Of Blood and Bone (The Minaldi Legacy #1)(61)
Author: Courtney Cole

I smile in the dark.  “I’m not worried about the ring,” I tell him sleepily.  “If I could wear you on my finger, I would.”

“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 na**d 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 f**king 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.