Of Blood and Bone (28 page)

“I’m wrapped around it already,” he says drily.  “Does that count?”

We laugh and return the horse to the stable, then find our way upstairs to Luca’s bedroom. To
our
bedroom.  We fall asleep immediately with our arms wrapped around each other and the moon shining in our room through the open balcony doors.  Life is perfect.

Or at least, it is until Luca wakes me in the night. 

I startle awake, taking a moment to realize that Luca is perched above me, drenched in sweat.  As the moon shines in and my eyes adjust to being awake, I see the same empty expression in his eyes that I’ve seen so many times before. 

The empty,
dark
expression.

My heart seems to freeze in my chest, afraid to even beat. 

“Luca?” I ask, my voice hesitant. “Are you alright?”

He doesn’t answer.  Instead, he mumbles something that I can’t understand. I shake his shoulder.

“Luca, wake up.”  But he doesn’t respond and I realize, with a sinking heart, that he isn’t asleep. 

“Luca,” I say again, more firmly this time.  He looks at me, but doesn’t see me.

“I’m sorry,” he mutters over and over.  “So sorry. Forgive me.  There was so much blood. Forgive me.”

He’s repeating himself over and over, and wipes at his hands as if to wipe the blood away. 

He’s not himself. 

How many times have I heard him say those words? 
I’m not myself.

But he’s not. 

Again.

My heart drops into my stomach as he climbs from the bed and walks naked from the room. I jump up and chase him, calling for him to come back.  But he doesn’t stop.  My voice doesn’t sway him, my fear doesn’t move him.  He’s immersed in something that only he can see. 

Finally, as I scream at him to stop, he turns to me and the empty, dark expression in his eyes, so devoid of anything but torment, terrifies me.

And I know that it isn’t over.

Epilogue

Adrian

Hate rips through me, blinding me with a blur of crimson red.  Blood red.

No one knows Luca Minaldi like I do.  No one knows his thoughts, his behaviors, his fucking emotions better than me.  I
should
know him.  I’ve been stuck with him my entire life.  It’s my lot.

I know he thinks I’m insane.  I saw it on his face as he stood on the rainy deck of the boat.  He thinks I’m to be pitied, that I’m damaged and pathetic.  Everything that he thought he was.  It’s enough to make me want to puke. 

But it will work to my advantage.  If he thinks I am insane, he will underestimate me.  He will not be watching for me at the moment when he needs to the most. And that’s when I’ll be there. 

If he thinks that I will allow him to come out of this unscathed, to live a normal life and profit from the life that he stole from my family, he is sadly, sadly mistaken. 

I smile when I think of what I know; what I know that
he
doesn’t.  

My family, my great-great-great grandfather, was consumed with creating the perfect hallucinogen, the perfect concoction of poisonous herbs and plants that would turn the Minaldi men into beasts; beasts that would be eaten alive by their own guilt at actions that they couldn’t control.  And he did exactly that.  

For his time period, Enzo Leopoldo created an amazingly powerful drug.   But I have the advantage of modern medicine on my side, so I tweaked the old formula a bit.  And the end result is something the world hasn’t yet seen; a drug so powerful that its effects will be felt long after the drug itself is no longer consumed.  In fact, for all that I know, the effects are permanent.  I’m no chemist.  I have no way of knowing exactly how long it is effective. 

But this is what I
do
know.

Luca Minaldi is a monster.  I turned him into one and because of me, he will stay one for a long time to come.  The exact time frame is unclear, but it will most certainly be long enough for my purposes and that is all that matters. 

They say that hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.  But
I
say that hell hath no fury like a man on a mission.  And Luca Minaldi is my mission.

I’m coming for him.

And I’m bringing all the pain and torment of hell with me.  

The End.

To read more about Eva and Luca,

Please watch for Book Two in the Minaldi Legacy,

Coming in winter 2012

Acknowledgements

I can’t thank my husband and my family enough.  They put up with so much when I am lost in a fictional world.  THANK YOU for loving me even when my mind is thousands of miles away. 

