Page 80 of Cursebound

“Don Vincenzo,” Stefano repeats loudly, the noisy crowd restless behind him. “Do you accept the challenge?”

The Don leans forward in his throne and crooks one of his fingers upward. Immediately, a group of guards appear from behind him. Four of them surround him, and the others file down the steps. The murmur of the crowd grows stronger, and it’s definitely tinged with disapproval.

I have no clue what’s happening, but it seems like Vincenzo is pissing people off. Presumably, he should be down in the pit by now.

“Coward!” Luca yells, moving toward the stage. “Come and face me! Or are you too scared?”

There is a communal intake of breath at this slight, and the Don laughs. It is a twisted sound, devoid of pleasure, filled only with bitterness and cruelty. “Luca, my child, you never disappoint. Full to the brim with piss and vinegar, right up to the end. There is no need to accept this challenge—because there is no challenge. You are mine, sworn by blood. How could you challenge me when I own you? When all I need to do is this?” Vincenzo doesn’t move. He doesn’t change his expression or raise a hand. He stays perfectly still, perfectly smug, and looks on as Luca grabs at his chest with both hands.

Their eyes meet, and Luca’s grip intensifies. He grits his teeth, making a mammoth effort to stay upright. Flecks of red appear in his eyes as blood vessels burst. He’s not falling, but he is struggling.

What the fuck is happening? How is the Don doing this? Why isn’t Luca fighting back?

Matteo runs up beside me and grabs me around my waist as I make a move to dash to Luca’s side. “Don’t. It won’t help. It’s over.”

“What? How can it be over? This isn’t a challenge! This isn’t a fight—this is, what is this? He’s just… He’s killing him!”

I struggle in Matteo’s grip as he replies, “Yeah. I know. The Don owns Luca, that’s what I’ve been trying to tell you. He can do this any time he wants. He’ll squeeze his heart until it explodes.”

“What? No! Why didn’t he tell me? And how are people okay with this?”

“They’re not,” says Matteo, gesturing around us. “Look at them. Nobody is okay with this. Nobody is happy with the Don refusing a challenge.”

I suck in some deep breaths and do as he says. Many of the vampires in the room are angry. Others are shocked. None of them are at all happy. Vincenzo might win this battle, but he’s losing face and doesn’t realize it. Or maybe he doesn’t care. He’s high on his own hype and can’t imagine a world where he doesn’t win.

I break free of Matteo and gallop toward the steps. I have no idea if she’s still here, but I scream Donatella’s name and see a flurry of her blond hair as she roundhouse kicks one of the guards on the stage. I plunge into the ones in front of me, screaming my fury, blazing with rage. They fight back—they must fight back, but I leave them behind me, twisted and broken and bloody, and have no memory of how I did it.

I manage the last steps and meet Donna on the stage. She’s holding a stake—looks like she snapped the leg off a chair. She throws it to me, and I scoop it up in mid-air, not breaking my stride as I close in on the Don. I’m within a few feet of him before he notices me, so intent is he on causing Luca pain. On literally breaking Luca’s heart.

I lift the stake and race in for the kill and don’t slow when I realize that he’s smiling at me. His rotten teeth are uneven and yellow, and his gray tongue is licking over his fangs. His skinny rib cage shakes. He’s laughing.

From nowhere, a blast of dazzling white pain strikes my skull. I drop the stake, and my hands fly to my head. It’s loud and bright and buzzing my whole brain, tearing it apart and rearranging it. A taser to the mind.

I fall to my knees, clawing and clutching at my hair, desperate to make it stop. I’ve never experienced anything like this before, and the searing agony steals all conscious thought. I roll away, trying to escape, and fall from the stage.

I curl into a ball on the floor, my eyes screwed up against the drill to my head. Luca, I tell myself. I have to help Luca.

I manage to drag myself to him, inch by torturous inch, each movement a knife to the brain. I can barely breathe. My heartbeat is too fast. I fight gravity. The white noise in my head builds with every passing second, and my eyes feel like they are bulging out of their sockets.

Luca is on his knees now, his skin pallid. I crawl as close as I can get and clutch at his hand. He grips my fingers, his eyes going wide as I lie beside him. “Rosa,” he croaks. “You should have gone. I wanted you to go.”

“I know,” I reply, keeping hold of him, both of us suffering. “I know you did. But my place is here with you. If I only have minutes of life left, I want to spend them with you. I love you, Luca.”

I crawl closer, fighting the daggers in my skull, and manage to lay my head on his shoulder. His arms go around me, and despite it all—the noise, the blood, the agony—I sigh. I am home.

“I love you too, bella,” he murmurs, almost inaudible. “It was always real for me.” He’s shivering, his breath rattling long and slow and tortured, his grip weakening by the second. The strength is flowing from him, and shudders rack his body. I’m losing him.

I pull away, take his face in my hands. Stare into his bloodshot eyes. As I smooth his hair away from his cheeks, the stabbing pain in my head comes to an abrupt stop. I nearly fall over as I adjust to the new reality. I have no idea what that was or why it stopped, and I have more important things to think about.

Now that I’m free of the onslaught, I become aware of chaos breaking out around us. Different factions of guards are fighting each other, a rumble of blood and fangs and vicious kicks, limbs flying so fast they are a tangled blur. People in the crowd are screaming, some running for the doors, others joining the violence. A young man flies through the air and lands next to me, his head thudding on the floor, his neck twisted irreparably. Witch, my senses tell me. Dead witch.

I hear Donna screaming in Italian and Moonface’s rumbling growl and someone, somewhere, fires a gun. The scene is noise and light and death and carnage, shattering glass and screeching battle cries, a macabre dance surrounding us. Vincenzo is perched on his throne, leaning forward and staring down. He is relishing every moment of this and appears oblivious to the bedlam in the court—all he seems focused on is Luca. On killing him as slowly and painfully as he can.

The guards at the side of the stage are engaged in a full-on clash with the ones who surrounded Luca earlier. Stefano tears someone’s head off. He holds it up by the hair, screams, and throws it at the stage, where it rolls and settles, splattering blood and bone. Donna fights beside Matteo, and a small crowd of women have dragged Carlos’s bloodied body down from the stage and are now pulling it to pieces. So much is going on around me, and I don’t care about any of it.

I don’t care who’s fighting, who’s winning, who might be left alive. I don’t even care about Tomasso. All I care about is Luca, who has fallen to the floor. Whose head I am cradling on my lap. Whose fingers have gone limp in mine.

I lean forward, kiss him desperately, furiously, knowing it is too late, but wishing. Wishing so hard for a fairy tale. For a sprinkle of pixie dust. For a glimpse of the magic that has surrounded us since we met.