The sadness I’d first heard in his brother, then in his father, was a pervasive thing. It seeped into me. Sadness at the waste, at the loss. Sadness because I thought it was too late to save him. But still I had to try. Taking a deep breath, I stepped forward until I stood only two arms’ lengths away from him.
“Dante,” I said softy, and knew somehow that he was as intensely aware of my presence as I was of his, even though his gaze was locked with his father’s, a steady growl rumbling from his throat. I called his name again but his attention did not waver from the other man.
“Nolan, back up to the door. Don’t leave, but give us some room.”
Nolan did as I asked, moving back until I could no longer see him, and his presence no longer pressed so strongly upon us—until all I could see was just the tortured, wild creature that was his son. The growling stopped and those odd blue eyes suddenly turned and met mine. The impact reverberated through my entire body. Such fierceness, such intensity. There was something very frightening about those eyes. Was there anything still rational left in there?
“Dante.” Though my heart beat rapidly, my voice was as calm and gentle as the freshly fallen night. “Do you understand what I’m saying? Can you speak?”
He stood still but not at ease. Every muscle in his body was tense, quiveringly taut. I took one step closer to him, and slowly lifted my hand out, a hand that shook slightly.
“Dante.” His name fell from my lips like a soft melody as I touched him. As I laid my hand lightly on his chest.
He groaned, a harsh, guttural sound like an animal in great pain. The sound startled me, and I jerked my hand back. He went wild at the loss, snarling and lunging powerfully forward, jerked to a rattling halt by the chains. Only the fleece lining beneath the shackles kept his skin from tearing.
I fell back a step, I couldn’t help it. Even knowing that the silver chains rendered him only human strong, there was such anger to him, such menace, I could not help but be frightened. My heart pounded and the trembling of my hand spread to my entire body.
“I’m sorry,” I said, turning so I could see Nolan from the corner of my eyes. “I…can’t. Not with him like this. Even if I were crazy enough to try it…” And I would have tried it, had Dante shown even a modicum of reasoning, of understanding—making me wonder who the crazy one among us really was. “It would not do any good. We shine only in pleasure.” And I doubted I’d be able to feel that with Dante, as wild and violent and dangerous as he was.
The big man didn’t say anything, and his silence and sorrow weighed down upon me like a heavy stone. And why should it not? I had just essentially passed a death sentence on his son. One that he would have to carry out. But the tall, formidable warrior didn’t protest, didn’t try to insist, holding to his word…that the choice would be mine.
Because he did, I swallowed and voiced the other option I had considered. “If your other son, Quentin…if I glowed with him here in this room, would it help? Could Dante absorb my light if we were close to him but not touching?”
Hope flared in the big man’s eyes. “Yes, it should. Proximity is all that is needed in Basking. It should be the same with this, too.” This being sex.
“Okay,” I said, taking a deep breath. “Let’s give it a try.”
We didn’t have to call him. Every word we said was clearly heard by everyone in the household—one of the downfalls of possessing such acute hearing: no privacy, unless we deliberately tuned down our senses. Quentin appeared in the doorway, dressed in clean clothes and no longer smelling of blood.
“You’re healed?” I asked as our eyes met in that intense awareness of two people who knew they would soon be intimate with each other.
Quentin nodded.
“Do you have a condom?”
Uncertainty passed across that pretty face. Young. So young, cried a voice inside me. Yeah, but he was the lesser of two evils. I sure as hell was not going to fuck his father. Nolan was a married man.
Ironically enough, it was the married man’s wife who appeared with a familiar square foil packet in her hand. She pressed what I had requested into Quentin’s hand and left when she caught sight of my flaming face and Dante’s wild, animalistic state.
With condom in hand, Quentin stepped into the room and came toward me. His brother went ballistic. Dante lunged, flung himself out. Not his upper body, but his lower one, his feet flying out in a half-circle. With the added length that gave him, that of his entire body and arms stretched out to their fullest, it was enough to reach me. His feet swept across my knees, knocking me down. I fell and he rolled over me, a fluid, seething mass, coming quickly to his feet. Hands clamped down on me and he pushed me behind him, crouching in front of me, growling viciously at Nolan and Quentin, who had rushed forward in alarm.
“Stop!” I said. “Don’t come any closer. It’s all right. It’s all right,” I repeated as father and son halted their headlong rush. “Dante’s just trying to protect me…I think.” The last two words were muttered prayerlike, flung up heavenward by my racing heart.
Whatever Dante was doing, it was compelled by his most primal instincts. And the need to protect a Queen was a real hard-wired one instilled in all warriors. I was betting my safety—and his—on it.
He had latched his left hand onto my wrist, leaving his right hand free to fight with. And he’d put me behind him, a protective gesture as well as a possessive one, setting himself between me and the other men.
“Back up,” I said as calmly as I could. “He has me, and hasn’t hurt me so far. Let’s see what he does.”
Nolan and Quentin moved back to the door and stopped there, watching us, making me realize what I had said: Let’s see what he does. I hadn’t meant it literally. Not really. At least, not in Quentin’s case.
“Quentin, if you could, um, leave. The less people in the room, the better,” I said to soften my request. “I’ll be fine with your father. Just…leave the condom.” My face flushed fire-engine red as Quentin slid the precious foil packet across the floor to me. When he slipped quietly from the room, the coiled tension in Dante’s body revved down a notch. Down to a watchful battle readiness instead of a ready-to-erupt-and-tear-out-our-throats state. He backed us up as far as we could go, until we came up against the wall. Then his attention turned to me.
Oh boy.
Intensity was a nice thing in a would-be lover. It told you they were paying attention to you. But not to this degree—this raw, overwhelming amount. This much of it was more scary than exciting…but a spark of sanity had crept into that blue sea of madness. Those fierce, pale eyes swept over me, examining every detail as if I were a two-headed alien suddenly plopped down in from of him. He studied me as if he felt the same thing I did: like he should know me but didn’t. I had the feeling that if he could have drank me down with those pale, eerie eyes of his, I would have been drained completely dry and left like parched, cracked earth.
He raised a hand slowly as if I were the wild creature that had to be gentled, and swept it just above my skin as if he could feel my force, my presence, my aphidy—that unique, attractive force and fragrance inherent to all Queens. It had flared out wildly, reaching for him the first time his hungry power had hit me. I had clamped down on it tightly, desperately contained it. It vibrated my skin now where he ran his hand over it, stroking my invisible power, buzzing and prickling where his hand wrapped around my wrist. A small pulse of power escaped from me and jumped to him against my will, as if our energies wanted to blend, merge, come together—something I’d never experienced before with another man.
As startled as I, he dropped my wrist and we faced each other, inches apart, both of us breathing heavily, our bodies quivering and tense. He was behaving himself as much as I was, keeping his power controlled on a tight leash, not letting it pummel me as it had before. He was sane enough not to want to scare me away, I realized. Comforting. But if we were to get intimate, I wanted—needed—to know that he was rational enough to control himself, to not hurt me. He was bound by silver. I was stronger than him, I could protect myself. But still…something in me could not help but fear him.