Inferno's Kiss (37 page)

Any other time she would have found his confidence irritating. Now she felt nothing. Deep inside, the newborn wailing in her head was a finely honed blade cutting away at her heart. She ignored the Praetorian’s glee and lunged forward to send the sharp edge of her blade across the man’s side. It wasn’t a deep cut, but she knew it had to sting.

A cold rush of emotion streamed through her body as a grimace of pain replaced the Praetorian’s smile. He uttered an oath and swung his sword in a vicious arc toward her head. In a flash of movement, she did a quick somersault past him then sprang to her feet in one smooth move. As she whirled around, she dragged the tip of her sword across his back.

She knew she’d barely grazed him with her blade when she could have easily finished the man off with one stroke. But she didn’t want to finish him that quickly. The cries in her head urged her on. She took a step backward as the Praetorian whirled to face her.

The fury on his face didn’t faze her, and she crooked her finger at him in a gesture for him to attack. Rage darkened the Praetorian’s expression as he threw himself forward to wield several fierce swings of his weapon at her. Cleo easily blocked his blows then countered with a flurry of strikes that drove the Praetorian several feet backward. He recovered swiftly to slam his weapon into hers.

Sparks flew off their weapons as the blades skated downward against each other until the hilts of their swords were locked. Triumph lit the man’s features at the same time a cold malice swept through Cleo’s limbs, and she viciously drove her knee up into the man’s groin. The Praetorian released a shout of anger and pain as he struggled to remain standing.

For a long time there had been a thin veil between her and the darkness buried deep inside her. Over the last three years she’d fought the enjoyment of killing when she assassinated her targets. This time there was nothing keeping her dark pleasure at bay. It was a seduction she welcomed as she sent her fist slamming into the man’s face.

Blood gushed from the Praetorian’s nose, and with a deft twist of her hand, Cleo unlocked her sword from his. She saw him tighten his grip on his sword, but he never got a chance to do anything, as she brought her sword up and sliced through the man’s wrist.

Another roar of pain flew out of the Praetorian as Cleo tugged the weapon from his useless fingers and flipped it so as to catch the sword in her free hand. One more time, Cleo kneed the man in the groin, and with a guttural sound her opponent fell, his hand clutching at his crotch. She bent over to grab his chin, forcing him to look at her.

Silently, she showed the Praetorian his sword then lightly dragged its blade across the side of his neck. The wailing in her head continued as a thin but steady stream of blood rolled downward and spread across the Praetorian’s skin. She saw fear flicker in his eyes, and for the first time, she smiled. Cleo straightened upright then kicked the man in the jaw. His head snapped back, and he crashed backward to the floor with a moan.

“How many babies have you killed in your lifetime, Praetorian?” she asked softly as she threw the man’s sword off into the corner of the room and stared down at him. “How many Sicari women have you raped?”

When he didn’t answer her, she jammed her sword into his shoulder. The shout of pain he released made her smile grimly, but the Praetorian’s agony didn’t help silence the cries echoing in her head. She withdrew her blade from her opponent’s shoulder and took a step back. For the first time she remembered the young woman and her baby. Cleo glanced in the direction of the woman, who was staring at her with a stunned look on her face.

“Is the baby okay?” Cleo asked in a mechanical voice.

“Yes,” the woman whispered.

The Praetorian shifted on the floor, and Cleo drove her sword down into his leg just below the kneecap. He writhed on the floor and screamed with agony. She took a step back from the Praetorian and looked at the woman again.

“Do you recognize this
bastardo
?” She waited as the woman nodded. “Did he ever touch you?”

“Yes, he was . . . he . . .” The woman’s voice trailed off as a blank look swept across her face. Cleo’s gaze scanned the room, and she pointed to the door.

“Wait for me in the hallway.”

“I will serve as a witness,” the woman said.

“
No
. Outside. Now,” Cleo said emphatically. The younger woman blanched as she met Cleo’s eyes, then, clutching the baby to her chest, she turned and left the room. Now alone with the Praetorian, Cleo returned to his side and dragged her blade up along his leg to his thigh. Gently, she used her sword to nudge at the apex of his legs. A moan rumbled out of him.

“Shall I castrate you, Praetorian?”

