by Debra Dunbar
She giggled. “Yes, I recall you doing that exact thing.”
I placed the clothing in her lap. “Get dressed. Come down and we’ll get you some food and a big glass of wine, and we’ll talk about how to get you home.”
Her face grew serious once more. “I’ll have to tell my family. Uncle Marcus will be livid. And Grandmother…”
“We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.” I patted her shoulder, then went downstairs to give her some privacy.
Irix was standing on the lawn, staring over the lake with his arms crossed in front of his chest, like he was single-handedly holding back the storm.
He was. I could feel them, watching, hovering, waiting. I might not be able to see the dragons, but I could distinctly feel their presence nearby. They weren’t attacking us, probably because there was a golden-eyed demon staring them all down, making it quite clear that he was going to fuck them up if they tried anything.
He was only an incubus, but even an incubus had some powers. And Irix was good at bluffing. They didn’t know what he could do, what his limitations were, and they didn’t want to risk losing half their family members finding out.
“Someone from the town must have called Bianca’s family, because those aren’t the Sommariva dragons over on the mountains there,” he told me.
“Great. I’m surprised they’re not on our doorstep already,” I replied.
“They’re not because the Sommariva dragons are on this side of the lake. There are two of them across the street, behind our villa right now.”
I shivered. Dragons to the front. Dragons to the back. And us, smack dab in the middle.
“Should we call for backup?” I asked. “Harkel?”
“If we need to,” Irix said. “I don’t think it’s come to that yet, and I don’t want to disturb him. He’s busy in Southeast Asia right now. Although I’m sure if told him there was a war between two dragon families brewing, he’d drop everything and run.”
I grimaced. Harkel was a warmonger. Bringing him into this conflict might do more harm than good, and Irix knew that as well as I did.
“So what should we do?” I stared out at the mountains, seeing a dark shadow move across the moon. They were fast, stealthy. If I hadn’t been staring at the sky hard enough to make my eyes water, I wouldn’t have seen them.
“Protect her. Tomorrow we’ll get her safely back to her family, but in the meantime I’m ensuring her safety even if that means I need to stand out here and look menacing all night long.”
There was a throat clearing noise behind us. Both Irix and I spun around, and I felt the tingle of electricity from him.
Gianna’s eyes grew huge and she threw her hands up defensively. “I’m the messenger. I have no intention in harming the girl, nor in fighting with you.”
Irix powered down but we both watched her with wary eyes. She was a Sommariva, and I wasn’t sure we could trust her. Crap, she’d rented us the villa. Would we be scrounging for a hotel tomorrow morning? Would we need to leave Lake Como?
Gianna took a big breath and let it out slowly, lowering her hands. “We have no fight with you. Daniela likes you both and realizes that the events in Bellagio, as well as the revelation of her true form, was a huge shock.” She turned to Irix. “You’re a demon, and she understands that you would immediately act to defend your mate, as well as what appeared to be a young, injured girl. She does not blame you for your actions in the marketplace.”
Irix kept his expression emotionless and didn’t reply. I followed his lead, wanting this messenger to lay it all out on the table before we said a word.
“You are both welcome to stay here in Lake Como with no repercussions. As I said, we have no fight with you.”
Yep, they were very concerned about how powerful Irix might be. They didn’t want to piss him off, but they had too much pride to grovel. This was their compromise, and even this must have been a bitter thing to swallow.
“The girl, however, must leave by midnight. She must be out of our territory.”
Irix’s eyes glowed golden, and I saw Gianna flinch.
“Or?” he drawled.
She swallowed. “Please understand, we do not want to battle with you. We are unfamiliar with demons, but surely you must see what a predicament we are in. An enemy of ours has come into our territory. She has wantonly seduced one of our own–”
I snorted. “Oh, innocent little Sergio. I’m sure he’d be very angry hearing himself described as a pawn who was duped and seduced by a Delilah of a girl. Some mighty powerful dragon to inherit your family fortunes when a young girl can ‘wantonly seduce’ him.”
