Stolen: Dante's Vow

“The best you can?” She snorts. “You wouldn’t abandon me here if you were doing your best!”

“I’m not abandoning you.”

“You promised you’d take care of me. You promised you wouldn’t let anyone hurt me again.”

“And I won’t.”

“You said I’d be safe with you!”

Fuck. “Cristiano will protect you.”

“I don’t want Cristiano. I want you!”

Her anguish hits me harder than a kick to the chest.

“If you’re dead, you won’t be able to keep your promise,” she finally says, losing a little steam.

I look down at her, feel her small hands against my chest. “I’m not going to die. I’m going to keep my promise to you.”

“Don’t you think you’ve used up your lives?”

“What?”

She turns pitiful eyes to mine. “Please take me with you. I want to be with you.”

“I’m no good for you, sweetheart.”

“You don’t get it. You’re the only one I can be with. Don’t you want me?”

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. I run a hand through my hair, turn away momentarily, then back to her. “What we did, what happened between us, I shouldn’t have let that happen. That’s my fault, not yours. I took advantage—”

“You didn’t.”

“I want you to have a life, Mara. I want you to be happy.”

“Just not with you.”

I sigh. “Not with me. That can’t be.”

“Do you have someone else?”

“What?”

She searches my face then lets her head drop. “Never mind. Nothing. I’m tired. You’re right.”

“Mara.”

She sits on the edge of the bed, rubs her face. She won’t look at me, but I can tell something has shifted for her. Like something else has broken. And this one’s on me.

“Hey,” I say, crouching down, taking her wrists, and pulling her hands away from her face. I don’t know what I want to say. What I should say. My feelings for her, they’re strange, wrong. Mara was a part of my life from the moment she was born. Lenore took over her care almost immediately after her birth. We don’t know who her father is, and her mother had died before she’d turned one. She’s always been a part of my family, too. And I love her.

But that love, those feelings for my sister’s best friend, for the girl stolen when she was too young to even start her life, have changed. And none of it makes sense, not to me. Not right now.

All I know, all I can focus on, is that she is safest here.

Without me.

My life is forfeit. And she deserves a good man who will love her without adding any more baggage. Not some monster. Because she was right when she told me only monsters enjoy the feel of blood on their hands. I do. I like the kill. And going after Felix is, in a way, exhilarating. That rage I feel, it’s what makes my heart keep ticking.

And I won’t let her waste the life that she has just gotten back on someone like me.

“I’m tired,” she says again before I can say anything, so I nod, pausing once more before rising to my feet. Not sure this is where I should leave it. Not sure I shouldn’t explain to her. Make her understand that I have to let her go because I do want her. God, how I want her.

And it’s more than that. I feel more than that.

But I can’t have her. So much has been stolen from her already. I won’t steal a love I don’t deserve.

25

Mara

I pretend to be asleep when my grandmother brings up a tray of food hours later. I can’t sleep though. I’ve been trying but it won’t come. There were nights Petrov used a drug that knocked me out completely rather than leaving me conscious but paralyzed. Sometimes I’d wake up in a different place not even sure how many days had passed. In a strange way, I miss that oblivion now.

It’s fully dark but for the moon. I look up at the ceiling, see how the moonlight reflects on the colorful glass of the Venetian lamp hanging there. The house is quiet. I heard Noah go to bed a few hours ago. And when Dante came to check on me, I didn’t move. Didn’t even breathe.

My heart hurts when I think about him. The feelings I have are strange, confused. I’ve never before felt what I’m feeling with him. Never wanted or needed to be so close to someone. Never felt the need for touch. The opposite, actually. I repelled it. Over the years my mind trained itself to shut down. To drift away. Be anywhere but there when it was happening.

Thinking about it now makes my throat close up. How did I survive all those years?

I learned about Petrov when I was eleven years old. It could have been years before that that he’d made the deal. That he’d bought me. Well, Elizabeth. He’d thought he’d bought Elizabeth. He’d required a certain education of me. I was never to speak Italian again. Never to speak Spanish either although I did learn that. I lived in Mexico too long not to. In a way I guess I should have been grateful to him. It was because of him that I wasn’t sold earlier. Wasn’t used up even if I was used. They were careful not to get caught. Not to take my virginity which Petrov paid for. But there are other things, other ways, and no one will ever know just how used up you are.