“Do what you want,” he spat at her with renewed strength.

The son of a bitch had told her to do what she wanted. She wanted to make him and every Praetorian die a long, slow death. She stared down at him as she remembered the nursery. The blood. Precious lives extinguished because of this monster and the one she’d killed before him. ”You sound like you might recover,” she murmured. “We can’t have that now, can we?”

Again her sword made contact with his balls, and in a split second, she sent the sword barreling downward. The man’s agonized scream didn’t give her the satisfaction she was looking for. She drove her sword into his other testicle, or perhaps it was his cock. She didn’t care. It still didn’t ease the torment consuming her. He gurgled something, and she arched an eyebrow at him.

“What? Do you object to my method of execution?”

“Sicari . . . Code . . . wrong . . .” His voice trailed off as he stared up at her with a pleading look on his face.

“Ah . . . but there you’re wrong,” she said with a bitter laugh. “I’m not Sicari at all.”

“But—”

“No buts,” she snarled. She had no intention of showing this monster any mercy.

She drove her sword through his arm until the blade hit the stone floor. The man’s cry of pain still wasn’t as loud as the screams echoing in her head. Cries of horror that had started the minute she’d entered that nursery.

Her sword sliced through the man’s side, and he started to sob. The sound simply hardened her heart. The Praetorian’s cries were a vivid reminder of the night she’d woken up in a hospital bed knowing her baby was gone. She pulled her sword out and plunged it into his other arm.

“Cleopatra.” The quiet sound of Dante’s voice made her freeze, and she jerked her head toward the door. She didn’t want him here. Didn’t want him to see her like this. Trembling, she stared at Dante’s outstretched hand.

“He killed them,” she said. Somewhere beneath the wails inside her mind, she heard how cold and mechanical her voice was. Heartless.

“I know,
carissima
.” Dante’s expression was tender and compassionate as he gestured for her to come to him. “But this isn’t you. Don’t let them eat your soul,
bella
. Show him the mercy he didn’t show the little ones. Let Tony put this sorry
bastardo
out of his misery.”

She stared at Dante for a moment then looked back down at the Praetorian. Mercy? The son of a bitch had shown no mercy, so he deserved no mercy. The Praetorian began sobbing with pain as she jammed her sword into untouched parts of his body.

“Burn in hell, you sorry fuck,” she said as she bent over and spat in the man’s face.

With swings sharp and vicious, her sword sliced its way through first one side of the man’s cheek then the other. His screams echoed in the room, and her own cry of fury merged with the Praetorian’s as she drove her sword down into the man’s chest and he went limp.

Straightening upright, she pulled her sword out of the Praetorian and meticulously cleaned the blade on the sheet of the hospital bed. Inside her head the wailing ebbed to a dull roar, allowing her to feel the familiar frisson of Dante’s body close to her. The weight of his hand fell on her shoulder, and she shrugged him off.

“Have they found Marta?” She turned to face him, expecting him to tell her the worst.

“Yes, she’s alive and already in the van with the others.”

“Beatrice?”

“Cornelia’s with her in the hallway. You saved her.”

His words made her look down at the dead Praetorian. She should feel remorse, but she didn’t. The pain inside her was too raw for her to be sorry for what she’d done. The Sicari Code didn’t apply to Praetorians. She was free to kill them without asking the
Rogare Donavi,
but she knew what she’d done had crossed an unspoken line. She didn’t care. She wasn’t really Sicari. She was just a woman pretending to be.

Chapter 19

DANTE paced the floor of the
Absconditus
’s main salon. Sunshine illuminated the room, but it did nothing to improve his grim mood. It had been three days since the rescue operation. Three days since he’d watched Cleopatra coldly and methodically torture a Praetorian.

The connection between him and Cleopatra had continued to strengthen with her reaction to the massacre heightening his own feelings about the bloodbath. His stomach knotted at the memory of the quiet nursery filled with murdered infants. It was the worst slaughter of innocence he’d ever seen, but he was certain it was Cleopatra’s first.