Her jaw clenched. “She needs to leave by midnight or we will kill her.”
“An eighteen-year-old girl,” I scoffed. “You bad-ass dragons are going to lower yourself to killing a child?”
“That’s assuming you can even get to her,” Irix added. “Because I won’t allow it. You’ll need to kill me first.”
“You’re one demon,” she countered. “I don’t want to fight you, but if the head of my family commands it, I will. As will all of my brethren. Are you able to kill sixteen dragons? Because you’ll need to. We will fight to the death.”
“So you kill Irix, which means you’d need to kill me, then you kill the girl,” I said. “And that starts a cascading chain of events. You have your family, do you think Irix and I are without family of our own? That we’re not connected to other powerful demons? You’ll find that seventeen of you, or however many are left after we’re finished, won’t be able to stand against a hoarde of demons and angels. I’m sure the Montenegros will jump in to help us as well.” I took a step toward her, and bluffed. “And other dragons as well. You’re not the only ones here, you know. There’s a red dragon who is a close friend of my sister’s, then there is another family friend, a dragon who has taken up residence in the British Museum. He’s big and old, and I’m pretty sure he could make quick work of your family.”
The bluff worked. Gianna paled and stepped backward. I saw the fear in her eyes and wondered how many enemies their family had made. Clearly the Montenegros weren’t the only dragons who hated them.
“Please. I have nothing against this girl. She just can’t be here in our territory.”
“But it’s not your territory. It’s human territory, and they’ve granted the public access to it. Trust me, you don’t want to start limiting who can come onto human land, or doing anything like what happened tonight that threatens human lives, otherwise you’re going to wind up with a bunch of archangels ramming swords down your throats.”
She bit her lip, and I went for the kill shot.
“If you think Saint George was your nemesis, well you really don’t want to face down the archangels. Or the Iblis for that matter.”
She rubbed her hands over her face. “What am I supposed to do?” she wailed. “This isn’t my fight. I really don’t care if this girl lives in that villa across the lake. I don’t care if she eats dinner or shops in Bellagio. None of this is my treasure. Honestly, nothing beyond their villa is Daniela or her father’s treasure either. They’ve extended their reach too far, grown unbending in their grief over the loss of their mates. It’s what happens when we are forced to bond with human lovers. We always outlive them, then find our heart slowly hardening until we are facing the Melancholy. But I have no choice but to help if my family goes to war. I have no choice.”
We were at a stalemate. But as I exchanged a glance with Irix, I realized that there was a glimmer of hope somewhere in all this. Gianna was surely not the only member of her family who felt this way, and I was sure there were Montenegros that were the same. If we could just get the inflexible ones to see reason… And maybe the key to that lay with Bianca and Sergio. But in the meantime, deescalating tensions was the immediate task at hand.
“She will be gone by midnight,” Irix said. “If I have to fly her out of here myself, she’ll be gone. But her exit must be unhindered. There will be no threat to he
r when she leaves, or to a member of her family who might choose to come here to escort her home. And there will be no retaliation on her for what happened tonight—that includes her property on the lake. So help me, if you or your family plot against her, I will see every last one of you in your graves.”
Gianna took another step backward. “Understood. Although if her family moves to attack us, then we have every right to defend ourselves.”
Irix nodded, then with a short bow, Gianna turned and left. I admired the woman’s guts to turn her back on a demon and casually stroll away.
As soon as she was gone, I threw myself into Irix’s arms in a display of affection that probably wasn’t in keeping with his bad-ass persona right now.
“Thank you,” I told him. “I know you probably don’t care about Bianca, or any of these dragons, or humans, or whatever, but I appreciate you becoming the guardian angel here.”
He laughed. “Oh how you insult me, calling me a guardian angel. You do know they’re the weakest of all the angelic ranks?” He snuggled me close against him. “I had to do it. It wasn’t just for you. She’s a child, and I felt this odd, completely unfamiliar need to protect her. It was very undemonic of me. Please don’t tell anyone about it.”
