Page 28 of Cursebound
“I’m okay,” I murmur. He is about an eleven out of ten on the ramped-up scale, and I get the feeling that if I wasn’t okay, he wouldn’t stop until every human in Chicago was dead. “I’m all right. I can’t move, though, or I’d have my arms around you. Thank you. Thank you for coming.”
“You needed me, so I am here. Now tell me who else I should kill.” His eyes are ringed scarlet, and his fangs are fully out. He is ferocious and terrifying and utterly magnificent. His eyes lock on Pietro’s crumpled mass on the floor. His still-erect penis hangs from the front of his pants, and a ripple of pure rage flows over Luca’s bloody face.
“No,” I say firmly as he stands up, his hands bunched in fists. I’ve fallen straight back down onto the bed, and there’s no way I’ll be able to stop him physically. “No! Don’t. He’s… That’s my brother…” I stumble over the words, and Luca’s attention is immediately back on me.
With unexpected tenderness for a huge vampire coated in gore, he brushes my dress back down over my exposed body and lifts me easily into his arms. “Your brother? The sick fuck…”
“Yeah. Well. I can’t disagree with that statement, but please don’t kill him. If anyone’s going to do that, it’s going to be me. Did you see my grandfather on your way up here? Short, old, white hair?”
“I don’t think so, bella, but I wasn’t exactly doing a head count. I heard you scream, and everyone who stood in my path is dead. Does he need help?”
“I doubt it,” I reply. Now’s not the time to fill Luca in on the role Tomasso played in tonight’s clusterfuck. “He’ll be safe. He’s like a cockroach. Now come on, we need to leave. Extra guards will be on the way, and there’s a limit to how many even you can take on.”
With my body crushed tight to his chest, he dusts a kiss on my forehead. “You’re wrong, my darling. For you, I will take on the world. But yes, we should leave.”
“Grab my amulet, would you?” I manage to jut my chin in the direction of the nightstand. “But be careful. I don’t know how it will respond to you. The last vamp that tried to grab it still had a heart-shaped scorch mark on his palm when I killed him.”
He holds me steady with one hand and doesn’t hesitate to pick up the necklace with the other. Expecting to hear the sizzle of burning flesh, I wince, but there’s nothing as he closes his fist around it. The amulet seems to have… accepted him.
He shoves it in his pocket, swoops out of the room, and takes the stairs down three at a time. We pass a trail of corpses, some missing their heads, some their throats, while others are simply drenched in blood. I don’t give a damn that they’re dead. They worked for Tomasso and would have been hand-picked for tonight’s special job. They would have known what was going down, so as far as I’m concerned, good riddance.
“Go out the side door from the kitchen.” I know this house so well I could move through it blind.
“You’re sure?”
“Yeah,” I answer. “I used to live here.”
“Home is where the hurt is, carissima. But you never need to come back here again. We can return tomorrow, the next night, or a year from now, and tear the whole place apart brick by brick.”
I smile and lean my head against his neck. That is possibly the most romantic thing a guy has ever said to me.
“Now where?” he asks as we emerge into the courtyard.
“Garage. Over there, by the trees. Take the Alfa Romeo Spider. He fucking loves that car. Keys will be on a hook by the window.”
As we dash across the courtyard, cars are drawing up to the house, doors slam, and footsteps stomp over the gravel driveway. Floodlights leap into action, and black-suited figures swarm the grounds. Reinforcements are here, and we’re running out of time.
Luca finds the car, settles me in the low-slung seat, and fastens my seatbelt. I feel like a kid being looked after by their daddy, and I’m not gonna lie, it doesn’t entirely suck.
He clambers in next to me and stares at the dashboard.
“Shit,” I mumble. I can’t help with the great escape. “Can you drive a stick shift?”
He throws his head back and laughs, and I gawk at the way the light plays across his features—the strong nose, his cheekbones, those gorgeous lips. The blood, fangs, and red-rimmed eyes. Luca da Firenze, my very own monster.
“Rosa, I was around when they invented cars.” On cue, he puts the Spider into gear, and we blast out of the garage, off the grounds, and out of the hell I was almost trapped in.
CHAPTER 13
LUCA
She is barely able to stand upright but insists on being by my side when we burn the car. I pass her the lighter, and she throws it at the gasoline-soaked classic. As the flames take hold, I watch them play across her face—her beautiful, blood-smeared face.
She smiles as the gas in the tank ignites and the whole car becomes fully engulfed. I keep my arm around her shoulders, holding her tight in case her still-shaky legs give out.
For a moment, I simply stare at her in amazement. She’s more spectacular than the bonfire in front of us, and I am in awe of her resilience.
She’s hurt, physically and emotionally, likely near collapse. Everything that happened to her tonight will be taking its brutal toll, but still she stands. Continues to fight. And still she takes some small satisfaction from her petty act of revenge.