His hand shook and trembled as he was brought to his knees, the blood beginning to flow down his back. He wasn’t healing. Nick closed his eyes and took several deep breaths, trying to calm himself. But he couldn’t understand why his powers were going haywire. It was as if he had no control over his wolf anymore.
Nick looked over the body of the dead man. He apologised to him, though he obviously couldn’t hear, and took the money out of his wallet, amounting to around forty-four dollars. With that money, he could at least get a taxi cab to Alex’s apartment. He could fix himself up and re-evaluate there.
Chapter Seven
The Choices We Make
Dante stared into the crackling flames, feeling no warmth in the fire. All around him was quiet save for the ticks of the fire, as he watched the house burn before his very eyes. He sat in the tree opposite the blaze, as the neighbours ventured out in their sleepwear. Some screamed, but most just stood there. Numb. Afraid. Useless.
He had ensured it looked like an accident. Something as simple as aluminium foil in the microwave. He had killed the Battys. Breaking the father’s neck and sucking the wife dry. The evidence was still wet on his chin. Not only had he broken a promise to Dougie, but he had left a child without her parents. He closed his eyes, thinking of what this meant.
He had killed a human for the first time in years. And yet it wasn’t guilt he felt. In truth, he felt nothing. Revenge hadn’t sated the anger inside nor did their deaths offer comfort. Alexandra had still been hurt by the thing they infected her with. No action from him could change that.
But he could dispense justice. And he did so without a moment’s pause. He recognised something inside him had broken and would never be the same. All he stood for was gone. A line had been crossed. When one is pushed far enough, killing comes very easily.
But did he break a promise? Dante thought back and his words were to never spill innocent blood. The couple were anything but. Using Alexandra as a vessel for Dominus to save their daughter. Dante looked down at his red smeared hands. This wasn’t innocent blood. They had chosen this. Every action has a consequence.
When Dante slept with Alexandra, she had begged him to finish. He had refused to orgasm inside of a human, as all he could ejaculate was blood. Michelle would beg too, wanting to know he had found his pleasure just like she had hers. But she never understood. For him, he found pleasure in watching them moan and scream. That he could make them happy was enough for him. Or so he thought.
For years that was the situation with Michelle. Night after night. Yet, one night with Alexandra and he faltered. He forgot himself. He submitted to her wish. How he could’ve been so stupid, he didn’t know. One bite from her was all it took. To his neck. The very thing she enjoyed him doing to her was enough for him to erupt in euphoria. Over two hundred years on this earth and he had never felt anything like it. His hips bucked of their own accord, her body slackened like jelly, her fingers digging into him yet allowing him to completely let loose and pump furiously, with complete abandon. All his doubts, all his resistance, Dougie’s warning, all his inner warnings left him as did the blood in his body.
For a moment, he was horrified. Until Alexandra smiled and brought him down for a kiss, and kept kissing him. How could something that felt so right, be wrong? Maybe all those years of hesitation with Michelle were ridiculous. He had never allowed himself to fully appreciate his feelings for her, convinced she would be better off romantically. Was he ever in love with her? Truthfully he didn’t know. Any chance he had to open up fully to her, which she always begged him to do, he always held back. All because something inside that said he would only bring pain to her in the long run.
He put all his doubts aside with Alexandra. He still had them, but his love for her was stronger. He allowed himself to feel, for his heart to be free, and it became his worst nightmare. By accepting his blood inside her, Alexandra had somehow lost her natural, or supernatural, defence against Dominus. She had already been infected with him but the demon could not strike at her. Dante allowed it to happen, in the one moment he let his guard down. The one moment where he got to know again what true, passionate love was like, and it cost him more than he could ever get back. He had fixed it as best he could, doing whatever he could to save her life. But he had lost her. Now, he must go on with the knowledge that this, all of this, was his fault, even if only partially.
He jumped down from his perch and walked away from the blaze as firetrucks arrived. It was with conviction in his own mind Dante realised Alexandra had accepted death, and so did the Battys. Again and again.
Fuck the Battys. The maggots in the earth could feast on the bits that weren’t charcoal for all he cared. But there was another aspect to this: Julian. He was the one that pulled the strings, orchestrating this from behind the scenes. What he did best. Dante would never forgive or forget. Julian didn’t do this alone. The puppeteer always has a puppet. He would never stop targeting Alexandra. Julian would never stop.
