1001 Dark Nights: Bundle Twelve

by Alexandra Ivy

  Bella took a seat in the living area, eyeing the weapons Ettore had given her. The gun and dagger rested on the side table next to her. She wished she were skilled enough to help him in some way. Feeling helpless made her antsy, made her mind spin from one disturbing thought to another.

  She got up to pace the rug, worrying about Ettore. And the more she worried, the more she wondered if this random Rogue attack was actually random at all.

  What if Vito Massioni had something to do with it?

  She didn’t want to think about the vision she had scried earlier, but the truth was his hideous face had been seared into her mind ever since.

  And as much as she dreaded the idea of glimpsing him again, she needed to see if she could learn anything more that might help Ettore and the Order prepare to destroy him.

  Taking the gun into the small kitchen with her, she retrieved a rustic stone bowl and filled it with water from the sputtering tap. Although Scythe didn’t require mundane food or drink for nourishment as one of the Breed, his modest home had apparently been outfitted for human residents.

  She stared into the bowl of water, trying to ignore all of the pain and death taking place outside her shelter. She focused all of her concentration on the clear pool, but nothing happened.

  She tried again, praying for something.

  Anything.

  But the water gave her nothing.

  Her gift refused to comply.

  “Dammit.” She heaved a sigh, closing her eyes and lowering her head into her palms.

  When she opened them again, she did see a face reflected in the water.

  Vito Massioni’s hideous, disfigured face. His unblinking eyes stared back at her, the amber glow of them furious. Insane. Murderous.

  His jaws were open, baring the twin daggers of his elongated fangs.

  “Hello, Arabella.”

  Oh, God.

  No.

  She screamed and wheeled around, horrified to find the Breed male standing behind her. Her hand shot out to grab for the gun, but Massioni was much faster. With barely a sweep of his arm, he sent the weapon flying into the other room.

  She tried to scramble out of his reach, but he grabbed a fist full of her long blonde hair and yanked her back. She crashed against him, her stomach turning at the foul stench of soured blood and death that clung to him.

  “Didn’t I warn you never to cross me, Bella?” His arms wrapped around her, strong as steel. His breath was hot and rank as it wormed into her ear. “Didn’t I tell you there was nowhere you could run that I wouldn’t find you? Your family too.” He clucked his tongue, a revolting, wet sound. “Did you think I was so careless that I wouldn’t take steps to make sure of that? The tracer on Chiara’s truck led me straight to you. The Rogues ensured that the warrior from the Order would have no choice but to leave you unattended.”

  Nausea swamped her, not only from the horror of their mistake, but from the repulsiveness of Massioni’s nearness. She moaned, struggling in vain to break loose. “Let me go!”

  He chuckled. “Stupid girl. Didn’t I tell you there would be pain if you deceived me? Now, there will be death.”

  Bella struggled and fought, but it was no use. Even severely injured from the blast that should have killed him, Massioni was inhumanly strong.

  He was also deadly, even though his burned, mangled skin was raw, open wounds still seeping on his forearms despite the massive amount of blood he had likely consumed in his efforts to heal.

  Bella’s gaze fixed on the worst of the wounds that mangled the flesh of his arms. Maybe there was a tender spot on this dragon after all. Her bile churned, but she pushed past it to dig her fingers as deep and as savagely as she could into the ruined muscles and tendons.

  He howled in anguish—and when his grasp loosened in reflex to the pain, she threw herself out of his grip. Stumbling to the floor, she scrambled away into the living area, hope surging through her.

  But it was short-lived.

  Chiara rushed out of the far chamber. “Bella? Oh, my God!”

  Her scream when she spotted Massioni brought Pietro out of the bedroom behind her.

  What happened next occurred so quickly, Bella could hardly comprehend it.

  One moment, Massioni was doubled over in agony and anger. The next, he had Pietro by the wrist, holding the little boy up like a prize. Like a slab of meat caught on a butcher’s hook.

