by Chloe Cox
Would he really? He couldn’t. The thought was too terrible—her mind shied away from it. But still he stood over her with one hand on his belt.
“I don’t want you,” she said desperately.
It didn’t seem to matter. Things might have gone very badly if it weren’t for what happened next.
A blur in her peripheral vision crashed into Paolo and knocked him aside so fast it was like he disappeared. One second the terrible vision of Paolo loomed over her; the next, there was…Winter.
Not Winter. Lord Cesare. His scarred chest gleamed with sweat, small beads of it caught in the fine, dark hairs that trailed down his torso to that magnificent cock, now hidden in his trousers, and the muscles in his arms rolled back and forth as he opened and closed his fists, his jaw clenched in anger. He reached down and hauled Paolo up by the throat, keeping his own body between Lucia and the world.
“You defile the Bacchanal?” His voice was a low and deep, as though it echoed up from a great depth. Lucia flushed with shame and tried again to cover herself.
“Tell me your name, whelp,” Lord Cesare said. He shook Paolo for emphasis. “Your name.”
“R-ramora,” the boy croaked. “Paolo Ramora.”
Lord Cesare stood there with Paolo hanging at the end of his powerful arm, and Lucia realized that Paolo’s feet were actually swinging in the air. No man could be that strong, could he? But Paolo was choking. Before Lucia found her voice, Lord Cesare tossed him back to the ground like a crumpled tissue. “Run,” the Wolf said.
Paolo turned and bolted back into the crowd, not even daring to spare another look for Lucia. Lucia was grateful for that, at least; she didn’t want to be seen by anybody. She wanted to disappear, just as Paolo had.
Until Lord Cesare looked at her once more.
She had no idea how long she lay motionless on the ground, pinned under that stare, but she only looked still. Inside she was at war with herself. Whatever it was inside her that longed for the harsh touch of the Severille, whatever longed to surrender to a man, recognized something in Lord Cesare and bloomed. She clung to what remained of her discipline. If she moved, it would be to throw herself at his feet. If she spoke, it would be to offer herself to him completely.
“Are you all right?” he asked. He took a step towards her, his face coming out of shadow. He was beautiful, in the hard, elemental way of the rocky coasts to the north, his severe bone structure covered by rough, tanned skin. His dark eyes shone as if lit from the inside, and his black hair fell lightly around his shoulders. Lucia craved him.
He took another step, hesitating as she flinched. Finally he crouched down and extended his hand.
“Tell me your name,” he said.
She blinked. For one second she considered it, and then her mind flooded with fear. Fear of the consequences, fear of the future, but, most of all, fear of what she truly was inside, and what she’d have to face if she ever saw this man again.
She fled.
CHAPTER 2
Lord Cesare Lupin applied every ounce of the strength and discipline that he’d learned growing up in his father’s house and willed himself to be still. He could not chase after her. He could not force her to do anything she did not want to do, not after what she’d already been through.
Whoever she was.
What he could do was direct an oscario to her side, knowing the guardian of Bacchanal’s sacred law of consent would clothe her and make sure she arrived home safely.
He’d thought about killing that Paolo Ramora. He had wanted to, in that moment, and he could have done it. No one would have questioned him. Even Gaston Grimaldi, in business with the Ramoras and always looking for an excuse to weaken the house of Lupin, would have to defer in the case of such a clear violation.
But that would be to risk unleashing the…thing that lurked inside him ever since his last raid into the mountains.
He’d been so afraid that it would emerge during the rite, that he would not be able to contain it. It would have been a disaster like no other for his family, and for the city, to expose what he had become, whatever that was. Perhaps what I have always been. The words ricocheted around his mind for several long seconds, wounding him in a million little ways, before he was able to force stillness upon himself. And he did it now as he had done it during the rite: by thinking of her, this unknown commoner who refused to give him her name.
He hadn’t wanted to participate in the Dance, but the alternative—Grimaldi as Winter, and Cesare’s own sister as Summer—was unthinkable, for both personal and political reasons. And so he’d had no choice, and he’d resolved to control himself. All those painful years learning to take his brother’s place as heir had proved to be good training, but not entirely sufficient to the task. He’d been on the brink of losing himself.
But then he’d sensed her, somehow, as soon as he had climbed the stage, and his blood had been on fire.
All he’d wanted was to find her, whoever she was, whatever she was, wherever she was, but he’d had to go through with the ritual, or else bring down the wrath of the gods. So he’d gone through with it, and the beast inside him had almost escaped…
But then he’d seen her, and it had saved him. The girl with the pale skin and the flashing green eyes, and hair the color of old copper. Cesare had no idea how, or why—there was no logic to it, no reason it should be true—but somehow he’d known she was the one he’d sensed as he came onstage. She had been beautiful and dignified, even in the throes of Bacchanal. And even though it had been another man’s hands on her—and his stomach turned at the memory of it—there had been something majestic about her pleasure, as though she had a sort of specialized perfection, like the peregrine falcons he preferred to hunt with. He didn’t know much about what had happened to him, about what had changed him on that disastrous mountain raid, or even, truthfully, exactly how he had been changed, but somehow the sight of her…the scent of her…
All of the urges, the impulses, the desires he’d come to think of collectively as the beast, had found their natural point of focus: her. All of the urges and desires that battered at him from the outside became, instead, fully part of him, subsumed to his will, and for the first time since that mountain raid, he was fully in control. It felt natural. Good. Strong.
