SWNOVELS Chapter Chapter Thirty
“Dressed like this?” I asked him, looking down at the servant’s uniform I had toiled in all evening.
“That won’t matter,” Duccio assured me.
His gift was in town, and he requested we leave by carriage at once if I was not too tired.
The day’s exertions had left me exhausted, and couldn’t imagine how he still had such a light in his eyes. But I didn’t feel right refusing such a request, and certainly not from my alpha.
Fetching my coat, I followed Duccio to the castle forecourt, where his carriage awaited us. It had just returned from escorting his majordomo home after the Christmas Eve banquet.
As we left the castle and pulled through the night into downtown Como, I couldn’t help but steal glances at Duccio. I was just as curious as I had been the night he took me from San Giovanni’s in Morbegno. Even in his servant’s livery, he was such a regal man with his black hair pulled back into a ribbon.
Though we had spoken directly very little, with his orders assigned through his beta and filtered through Pompeia, I was deeply fond of the man. Though I didn’t have the same intimate relation with Duccio that I enjoyed with Sempronio, I would never forget his kindness. His sensitivity during those nights when he plucked me from my former world of despair was profoundly significant to me. To receive a gift from him, after watching his astonishing generosity all night, was but one more reason to love him dearly. My allegiance to Duccio would never falter—of that, I was confident.
In thirty minutes, the carriage pulled into a narrow street of shops, all darkened at this hour. I stared left and right through the carriage windows, hoping to find the source of Duccio’s secret gift for me.
Do you sense him? he asked quietly.
Who? I asked, turning again to look out both windows onto the street. The block was lit by a solitary torch that had not yet burned out in the frigid air.
From Duccio’s mind, I saw the image of a man that seized me with fear.
Cecco Alfonsi, he said. Your husband.
I was speechless and choked when my lungs finally forced me to breathe.
I presumed you might feel him, as you did with the woman in Cantú. Perhaps that isn’t how it works for you?
I shook my head in response. It was all I could do.
Very well. Signori Alfonsi lives in the third house from the corner across the street.
Duccio turned to identify the front door with his eyes.
When you parted ways, your husband attempted to recover his standing among his business peers. He also tried to remarry. Both attempts failed for reasons you might already expect. Through my influence, I arranged for him to move to Como and had him introduced to the merchant’s guild here. Last month, a peer accepted his proposal of marriage to his youngest daughter. They have agreed to marry the day after tomorrow.
Tears flooded from my eyes—the only response I seemed capable of. Duccio stared at me, and I sensed his concern that I had not fully received his telepathy.
“My gift to you is this,” Duccio finally said aloud, “to decide Signore Alfonsi’s future.”
I could only stare in confusion.
“Your first option is to forgive him for his crimes—absolve him entirely of what he’s done to your family and you. Let him marry his innocent betrothed, sire children from her, and live the rest of his days in Como under my protection.
“The second option is for you to kill him tonight. Take to the cover of darkness, raise your wolf, ascend the rear of the building to the roof garden, enter your husband’s house, and take your vengeance however you wish.
“The third way is to give me leave to destroy him for you,” Duccio said.
After moments of stunned silence, he rose his voice to prompt me.
“Which fate do you choose for him?”
I didn’t know how to think at that moment, much less process his statement. I’d never shared the story of my marriage with anyone but the master, and I was horrified to realize he had broken my confidence to tell Duccio.
“No,” he said with concern. “Father Piero told me of your experience that the night I liberated you from his church. My gift to you and your decision tonight will never leave my lips.”
I instantly thought of Pompeia—that he indeed would speak of this night with his wife.
“No,” he said again. “I keep my relationship with her separate from all duties to my pack. She doesn’t know that either of us is here. My affairs are none of her concern, and no one will learn of this unless you tell them.”
I could sense no deception from him, nor the slightest exaggeration.
I sighed at length when my breathing finally slowed.
“Sempronio would have me allow Cecco to live.”
“That would surprise me,” Duccio replied. “Father is not known for his forgiving capacity, and certainly not for men who commit evil against children. But perhaps you have seen something in him I have not.”
I wanted to counter his response if only to draw out a disagreement and avoid my decision a few beats longer.
“I will allow you to think on it if you must,” Duccio said when I went silent, “but it would be unfair to many if you did not decide tonight. Surely, you understand what it would mean to a girl to be married and then widowed shortly after. Think of her parents and the toll it would take on their family, to say nothing of the expense. I would hope those points have meaning to you, even if you despised their family.”
“No,” I said upon reflection. “I would not wish that upon anyone.”
