“Everything.” Every last wretched, painful thing. “Oh, Dante . . . our child. I lost our baby.”
Tears—both his and mine—bridged the distance as no words could have, and I found myself suddenly held by Dante, sobbing softly into his neck, feeling his shared grief in the wet drops that moistened my temple.
The loss was mingled with remembered guilt, and the double loss of Dante immediately after like a one-two blow. But it was old grief that twinged anew, not fresh grief. Eventually my tears lessened, subsiding into an occasional hiccup, the quick ebbing of it hastened by the man who held and comforted me now.
One loss irrevocable, the other not so. Or so I hoped.
I said now what I had wanted but had not the chance to say before. “I’m sorry, Dante.” And the added plea. “Don’t leave me again. Stay, please stay.”
He smoothed back my hair, searching my face. “Do you remember that time before, when I took your life and you cursed me?”
I took a deep, ragged breath. “Yes.”
“Then how can you want me to stay?”
“Our present life eclipses our past,” I said, gripping his arms. “We’re in the middle of our second chance, and second chances are rare and precious. I happen to be freshly reminded of that.” More gently, “Say you’ll stay.”
He squeezed his eyes shut. Opened them. “Yes,” he said simply.
My heart leaped in joy. “Mona Sierra,” I said, pressing while I yet had the advantage, “you won’t go back to South America to punish her?”
Diamond blue eyes darkened. “I promised her my vengeance—”
“Which you will have,” I hastened to point out. “She’ll be fearful and uneasy for the rest of her life, always looking over her shoulder, waiting for you to strike.” Waiting for you to slaughter her and all her people—which I didn’t say out loud. “That waiting, always being on edge . . . let that be vengeance enough,” I begged. “Please.”
A light shudder ran through him. He bowed his head. “As my lady wills . . .”
“Thank you.”
“. . . as long as she bothers us not.”
“Roberto, too.”
He swallowed tightly. “Agreed.”
“Agreed,” I said in soft echo.
We sealed the deal with a kiss.
TWENTY
AMBER LEFT THE next day, returning to his territory; Halcyon departed the day after to his realm, both leaving with the promise to return soon. Things settled once more into routine, with a few changes. Dante and Quentin joined my daily fencing lessons with Edmond, under Nolan’s tutelage. Needless to say, the Morell twins were in the advanced class; Edmond and I were, if not quite novices, then more along the lines of being orange belts to their black belt status. Most of the time, we worked in our evenly matched original pairings, but occasionally Nolan had us change partners, allowing Edmond and me to test ourselves against more superior opponents.
When the hour of sword practice was complete, Edmond left, and I continued on for yet another hour to work on new, additional skills—practicing the weird stuff, as I dubbed it. The extra hour had been suggested by Dante and agreed upon by Nolan. The first part was using the Goddess’s Tear in my left hand to generate a blocking shield of energy. When we first tried this, of course, no one stood in front of me or my power-generating mole. Good thing, too. I knocked over a few trees and blasted the heck out of some bushes before I finally got the knack for calling up energy in a more controlled and modest quantity—a light tugging, not a ferocious pull. And not tossing out the energy but continuing to hold it steady a few inches away from my palm in a light, invisible thrum shaped into a small oval shield the size of my hand.
The last part of the session, I worked on what was the far easier stuff for me, pure blasting power.
When I let loose and just threw out power, I was able to send a spreading wave of energy that stretched to a twenty-foot radius that could travel a distance of fifty-two feet, measured by the violent rattling of trees and bushes.
Close-up work with projectile energy was even more notable. The first time I tried it, I blasted a head-sized hole through a heavy tree trunk, which was both frightening and impressive, since that hadn’t been my intent.
“Remind me never to piss you off,” Quentin said, whistling as the exploded wood chips dropped in pieces to the ground.
It had to have brought back dark memories for Dante, but he only asked, “Did you mean to do that?”
I shook my head. “No, I thought it would just knock over the tree.”
“We’ll have to work on control,” was Dante’s judicious comment.
Nolan nodded solemn agreement. “Yes. We want to make sure you’re doing that on purpose and not by accident.”
“Definitely,” I said faintly, blanching at the idea of taking a life by clumsy accident rather than by sure intent.
By the time Halcyon returned on the fourth day, rested and regenerated from his stay in Hell, I had enough control to maintain a left-handed shield widened out to the size of a basketball. It was no doubt an odd sight to see me blocking Dante’s wooden sword with no visible barrier other than my upheld hand.
“Very nice trick,” Halcyon observed, watching from the side.
“Oh yeah?” I said, quite pleased. “See that pine tree over by the left edge of the lawn, about forty paces away? Keep an eye on the lowest branch.” Aiming my right hand, I emitted a stream of energy I had managed to narrow down to a plate-sized diameter. The energy beam hit its target, sending four pinecones flying from the lowest branch.
“Not bad range and control for—how many days of practice?” Halcyon asked.
“Four.”
“Hmm,” he mused, glancing at the pine tree. “It’s been a while since I practiced . . . but you see that single pinecone above the cluster you just hit?”
“Uh huh.”
He sent out a flick of mental energy and dropped the single cone—without even swaying the branch.
“Oooooh.” I grinned with delight at the competitive challenge. “Neat trick, yourself.”
Pitting myself against Halcyon over the following weeks, I honed my skills to an even finer degree, narrowing my beam down to a two-inch diameter, pushing myself until I was able to almost, but not quite, match Halcyon’s pinpoint accuracy. Control was the issue with me—not power but rather harnessing that power, learning the breadth and range of it. And, as was often the case when pitting yourself against someone better, I improved, developing a finer degree of control—certainly more than I would have had I been practicing alone. Even Amber joined in the fun on the days he came to visit, alternately cheering for me, other times for Halcyon, the big twerp, which I would punish him for later in a sweaty, wrestling romp in bed, tickling him without mercy.
In defensive maneuvers, I was eventually able to stretch the size of my shield out to a radius large enough to cover my entire body, good at deflecting swords and daggers and even bullets, sort of. The first time we tried it, the bullet punched right through my shield. It took six more tries before I finally found the right level of energy to produce. Even then, Nolan always aimed to the side, never directly at me, no matter how I urged him to do otherwise, assuring him I had it now. He chose prudence, and I couldn’t really blame him. It would be bad form to shoot your Queen, even if it was her own idiotic fault.
On his fourth visit, when Halcyon left, I went with him back to his realm.
Hell was different, viewed with its powerful ruler strolling by your side. Needless to say, you didn’t feel as threatened, even when your heart was the only living thing beating down there, calling out like a dinner bell to all occupants.
It took only one of Halcyon’s powerful mental flicks, sending a wolf—Hell’s nasty version of one, at least—tumbling away from us, to warn off other carnivores . . . and down here everything was a carnivore. Even their bunny rabbits had fangs sharp enough to bite your fingers off with.