And then, when she’d seen him standing over her, she’d run from him. He had wanted to gather up in his arms and take her away to safety, and she had run. That felt natural, too, in its own terrible way. But that was an old, familiar pain, and Cesare had more practice coping with it.
He frowned. Bacchanal still raged around him. The silent oscario would not tell him where she’d gone, even if he could figure out which of the men wearing the identical masks had escorted her. It didn’t matter. He would find her. If he had to tear his beloved city apart, stone by miserable stone, he would find her.
“Lord Cesare.” The sound of his own name startled him. He shrugged his shoulders, assuming the heavy mask of his office, and turned.
It was Avignon, Cesare’s personal valet, and one of the two people Cesare trusted. Cesare knew how lucky he was to have even two confidants, but now was not the time for interruptions, even from Avignon. He was clinging to normalcy with both hands as it was.
“What is it?” Cesare said.
“You must return immediately to the Castel Lupin, my Lord.”
“I am not feeling like myself at the moment, Avignon, and my patience is thin,” Cesare said. “Please do not make me repeat myself.”
Avignon allowed his mouth to turn slightly at the corners, the closest he would ever come to showing disapproval. He tilted his head and explained, “There have been reports of a plot, my Lord.”
“This is J’Amel,” Cesare said, not bothering to hide his annoyance. His mind stubbornly strayed back to his mysterious peregrine. Everything else seemed trivial. “There are always plots.”
Cesare scanned the emptying amphitheater in the vain hope that she might have come back. He was the Duke
’s heir, after all. Could it be such a bad thing that he wanted to know her name? He had saved her, hadn’t he? She saw you for what you are, said the taunting voice in his head. Of course she ran.
He couldn’t help but think it, and despair coursed through him. It made him—made the thing he had become—feel very violent. He wanted to destroy something.
“Avignon, why do you hang about like a goddamned nursemaid?” he said through gritted teeth.
“Because you really must come with me, my Lord,” Avignon said, the barest hint of distress showing through the cracks of his patience. “This is a credible report. They are going to kill you and your entire family by the end of Bacchanal.”
~ ~ ~
Lord Cesare Lupin was irritated. ‘Irritated’ really wasn’t the right word, but it was a better word than ‘enraged,’ because Lord Cesare Lupin still had to be very careful about becoming too passionate about anything. He never knew what might happen when he did.
I am irritated, he told himself. I am incensed on his behalf. I am loyal. He took a long, slow breath.
“It’s only a letter. Do we know its provenance? With all due respect, father, this is all wrong.”
Cesare forced himself to stop pacing in front of his father’s long table. He could see it was unsettling to everyone but the Duke, and it was getting harder to tell which of his habits would become fodder for political gossip. Instead he planted his large hands at the opposite end of the table and loomed.
The loathsome Captain of his father’s guard, Rickle, and his lieutenant, Ossa, both shriveled into their seats. The Duke smiled brightly.
“Go on, Cesare,” the Duke said.
The old familiar chill crept up Cesare’s spine. You are not a child, Cesare. He cannot hurt you.
Of course, that was a lie. Alphonso Lupin, the Duke of J’Amel, Baron of Trelia, and most powerful of all the city-state patrons, could always find a way to hurt his youngest—and now only—son, if he felt so inclined.
Cesare said, “You cannot restrict my movements for the duration of Bacchanal, your Grace.”
Instantly Cesare realized his mistake. The Duke was still smiling that distinct smile, and he had assumed an expression of innocent concern. Cesare remembered that expression well. It came just before the pain.
“Can’t I?” the Duke asked. Rickle and Ossa both found things of utmost interest in the middle distance, and stared intently at them. The room had gone very still.
“I only meant that I believe it would be a mistake, your Grace,” Cesare offered, and did his best to appear smaller. It never worked, but he had nothing else, and he was desperate. If he was locked away for Bacchanal, he might not find her, ever, and that would be unbearable. Worse, his father might discover that there was someone who was important to him. “If we hide away during the Bacchanal, it will be remarked upon.”
“That is, perhaps, an understatement.” His father leaned back, his long fingers stretching out and coming together at the tips to form a thin steeple. His pale blue eyes were flat and cold.
Cesare pressed this small advantage. “Worse, Rickle’s plan—such as it is—would alert any other plotters that we are aware of the danger. They’d go to ground, and we might never find them. We might never know who’s behind it.” The kernel of a plan began to form in Cesare’s brain, and he blindly pushed ahead, chasing after it. “Please, father,” he said, the urgency rising in his voice, “Let me hunt them.”
Too far.
Cesare could see that he had lost. On the word ‘hunt,’ Rickle and Ossa shifted uncomfortably in their seats, and the little muscle in the Duke’s jaw that Cesare had learned to over the years twitched. Cesare tried to appear still and inoffensive in front of the old man who still held all of their lives in his hands. There was too much at stake to risk a confrontation. Why did he have to use the word ‘hunt’?
