“Sure.” Quentin smiled. He seemed to be enjoying himself as much as the boys. “That’s the next thing on the plate, how to fall correctly.”
Tersa stood quietly by my side throughout all this. Nothing to give away her thoughts while she was out here, watching. Just her actions themselves—that she was here.
“Tersa, would you like to learn this stuff also?” I asked her quietly.
A hard, uncertain silence met me, an answer in itself. Yes, she wanted to learn, but was wary about the physical contact required. She had an instinctive fear of men now. Most girls would after they had been violated by a man.
“You could practice the moves on me,” I offered.
All hesitance disappeared. “I would like that. Thank you, milady.”
She followed behind me shyly as I took her hand and stepped out toward the others.
“We’ve decided to join you,” I said.
Quentin smiled in welcome. It was Dante who unexpectedly protested. “Tersa is welcome. But I would ask that you just watch, milady.”
“Why?” I asked, ready to argue with Dante, thinking that he didn’t want Chami and the others to worry about my close proximity to him. I was wrong. That wasn’t the reason at all.
His pale blue eyes moved down to my midsection then back up, a tiny eye flicker indiscernible to the others. But its impact on me was as if a giant hand had reached out and smacked me. Made me remember: Oh yeah, I could be pregnant.
I might have even swayed, because his hand started to lift before he checked the movement. I stepped back abruptly, knowing my face was utterly pale. He’d almost touched me…a near disaster. It would have sent my men spilling out of the house. I almost laughed out loud at the thought: my men rushing to me, concerned about my safety, while Dante was worried about the very same thing—keeping me safe…because I might be carrying his child.
“Tersa,” I said when my voice was steady enough to speak. “Will you be okay practicing with your brother?”
She nodded. Glanced at Dante, back at me. “Thaddeus, too. I feel comfortable with him.”
I made my lips stretch out in a smile. “Good. It’s probably better if I just watch you guys then.”
My mind and heart were in a tumult as I walked back to Chami. With everything that had happened, I’d forgotten that Dante and I may have created life. A tenuous possibility, but one that still guided Dante’s action. Not just tonight, I suddenly realized, but also that of the two previous days: yesterday when he had revealed himself, trying that suicide stunt; and the first day, after we made love, when he’d seen my Goddess’s Tears and known who I was. Was that the reason he had not killed me then? Because of that one in a million chance I was pregnant by him?
Oh, Dante, I thought. What happens when my period comes as it undoubtedly will in a few weeks and we all know my womb is empty? Will you try to kill me then when that possibility of a child no longer holds back your hand?
As if sensing my thoughts, Dante glanced at me. Our eyes met across the distance separating us. But I didn’t know what was in his mind. What he thought, what he felt.
An explosion of movement from the forest’s edge caught my attention. Movement so fast I didn’t know what I was seeing for a split second. I felt another Monère’s presence but didn’t register whose it was. Only Tersa’s happy exclamation of “Wiley!” clued me in. The wild Mixed Blood barreled straight toward her, and she had no fear, just a welcoming smile.
I had only a moment to shout, “Don’t hurt him,” when he hit them. Or more specifically, hit Quentin. Wiley took Quentin down in a smashing tumble of grappling limbs and vicious snarls. The sharp scent of spilled blood suddenly permeated the air—a smell that filled me with fear, especially when I saw Dante’s face.
I’d never seen him look the way he did now. Even when he had been gripped by the madness of Lunara asseros, he wasn’t near as frightening. His eyes—those odd pale eyes—glowed with the heat of his rage…a murderous one. He reached for Wiley’s head, not to pull him off his brother, to stop the fight, but with the clear intent of killing him. To snap his neck.
I cried, “No, Dante!” He hesitated, giving me enough time to reach the tangled fighters. To grab a hold of Wiley and shout, “Stop, Wiley, stop!” as I dragged him off of Quentin, kicking and snarling. Then Tersa was there, and with her first word—his name—and her touch, Wiley grew calm. He allowed himself to be pulled away, and submitted to Tersa’s frantic patting search after pushing aside his bloody shirt.
“It’s not his blood,” Tersa said, looking up at me.
“No,” Dante said, wrath vibrating his words. “It’s my brother’s blood.”
I turned and saw that Quentin’s neck had been cut open. Dante’s hand was clamped tightly over the wound, but blood still seeped out from beneath his fingers.
“How did Wiley do that?” I asked.
“With the knife Quentin took away from him,” Dante snarled, his eyes flashing with such fury, I took a step back from him. “The knife my brother had in his hands but did not use against his attacker because you said not to hurt him. That is why Quentin is injured and why Wiley is not dead by his hand.”
Those eyes and the searing emotions contained within them were too intense for me. My gaze dropped from his, and I turned to find my chameleon suddenly there between Dante and I. “Chami, get the healer. Quickly, please.”
“No need,” Dante said, forestalling him. “She comes.”
Hannah rushed to Quentin’s side with Nolan beside her. The same heated emotion that gripped Dante seemed to grip Nolan also. The big warrior’s eyes flashed with rage over his son’s injury, making him a sudden fearsome threat. Something the rest of my men, who were pouring out of the house, obviously sensed as well.
Aquila and Tomas came up beside Chami, forming a solid barrier of flesh between me and the Morells, including Wiley and Tersa behind our protective wall. At the sight and scent of Nolan, Wiley began snarling again, reluctantly stopping only when Tersa hushed him. There was a tense, brittle silence with just the sound of harsh breathing. Then I felt the gentle thrum of Hannah’s power as she poured her energy into Quentin’s wound.
When his neck was healed, Quentin coughed, cleared his throat. “It’s all right,” he said. “Not the boy’s fault. Father and I trapped him, tied him up, and used him to lure Mona Lisa out of the house.”
It took me a second to realize that Quentin was explaining things to his brother. That he was soothing Dante, whom he had accurately pegged as the most volatile threat.
“He was watching us last night,” Quentin said, his eyes on Dante. “Thought he was getting used to us, that he was coming to accept our presence, but something set him off just now.”
“Me,” Tersa said. “I didn’t know Wiley was here watching us. I got too close to Quentin, and Wiley rushed to protect me from what he saw as a threat.”
“He wasn’t just protecting you,” Dante corrected coldly. “He was trying to kill my brother.”
“He doesn’t know better,” I said, pushing through my wall of men until I could see Dante. “Wiley grew up wild. He doesn’t speak, doesn’t understand what we’re saying. He only knew that your brother and your father had hurt him once, and that Tersa, the only person he loves and trusts in this world, was suddenly within Quentin’s reach.”
I walked to Quentin, to where he sat on the ground flanked by his father and mother, with Dante standing like a burning flame of retribution in front of them, protecting his family. I crossed that invisible line that had suddenly sprang up between us and the Morells, walked past Dante, and knelt in front of Quentin. I took his hand and felt the strength, the calluses already formed there.
“Thank you, Quentin, for not hurting Wiley. I’m sorry you were hurt because you held yourself back, but thank you for doing so.”
“No need to thank me.” Quentin glanced up at his brother. “I wouldn’t have wanted to hurt the kid anyway, Dante. Even if Mona Lisa hadn’t said anything. Can’t blame the kid for being angry at what Dad and I did to him. We were the bad guys here. The boy was trying to protect Tersa from what he saw as a threat to her.” His eyes asked his brother to let it go. He did.