  Massioni’s amber eyes burned even brighter in his rage. He snorted and sniffled, his lips peeling back from his teeth and fangs. There was a deep madness in his transformed gaze. In his feral, blood-stained face.

  Oh, shit.

  He really was crazy. Worse than crazy, but she hadn’t realized it until now.

  He had drunk too much blood since he escaped the blast.

  Vito Massioni was lost to Bloodlust.

  He was Rogue.

  “You shouldn’t have done that, Arabella. Now, you’re really going to suffer.”

  His tongue slid out, snakelike, as he eyed the Breed child that dangled from his grasp. Then he looked back at her as she slowly got to her feet from her stumble into the other room.

  His head cocked at a chilling, exaggerated angle. “I think we’ll start by letting you watch me rip this boy’s heart out and eat it in front of you both.”

  Chapter 13

  “I don’t think so, asshole.”

  Savage held a semiauto in his hand as he stood in the open doorway, his eyes lit up with fury, his fangs pulsing with the need to shred Vito Massioni to pieces.

  He and Scythe had split up after leaving the sassi, working the attack from both ends of the city in order to contain the situation as best they could. Savage had just ashed his third Rogue of the night when all of a sudden it felt as if his heart was about to burst out of his chest in ice-cold terror.

  Bella’s terror.

  Their bond had told him instantly that she was in danger. He hadn’t been prepared for what he saw as he entered the sassi safe house and met with the hideous, Bloodlust-afflicted creature facing him now.

  “Let the boy go, Massioni.”

  Savage would have opened fire already if Bella wasn’t standing between him and a clear shot at the slavering Breed male.

  Besides, in Massioni’s current condition, he was as volatile as a human on PCP. Putting him down cleanly would take a lot more rounds than Savage had left in his pistol.

  Or a titanium dagger.

  Unfortunately, he’d buried one a few minutes ago in the skull of a Rogue who’d ripped the throat out of a nun inside one of Matera’s old churches. His other blade he’d given to Bella.

  He saw no trace of the gun or the knife he’d given her.

  And there wasn’t time to consider alternatives so long as Massioni had little Pietro hanging painfully by his wrist while Chiara wept and pleaded for mercy on her son.

  Massioni sneered at Savage. “Done chasing rabbits so soon, warrior? Here I’d been looking forward to taking my time with these three.”

  “You heard me. Put the boy down.”

  Instead of complying, he raised Pietro higher, until the child’s rib cage was level with Massioni’s open maw. Saliva dripped from the tips of his fangs. “Put down your weapon, warrior.”

  Savage didn’t move. He didn’t as much as blink. Holding his 9mm steady, he only hoped Massioni would believe his bluff.

  “Bella,” he said calmly. “Move out of the way, baby.”

  Massioni growled. “Don’t you take even one fucking step, Bella, or the next thing you’ll hear is this brat’s screams as I punch a hole through his sternum with my fist.”

  Chiara sobbed. Bella looked equally miserable, but she held herself together. She stared at Savage, shaking her head as if to warn him away from doing anything rash.

  Well, fuck that. He would do anything to get her out of this, but damn if he wanted to forfeit an innocent child’s life to accomplish it.

  He saw little choice but to try to catch Massioni off guard.

/>   In a split-second move, Savage took his shot, hitting the Breed male’s forearm.

  Massioni hissed as the bullet bit into his ravaged flesh.

  As Savage hoped, he lost his grip on Pietro. The boy dropped to the floor, unharmed.

  But then, just as quickly, Massioni snatched up Bella and hauled her against him like a shield.

  She screamed. Arms trapped at her sides, she struggled in vain to break loose. The monster who held her only chuckled, seeming to delight in her terror. His glowing gaze was wild with madness. And dangerously smug triumph.

  Savage couldn’t contain the nasty curse that exploded out of him. He’d never known this kind of fear. He’d never felt the kind of bleak horror that raked him as he watched his mate sag into a resigned slump in her captor’s arms.

  Massioni tilted his head, those insane amber eyes studying Savage too closely.

  “What’s this?” he taunted. “Why, you look more than worried for this bitch, warrior. Am I taking something you thought belonged to you?”

