I sneered at him, baring my teeth. "I kill to protect my gang."
"And I kill to protect my family," he shot back, lifting his chin.
"Let's not talk about what we all kill for," Leon said lightly. "I'm sure Gabriel would kill to protect his roof tent and I'd kill to protect a sandwich, so we're all capable of murder for reasonable things. But there's one thing we'd definitely all kill for and I think you know what that is." He glanced between us as if prompting an answer from three year olds. "Anyone?"
My hands curled into tight fists and venom dripped onto my tongue. I’m so done with this shit.
"The answer was Elise, you all failed that test," Leon said with a frown.
"We know, idiota." Dante shoved Leon and his leg snagged on the wire for the Christmas tree lights sending him tumbling towards me and I caught him instinctively before I could stop myself. I pushed him back to his feet and he smiled at me like I'd passed another one of his damn tests.
I stalked away from them, hissing between my teeth. "You don't just kill for family, Inferno, you torture for them too. I might be a monster, but whose fault is that? Your aunt made me this way so do you lift your chin with pride over that as well? Does it help you sleep better at night to know your enemy was forged in blood by one of your own?"
"I didn't know about Mariella, I had no idea she took you," Dante snarled. I'd heard it before and I was sick of his lies. It made anger tear up my core and I ached to shift, if only I could reach the sleeping snake inside me.
"At least have the balls to fucking own what you and your family did," I spat and Leon and Gabriel shared a concerned glance as they considered stepping in, but fuck that.
"What benefit would it be to me to lie?" Dante snarled. "I tried with you, with all of you, but you had to fuck up everything. You were too angry to even consider a peace deal. When you escaped Mariella's, if you'd just accepted that I had nothing to do with it-"
"Peace deal?" I spat, cutting him off. "What fucking peace deal?"
"The same one your father tried to broker with me," Dante barked, making my mind spike with more rage at him mentioning the one good person I’d had before Elise. "Vesper Draconis gave his life for that deal and you threw it back in his face. At least I respect my famiglia's wishes. I would never scorn my father's name like you did."
"What the fuck are you talking about?" I snarled and he stilled, the tension in the room growing and splitting the air apart.
Leon opened his lips to speak and Gabriel clapped a hand over his mouth to stop him. "Don't say a word, this is important," he said with that glazed expression he got when he was gifted a vision from the stars.
I frowned at Dante, waiting to see what bullshit he'd spew now, but Mariella's words rung in my head, the ones she’d spoken just before her death. There’ll never be another chance for peace. Had she known something I didn't?
"You don't know?" Inferno frowned. "Didn't you read the letter I sent after you returned home from Mariella's?"
"I never got any letter," I growled, hunting his eyes for the truth. What fucking shit was he trying to weave into my head now?
Dante's face paled and a look of comprehension filled his eyes. "Fuck." He started pacing, clawing a hand through his hair and I stared at him in confusion.
"What am I missing here?" I demanded and he swallowed thickly before striding toward me, holding his hand out.
"I vow to tell you the truth to the best of my abilities, serpente," he said in a low and serious tone that made me bristle.
I hesitated, my jaw locking as I stared at the hand of my enemy extended towards me. I weighed up the options and couldn't see a disadvantage to it, even if the deal was broken it was only Inferno who'd suffer. And I'd feel it the moment he lied. As much as I didn't like to be in the position of making a star deal with him, I could tell there was something he knew that I really needed to hear. And there was no way I was going to be kept in the dark.
I slid my hand into his and shook firmly, a clap of magic passing between us as the deal was struck. I pulled my hand away fast and stepped back, frowning at him as I felt the other two watching us.
"After your father killed mine, I stepped up to the position of Alpha," Dante said grimly. "I wasn't Awakened, but I had my Order and my storm gifts were enough to see me ascend to the position of Alpha which I’d clearly been born for. We'd lost so many people to the Lunars and the pain of my father's death was still fresh with me. I wanted the fighting to end. I knew it would go on forever if I didn’t do something, this endless tit for tat. My father had said it himself, he'd wanted peace too, he'd dreamed of it, but had never had the faith that it could be done. So, I vowed to try for his sake."
"So you kidnapped innocent women and children from the Brotherhood?" I snarled, remembering that day, the last time I’d seen my father. How he’d looked at me like he’d known it was the final chance he ever had to look into my eyes and ruffle my hair in that way he always did.
"I had to get Vesper’s attention," Dante growled. "It was the only way I could get him to speak to me one on one. When he came alone as a sacrifice to save his people, I knew he had some good in him despite what he'd taken from me." Dante paused and the weight of his words made my spine prickle uneasily. "I told him what I wanted, that the war in Alestria between the two gangs would never end if we didn't come to an agreement. The Oscuras would never rest until he had paid for taking my father from the world. We needed to stop the endless cycle of bloodshed. We had to find a way to finish it for good. So..."
"So what?" I snarled as Dante dropped my gaze and Leon and Gabriel gazed at him like they’d never heard this story before either.
