave of nausea washed over me again as I crouched beside him. I'd knocked him out.
"You idiot!" I said, unsure whether I was addressing myself or him. Exactly how hard had I hit him? I reached for his neck to feel his pulse.
Before I could touch him, his eyelids fluttered. His upper lip was split and blood poured from his nose. To my horror, he began to laugh. It was a horrible wet sound. He groaned in the midst of his laughter and struggled to sit up. He wiped his nose with his hand but it was still pouring blood, staining his teeth and making him look like a Halloween mask.