  “Let her go.”

  He held his weapon steady on his target, but he knew damned well he would never pull the trigger. Not when he was staring at Bella’s beautiful, fear-stricken face.

  If anything happened to her—for crissake, if she died right here at Massioni’s hands—he would burn the whole world down around him.

  “Please,” he said woodenly, too afraid of losing her to care if he had to beg. “Let her go.”

  Massioni’s eyes narrowed on him. “You’ve fucked her.”

  Savage bristled at the other male’s crudeness. He wanted to flay him just for uttering the words.

  A bark of laughter erupted from between the male’s cracked and blistered lips. “Holy hell. You love her. Don’t you, warrior?”

  Bella made an anguished sound in the back of her throat. She shook her head at Savage, and as their eyes connected and held, he didn’t so much feel fear in their bond, but a strange and steely determination.

  “She’s no good to me now,” Massioni muttered. “Her gift was the only thing of value to me. You’ve ruined it.” He shrugged. “I might as well kill her now.”

  Massioni gripped her chin in his soot-blackened, blood-stained fingers. He yanked her head back, and Bella’s sharp cry tore into Savage.

  Her pain was real.

  But her terror had galvanized into something else.

  Something that told Savage to trust what he was feeling, not what he was seeing.

  “All right.” He relaxed his stance, lowering his weapon. “All right, you son of a bitch. You win.”

  Massioni stilled. Confusion swept over his feral features. His hold on Bella relaxed—ever so slightly.

  It was all the opportunity she needed.

  Twisting in the slackened cage of his arms, Bella drew the dagger she’d been concealing in her hand and drove it hard and fast and mercilessly into the center of his chest.

  He staggered back, a look of shock on his face.

  Until the poison of the titanium began to seep into his corrupted blood system. He howled, his face constricting in disbelief and agony. His body convulsed, collapsing to the floor.

  Savage was at Bella’s side in no time, pulling her close to him—holding her tight as the Rogue that had once been Vito Massioni began to disintegrate into a puddle of sizzling, melting flesh and bone.

  In a few moments, there was only ash where his body had been.

  He was dead, and Bella was safe.

  Chiara and her son had come through the ordeal uninjured too.

  As Savage held Bella in his embrace, he glanced to the door where Scythe had now entered. The former Hunter strode inside his house, his black gaze taking in the signs of struggle and the pile of ash still crackling on the floor. Then he looked to Chiara and Pietro, the pair of them huddled together nearby, and something crossed the remote male’s face.

  Relief, Savage thought.

  And maybe something more.

  Regret?

  Whatever it was, the emotion was there and gone in an instant.

  He gave Savage a sober nod, whether in confirmation of what he’d allowed him to see just then, or in acknowledgment of their teamwork tonight, Savage wasn’t sure.

  He might have tried to decipher it, but right then, with Bella warm and alive in his arms and his heart full to the brim with love for her, the only thing on his mind was the well-being of his woman.

  His brave, beautiful mate.

  He couldn’t contain himself from dragging her to him for his kiss.

  She resisted a little, drawing back on a small groan. “Ettore, I’m a mess. I have his blood on me…his foulness.”

  “That won’t stop me from kissing you,” he told her gently. “Nothing is going to stop me from doing that ever again.”

  He pulled her closer, wrapping her in his embrace as he brushed his lips over hers in a slower claiming, a tender joining of their mouths that still had the power to inflame them both—even after the ordeal they had just endured. Perhaps because of it too.

  But she was right. She had been through hell with Massioni. Not only tonight, but for the past three years as well.

  Now that the monster was no more, Savage wanted to erase all trace of him from Bella’s life.

  He swept his tongue across her soft lips on a groan that promised more. With Chiara quietly tending to her son, Savage lifted his head to look at Scythe.

  “If you don’t mind, I’d like to go draw a bath for my lady.”

  “Actually, I’d prefer a shower,” Bella interjected, glancing up at him wryly. “No more baths, at least not for a while.”