"Your father struck a star vow with me," he said seriously and my throat tightened, my hackles rising as my instincts told me to refuse that information, but how could he lie? I’d know if he had. "He said he would give his life for the cause, be the final pawn to fall in the war, to appease the Oscuras, and in return, I promised I would extend the olive branch to the Lunars, that lines would be drawn down the city so that we would rule half of it and the Lunars would rule the other. We’d hold monthly meetings to ensure the city was run to both our gangs’ standards. Vesper said Scarlett had already been told that was what he wanted many times. And I assured him I wanted that too. To make peace above anything else. So we made a star bond even though I hadn’t been Awakened so I couldn’t really be held accountable by the stars. But I guess he trusted my word anyway because then…he took his own life."
I backed up a step, my heart thumping hard against my ribcage as I stared at him, taking in this truth that had been kept from me. This knowledge that changed everything. My father had wanted an end to the gang wars. He’d spoken of it while I was a boy, but he’d had rage in him too that I thought would never give way to peace, especially after my mother died. That had been her dream, to live in a place of harmony, somewhere we could be happy, somewhere we didn’t have to fight for everything we had, where we didn’t have to make sacrifices and spill blood and make decisions which broke us and moulded us into monsters every day.
"Scarlett was supposed to be my point of contact, she’d been informed of everything that went down when I met Vesper, but I could never reach her. She was told how it would be, was meant to start putting everything in place for the new deal. The Oscuras were ready to make peace, to divide up Alestria and make sure there was no more bloodshed between our people. But then...fucking Mariella and Felix had other plans. They ensured the peace could never be kept, making it seem as though my people had killed you. But of course, I didn't know any of that back then. And I never would have agreed to it if I had known. I had no idea what had happened to you, it made no sense. It took me until recently to realise Felix had been making it his personal mission to cause unrest amongst our people for years. And on top of that, once you vanished, the Lunars fought harder than ever to destroy us, calling us traitors and liars and spreading the rumour that I had orchestrated this entire thing to kill off the las
t of the Draconis line, the final Basilisks in the city. Their strongest members."
I couldn't refute his words, the star deal between us holding true. I would have felt if it was broken and at last I had to accept that Inferno really had never known about Mariella taking me. But the weight of that truth was like an iron bar across my shoulders. I had so much blame and hate inside me and without him to channel it towards, I didn’t know where it belonged now that Mariella was dead.
"When you escaped and the news of what Mariella had done reached me, I was furious," Dante snarled, hellfire swirling in his eyes. "I banished her, knowing a Wolf being cut off from their pack was a more excruciating pain than death ever could have been for her. But when I saw your scars for the first time, I wondered if that had been the right decision. It made me sick, Ryder," he said earnestly, clutching a hand to his gut. "I will never forget the day I witnessed what she'd done to you. And I have never once expected any less than hatred from you in return for it. But knowing that you thought I’d encouraged Mariella to do that, enemy or not, it has haunted me."
I ground my jaw, looking away from him as my chest tugged painfully and my magic reserves swelled a little. I didn’t want pity. I didn’t want anything from Inferno. Nothing but the truth, all of it, every last piece of the puzzle I’d been missing all these years so I could calculate my next move.
"You mentioned another peace deal," I muttered.
"I sent a letter to you after you were found. I offered what I had promised your father, but when I received the messenger’s body back in ten pieces with the letter clamped between his teeth, I assumed you were too angry at what Mariella had done to consider it. The Lunars retaliated savagely for the torture you received and the chance for peace was gone." Dante ran a hand down the back of his neck, his brows pulled tightly together.
I dropped down onto the couch, scraping a palm over my face as I tried to absorb this. Nothing was what it had seemed. And I didn’t know what to do about it.
A thought suddenly occurred to me that made my chest compress. "Where did you send that letter?" I hissed dangerously.
"To your headquarters. The Rusty Nail," Dante said and acid dripped over my tongue, the acrid taste rolling down my throat as I realised someone there had betrayed me. Someone in my ranks had read that letter and hadn't passed it on to me. They had forgone any chance of me discovering this truth, forgone any chance of peace. And I suspected that Scarlett Tide was in the prime position to do it. But she wasn't the only one who could have gotten their hands on it, so I couldn't just charge in there and demand the truth. I had to play this well. Had to bide my time and pick out the weeds from the flowers.
"I know who can help find out who betrayed you, Ryder," Gabriel said darkly and I looked to him hopefully as he blinked away the last of whatever vision he'd just been shown. "My friend is a Cyclops and the best damn private investigator in the city. I trust him with my life. If you want the truth, he can get it."
I stood, nodding firmly in agreement, unsure how to feel about any of this now. Not sure who to blame, and who to hate. Part of me wanted to thank Inferno, but my pride wouldn't let me do it, so I grunted something indecipherable at him instead and grabbed a coat from a hook beside the door. I shrugged it on before walking out of the cabin into the frosty air, needing to be alone with my thoughts for a while.
The one thing that kept circling in my head was the fact that Dante had made a deal with my father, they had placed their hands in each other’s and a promise of a better future had been sworn between them.
