“Baby.” He forced himself to talk when it hurt to even move. “You have to go. Something bad’s happening.”
Kaja’s arms tightened.
Roan was suddenly in front of him. “Feed. No one likes to talk about it, but your consort can save you. Her blood can heal you, Dellacourt. I never meant to hurt the women. If I’ve been betrayed, then I assure you I’ll take care of it. Feed.”
Roan took off, and Dante finally got a good look at what had sent the mercenary running.
Cian.
He walked forward, the trees and bushes bending around him to give him access. Cian Finn’s hands were stretched out as though he embraced the world around him and it embraced him in return.
Dante watched as the goblins were caught by vines. They snaked across the field and caught their fleeing prey. The vines wrapped around their ankles and pulled the goblins screaming into the ground. It was as though they were being swallowed feetfirst. The goblins clawed and fought, but they went down screaming, the earth sucking them down.
“What is happening?” Kaja asked, her voice tiny and frightened.
“Cian is happening, love. He won’t hurt you.”
His cousin was utterly transformed. The Green Man walked toward them now, and he was pissed off.
The vampires were fleeing, but some of them got caught by the trees. They leaned over, and their heavy branches became wooden swords.
Kaja’s arms tightened around him, one hand covering his heart as though she could stop the trees.
Smart trees. And they had damn fine aim. A vampire screamed and exploded as a tree branch caught him straight through the heart.
Chaos reigned. Blood flowed. Dante just felt tired. Kaja would live. Cian would see to it. Cian would take her to Dante’s family, and his father would take care of Kaja. His father. Anger fled. He loved his dad. And his mother. And his annoying sister.
The world was loud with the business of dying, but Dante still spoke to Kaja. “Baby, tell my family I love them. Can you do that? You go to them. They’ll take care of you.”
Dante saw Meg run to her husband. She leapt into his arms and wrapped herself around him. The goblins were gone, taken deep into the ground. The vampires had fled, and those who weren’t fast enough were puddles of blood. Cian kissed Meg. It was a beautiful sight. The little pixies clung to Cian’s hair.
They had gone to find the Green Man. Clever pixies.
“Please, Dante,” Kaja begged. She put her wrist to his mouth.
Oh, he wanted to, but Dante wasn’t sure he was strong enough to stop. Instinct told him that Roan was right. Kaja’s blood could save him. Fuck. He couldn’t risk her. It was better to die than to live without his Kaja.
He leaned back against her. “No, baby. I could hurt you.”
Cian and Meg were suddenly in front of him. Cian looked down at him.
“You’re worse for the wear, cos.”
Ci was good at stating the obvious. “Yep. You suck, man. Next time, give me the heads up that you’re leaving.”
“Will do.” Cian’s gaze turned to Kaja. “I heard the asshole who I intend to kill say that you could save Dante.”
“Don’t,” Dante warned.
“Yes, but he needs to feed. He won’t feed.” Kaja’s voice was pleading.
Cian smiled. “I think I can fix that.”
“Don’t you fucking dare, Ci.” There was a knife in Cian’s hand.
Cian Finn neatly sliced a small hole in Kaja’s wrist. Not much, but enough to get the blood flowing, and Dante’s instinct took over when she pressed it to his mouth. Sweet, rich blood flowed and he couldn’t help it. His fangs sank in, and he drank.
Velvety warmth flowed into his mouth, and Dante could feel himself healing.
She invaded his system. Her memories, her hopes, her dreams assailed him. She was so sweet, so strong. She’d been battered, but her heart was whole, and she offered it up.
“That’s unbelievable,” Cian breathed.
“It’s working,” Meg said, relief obvious in her voice.
But Dante was concentrating on Kaja. His defenses were down, and he let her flood him. He was battered with her emotions. She’d wanted to die when she’d seen him gutted. She’d wanted to lie down beside him and never get up. She wanted to bear his child. She wanted it so much.
She loved him.
He saw himself as Kaja saw him.
Dante felt his skin knit together and forced himself to stop.
Kaja slumped to the ground.
Dante touched her hair. She was utterly exhausted, nothing more. He’d taken a bit too much, but he could sense she would be all right with rest and care. He stood and hauled his lovely, brave bride into his arms. She curled against him.
Cian looked at him. “Still thinking about setting her aside?”
“Never,” Dante said, and he walked from the forest.
He might not understand what had happened, but he knew one thing.
He would never let her go.
Chapter Fourteen
Dante walked into his father’s office freshly showered, shaved, and utterly presentable.
So why did he feel like he didn’t belong here? Everything about the office was perfectly normal. He knew every nook and cranny of this space. He’d spent great portions of his childhood in this office. Now it felt foreign. Everything felt alien and odd, even the clothes on his back.
“Son, I will say, I never expected that you would find a consort so quickly,” his dad said, a smile on his face. He was a familiar figure in an expensive suit and worn boots. “You always were the smartest kid I knew.”
Dante thought about Kaja, asleep in his room. She was cuddled up in his big bed where no woman had slept before. He’d always taken them to hotels or gone to their places. His wife was asleep in his bed—their bed. And he wanted to be next to her, watching her breathe. She looked right in his bed.
He’d nearly killed her.
Damn. That was a bit overdramatic. He knew she was going to be okay, but he hadn’t really calmed until he’d made it to his cousins’ village and Flanna had pronounced Kaja perfectly fine, just tired from blood loss. She’d been sleeping for almost twenty-four hours, but she had opened her eyes and responded with the sweetest smile before sinking back into healing sleep. He’d carried her all day, placing her across his lap when he got his bike back. She’d cuddled against him.
“Dante? Have you heard a word I’ve said?”
He turned to his father. “Sorry, I was thinking about something else.”
His father grinned. “You were thinking about her, weren’t you?”
Dante nodded. It seemed foolish to try to hide it. “Yes.”
He seemed to always be thinking about her these days. Kaja was becoming an obsession.
His father came and stood beside him. They stared at the city. From Alexander Dellacourt’s office, Dallas spread out like a sea of buildings. From this far up, Dante couldn’t even see the ground. He rather thought that was the way his father liked it. His father had come from a ranch in west Texas, an impoverished royal, all the way to the heights of society. Dante hadn’t seen the ground as a small child unless he was being taken by hovercar to the door that led to the Seelie plane. That door was guarded now, and no one had been through it in years beyond the occasional political emissary.
“It’s only right, son,” his father was saying as he put an arm around Dante’s shoulder. “She’s your consort. I can’t wait to welcome her into our family. The housekeeper said something was wrong with her.”
“She lost a lot of blood.”
“She’s hurt? What happened to her?”
“I did,” Dante replied. There was on odd mixture of guilt and pride that came with the memory, as though the two pieces of Dante’s soul were at odds over the incident. “I was the one who was injured. Kaja healed me.”