  Savage chuckled. “Baby, whatever you want, it’s yours.”

  “You, Ettore.” Her soft brown gaze turned serious as she reached up and held his face in her warm, courageous hands. “You’re all I want. You are all I’m ever going to need.”

  “You have me,” he murmured quietly. “You have every part of me, sweet Bella. You always have.”

  They kissed again, his love for her soaring in his chest, in his veins. Through their bond.

  Her love twined with his, and the depth of their connection was so profound it nearly brought him to his knees.

  He didn’t care that they had a small audience in the room with them. He didn’t care who knew how completely he adored Arabella.

  Loved her.

  Desired her.

  He wanted the whole world to understand that she was his.

  And he was hers…in all ways.

  Forever.

  Chapter 14

  “Keep kissing me like that, female, and I may decide to keep you here permanently.”

  Bella laughed and gazed up at Ettore, both of them now dried off and dressed after taking their time to clean up together. “Live in a sassi cave house and make little Breed babies? Sounds just about perfect to me.”

  Ettore paused. “Is that what you want?”

  She smiled, lifted her shoulder in a faint shrug. “The cave is optional.”

  The sound he made as he wrapped his arms around her was one of joy and wonder. Even reverence.

  “Do you have any idea how much I love you, Arabella?”

  “I do,” she said. “Because I feel it inside me. I hope you can feel even a fraction of the love I have for you, Ettore.”

  His rough moan was confirmation enough, but he kissed her anyway. Their union was so precious to her, she truly would have stayed right there with him forever if he asked it of her.

  But Chiara and Pietro were waiting in the living area outside.

  And Ettore’s comrades with the Order in Rome were awaiting his return too.

  Bella knew his duty was on his mind as he led her out to join the others. He’d been in touch with the command center in the hours since Massioni’s death, both to inform them of the situation in Matera and to explain that he would be coming back to Rome with his Breedmate and her kin.

  He threaded his fingers through hers as he brought her out to the main p
art of Scythe’s home.

  The signs of the earlier confrontation were gone now. Chiara was sweeping up the cold ashes from the floor, while Pietro sat on the rug nearby. He had a little toy in his hand—a carved lion made of stone. Scythe stood back from the boy, his black eyes haunted somehow as he watched him play with the miniature creature.

  Bella’s heart squeezed at the sight. When Scythe abruptly glanced up, she felt intrusive somehow. As if she had invaded private, long-buried thoughts that the forbidding Breed male had no intention of sharing.

  Ettore held up the key that Scythe had given him earlier tonight. “Are you sure the Rover is ours?”

  He gave a firm nod. “Keep it. If I have need of another vehicle, I have ample resources to get one.”

  “All right.” Ettore inclined his head. “We should get moving, then. We have a lot of road ahead of us if we mean to make it back to Rome before sunrise.”

  Scythe grunted, contemplative. “Through my brother, Trygg, I’m aware that the Order has more than its share of trouble these days. If you or your comrades ever have need of more hands on deck—” The sober male actually smirked now. “Or even just one hand—then I trust you’ll let me know.”

  Ettore chuckled. “I will. Thank you.”

  Scythe extended his good arm to him. The two males exchanged a brief left-handed shake. Then Scythe turned his fathomless gaze on Bella.

  “Take care of each other.”

  “We will,” she replied. And whether the intimidating Gen One wanted it or not, she rose up on her toes to kiss his beard-darkened face. “Thank you, Scythe. For everything you’ve done for us.”

  He stepped back without a word or acknowledgment, yet despite his reticence, she knew in her heart that she and Ettore had made a friend. If needed, they had a lethal, lifelong ally.

  Chiara and her son as well.

  Bella watched as her brother’s widow collected her child from the rug where he was playing. She whispered something into Pietro’s ear, then the boy shyly stepped over to stand in front of Scythe. In his pudgy fingers was the carved animal.

  “Here,” he said, offering it back to the larger male.

  “You keep it,” Scythe said, his deep voice toneless. “I’ve held on to it for too long. It’s yours now.”