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Dante startled as she planted a quick kiss on his cheek. The brief touch of her lips to his skin revived her gift, and she neatly rolled out of his grasp. A total failure as far as flirtation went, but an effective gambit in a fight.

Flinging himself sideways, Dante grabbed her ankle and tugged her toward him.

She slapped at his hands, making him laugh, but it was enough contact to revive her.

“I’m not even using”—he grunted as they rolled around—“Ow! Half the things I know—” He caught her knee before it reached its target. “Because I don’t want to hurt—urggg.”

She got him in a headlock—or at least she was pretty sure that’s what it was called—and squeezed until he turned an alarming shade of red and smacked the ground repeatedly, then slapped her arm.

“Oh, sorry!” She let go with a chipper smile. “I forgot the signal.”

His head in her lap, Dante wheezed. “Congratulations. You win. With my skills. So really, I win.”

She opened her mouth to refute his claim, but the sneaky bastard sprang into action, getting her on her back with an absurdly complicated maneuver she’d have to ask him to demonstrate later.

Straddling her hips, he pinned her arms above her head and smiled down at her. “Gotcha.”

Someone shrieked.

They snapped their heads toward the doorway where the Fontes stood, slack-jawed and horrified at the sight of their divine savior pinned beneath her bodyguard.

Kaleb grabbed a four-hundred-year-old sword from the wall and pointed it at Dante. “Release the Finestra or I’ll kill you.”

Thirty-Three

Bocca chiusa non prende mosche.

A closed mouth catches no flies.

DAYS BEFORE DIVORANDO: 16

Dante let go of Alessa’s wrists—as ifthatwas the biggest issue with their current position—and they scrambled to their feet.

“I—he—we tripped,” she said.

Kaleb lowered the sword a fraction. “He’s not trying to kill you?”

“No. Definitely not,” she said. Kaleb’s protectiveness would have warmed her heart if he wasn’t about to murder Dante. “We just, um, fell.”

“Really?” Kamaria said. “Youtripped.And landed like that.”

Saida slapped a hand over her mouth, but couldn’t stop a high-pitched squeak.

Kamaria rolled her eyes. “You’ve been living without parents for too long if you think anyone would believe that.”

“You weretouching him,” Nina said. “And he wassmiling.”

Well, that sounded worse than she probably meant it to.

Saida wiped tears of laughter from her eyes, but she was the only one amused. Nina looked like she’d been slapped, Josef wore the outrage of a temple monk who’d wandered into the women’s baths by accident, and Kaleb still looked furious.

“Why were you touching him?” Kaleb said. “And why did he like it?”

Alessa’s mouth worked, but no brilliance came to mind. “It was a grimace of pain.”

“That’s not whatIsaw,” Nina said.

“He’s a fighter. He’s tough.” A half-truth.