'First time for everything.'
I met his eyes. 'But I liked her.'
I expected some comment like, 'Bad things happen to good people.' Instead, he just shook his head. 'I'm sorry.'
I swallowed back tears—I'd already cried enough tonight—and leaned forward, resting my head against his chest, just as I had the other night. He ran a hand down my hair and rocked me.
'What hope is there?' I asked. 'If even angels fall, what hope is there for the rest of us?'
'There isn't,' he said. 'We're on our own. And we have to make the choices we think are best for our own survival. If your angel friend had been thinking like that, she wouldn't have fallen.'
'But that's the thing…angels don't think about themselves, right? They're selfless.'
'Maybe,' he said doubtfully. 'She let things get that far with the nephilim…that wasn't really selfless. Now they're both fucked, and we've got another member in the club.'
'What club?'
'The club. Our club. The one for people who make one mistake and are punished forever because of it.' He paused. 'It's a pretty big club.'
I gently pulled out of the embrace. 'What did you do?'
'Hmm?'
'Your one mistake. Vincent found the charm…he said it was horrible. Black magic. He said you had to have done something really bad to make it.'
Dante's eyes were sad as he regarded me. 'You really want to know?'
I nodded.
'No. You don't. Right now, for the first time, you're talking to me like maybe I'm not the biggest asshole on earth. I tell you the truth…and you'll lose all respect for me.'
'I won't. I'll respect you more.'
He rolled his eyes. 'People always say noble things in hypothetical situations. ‘I'd never cheat on my spouse.' ‘I'd return the million dollars that I found on the street.' It's bullshit.'
'It's not,' I argued. 'I respect the truth.'
'But you won't like it. Why do you think I didn't kiss you that day outside Erik's? I joke about wanting to sleep with you—hell, I do want to sleep with you—but if we'd done it, you'd have felt how little energy I really have.'
'I buy the low energy thing, but I still want to know the story behind it.'
His eyes narrowed in frustration. 'Look, succubus. I don't even think I could tell the story if I wanted to. It's too hard.'
His comment about kissing suddenly inspired me. 'Can you show me?'
'What?'
I moved toward him. 'Kiss me. I can hardly get any energy from you, but if you open yourself to the memory, I should be able to feel pieces of it.'
I hoped that was true, at least. While my lovers' thoughts and feelings came through to me during sex, it wasn't exactly a system we could control. I couldn't summon up specific things. Usually what I felt was whatever the guy was thinking about just then. More often than not, it was amazement or perhaps a guilty conscience over the lover he was cheating on.
But maybe…maybe if Dante was specifically thinking of whatever he had done, it would come through. It was worth a shot. I leaned closer to him. He didn't move, so I went in all the way and kissed him.
Initially, it was just a kiss—all physical. Gradually, I started to get a bit of his life force—but it was just like he'd said. His soul was too dark. The life energy that flowed into me was barely a trickle. It was only a few drops, like a leaking faucet. Then…once I'd assessed the energy, I felt something else. I felt his soul—felt why it was so black, so devoid of the shining life most humans had. That blackness began pouring into me, that sickening and oozing evil…and there, behind it, was despair and anger and hopelessness and frustration. It was nauseating. Blackness and blood. I wanted to pull away, but I had to see what he was hiding.
The memory came through to me in disjointed images, but I was able to piece them together and form a narrative. I saw a sister. Older than him by ten years. She'd taken care of him throughout his childhood—both in a motherly way and as an instructor. She was a psychic too. She'd taught him how to harness his power, to tap the magic of the world that was unseen to most humans. She had been powerful, but he was even stronger. It hadn't been enough, though. He'd wanted more than to simply control his power—he'd wanted to enhance it. But as Hugh and Vincent had told me, few humans were born with the magnitude of power that he'd craved.
So, he'd taken it. Ripped it out.
From her.
I saw his face when he killed her, felt his pain as the dagger touched her throat. She was half-mother and half-sister to him, but he stole her life anyway. And with that act, his power had grown by magnitudes—both because he'd gained hers and because of the spell involved. The blood of the innocent always brings power, and the black magic intertwined in this death brought it in spades. It had left him feeling like a god.
And wishing he were dead.
He'd damned himself. He still loved the power, still loved wielding it…but after killing his sister, he'd hated himself. He'd withdrawn from the world, trying to bury his memories in drugs and alcohol, only occasionally using his powers for small, nickel-and-dime con jobs.
I broke the kiss, not wanting to see or feel anymore. If we went further, I'd probably see what he had to do to make the charm. It wouldn't be as bad as what he'd done to his sister, but I was through with all this. Wide- eyed, I scooted away from him on the floor.
'She was Erik's lover,' I said softly. I'd had a brief glimpse of Tanya—that was her name—and Erik together. 'She was the woman in the picture. That's why he hates you.'
Dante nodded. 'The three of us…we were going to do great things. We were all so fucking talented, you know?' He rested a hand on his head, eyes full of grief. 'Unsurprisingly, Erik chose to end our friendship after this. He wanted to kill me…he should have. He really should have. But, well. He's not that kind of guy.'
'No,' I agreed, voice cold. 'He's not.' I stood up and backed away from Dante, who was still sitting on the floor.
He looked up and realized what I was doing. The miserable face turned angry. 'Leaving so soon?'
'Yes.'
'Well. Thanks for stopping by. And thanks for proving me right.'
'About…?'
He threw his hands in the air. 'This. I told you you'd hate me.'
'I don't—' I stopped. I did hate him. I couldn't help it, not after seeing how much he and his sister had loved each other. Not after realizing how much this must have hurt Erik. 'Dante…what you did…'
'Was a mistake. One I would take back if I could. One mistake to damn me forever. Just like your angel friend. Just like you.'
'No,' I said. 'It's not the same. Yasmine fell because of love.'
'She fell because of selfishness,' he argued. 'But I won't challenge that point. Tell me about you. Did you fall because of love?'
I didn't say anything. I'd fallen because of lust. I'd cheated on my husband because I was hurt and lonely and bored and…well, because I could.
Dante regarded me sharply. 'You see? I get it. You fucked up too. I understand you—you're not going to find too many people who do. I bet your boyfriend doesn't.'
'He accepts me.'
'But does he understand? Have you ever told him in painstaking detail what you did?'
'No, but it doesn't matter.'
Dante stood up and approached me. 'It does matter! Being with him is a joke. It can't work. I'm not saying you have some great romantic future with me either, but at the very least, you should stick with people who know where you've come from.'
'Right. Hanging out with you means I'd just drink and hate life.'
'Your point?'
'Seth makes me hope for better things. Makes me want to be better.'
