Page 24 of A Betrothal So Bloody

Dante chuckles, glancing back at the road. “Me and the others have our jurisdictions of Venice to manage. Mine happens to include the Doge, who I’ve grow rather fond of, in my own way. Terrible chess player, though. Always fails to secure his king.”

The comment is made airily, but it turns my blood to ice. Heavenly father, this vampire family is influencing the highest authority of Venice. Who knows what manner of heathenistic things Dante has whispered into the ruler’s ears over the decades at the behest of his “father”?

And… the others.

“These siblings you mentioned… How many are there?”

“Five, besides me. The youngest is Isabetta—fifty-eight and still a ravenous brat, but we all pass through that phase. I’m sure you know the sort.” He sighs through his nose. “You’ll really only need to worry about Marco and Clémence. I suspect they’ll be who he’s sent to sniff me out and drag me back. Maybe Nico, if our dear father is feeling particularly cruel.”

I take a sidelong look at him, choosing my next question delicately. “Are any of them…yours? I mean—did you turn them?”

There’s a dangerous clench to his jaw, and I’m starting to worry I’m treading too far. “I’ve never turned anyone.”

I blink. “What— No one?”

“It’s against the rules,” he grinds out. His gaze is fixed stonily at the road ahead, unwavering. Holy shit, he’s embarrassed. “A family with many fathers falls quickly in on itself, as my master likes to say.”

“Hm. Disciplinarian, is he?”

Dante snaps his head toward me, his expression withering. “You don’t understand. Alessandro… He’s not always a tyrant. He can be persuasive in ways you can’t imagine. When I was younger, there was a time I would have slain dozens of souls just to earn his approval.”

“And yet here you are.”

Chasing a miracle alongside a mortal enemy, hunted by his own surrogate family. My brow creases at the mystery of it, morbid curiosity gnawing—what had this vampire lord done to Dante to make him so terrified, so angry? It had to be more than luring victims and playing Venetian prince. Still, I decide better not to pry too far, too fast, lest he grow fed up and shove me right off my saddle.

“What happens if they catch you?” I ask after a beat.

Dante sighs wearily—I’m on thin ice with his patience. “Oh, I don’t know. Castration, lacerate my body within inches of death. I suppose it depends on whose depraved imagination wins out.” This is said far too breezily, even for my liking—though I don’t miss the tension still crackling through him. “The last one to even attempt to break free of the Family was starved for a full year. Nico. As a human, he was a disgraced artist, enchanted by the idea of witnessing his work carry on through eternity. It’s hard to believe, but there was a time when he and I could debate the merits of different arts for nights on end.”

I can’t help but think of the vampires we keep in the undercroft of the abbey for training, how their beauty withered over years of deliberate starvation. I’d seen it, how their minds devolved along with their appearance. Velvet-tongued devils were reduced to snarling animals on a leash, thinking only in primal beats—hunt, feed, freedom.

To think of vampires doing such a thing to one of their own… It’s baffling, but why would I begin to think these monsters capable of decency now?

“Sounds like you two were close,” I offer. “Did he recover?”

“Something to that effect. He barely speaks now—though it’s a miracle he can manage even that. I heard from others that he was little more than a gaunt shell of himself by the end of his punishment.”

“You didn’t see for yourself in all that time?”

The final, fragile thread of his patience snaps. “You know, I welcomed conversation, not an interrogation. You’re making me regret being so hospitable.” A gentle nudge from his calves to the mare’s sides, and the horse’s stride lengthens, breaking in front of me.

I mimic the motion, folding my hands into my own horse’s mane as I match his quickened pace, then move ahead to steal the lead by just a touch. I swear I catch a touch of distant remorse on Dante’s face as I pass, but it must be a trick of the darkness. Surely he is incapable of such an emotion.

“Right, because coercing someone to join you on a deadly mission is the behavior of a gentleman,” I call over.

A cold chuckle from him. “Like you aren’t creaming yourself at the thought of beheading the lot of us.”

Grimacing, I cast my gaze away with a crinkle of my nose. What a contemptable, vile man.

Dante slides the reins to one hand, pulling out the meticulously folded map tucked into his belt. He unfolds it, brows pulling together as he studies the inked parchment intently. He mutters under his breath as traces our route with his eyes, glancing around us to confirm our location.

“That’s the third time in an hour you’ve looked that over. Must you commit every damn tree to memory?” I ask.

“Seven hells, are you trying to pick a fight? I thought you’d had your fill back in the bedroom,” Dante clips out roughly, not looking up.

But I spot the clench to his jaw—I’ve hit a nerve, and something cruel in me wants to twist the knife. I give a short, pointed laugh, shaking my head. “You’re over a century old. I thought you’d be more well-traveled in all that time. I didn’t expect you to be gawking at every fork in the road like a newborn babe in the woods.”

“Why don’t we go back to some fucking silence?” Dante folds the map and tucks it back into his belt, casting a flat glare my way as he adjusts his position on the saddle. He looks back at the dirt road stretching before us. “For the record, I’ve scarcely stepped foot out of Venice since joining the Family. And before… Well, that was over ninety-five goddamn years ago, so you’ll forgive me if things look just a little different now.”