Page 25 of My Dark Ever After

Like something holy. Something that could absolve me of my sins and baptize me anew.

I understood suddenly what it must have been like for Dante’s fallen angels to have known heaven and to have been cast from its light forever.

Something like a sob lodged in my throat as I thought about never holding her like this again.

Only the fact that she kissed me back for one euphoric moment allowed me to swallow it down, chased by the heavenly taste of her mouth against mine.

“Raffa, no,” she said against my lips, even though it was her thigh hitched over mine and her fist caught up in the collar of my shirt.

“What do I have to do to earn your forgiveness?” I rasped against her neck as I pressed kisses like question marks into her skin. “Tell me,mia stella cadente, what I must do, and I will do it.”

The fist in my shirt flattened to push me away farther.

Only the heaviness of our breath punctuated the room. I could not take my eyes from her swollen mouth, slick from my kisses, sweet from that single taste of dessert wine.

“Space,” she said finally with a shiver as she pushed me away again. She waited until I reluctantly stepped back before saying, “Give me space, Raffa. Being back in Italy with you ... it’s enough to make me lose my head, and I’m not willing to be your blindbambolinaanymore.”

“You are not blind. You are here in my inner sanctum. In myhome, with the people I care for the most, because I count you among them now.”

Do you not see?I wanted to shout.Do you not see how my love for you eclipses all else?

But I could not and would not say it.

She did not want to hear it, for one thing.

And for another, what did I expect? That she would forgive me and love me enough to make a life with me here in Italy as the Proserpina to my Pluto? That she could accept and love the dark in me just as she had been drawn into the light?

Even if she did, could I keep her safe from all the enemies forever at the gate, seeking to take the power and glory of my empire from me and mine?

Could I condemn her to the kind of lifestyle where she could be hurt or killed because of me?

Could I even bear to live with that responsibility and the shame of bringing danger to her door?

It was as hopeless a situation as I had found myself in nearly five years ago, when my father died.

Sometimes in life, you are shown the things you most desire just as a reminder that you do not deserve to have them.

“Space,” Guinevere repeated, canting her chin into the air, the dimple in her left cheek flaring as she pursed her lips. “And time.”

“Bene,” I said, rubbing a hand over my mouth as if I could erase the taste of her enough to willingly leave the room. “I will give you space and time, Guinevere.”

I stepped to the side so she could move deeper into the room and I could turn to leave. The knob was in my hand, my body already in the hall, when I hesitated, peering through the shadows into the golden-lit room.

The words were out of my mouth before I could rein them in with rationality.

“You may need time and space. You did not ask what I need, but I will tell you anyway because hope has been a hand around my throat, strangling me, every day we have been apart. Love is not something that recognizes just the good in someone. It sees the bad and ugly. It acknowledges the dark because it accepts every part of who a person is. I am not all good. I am not even divided wholly in half. But whatever good I am I would give to you. Whatever bad I have I would use to shield you from harm. All I ask for in return is that you love me for who I am. Not Prince Charming, buttuus Rex Infernus.”

Chapter Seven

Guinevere

Raffa was gone when I woke up the next morning.

I knew before I even left the gorgeous room he’d placed me in. It was something in the air, or maybe I was back to being too fanciful.

My body was still sore from the escapades in the Beaumont Building, but it felt good to stretch it out in the big, soft bed. The bullet graze to my temple was already scabbing over, a superficial injury that had bled so much because it was a head wound. The room smelled faintly of lavender, and as I unpacked my suitcase, I realized it was because each drawer was filled with little sachets of the dried flower. Even though the house was hundreds of years old, they had spared no expense on the upgrades. The en suite bathroom housed an enormous tiled walk-in shower with such amazing water pressure I moaned the entire time I stood under the spray.

It felt incredible to get clean. I brushed out my hair, moisturized my body with the olive oil–based products on the sink basin labeled with “Romano Toscana,” and did a full skin-care routine. Even the pinch of the needle when I injected myself with my medicine didn’t ache as much as it usually did. The self-care routine made me feel human again, so when I reentered the bedroom, I finally noticed the box on the side table beside the door.