Page 32

Signed in Blood.

I imagined it differently. Everything from my dress to the location of my wedding, down to the person I’d be promising my forever to. Unfortunately, what I imagined doesn’t matter anymore, not when I’m wearing this dress, in my home, about to marry the one person I wanted to avoid at all costs. On top of everything, I’m carrying something inside me that will only complicate things further, for everyone.

“Miss Nera,” Olga says, taking a deep breath as she steps into the room on the side of the church. “I’ve got it.” She hands me a pill along with a glass of water before checking if I’m okay.

“Thank you. I’ll be fine.”

She nods before stepping out and I clasp the pill in my hand, the woman in the mirror staring back at me, calling me a coward.

“I won’t do it,” I whisper to myself. “I can’t.” I try to hold my tears back when the door opens. Hiding the pill behind me, I place the glass on the table beside me when the lock clicks.

“Why didn’t you come last night?” My voice is barely over a whisper as he steps towards me, his dress shirt unbuttoned, his face looking completely unravelled.

Was he having second thoughts?

“Please tell me you found a way to stop this.”

When he doesn’t answer me, the contents of my stomach swirl in a frenzy and I brace my corset as it crushes my lungs. The terror begins to build, the slow realisation creeping in that this is no longer a ruse. It’s real and it’s going to happen.

I take a deep breath, fighting the tears as he wraps his arms around me.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers, his words breaking me in a way nothing else ever could.

“No, no, no…” I press my lips on his, my hand on his face as I speak. “None of this is you.”

He turns his head away from me, but I guide it back, the hurt in his steel eyes like the blood on his shirt last night. Thick, stained, and permanent.

“Kiss me,” I ask, begging him to love me one last time, and he doesn’t waste a moment, almost tearing my dress as he lifts me. Pinning me on the table, he devours my mouth. The pill is knocked out of my hand as I brace myself, his passion and desperation taking over the moment he lifts the layers of my wedding dress and removes my panties. We fight, gripping, scratching, and bruising as the inevitable looms over us.

“ Principessa ,” he whispers.

The clank of his belt is followed by a groan as he slides into me.

I let the tears fall, allowing myself to feel everything.

“I love you,” I whimper as I curl my leg over his hip, pulling him deeper as he buries his face into my neck.

“I won’t ever be the same without you, Nera,” he says as he peppers kisses from my throat to my wet cheek. “I will keep my promise to you.”

My head spins as he thrusts into me, his fingers intertwining with mine as our breaths become one. Threading my nails through his unruly hair one last time, I begin etching it into my memory, so I don’t forget what it was like to be truly loved by someone. I vow to myself to keep the raw intensity, passion, and devotion of his love inside me until I die.

His soft lips fit like a glove over mine as he claims my heart forever. I know I won’t ever feel like this for anyone else in my lifetime and that’s okay because I don’t want it to be anyone else.

I want it to be him, even if I need to travel into my memories to feel this love again. I’ll do it every day so I don’t forget.

His hips slam into mine as his grip grows tighter on my hand.

“I’m…”

Thrust.

“So…”

Thrust.

“Angry.”

The helplessness he must be feeling is likely drowning him from within, and I can sense the anger that’s pouring out of him and into me.

I swallow back the tears as I clasp his cheek. “It’s okay, amore mio ,” I whisper. “I will be okay.”

Lifting me, he drives my back into the wall with the passion I fell in love with in the very beginning. My legs fasten around his waist, gripping him to me as he moans, entering me to the hilt.

The breath is pulled from within me as he fills me completely, powerless to the arousal and desire that’s constantly coursing through my body with his proximity. He sets my world ablaze as he drives into me again and again.

A cool rush flows down the base of my spine as he bruises my hip, bouncing me up and down as the deep timbre of his moans makes my nipples tingle.

Shutting my eyes, I fist the material of his dress shirt as I clench over his cock, rocking my hips back and forth, riding the high of my orgasm.

“Nera fucking Della Torre,” he drawls, and the way he says my name has me shuddering again, extending the waves of pleasure rolling through me.

“Think of me,” he breathes as he nears his climax. “Think of me when you’re walking down the aisle. Think of my cum running down these thick, beautiful thighs just as you’re about to say I do.”

He thrusts deeper and I struggle to keep my legs around him. “Don’t ever stop thinking of me. I want to live inside your mind like a fucking cancer, metastasising until your body eventually gives in, the thoughts of me covering every inch of space inside your head.”

The calluses on his hands are like a velvet scarf around my neck as his grunts fill the space inside the small room. I work to catch my breath as he holds me against the wall, his cock still deep inside me.

“Keep us alive, Principessa ,” he pleads.

The lump in my throat is back, as are the tears as he slowly pulls himself out of me and lowers me until my feet touch the floor. As we stare into each other’s eyes, I see the memories I don’t want to lose and the wound inside me grows bigger as I watch the tears build in his steel eyes. Unnerve settles into the air as I think about everything he’s said to me and I step into him, twisting both my hands into his collar to pull him closer.

“What are you going to do?”

He doesn’t answer, which only causes my unnerve to rapid-fire into dread.