“No, I think not,” the Duke said, leaning forward. “I do not think some sort of vulgar, half-brained hunt—” and here his lip curled with distaste, “—as you so aptly put it, is an appropriate task for the sole heir of J’Amel. That is what dogs are for. Don’t you agree, my son?”
The Duke spat out the last word, not as a challenge, but as a reminder. Cesare wondered how much of this Rickle understood. Or Ossa, for that matter. How much was common knowledge, under the guise of rumor? How much of Cesare’s shame was also fodder for public humiliation?
And here was where things began to get really dangerous, because the thing that now resided in him, that new addition, had not been there during Cesare’s long childhood to learn how to survive in the Duke’s court. So while Cesare struggled to control his temper, his expression, even his breathing, the thing…uncoiled. Awakened. Beat at the sides of Cesare’s chest. Demanded blood. And if Cesare gave in, he knew, as he had known since his tenth year, that it would not be him who suffered. It would be someone or something he cared about.
Cesare closed his eyes.
“Of course, your Grace.”
“You will leave the investigation to Rickle, who will arrest the tradesman in question and carry on with his inquiries unimpeded by errant princelings.”
“Yes, your Grace.”
“You will conduct yourself as you normally would during Bacchanal, taking care not to raise any suspicions. If even you can see the opportunity that this would present to the Grimaldi, I think we can consider it a major concern. Your sister, however, will be sent away at once, for the safety of the line.”
Cesare smiled ruefully. The day his sister had a male heir, he would certainly be free of his father. Unfortunately, he might also be dead.
“Very wise, your Grace.”
“Yes.”
The Duke studied him. To anyone else, the absolute ruler of J’Amel might have seemed calm, perhaps cold. To Cesare, long practiced at deciphering the signs, the old man’s skin, slightly yellowed and stretched tight over his wasting frame, contained a violent, churning ocean of madness. Cesare knew that when his father looked at him, he saw, for the most part, his hated, dead wife on the one side, and his beloved, but equally dead, elder son, on the other. And then there was Cesare, the boy he had always hated—for being like his mother, for being uncouth, for being common, and for being the one who had survived.
Does he see what I am now? Cesare wondered. Could he know that Cesare actually felt his blood pounding in his veins, his muscles twitching slightly beneath his own too-taut skin, some primal desire for the hunt rising in him with an inexorable pressure? Perhaps the cruel old man had always been right: Cesare was an animal.
But you cannot stop me, Father, Cesare thought. Even I could not stop me. I do not know what I have become.
He would hunt, because that was what he was. He would hunt the people who threatened his family, and he would end them, if only because it was his duty. He was sure of that—just as he was sure that Rickle could not be trusted.
It was the other hunt that consumed his thoughts.
Her.
“You may go, Cesare.”
“Your Grace.”
Cesare bowed, and savored the metallic taste of relief. No one would suffer tonight, then. And he would be free to conduct his own investigations. His own hunt.
He didn’t realize quite how urgent his need was until he returned to his rooms and found two beautiful courtesans decorating his bed. He’d forgotten about his standing order with Severille House, an order he had placed when more sedate sexual pursuits hadn’t proved sufficient to his needs.
Cesare had fucked his way through half the court upon his return from the last raid, trying to find some way to sate the dark thing that had taken up residence inside him. It hadn’t quite worked—in fact, it had had the opposite effect in the long term, reducing his tolerance and making him more and more vulnerable to the demands of the beast. Even when he turned to the Severille and the darker desires he’d always indulged in in private, the relief had only been temporary.
Of course, it had been fun, all the same.
A woman he didn’t have because she had run from him. Because he frightened her.
“Stop,” he said, his jaw clenching.
“I don’t think you want me to stop, my Lord,” the Severille courtesan whispered. He could understand her confusion: he was visibly hard.
But not for her. He balled his fists.
“Leave,” he screamed.
The brunette stumbled back and turned to look at her partner, who had already jumped off the bed. Cesare watched them flee, clutching their clothes in their arms, and he wondered yet again at what had happened to him. What new torture was this? Every woman paled in comparison to…whom? His little green-eyed bird. Some common girl whose name he didn’t even know. It was absurd. His desire to have her, to possess her utterly, was overwhelming; it was bubbling up inside him like a geyser with no hope of release, matched only by his anger at being denied.
He had two very immediate, very important problems to solve. Perhaps he could kill two birds with one stone.
Well, kill one bird. He had other plans for the second bird.
“Avignon!” he bellowed from the open door of his room.
“Yes, my Lord?” His indefatigable valet appeared as if from nowhere. If Cesare hadn’t trusted Avignon utterly, his habit of appearing and disappearing as needed would be unsettling.
Cesare paced. An idea percolated somewhere deep in his brain, a remembered connection between the Ramora family—which had spawned the boy he’d nearly killed earlier that evening—the Grimaldi, and the Vintner’s Guild. “You know about this most recent plot?”