Mariella had made me into Dante's enemy as thoroughly as the stars had. She’d said it herself; she’d made me a monster. But if we were bound to clash eternally, would things have been different if I'd received that letter anyway? Would I have made the decision to lay our hate to rest? And if I had forged a vow of peace between us…would the stars have put a stop to our endless and tormenting abhorrence for one another? Or was this all of their doing? Ensuring our hatred lived on as Astral Adversaries were destined to, until one of us fell at the other’s hand…
C hristmas morning rolled around and I woke up in the huge ass bed that the Nights had gifted me and Leon when we were mated all alone and thoroughly pissed off. I'd been dreading the holidays for several reasons, but the most obvious one of all had been coping with the fact that I'd be spending them away from Gareth for the first time.
The first two nights that Leon had left me here alone, I pretty much hadn't slept, sitting up into the small hours, alternating between thinking back on the good times I'd spent with my brother, looking through his sketches and wandering around the house like the ghost of Christmas hell. I honestly felt bad for Leon's family having to put up with my miserable face as I moped about the place, but it was damn hard to snap out of it.
Leon had made it even harder on me by getting all of his family to swear to look after me while he was gone which meant during the day, I barely got a minute alone. And though I appreciated the pampering his moms had insisted on and liked having perfect hair and nails and skin buffed to a damn gleam, I just wasn't great company at the moment.
It didn't help that I was pissed at my kings. I hadn't heard from a single one of them. Not one. Not that they could easily contact me seeing as my Atlas was lost and I had no fucking idea where it could have gone. All I knew was that Leon had gone all Baldrick and hatched a cunning plan, which clearly involved the others, but I was at an utter loss as to what that could involve or why the fuck it was taking days to complete, much less why I was being left out. Maybe this was revenge for leaving him out of the Mariella thing.
I’d actually slept pretty well last night in the end, thanks in part to the fact that I'd talked Roary into getting wasted with me and we'd then taken a couple of quad bikes out for a ride around the ridiculously big grounds, which had exhausted me. The other reason I'd slept well was because I'd made the executive decision to lower my mental barriers and let Roary use his Charisma on me so that he could tell me that it would please him if I fell asleep. I did it in part because I just didn't want to spend another night alone crying into my pillow and in part because I knew it would piss Leon off to no end when he found out about it and he was on my shit list right now.
"Rise and shine, little Lioness, it’s Christmas," Roary's voice came from by the door and I groaned as I rolled over and pulled a pillow on top of my head.
"I take it Leon isn't back yet?" I grumbled without looking out from beneath my pillowy cocoon.
"I can do you one better, I'm taking you to him," he replied with a laugh. "He also told me to tell you to prepare for the Christmas of dreams."
"Tell him to go fuck himself," I growled. "I'm not in the mood. I just wanna wallow today and eat a shit ton of chocolate. Maybe some of that gravy Marie made. I wonder if that would taste good together? It seems like it shouldn't but that's what I want, chocolate and dipping gravy."
"Are you trying to tell me you've got me a niece or nephew growing in your belly?" Roary teased. “Because that sounds like some weird craving shit to me.”
"Fuck no, I do not have my life together enough to take on responsibility for raising someone else. I'll be keeping my contraceptive spells in place for the foreseeable future, thank you very much, this womb is not looking to take on a tenant."
"Or two," he teased. "Twins are fairly common for Lion Shifters and you could have a whole litter if Dante is the bio daddy seeing as he comes from a long line of Werewolves."
"Bullshit, Wolves don't have litters," I muttered. "And Vampires certainly don't. Now why don't you make yourself useful and tell your brother that I'm pissed at him and I'm not playing his dumb games today. I just wanna lay here and feel sorry for myself."
"No can do, little sister."
I stilled as he called me that and the silence that followed told me he'd realised his mistake. It was quiet for so long that I thought he'd just left me to it, but as the bed dipped beside me, I tossed the pillow aside and scowled up at him.
"Why?" I breathed, looking up at him between strands of my lilac hair as I rolled onto my back.
"Because that's what it means to be family. Your pain is my pain, your joy is mine too. I don't have to know why you're feeling it to experience it with you. You're a part of our pride and even if you are more Lion than Lioness half the time, it’s the job of the males in the pride to make sure the females are always content and happy. It hurts me to see you hurting. And it hurts Leon even more, which is why he hatched this hairbrained scheme of his."
"Any chance you're going to enlighten me about this scheme?" I pushed, not for the first time and Roary laughed.
"No luck there. But I am pretty sure you'll like it. It's all for you and he wants to give it to you as a Christmas present. So, do you think maybe you can play along with his crap for just a little longer and see if a few days stuck here with us was worth the lonely nights?" He offered me a winning smile and I found myself caving as I rolled my eyes and pushed myself up to sit.
"Where are we going then?" I asked.
"Get dressed and you'll see," he replied mysteriously, his smile widening as I smiled a bit too.
I squealed in alarm as he grabbed me in a bear hug and gave me a tight squeeze, his rough stubble scratching my cheek as he nuzzled against me like a cat.
"Gah, you're crushing me, you big pussy," I complained but I didn't really try to fight him off, hugging him back as he held me close for a moment and as much as I never would have asked for it, the hug really was kinda nice. It was the sort of thing Gareth would have done to me, his Pegasus nature making him so much more naturally tactile than I was.
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