Dark Redemption (2 page)

         
“How on earth does the biggest,
baddest
vampire-slaying werewolf in the world end up in love with the princess of
vampires?” Kate asked, tipping her head back to look up at Dominic.

         
Dominic smiled down at her, his warm brown eyes twinkling with mirth. “I have
no idea. If I meet him, I’ll ask him.”

         
Kate giggled and swatted his arm, then
straightened,
all business. “No really, I want to know.”

         
“Would you believe that same werewolf assassin went to kill her and couldn’t?”
Dominic asked with one dark brow cocked.

         
Kate leveled him with a mock-skeptical look.
“Maybe.”

         
“What would you say if I told you, he was sent to kill her, but took one look
at her and instead fell madly, and I mean straight jacket-crazy, in love with
her?”

         
“I’d say love at first sight is for fairytales,” Kate said with a shrug. “It
doesn’t happen to people in the real world.”

         
Dominic smiled down at her, his eyes warm and bright. “I beg to differ. He may
not have known it right away, but his world changed forever the moment he laid
eyes on her. He would give anything, be anything, just to know her, to
understand her gentle heart and pure soul. He just had to be honest enough with
himself to admit it.”

         
Kate felt the warmth of his words settle deep in her chest. She gave him a soft
smile. “When did he know he’d fallen in love with her?”

         
Dominic sucked in a deep breath. “That’s debatable… Hmm, when he watched
another man try to touch her and wanted to tear him limb from limb. When he
cradled her battered and broken body in his arms and wanted to take her pain
and bear it as his own. When he talked and laughed with her -- and learned the
impossible -- she was even more beautiful on the inside than out.”

         
Dominic peppered kisses along the curve of her throat with each recounted
event. His voice took on a rich, husky timber as he growled, “When he made love
to her for the first time and knew he would never want any other woman the way
he wanted her. When he turned his back on his family and future -- and couldn’t
bring himself to care, for she was all the family and future he needed.

         
“You stole my heart and I have no desire to ever take it back. You are my
world, my life. I will do everything in my power to protect you.”

         
“I love you, Dominic,” Kate breathed, leaning in to press her lips against his.

         
“I love you too, Kate,” Dominic answered, before covering her mouth with his
own.

         
“But don’t think you can get out of answering questions that easy,” she
murmured against his parted lips, feeling dizzy and breathless from his kisses.
“I want to hear the whole story.”

         
Dominic cocked an inquisitive brow at her. “The last time I tried to tell you
the whole truth, you walked out on me.” His words were said in a gentle,
teasing manner, but Kate heard the underlying hurt and uncertainty in them.

         
Cradling his strong jaw in her hand, Kate held his gaze with her own. “I know.
Dominic, I’m so sorry. I wish I could undo the past, but I can’t. However, I
can control the future. I’m not going anywhere. No matter what you say or do,
you’re stuck with me.”

         
“I can think of a lot worse things to be stuck with,” Dominic said with a grin,
his dark eyes twinkling as his hand wandered down her back to caress the curve
of her bottom.

         
The simple touch made Kate tingle in all the right places. She wasn’t a fortune
teller, but the future looked pretty bright to her. In fact, it looked
downright fantastic.

         
“Oh yeah?”
Kate asked with a sly smile, her own hand
wandering farther south to find Dominic’s body stirring with desire. “Like
what?”

         
Dominic let loose a low, throaty chuckle as Kate wrapped her fingers around the
length of his arousal. “I don’t remember,” he gasped as she stroked him slowly.
“You do that and all other thoughts go out the window.”

         
“Then don’t think, just make love to me,” Kate whispered, inching up to press
her lips to his.

         
A sexy grin teased his lips.
“Yes, ma’am.”

Chapter
3

         
Giovanni stepped into the quiet of his father’s private office, struggling to
ignore the way his heart raced within his chest. He didn’t often find himself
summoned to Salvatore’s hallowed demesne.

