The Blood Burns in My Veins by Megan Derr

 

 

 

 

Chapter Eighteen

 

 

"There are twenty-four hours in a day, sixty minutes in an hour and sixty seconds in a minute. A lot can be done in eighty-six thousand four hundred seconds."

― Alexandre Dumas, The Count of Monte Cristo

 

 

It was a chilly night, but the thermos of spicy black tea Dante had brought with him kept the worst of it at bay. Across the street, Janshai continued to fuss and hem and haw, clearly torn between staying right where he was, which was the smart thing, and going to the warehouse, which was the greedy, stupid thing that he was going to give in and do anytime now.

For a moment, Dante thought he was finally going to get it over with, but at the last moment Janshai again turned away from the door to fuss around in the kitchen for the hundredth time. Dante rolled his eyes and sipped at his tea and let his thoughts drift slightly, as watching Janshai at this point required zero effort.

Predictably, his thoughts went straight to Naoki, who had unexpectedly followed him out to the yard, and instead of another long discussion or telling him it was definitely over between them, had simply held Dante tight.

It was what Dante had most needed, and the very last thing he'd expected anyone to give him.

Eventually, they'd gone back inside, where everyone else had gone to lie down. Dante had gone off to make arrangements for their travel, see that his own belongings were packed up and sent on to the harbor. Naoki, unfortunately, had returned to his family, to delay them noticing that Mineko and Haru were both gone for as long as possible.

He stirred at the sound of a door banging shut and muttered, "finally," as Janshai locked his shop up and hastened away down the street, bound in the direction of the harbor.

Dante followed him for a short time, just to be certain that was in fact where he was headed, then took a different path to beat him there in time to deal with the guards.

When he arrived, however, it was to find the guards weren't there. Why would the guards stationed at the warehouse already be missing? But the answer was obvious: Kumiko. Hardegin must be frantic that his daughter had vanished into the night, with the only witnesses a handful of dead guards. He must have pulled everyone he possibly could to form a search party. Dante hadn't seen patrols around the city, though, so that meant the search hadn't started yet.

He certainly wasn't going to complain about things working to his advantage. He ducked into the narrow space between Hardegin's warehouse and the one next to it and went back to waiting.

Thankfully, he didn't have to wait long. After only a few minutes, he heard Janshai's familiar shuffling gait and wheezy breathing. He hadn't been young when Dante was arrested, and the years had not been kind to him. Dante felt no pity.

With the dark and his shaking hands, it took Janshai several minutes to finally unlock the door, and even longer to get the heavy thing pushed up enough he could stoop and go under it.

Dante waited until he was well inside, and then followed slowly, carefully. Janshai, predictably, was too distracted to notice an extraneous presence. He was flipping open trunks, muttering and exclaiming over their contents. When he opened the one full of stregoni blood, he recoiled so sharply he nearly fell over.

He scrambled away and went to look through the other chests, still not having the sense, even then, to run far away. When he found the one filled with fiorino, he let out a cackle. Dante gave him a minute or so to fill his pockets and then stepped into the faint light coming from the moon and lamps outside. "Find something you like, Grandpa-san?"

Janshai cried out and whipped around, clutching a hand to his chest. "What!" He stopped, stared. "You? What are you doing here? You're the one who…"

"Gave you the key, after I stole all of this from your shop? Si, that is me," Dante replied. "You could have handed that key over, saved many lives. Instead Ferro-don is dead, along with several others, and still more will suffer while they try to figure out what happened."

"Fuck them," Janshai said bitterly. "Spoiled nobili get what they deserve."

"What about you?" Dante asked softly but sharply. "Should you get what you deserve, Grandpa-san? For long ago lying to save your own skin, condemning a mere child to ten years of abuse, rape, and starvation?"

Janshai drew a sharp breath. "What are you talking about?"

"Pardon, perhaps you'd understand better if I told you the name I used to go by: Ferro Carac. Are things clearer now?"

"You can't be," Janshai whispered, the fiorino he still held slipping from his fingers, clattering to the ground. He pressed his hand to his chest again, and this time was clearly in severe pain. "You can't. You can't." He dropped to his knees, and if there were better light, Dante would bet his color wasn't good. "I didn't—"

"You did," Dante said. "Pray that Oceana is kinder to you than you ever were to the living." He crossed to where Janshai had collapsed completely now, still struggling for breath and clearly not going to last much longer, and dragged him over to the chest that contained the stregoni blood. Throwing the chest open, he pressed a vial into one of Janshai's hands and dropped two more nearby, as though they'd slipped from his grasp. The sharp iron smell of blood briefly filled the space. He then threw open all the other chests, furthering the image that Janshai had gone on a thieving tear before his failing health got the better of him.

Once he was finished, and Janshai was most definitely dead, Dante went outside and rang one of the nearby alarm bells. As he heard people coming, he ducked once more into the narrow alleyway, but this time he then scaled the rough wall up to the roof of the warehouse. Crawling to the edge, he looked over it just enough to be able to watch and hear the happenings below.

Five guards had arrived and were making a poor showing of sorting out what had happened.  It was clear they didn't even know who rented the warehouse that had been broken into.