I stared at the front door of the shop over which Cecco’s townhouse rose above. Its darkened window slates hid its interior, but I extended my mind into the building, searching for any sign of him. When I felt something alive, I stopped and pulled my mind back, unwilling to see his thoughts. I knew then that I still feared him.
Quietly, I reached to unlatch the carriage door and stepped out onto the street.
“Will you come with me?” I implored Duccio, my voice still heavy from the turbulence of the night.
He rose from his seat and stepped out onto the street.
“It would be my honor,” Duccio said, and he bid the driver return home.
When even the trotting sound of the horses’ hooves had disappeared, and we were left in the early morning silence, Duccio extended his arm to guide me. We walked together around the block and down a side street to find the building’s rear alley.
I recognize this choice is difficult for you, Duccio continued in silence, and there’s no reason it shouldn’t be. For me, Christmas is a cause for rebirth. I, too, have studied with Sempronio on the history of the solstice. It has reemerged time and time again in this culture or that. Christ is hardly the first story of a deity born or reborn on these nights, but unlike the master and yourself, I was raised in the heart of Christianity. The story of the Virgin’s toil to bring mankind’s savior into the world touches me still. That the wisest men in the land journeyed to a lowly manger to welcome Christ into the world continues to have significance in my life.
So, I keep the bones of their actions in my heart. I fill tonight with extravagance for my employees because it helps them be reborn in a satisfying way. Even if we were not lycan, our different classes would keep us apart. But on Christmas, I let nothing stop me from praising them to obscene excess.
Duccio stopped when we’d arrived at the alleyway. Only refractions of moonlight penetrated here, and I felt his presence more than I saw it with my eyes.
However, you have already been reborn, and I am young enough still to remember the wonders you have awakened to. So, I give you the only gift I know will yet have meaning to you in the face of it all.
He pulled at his clothes and removed them quickly, piece by piece. Within seconds, Duccio transformed into a werewolf and leaped up the side of the building, clawing up the stone face as if he weighed nothing. I undressed at a similar speed because of the servant’s uniform I wore, and my wolf came forth in moments. My senses sharpened in that form, and I saw Duccio’s mind atop the building, its presence coming to me as if by scent. Following his path, I arrived on the roof to find Duccio standing quietly in the little garden courtyard.
In the unfiltered moonlight of early Christmas morning, I stopped to examine my alpha as he stood patiently for me to begin. His coat was a thick, silky black fur that blew loosely in the frigid night breeze. His appearance was almost identical to my own, but he was considerably taller, some nine feet in height. The whole of him was breathtaking, and for the first time since he confronted me with this experience, I could calm my mind and take in his stunning beauty.
Duccio lowered his massive head gently to point at the door that led into the townhouse. I didn’t move at first, uncertain if I was ready to proceed. Missing tonight was the urgency that active abuse stirred in me. Nothing pulled me to intercede or begged for help, and I realized this was a choice I would make with a clear mind.
I allowed myself to face each thing Cecco had done to me during my year in Morbegno. I remembered his anger and violence. I thought of the night he raped me; of how he drove us to my father’s farmhouse in Dazio and slew Papa right before my eyes.
In truth, I felt little. Was there something about my wolf that prevented the horror of those memories from instilling fear in me? It seemed those crimes could not touch me anymore. But then I thought of Cecco’s new bride-to-be. I pictured the faceless girl I’d never met and what she stood to face by my inaction.
Anger stirred in me at the thought of what might happen to her six months from now.
With a deep breath of determination, I turned to enter.
The door to Cecco’s roof garden was open when I pushed on it. Crouching down to fit, I entered a stairwell that descended to the third floor. Duccio followed but remained as much at a distance as he could. I sensed he meant to give me all the space possible he could until I might call for help. The thought crossed my mind that I should ask him to finish this for me, but I knew his unexpected gift was a duty I must claim for myself.
I sensed Cecco was in the room at the end of the hall, and he was asleep. This would be an execution, far more so than vengeance. It wasn’t anger that drove my quiet steps toward his bedroom door, but an obligation to justice. I understood at that exact moment that I had forgiven Cecco. I proceeded tonight only to punish him and stop any chance of his destroying another woman’s life.
When I opened his door, I found Cecco lying on his mattress, cuddled from head to toe under heavy blankets to fight the frosty December night. My footsteps creaked along the floorboards, but the sound did not stir him. I pulled back the covers gently and extended the razor-sharp talon of my index digit. With decided simplicity, I slit Cecco’s throat with a quick pull. He jerked involuntarily as his lung inhaled blood, drawing him to consciousness. Gurgled coughs wracked through him as his mind struggled to understand what was happening.
“Cecco?” a woman’s voice whispered.