To M Leighton, THANK YOU for being my crit partner and one of my very best friends.  I don’t know what I did to deserve you, but I’m grateful.

Tiffany King, thank YOU for all of the support and advice.  I’m so lucky to have you. 

Thank you, thank you to my beta readers.  Your valuable input made this book better:

Fisher Amelie

Autumn Review

Ana (The Book Hookup)

Meg  (FicTalk)

Michelle Muto

And of course, thank YOU.  My awesome and amazing readers.  Thank you for reading my work.  You’re the best. 

If you’d like to read something else from Courtney Cole while you wait for the next installment of The Minaldi Legacy,

Check out Dante’s Girl (Book One in the Paradise Diaries).

It’s a light, cute Young Adult Contemporary.

Dante’s Girl
by Courtney Cole

Chapter One

It is impossible to look hot in the dingy fluorescent light of an airport bathroom. Or as my best friend Becca would say, hawt.

At this particular moment, I’m not hot
or
hawt.  I make this revelation as I vigorously scrub at my arms and face and then use a wet paper towel under my pits. 

And what is it about peeing in an airport toilet ten times in a day that makes you feel so completely scummy?  I glance around at the crumpled tissues strewn about on the scuffed floor and the dirty toilets peeking from behind half-closed doors and cringe.  That answer is clearly ‘because of the germs’. Ack. 

Trying not to think about it, I clean up the best I can.  After running a brush through my hair, I stick a piece of gum in my mouth, apply a thin layer of lip gloss and call it good.  I glance into the mirror and cringe.  It isn’t good
enough
, but it will have to do.  Very soon, I’ll put this dreadful four hour layover in Amsterdam behind me and before I even know it, I’ll be in London.

With my father.

For the summer.

It would be torture.

Just shoot me now.

And it’s not because I don’t love him, because I do.  My reluctance doesn’t stem from lack of love.  It comes from the deep-seeded fact that Alexander Ellis doesn’t understand me.  He never has and he never will. It’s something that I’ve made my peace with and I’m not angry about it.

I’m his only child and he works his life away as some top-secret agent for the NSA.  His job is so secret that I don’t even know what he does. In my head, I imagine him jumping from helicopters and saving starving children in war torn areas.  But in reality, I know he probably sits behind a desk and analyzes information from a satellite stream or a taped telephone conversation. I’m pretty sure that’s what the NSA does, anyway.  They aren’t the cool kind of spies.

Also, he isn’t exactly sure what to do with a daughter.  I was supposed to have been a boy. Seventeen years ago, sonograms apparently weren’t as absolute as they are today, because the technician told my parents that she was 99.9% sure that I was a boy.  They painted my nursery blue and picked out my name and everything.  I can only imagine the shocked horror on my father’s face when I was born with lady parts.

Regardless, I know he loves me.  Even though he had willingly given my mother full custody when they divorced years ago, I know he only did it because he works overseas so much and he isn’t exactly sure how to raise a girl.  He does okay.  But then again, I do have some reason to believe that he still pretends that I’m a boy, just to make it easier on himself.  It’s fairly easy to do since I still have the boy name that they originally picked out. 

With my head down, I trudge back out into the congested halls of Schiphol airport.  Weary travelers bustle around me and I shift my bags so that I can pull the stubborn strap of my tank top back over my shoulder where it belongs.  As I do, I crash into someone with enough force that my bags go flying out of my hands and scatter onto the ground under people’s feet.

“Son of a –“ I blurt before I even think.

“Buck?” a male voice offers helpfully. 

Looking up, I stare into the most unique and beautiful shade of blue that a pair of eyes has ever possessed. Of that I am certain.  Blue just shouldn’t be that multi-faceted and twinkling.  There should be a law or something. 

Or at least a warning label: 

Caution, these eyes may cause female knees to tremble.

