SWNOVELS Chapter Chapter Forty-Two
“Dionisio,” I said, recalling Gabrielle’s story of Castello Palatino.
Duccio looked at me with wonderment that I knew his son’s name. And from my mind, I let him see the memory she shared, Dionisio’s story of sexual abuse at the hands of men who paid for the privilege. He wouldn’t allow Duccio to release his wolf—the very idea of violence crippled his will to live.
And then I remembered the sight of Duccio taking his son in his arms, the image confounding because the elder appeared not half the age of the younger. Duccio dried his son’s eyes and kissed him on the lips, whispering the tenderest affections in his ear while he held him.
Duccio had lived this moment, but to see the moment through another’s eyes silenced him. Grief overtook him again. His hands trembled as he covered his face to hide from the pain.
“You don’t have to tell me the rest if it hurts,” I whispered in his ear.
“If she told you about him, then I needn’t,” Duccio said in time. “But, per usual, Father was right. Becoming a father to Dionisio changed me. I took Pompeia as my bride, devoting myself to love them both. And for a while, loving them as father and husband sustained me.”
“What changed?” I asked when he went silent again.
“The pendulum swung back, and again I wanted more. While on my rounds one afternoon, a man approached me, Gaelezzo Visconti, a lycan from the south I knew of by a loose relationship with Father. Most lycan were related to me somehow through Father. Duke Sforza, the Alpha of Milan, had sent Visconti to find me. I’d written to him decades earlier, but he never responded. Now, just when my old ideas pressed upon me again, he sent his man to discuss the proposal as if he’d read my mind from leagues away.
“I expanded my offer, explaining all the things I’d once told the Venetian ambassador, the points upon which Father had insisted. And as with the other man, Sforza’s envoy furrowed his eyes in perplexed disagreement.
“‘Go to your master and tell him of my offer, Gaelezzo,’ I pushed. ‘If he’s interested at all, return. I’ll be happy to discuss the matter again.’ And within a fortnight, Sforza sent his ambassador back to shock me with his acceptance of my terms. He would forbid travelers through the lake regions from practicing ritualistic worship, and the humans of our lands would become sacrosanct. The lycan of Milan would receive a formal dispensation to study with the great Sempronio if they wished and if il Padrino would receive them.
“But Sforza proposed terms of his own. The first: Castello Palatino would swear allegiance to Milanese rule in all other regards. We would permit Sforza’s soldiers to man our borders against Venice, Savoy, and the Swiss, and I would assist Sforza in acquiring more lands in those territories when and if he wished.
“The second term: I would marry one of his daughters, take the family name of Sforza, and thereby be raised to the title of Marquis. With my title, I would continue to govern Palatino and the lakes region. And when he called upon me, I would defend him from his enemies.
“I suspected Father would scoff at the first term, but the second term captured my imagination. There was no aristocratic structure of peerage in Palatino. People referred to me as Don Lupofiero for no other reason than it satisfied the narrative in their minds, one that had never known a world without a noble class. But Father had no patience for such roles or distinctions—it was meaningless to a man who was a living god for all intents and purposes. But with such a title to bolster my status in the eyes of the other states, they might be more willing to accept Father’s terms.
“What if this was the key? What if I could turn Palatino into a center of secular learning? Might I be able to further Father’s dream of a world no longer enslaved by religion? And in response, would the other realms of the continent I was so desperate to experience in person receive me? I pondered these questions for only a short while before deciding I would make it happen at all costs.
“’Deliver my acceptance to your master,” I told Visconti. ’I will write to him once I have settled matters here and am prepared to be received at his castle.”
I stared at Duccio, seeing how the crux of his story would come. He knew Sempronio, the man he described as a living god, would never accept foreign rule by his inferiors. And Duccio let his dreams blind him.
“While this all was happening, a lycan girl came of age in a neighboring town, unlike any child I’d ever known.”
From Duccio’s mind, I saw Gabrielle standing in a vineyard, dressed in peasant clothes. Other memories came from him: her confounded shock to hear his voice in her mind, their journey to Como, and his presenting her to Sempronio. I pulled at the images, desperate to see more of her sweet face and raven hair from his mind.
“Gabriella d’Dazio was sixteen when I came upon her, born from the most common of families. It seemed she knew nothing of religion, having been so poor that its traditions and comforts were alien to her. But her mind glowed with an energy I’d only ever seen in Father. And when I delivered her to him, he was beside himself with excitement.
“‘You sense it too, don’t you?’ Father asked me afterward. ‘She’s an anomaly, this girl. A lycan child who enters the world with the faculties of someone centuries older. It’s crucial we see to her education, do you understand? We must devote ourselves to her maturation. They will all sense her, the elders of the world, intrigued by the power Gabriella possesses, each bent on bringing her under their control. We must guard her and teach her to stand on her own.’
“And we did just that. Father saw to her scholastic education, pushing her furiously to achieve. And when she was ready, he unleased her wolf. Once installed in my pack, with the power of her wolf unfettered, Gabriella’s gifts sharpened almost daily. Not only could she read the minds of humans, but she could sense people in peril from leagues away. It was nothing less than astonishing to watch her hunt, her mind drawn to the abused as if their anguish lit up the night like the moon itself.
“I wrote to Sforza asking for one amendment to his plan. Allow me to wed this girl, whose exceptional abilities I described, instead of some arbitrary daughter. Let her join me to become a Sforza and let any children to come from the union inherit her gifts. Unlike Father, the duke believed in the purity of bloodlines, as did most of his ilk. I knew he would jump at the chance to bolster the future power of his house, and within days, a messenger delivered his approval. Visconti would arrive within a week to meet Gabriella and formally bless the engagement, followed by our journey to Milan to be wed.
“What came of this was chaos. Gabriella scoffed at my command. She told Pompeia of my plans, and of course, Father learned before I had the chance to explain myself and convince him of my purpose. He sent Visconti home moments after arriving to meet Gabriella, sending along with him an unmasked threat to Sforza.
“Father was angry with me in a way I’d never experienced. And he berated me in front of the entire family, cut me down, and relieved me of my role as Alpha. I showed acquiescence, but it stung me to such agitation that I lost my mind. And so I attempted something that, looking back, I can’t believe I tried. One by one, I altered their memories of that evening. Even Gabriella’s powerful mind opened to my manipulation in ways she didn’t understand. But Father recognized my trick and became enraged.
“‘You dare?’ he roared at me, shifting into his wolf with an explosion that leveled the room. I transformed to meet his challenge, more angry and irritated than ever by this last bit of humiliation. But then he showed me the true meaning of power.
“Father’s ancient mind assaulted me with a force I couldn’t comprehend. He cast my body through the castle walls with an invisible force that seemed meant to crush my bones. I screamed in agony, but my wolf wouldn’t give, and each time he relented, I charged him for more. In the end, he slashed me with his talons until all I could see was the red of my blood. He ripped off my arm and threw it at me while I fled desperately into the night.
“‘Get out of this house, and never show your face in my realm again! Flee to your master before I kill you, slave! Run to Milan now while I allow you to keep your legs!’