         
He was more than okay with that. He liked to keep a low profile. And even lower
expectations for
himself
from others.

         
Channeling every ounce of wide-eyed innocence he could muster, Gio pasted a
haphazard grin on his face. “Hey Daddy-o, long time no see. How’s it hanging?”

         
Salvatore pursed his lips in displeasure and acknowledged the jaunty greeting
with a slight incline of his head.
“Giovanni.”

         
Hands in his pockets, Giovanni lazily strolled across the room, as if his every
nerve wasn’t drawn tight like a bow string. Gio flopped into one of the winged
arm chairs across from Salvatore’s desk, slumping low to dangle one leg over
the arm of the chair.

         
Salvatore’s eyes narrowed marginally, his tight lips turning down in a frown.
Every inch of his flawless countenance radiated disproval. That pretty much
summed up their relationship.
Disappointment and disproval.
That’s okay. Gio prided himself on getting under his father’s thick skin, even
made a game of trying to crack the ironclad composure of the patriarch alpha
wolf.

         
Salvatore hated the fact that good music, great food, any alcohol, fast cars
and even faster women, all ranked top priority in Giovanni’s world. He made no
secret of his shame over Giovanni’s rejection of his birthright. Sure, Gio
reluctantly put in his time on patrol, but had much better things to do with
his time than hunt bloodsuckers for eternity.

         
Salvatore cleared his throat, though it did little to clear the whiskey-harsh
rasp as he spoke. “I hear you have news for me.”

         
Shit.
Gio did his best not to react. If Salvatore knew the half of what
he’d been up to, no excuse of idiocy could save him. Staring blankly back at
his father, Gio shrugged. “What news?”

         
“Come now,” Salvatore protested. “Don’t be modest, son.”

         
Truly intrigued, Gio went for baffled ignorance. “I really have no idea what
you mean.”

         
The corner of Salvatore’s mouth twisted up into a ghost of a smile.
“The results of your patrol up north.”

         
Double shit.
“Oh, yeah.”
Giovanni waved his father’s words off with his hand. “Our spies behind
Cacciatori lines indicated the heiress had been seen wandering their lands
unprotected. She walked right into our hands.”

         
“Perfect. What did you do with her body? The Council will want evidence of her
successful eradication.”

         
Triple shit.
Giovanni swallowed. “I didn’t kill her.”

         
“What?!?”
Salvatore roared, slamming his fist on the
dark wood of the desk in front of him hard enough Gio thought for sure it would
split.

         
“Chill, Dad. I escorted her onto our lands and set up her execution, then left
her with Nico to see it through.”

         
Salvatore rubbed his temples, as though he could massage the headache that was
Gio away with the pressure of his fingers. “No, I will not ‘chill,’ Giovanni,”
he growled.
“Why didn’t you just kill her?”

         
Gio shrugged. “I thought it more fitting to sacrifice her in a big symbolic
gesture, in honor of Aunt Victoria and Uncle Rafael. So, I set her up to burn
at the stake in the morning light,
then
left the rest
of the patrol to see it through.”

         
“What, pray tell, was so important you couldn’t stay and ensure the death of
the vampire prophesied to destroy our kind?” The way the vein pulsed in
Salvatore’s forehead, his head had to be dangerously close to exploding.

         
Gio flashed his father a cheeky grin, ignoring the fact the older wolf’s blood
was near boiling point. “You know me. I had other engagements to attend to.”

         
“Damn it, Giovanni,” Salvatore snarled. “You couldn’t put your useless
philandering aside for one night?”

         
“What can I say? It was one hell of a party,” Gio said, grinning as if his
father wasn’t a breath away from strangling him.

         
Salvatore rolled his eyes heavenward, as though praying for patience, then
heaved a weary sigh. “Who was your Beta on patrol that night?”

         
“Nico.”
Gio felt guilty handing over the name of the
wolf, especially considering he’d set the beta up to surrender Kate to Dominic.
For Salvatore would surely see the Beta punished for the night’s failure.