Before I can help it, I scan the rest of him.  Sweet Mary.  This guy had lucked out in the gene department.  Tall, slender, beautiful.  Honey colored hair that had natural highlights that could even catch the crappy airport light, broad shoulders, slim hips, long legs.  He is tan and golden with a bright, white smile. 

I am surely staring at Apollo, the god of the sun.  Probably with my mouth hanging open, which makes me realize that I must look like an idiot- the personification of what foreigners think Americans to be.  I snap my mouth closed.

“I’m sorry,” I say quickly, trying to still my racing heart.  “Did I run into you?”

“Only a bit,” Apollo says gentlemanly, with a shrug of his strong shoulders.  I can tell he is strong even through his shirt sleeves, which are snug across his toned biceps.  Sweet baby monkeys. 

“How can someone run into someone else only by a bit?” I ask with a nervous smile as I kneel to retrieve my stuff. 

Please don’t let him smell me right now
, I silently pray to any god who cares to listen. I am sure that at this point in my travels, I probably smell like soiled hamster bedding. 

He bends next to me and picks up the contents of my spilled purse. He smells like sunshine.  And rain.  And everything beautiful that I can think of.  I try not to cringe as his fingers grasp a tampon and slide it back inside my bag.  He doesn’t even flinch, he just casually continues to pick up my things like he’s used to handling feminine hygiene products.

“Oh, it’s fairly easy, really,” he answers.  He has an exotic sounding accent that I can’t place.  “At least, when you’re not looking where you’re going.”  My head snaps up and he laughs. 

“I’m kidding,” he assures me as he extends an arm to me. Even his hand is graceful.  I gulp as his fingers curl around mine.  “You can bump into me any time you’d like.”

“Thanks,” I mumble.  “I think.”

“I’m Dante,” he tells me, his impossibly blue eyes still twinkling. 

“I’m Reece,” I answer with a sigh, already anticipating his reaction. “Yes, I know it’s a boy’s name.”

“You’re not a boy,” Dante observes.  “Most definitely not a boy.”

Is that a note of appreciation in his voice?  Surely not. I look like a bedraggled Shih Tzu. 

“No, I’m not,” I agree.  “I just don’t know that my dad ever got that memo.” 

I look past Dante and find that he is alone.  He seems to be about my age so that’s a little unusual in these circumstances.  My parents had flown me as an ‘unaccompanied minor’ across the ocean for years, but other people’s parents are usually a little squeamish about that. 

“I’m sure that fact hasn’t escaped him,” Dante tells me in amusement.  Why do his eyes have to sparkle so much?   I usually go for brown-eyed guys.  But this boy is most certainly making me re-think that stance.

“That’s debatable,” I sigh.  Realizing that we are impeding the busy pedestrian traffic like a dam in a rushing river, I smile.

“Thank you very much for helping me pick up my things.  Safe travels!”

I turn on my heel and pivot, walking quickly and what I hope is confidently in the other direction.  Hitching my heavy purse up on my shoulder, I fight the urge to turn and look at him.  Something about him is practically mesmerizing.

But I don’t look.  I keep walking, one foot in front of the other.  When I reach the moving walkway, I hop on and focus ahead of me, eyes straight forward.

Don’t look back.

Don’t look back.

Don’t look back.

Regardless of my silent chanting, when I step from the walkway I discreetly check behind me.  Apollo is nowhere to be seen.  With a sigh, I continue on to the British Airways terminal.  Only three short hours left until take-off.  Plugging my earbuds into my ears, I settle into a seat and close my eyes.

* * *

“Excuse me, Reece?”

Before I even open my eyes, I know the sexy accent is coming from Apollo.  I can feel his epic hotness emanating through my eyelids.  I only hope that I haven’t been drooling in my sleep.

“Yes?” I ask as nonchalantly as I can while my eyes pop open.  I try to discreetly smooth my hair down. In my head, I envision myself as Chewbacca from Star Wars and wince.