“If you do anything stupid, I swear––”

“Don’t worry, amore mio ,” he says softly, the back of his fingers brushing the runaway tears on my cheek. “Just promise me you’ll keep us alive.”

My bottom lip quivers as I try to speak, his devastatingly handsome smile gracing me for what seems like the last time. A spear-like force hits me right in the chest as he drops his hand and steps out of the door, leaving me to my inescapable fate.

The rain patters lightly on the roof of the church as I take a few deep breaths, clutching the small bouquet in my trembling hands. I contemplate running, but it’d be futile. I can’t escape this fate and even if I tried, Frances would hunt me down and kill off my family one by one to get to me.

The doors open and the guests turn to face me. I’m grateful for the lace veil, shielding my red eyes from the crowd as I take a step forward.

One step at a time, Nera.

You can do this.

You have to do this.

Frances stands at the altar with his brother beside him, and Dante opposite them. I don’t check to see if Raf is here because the pit in my stomach tells me he’s left. Flashes of the moments I spent with him fill my mind. The more steps I take towards my fate, the more I feel the remnants of our passion gliding down my thighs.

“Keep us alive.”

His words echo in my mind, and I grasp the bouquet harder as if it can somehow help me keep my composure. When I reach the altar, I beg myself to switch off, to disassociate from everything that’s about to happen. If only there were such a thing.

If only we could switch off our minds, our hearts, and our emotions.

“Nera, you look phenomenal.” Frances plays his part far too well, and it makes me rage inside. I stay silent because if he’s going to own my body, the only thing that’s left to me is my voice and my thoughts.

The deacon clears his throat without taking a second glance at me and opens his book.

“Frances Lucchese and Nera Della Torre, have you come here to enter into marriage without coercion, freely and wholeheartedly?”

I take a breath as Frances answers first. “I have.”

Forcing the words out through my teeth, I focus on the statue in the back. “I have.”

“Are you prepared, as you follow the path of marriage, to love and honour each other for as long as you both shall live?”

“I am.” His responses are quick and sharp like he wants this to be over.

“I am,” I repeat after him.

“Are you prepared to accept children lovingly from God, and to bring them up according to the law of Christ and his Church?”

My mouth goes dry and I second-guess my decision not to take the pill Olga gave me.

“I am,” Frances responds, and I am forced to follow.

“I am.”

“Since it is your intention to enter into the covenant of Holy Matrimony, join your right hands, and declare your consent before God and his church.”

My breath shakes as he reaches for my hand, taking it in his, and the reality becomes far too much to bear as he begins to state his consent.

“I, Frances Lucchese, take you, Nera Della Torre, to be my wife. I promise to be true to you in good times and in bad, in sickness and in health. I will love you and honour you all the days of my life.”

I hesitate, the cold sweat now taking over my entire body.

“I––”

The doors of the church ricochet off the walls as my eyes clash with Rafael’s.

“No! Don’t!” I yell before he raises his revolver and storms through the church. My veil is torn off and cold steel is pressed against my temple, the fear now multiplying inside me as I stare at the man I love with multiple guns aimed toward him.

“Let her go,” he demands. “Let her go and you can have me. I’ll do whatever you want.”

Frances chuckles beneath my ear, his arm wrapped tightly around my shoulders as he presses the gun harder into my temple. “What makes you think you’re more valuable than her?”

He reaches into his pocket, pulling out something I never thought I’d see in my life. “Because I can give you this.” The small egg-shaped item shimmers in the dim light of the church.

“Drop your weapon,” Frances orders as I struggle in his hold.

He lowers his weapon slowly, the guards immediately descending on him the moment he places it on the floor. He grunts as they take him, pushing him down onto his knees.

“It’s worth more than Falcon’s Keep. Just take it and leave,” he implores.

Frances loosens his grip on me and steps in front of me, eyeing me, then eyeing him. He expels a long breath with a slight chuckle to his tone when he speaks next. “I guess they never told you, huh, princess?”

The corset slowly crushes my ribs as I struggle to breathe again. “Tell me what?” I glance at Dante, and he shakes his head like he doesn’t know what Frances is talking about either.

Frances pulls a knife from his pocket and motions for his men to grab Dante.

“What the fuck is going on!? Frances! We didn’t agree to this!” Dante exclaims.

The blood rushes through my neck and up to my head as the sharp blade cuts through my corset and I stumble to the floor.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

I stare down at my hands, now covered in my own blood as Frances kneels before me.

“Nera!” Rafael’s screams bellow through the church, mixing with the memory of us just minutes ago.

“If you see your father again, you can blame him for all of this.” He yanks the blade out and tears open my corset, sticking the knife back into my scar as he cuts his way into me. My cries tear through my throat at the searing pain.

I used to think about the moment of my death and how it would happen, how old I would be, and where I’d be. Like everything in life, nothing is black and white. All I see before me is the grey, the murky grey filled with lies and betrayal until it gets darker, the pain now fading into the distance as I admire the rain glistening on the stained-glass windows of the church.

Finally, I surrender to the depths of Falcon’s Keep, the pull of its tide too strong to fight.