         
Salvatore punched a button on the phone at his desk. “Send me Nico.
Now.”

         
Salvatore folded his hands on the desk in front of him, watching Gio in
silence. Gio swallowed and listened to the seconds tick slowly by on the
grandfather clock behind him.

         
“Surely Nico is up north right now,” Gio hedged. The last thing he needed was
for the truth of that night to come out.

         
A knock sounded at the door.

         
“Enter,” Salvatore rasped, arching a brow at Giovanni.

         
Nico stepped into the light of the office, his shoulders back and his gaze
distant as he stood at attention. “You summoned me, sir?”

         
“Yes. Nico, come.”

         
Nico came to stand in front of Salvatore’s desk, his form rigid with the
disciplined bearing of a trained soldier. Salvatore rose to his feet to stand
before the wolf. Nico stared straight through him as was his training, his eyes
fixed on some imaginary point beyond, instead of the leader directly in front
of him.

         
Giovanni held his breath as he watched Salvatore study the wolf in silence.
When the patriarch spoke, he did so with a venomous quiet, reminiscent of a
coiled snake with the potential to strike at any moment. “Tell me,
Nico,
were you Giovanni’s Beta the night of the vampires’
winter ball?”

         
“Yes, sir.”

         
“Did Giovanni leave you in command of the patrol that night?”

         
“Yes, sir.”

         
“Were you responsible for the execution of Katerina Cacciatori?”

         
“Yes, sir.”

         
The questions came in rapid succession, fired one after another, as though the
answers mattered little. Gio knew that was far from the case.

         
“Was Katerina Cacciatori executed?”

         
Nico gave the slightest pause. “I don’t know, sir.”

         
This answer mattered most of all. Salvatore paused and cocked his head to the
side, considering Nico in silence.
The quiet before the
storm.

         
“Why not?”

         
“Alpha Dominic Ridolfi dismissed us and assumed responsibility for the
prisoner, sir.”

         
Salvatore stepped closer to Nico, standing nearly nose to nose with the wolf.
“And you abandoned your post without argument?”

         
“Sir, as you know, to question the Alpha means death, I—”

         
Salvatore’s arm slashed upward in a flash of silver. Nico’s protest cut off
with an odd gurgle. Blood sprayed across Salvatore’s face like red rain.

         
Horrified, Giovanni leapt to his feet. Nico took a stumbling step back,
clutching his throat. Falling to his knees, Nico made hollow gasping noises and
gaped at the two of them in wide-eyed horror as blood spilled around his hands.
Within seconds, the Beta wolf slumped to the floor in a wide pool of his own
blood.

         
Salvatore tossed the bloody silver dagger at Giovanni’s feet. Studying the
weapon on the floor in front of him, Giovanni swallowed the grief and guilt
rising in his throat. Though his father had slaughtered Nico, Nico’s blood was
on Giovanni’s hands. Gio lifted his chin to meet the probing gaze of his
father. Salvatore’s eyes were cold and calculating as he monitored
Gio’s
reaction from beneath arched brows.

         
“Your brother is a traitor and no longer a part of this family. This,” he
rasped, his lip curled in disgust as he nudged Nico’s dead body with the toe of
his shoe, “is to be the fate of any who dare to lend him aid. I will not
tolerate traitors in our pack. Nor will I tolerate failure. Have I made myself
clear?”

         
“Crystal,” Gio
said,
all semblance of his previous
good humor gone.

         
“Very well.
You are dismissed,” Salvatore said,
turning his back on Gio to pick up the phone on his desk. Ignoring Giovanni’s
presence, he quietly ordered cleaning services for his office.

         
Gio glared at Salvatore’s back and gave one last fleeting glance at his fallen
comrade, then took his leave. Nico had been a good soldier and a friend. Though
he would miss the disciplined wolf, his biggest regret would be his part in the
Beta’s death. No question, Nico’s murder was punishment for Giovanni’s actions.
More importantly, it was also a warning.