I kissed him. “You’ll make a wonderful father.”
“No, I won’t. The kid will electrocute his classmates and I’ll end up killing an entire SWAT team to protect him. You’ll rue the day you ever talked me into siring your child.”
I kissed him again, this time with as much passion as I could. “Trust me, my soon-to-be-husband, I will never rue the day you father my child. Never.”
Chapter 18
Bianca came downstairs, pale and subdued. We lit a fire in the study fireplace, ordered food from the café just before they closed for the night, then sat around and drank wine after our late-night snack was done. She confirmed that the mountains across the lake held several members of her family. Her cousins were there, as well as her Great Uncle, Marcus. News had spread fast of the incident in Bellagio, and they’d come swooping down to ensure her safety and enact their revenge for any injuries she may have suffered.
Her injuries were bandaged and hidden from view. And from the firm set of her jaw, she clearly wasn’t going to be telling her family about them.
“Why didn’t your grandmother come?” I ask, wondering why the absence of her heir hadn’t brought the matriarch of the family here.
“It’s difficult for her to leave her treasure. That’s how we are as we get older and in our Melancholy. It’s easier for me with Villa Montenegro because I’m young and I just acquired it. Grandmother is two hundred years old. She’s not only going through the Melancholy, but she’s so obsessed with her treasure that she’s afraid to leave it.” Bianca took a sip of wine and looked down into the glass. “I don’t want to be like that. Sometimes I wish I was human. I wish I could run away with Sergio and just be happy. I don’t want to feel the pull of my treasure. I don’t want to eventually go insane, worried that every human, that maybe even members of my family are trying to steal it from me. Sometimes I hate being a dragon.”
I immediately envisioned Eduardo Sommariva, who seemed to be going through the same problems, only at a more advanced stage. It was all so tragic.
“So what are you going to do?” I asked.
Her shoulders slumped. “Go back to Castle Abbondio with my family and hope things calm down enough that in a few years I can live at Villa Montenegro without the constant threat of attack. Or maybe by then I’ll be strong enough that if I’m attacked, I can defend my treasure.”
“Can’t you sell it? I know you said you’ve bonded with it, and it’s your treasure, but you’ll inherit your grandmother’s treasure. And you’re young. Maybe you can pull away enough to sell it.” I frowned. “If only your uncle hadn’t willed it to you.”
She shook her head. “It’s not just that I inherited it. Even if Uncle Guido hadn’t left the villa to me, I bonded with it. I would still long to be there. I’d still feel the pull of it.”
“Is Ilaria bonded to the villa as well?” Irix asked, refilling both of our wine glasses and taking a seat.
“Yes. That’s why she stays and why she’ll help me with it. She’s just as attached to it as I am. Treasure can’t belong to two, but we manage the emotions of the bond through inheritance, or family ties. It’s hard. It’s worse with siblings. I’m okay with Grandmother’s treasure, because I know I’ll inherit it, and she tolerates my occasional possessiveness of it because I’m the heir. If I had a brother or sister, we’d struggle with the concept that only one of us would gain the treasure.”
“What happens then? Do you split it?” Irix eyed her intently, making me wonder where he was going with this.
She gave him an odd look. “No. That would never happen. Either the non-inheriting sibling learns to deal with their hunger, tries to be satisfied with some small treasure of their own, or they fight for the right of inheritance, or ownership. If that happens, one dies and the other takes it all. My great-great-grandfather had a sibling that he fought for the treasure. He killed him. Ilaria is a descendant of the brother’s side of the family, but she didn’t seem to inherit the hunger to that degree. She’s satisfied just being around the treasure she bonded with. She doesn’t need to feel exclusive ownership of it. Some of us are so possessive that we can’t even allow other family members around our treasure, or for humans to be around it. That’s when a dragon retreats to their lair, and quickly declines, eventually dying. They can’t leave to go get food, and they’ll kill anyone who tries to bring them food. Eventually they starve to death. It’s a terrible, extreme sort of insanity of which we all have a small part.”