The way she’d been torturing that Praetorian had revealed more about her than any words might have. Without their telepathic connection, he would have simply assumed her torture of the Praetorian was rooted in the trauma of the moment. But knowing about the loss of her baby, and how a Praetorian sword had rendered her barren, helped him understand some of what had driven her brutal response to the massacre. She had to be enduring the fires of Tartarus at the moment.

The moment they’d arrived home, Cleopatra had gone into seclusion. Not once since then had she emerged from her rooms. Not even to check on her friend. That alone was enough to worry him deeply. She’d been so determined to rescue her friend that her present lack of concern for Marta’s well-being alarmed him.

It didn’t help matters that Marcus was becoming increasingly concerned about his daughter’s withdrawal. Cleopatra had turned off her cell phone, and when Marcus had been unable to reach her after several tries, he’d called demanding a report on his daughter. The Sicari Lord had been understanding about the situation, but if Cleopatra didn’t come out of her room soon, her parents would be the ones knocking on her door, not him.

“I take it she still refuses to see you?” Placido’s voice behind him made Dante turn around to face the Sicari Lord.

“She won’t see anyone,” Dante said with frustration as he shoved a hand through his hair.

“Cornelia has shared with me that the . . . the nursery . . . that it was the worst massacre she’s ever seen.”

It was the first time Placido had broached the subject with him. The old Sicari Lord had instinctively understood Dante’s need for time before he was ready to talk about the horror he’d seen. Now, Placido’s somber words vividly brought back the terrible sight he’d witnessed in the nursery.

In the past, there had been only two or three infants murdered by the Praetorians, which was always a punch to the gut. But at the Convent of the Sacred Mother, with the exception of two infants, more than twenty Sicari male babies had been slaughtered in their cribs. It was terrible enough that the
bastardi
murdered the female children shortly after birth, but to slaughter the males simply to keep them out of Sicari hands was incomprehensible. He nodded. “There aren’t any words for what I saw,” Dante rasped as he swallowed the knot lodged in his throat.

Placido heaved a deep sigh of sorrow as he studied the marble beneath his feet. The fragility Dante had witnessed in the old man almost a month ago seemed even more pronounced, as Placido was clearly mourning the loss of innocent lives. The Sicari Lord lifted his head and met Dante’s gaze wearily.

“At least Theodorus and Dorothea were spared.”

He simply nodded at Placido’s observation. Theodorus and Dorothea were the only two bright lights to emerge from the darkness he’d witnessed at the convent. Cleopatra had slain the Praetorian in the nursery before Theodorus had met the same fate as the others, while Dorothea had been in her mother’s arms when Cleopatra had saved them.

Cornelia had found her daughter and a new grandchild as well. With his
Praefect
’s help, the odds of Beatrice overcoming the trauma of her time in the convent were strong. The fact that she wanted to keep Dorothea said a great deal about Beatrice’s strength to overcome the horrors she’d endured. Placido interrupted his thoughts.

“They are aptly named,” Placido said as he referenced the fact that the rescued infants’ names meant “gift of the gods.”

“I don’t know how Theodorus escaped that nursery without a scratch. Cornelia named him well. He’s a lucky baby. As for Dorothea and Beatrice, they’re alive only because of Cleopatra.”

“I think Cleopatra’s been in isolation long enough.” Placido’s quiet statement sounded more like an explosion in the room.

“And how do you propose to coax her back into the world of the living?”

The old man didn’t answer him. Instead, the ancient Sicari Lord’s eagle-eyed look pinned itself on Dante. It was clear what his friend wanted. He shook his head in silent objection, and Placido frowned.

“You’re the only one who can reach her.” The man’s words made Dante flinch.

“I don’t know how to do that.” This time he shook his head more sharply. “She’s not responded to me any more than she has to you or Cornelia.”

“You’re the only one she’s actually spoken to, which means you can convince her to come out of her seclusion,” Placido said in an unrelenting tone.

“What the hell makes you think that?” he snarled. “Another one of your prophecies?”

“No. Simple observation. You’re in love with her.”

Speechless, Dante stared at his friend. What the hell was the old man thinking? He wasn’t in love with Cleopatra.
Christus
, he barely knew the woman. Somewhere in the back of his mind Dante heard a chorus of protests. He shut the door on the cries. How in the name of Juno could he possibly be in love with her? He glared at the Sicari Lord.