As one of them discovered Janshai and the stregoni blood, the chaos turned into outright panic.

"Get the Giudice Principale!" one of them shouted. "Go now!"

Another guard immediately took off running, clearly relieved to be getting far from the enormous problem that had just ruined everyone's night.

The others, under command of the woman who'd ordered Gorvenal be fetched, began to systematically go through all the trunks and chests. By the time Gorvenal arrived nearly half an hour later, bedraggled and wearing a sleeping robe, they had found everything but the bloody scraps and bloodstains. Those would come soon, though, once more light was brought.

"What is going on here?" Gorvenal demanded. "Do you know who this belongs—" He blanched, words forgotten, as the woman who'd taken charge presented him with vials of stregoni blood. "Where did you get those?"

"There's an entire trunk full of them," the woman said grimly. "We've also found papavero, Ferro-marked steel, and an entire chest of fiorino. It's a pirate cache for certain."

Gorvenal looked as though he very much wished he was anyone else. "Bring more light. More guards, including Fujioka-comandante. Get me a detailed index of everything in this warehouse." He pinched his eyes shut. "Have Hardegin-principe summoned, on order of the Imperial Giudice Principale of Verona. Go now!"

As everyone set to work, he paced back and forth in front of the warehouse, only just barely out of the way of the frantic, miserable-looking guards.

Hardegin arrived within minutes, and like Gorvenal, he had clearly been dragged out of bed and hadn't bothered with proper clothes. "What is the meaning of this?"

"You will be silent," Gorvenal said, drawing himself up and looking sternly at Hardegin, even as he still looked as though he wanted to throw up. Or throw himself in the ocean. "You are being detained on suspicion of colluding with pirates and trading in stregoni blood."

"I what!" Hardegin bellowed. "I would never. How dare you—"

"Is this your warehouse?" Gorvenal cut in.

Hardegin's mouth pinched. "Si, it is mine. I've rented it for years. I used it to store old clothes, other miscellany. If there are illegal items in here, they were not put here by me."

"We found an old man dead inside, looks like he suffered a heart attack while helping himself to the contraband. He got in here by way of a key. Why would an old man everyone knows sells dumplings out of the Neko Tavern have that kind of access to your warehouse?"

"I have no idea!" Hardegin burst out. "I certainly didn't give it to him. I keep my keys with me at all times, and I certainly don't hand them over to old men from that end of town."

Around them, several guards bristled, as they lived in that part of town or had family who did. If Hardegin was hoping to survive the night without being arrested, he was not doing himself any favors.

"This is grossly inappropriate, Gorvenal. You have a lot of nerve—"

"Doing my job?" Gorvenal asked. "Trading in stregoni blood is a hanging offense, Hardegin-principe. Even the imperial family is not safe from prosecution in this matter. Until I can confirm with absolutely certainty you had no hand—"

"Giudice-don! Giudice-don!" A guard came rushing up, followed by two others, all three of them pale and trembling. The one in the lead extended his hand, in which he held a scrap of bloody silk from a costly, ornate bed robe and a bloody hair ribbon that was equally fine and expensive. "Giudice-don, there are also bloodstains on the floor, and some hairs from someone with very long hair."

"What?" Hardegin asked, losing all his color and swaying on his feet. "What are you talking about?" He made to snatch the items from the guard, but Gorvenal shoved him back.

"Hold him," Gorvenal snapped at some nearby guards. "Hardegin-principe, you are under arrest for the illegal trading of stregoni blood, papavero, imperial steel, and the suspected murder of Kumiko-duchessa."

"I would never kill my own daughter!" Hardegin bellowed. "I'm not responsible for any of this! Damn you, Gorvenal, you know me."

"Yes, I do," Gorvenal said quietly. "All too well. Take him away, lock him up in holding, and make certain he is watched at all times. Secure this warehouse. No one goes inside without express permission from me. Find stregoni to preserve the body and have it brought to the Palazzo di Giustizia, along with those scraps. Collect blood samples from the floor as well if you can." He stormed off, probably to go home to dress properly and then to have an imperial giudice brought from the continent to be the impartial overseer. Likely at least one member of the imperial family would come as well.

Hardegin's life was over, but Dante didn't want him executed. That was far too kind and easy for all the terrible things he'd done. He left, climbing down the back and slipping away, taking a route that would put him directly into Gorvenal's path.

He came out of an alleyway a couple of blocks from Gorvenal's house, right as Gorvenal was drawing close.

"You!" Gorvenal said, looking torn between annoyance and fear. "What in Oceana's name are you doing here?"

"Letting you off the proverbial hook," Dante said, "if you agree to do one more thing for me."

Gorvenal scowled. "Why should I?"

"Because if you don't, I'll destroy your life the way I just destroyed Hardegin's," Dante replied. "I had something planned for you, but other matters have taken my attention, and so you get to slip free of my revenge—if you do what I tell you."

"Your revenge? What revenge? I didn't even know you before you showed up flashing your new wealth all over Verona."

Dante laughed. "You know me. You just thought I was dead." He swept Gorvenal a bow. "Ferro Carrac, at your service, Giudice-don."