Yikes, what an awful end. I thought about Ilaria and her love for the villa, how she could somehow manage to find satisfaction just being near there, even though it wasn’t technically hers. What if she’d been different? What if she’d felt that gnawing need to possess this treasure for her own? Would she have killed Guido to obtain it? Would she have even killed Bianca to obtain it? Of course, that wasn’t the case here.
Or was it? Guido had been murdered, and I just couldn’t see Daniela Sommariva as the killer. But Ilaria hadn’t made any move toward Bianca, and given what I’d just seen of Daniela’s temper and protective instinct toward Sergio, maybe I was wrong.
“But what about your great-uncle? Marcus?” Irix asked. “He can’t be very possessive about the family treasure given that his sister inherited instead of him, and it will go to you upon her death.”
Irix’s words suddenly reminded me of the conversation I’d overheard in the tower. Catarina had said she’d been the strong one. Maybe it wasn’t that Marcus was light when it came to possessiveness of treasure, but that he had a stronger survival instinct. Why lose your life fighting your powerful sister for control of the family fortune, when you could just wait for her to decline and die, then snatch it from a young girl?
But I was probably wrong about that, too. The picture of Guido Montenegro had given me the chills. He’d seemed sinister, powerful, menacing, yet according to Bianca and Ilaria, he’d been a wonderful guy. Maybe I was misjudging Marcus as well. Yes, he’d wanted to attack the Sommarivas for Guido’s murder, but it was perfectly normal to want to avenge a cousin.
“Yes, Grandmother was the eldest, so she inherited the treasure. Uncle Marcus has his own treasure, but he’s also bonded to Grandmother’s. As she gets further into her Melancholy, she’ll refuse to allow him near her home or her lands. The same with me. It will be hard for us, not only because we’ll long to be near the treasure we’ve bonded with, but because we’ll know she’s near the end of her life.” Bianca looked out across the lake. “I love her. And I know Uncle Marcus loves her as well. I don’t want to see her die, but we both know it’s just a matter of time. A few years at most.”
“I’m so sorry,” I told her.
She nodded. “Grandmother sometimes says that Uncle Marcus or I are tryin
g to steal her treasure. I’m sure she’s starting to go mad. Both of us love the castle, but we love her as well. I’d never steal from her, no matter how much the vineyard or the properties call to me, and I know Uncle Marcus feels the same. Their entire life he’s never made a move against her. And I know he wouldn’t now.”
“But you?” I asked. “In a few years his beloved sister will pass away, and a very young grand-niece will inherit. What if his need to own the family treasure grows stronger without his sister? What if he attacks you? What would happen then?”
She laughed. “I’ve known Uncle Marcus since I was a baby. He’s our protector, our defender. He’d never hurt me.”
“What if he did?” I insisted.
She smiled, clearly indulging a silly American woman who didn’t understand her family and their ways. “Then I would fight him. If Uncle Marcus attacked Grandmother and won, his line would inherit, not me. I have bonded with the treasure, and I wouldn’t be willing to let go of my claim on it. He’d need to kill me as well as Grandmother.” She shot me an ironic smile. “And if she dies and he attacks me, I’ll do my best to fight him off. I’ll probably fail because he is so much older and more powerful than me, but I’ll do my best.”
“I hope that doesn’t happen,” I told her.
“It won’t.” Her chin lifted in defiance. “But the weird thing is that none of us knows the exact extent of Grandmother’s treasure. In her Melancholy, she’s acquired things and hidden them away, paranoid that someone might take them. If she died and one of my cousins were to steal those things, I wouldn’t know. I’d feel their loss, knowing something was missing, but I wouldn’t be positive what was gone or who took it. It could be one of my cousins. It could be some human. It could be that Grandmother hid it in Moscow and we have no idea where or how to find it.”