"You can't—" Gorvenal stopped, looking as ill and miserable as Hardegin had just minutes ago. "Oceana grant me mercy, you are. How?"

"It doesn't matter anymore. Here is my demand: see to it that Hardegin is sentenced for life to the Isola del tasso. Understand?"

Gorvenal nodded, swallowed. "I understand. It will be done."

"Dōmo. Look over your shoulder the rest of your life, giudice-don. I am letting you go this time, but if I hear things I do not like, you'll not escape twice."

"Yes, Esposito-don."

"Then farewell."

Dante left him there in the street, looking tired and every bit his age, and headed off back across Verona to the stable. To his surprise, the lights were on, and wine and snacks had been laid out on the table.

"There you are," said a familiar, welcome voice from behind.

"What are you doing here?" Dante asked as he turned, delight thrumming through him, better than even the hot rush of iron and magia. "I thought you would be at your parents' house."

"I was, but my parents basically put themselves to sleep, or near enough, and I wasn't going to sit around there bored out of my mind when I could come be with you."

Warm happiness spread through Dante, and he reached out to reel Naoki in. "I am still finding it hard to believe you want anything to do with me."

"Shut up and kiss me."

Dante happily obeyed, cupping his face and kissing him slowly, thoroughly, savoring every slide of lips, every dip of his tongue as he took Naoki's mouth, the softness of his skin and the warmth of his mouth, how well they fit together despite the way the odds had always been so stacked against them.

Eventually drawing back, he led the way to the table and poured them both wine. "How is everything at the Ishikawa household?"

"Stressful for the poor servants, who are taking the brunt of, well, everything. My mother was delighted to have me to slap instead for a few hours." He rolled his eyes and sipped at the wine, a sharp, dry red that went well with the array of treats. "Thankfully, they seem to be convinced that Haru ran away like 'stupid girls her age always do,' and to be fair, they're not wrong." He laughed. "They also think that Mineko found out and went to drag her back, and that they'll both be home in the next few days. Funny how they've got it almost entirely right, and yet completely wrong. If they were anyone else, I'd feel sorry for them, but my parents being alone and miserable, with no children left and no answers as to why…" He shrugged. "I cannot judge you, Dante, because it would seem I'm just as… ruthless, I suppose."

Dante made a face. "I would wish me and my ways on no one, tesoro mio, least of all you. I also agree your parents are getting what they deserve, for letting Mineko be the way she is and never doing anything to stop it, and for abusing you and Haru all these years."

"Also the murder of my little brother," Naoki said softly. "Half-brother, I guess, but that never would have mattered to me. I loved Arata with all my heart. He and Haru were the best of us, the only good to come out of our family."

"You don't give yourself enough credit."

"I give myself exactly the credit I deserve, which is none. I hid in alcohol and apathy. Mineko's actions were her crimes. My crime was inaction. Let us not pretend otherwise."

Dante picked up his hand and kissed his fingers. "There is no crime in surviving, amato. Perhaps you did not pick the boldest or noblest path, but survival rarely comes with pleasant options. Do not be me and brood upon it endlessly."

Naoki smiled and squeezed his hand. "So good with words, I wonder what you would have become had life not been so cruel to you."

"I hated the path, but I like where I've arrived, or will arrive, when we all reach Esposito lands and can build a life of our choosing."

Naoki's eyes glittered. "You are making me forget all about the wine."

Dante smiled, slow and hot. "Good. I like best when you think only of me, tesoro mio, and all the delightful things I can do to you."

"Come do those delightful things now, especially the one where you fill me up and make me burn."

Dante had never moved so fast in his life, clearing the table and hauling Naoki to his feet, dragging him out of the small kitchen and pushing him right down on the floor in the sitting room, pushing cushions and tables heedlessly out of the way. Their clothes went ever faster and with even less care, forming a crude bed on the tatami mat floor. "You certainly know how to get my blood boiling."

"As if that's difficult," Naoki said with a smug laugh that turned into a moan as Dante put his hands and mouth to work. "I just have to suggest things for you to do to me that will please us both. I know you bossy, must do everything types."

Dante kissed him, utterly obsessed with that delectable mouth, how soft and sweet his lips always were, utterly counterpoint to the devastating skill with which he kissed. Pulling away, he bit at Naoki's throat, this time being sure to leave the marks he'd always wanted. Nipping at his ear, he then said, low and rough, "We are going to be busy on the continent making preparations for our travels, but if we can find a day to spare, I'm going to take you to the kind of house where I can put you at the front of the room and fuck you for all to see—for them to see your beauty and your pleasure, and then go back to their rooms frustrated they'll never have you for themselves. Because you're mine, aren't you, tesoro mio?"

"Yes, you evil bastardo," Naoki moaned. "How—"

"Did I know you would like such a thing? You shine under attention, bello. I intend to see you outshine the sun." Dante kissed him again, then put his mouth to work on the rest of that beautiful body, biting and licking at his nipples, lapping teasingly at his stomach and down his abs, putting his teeth to those soft inner thighs, working all the way down to Naoki's beautiful feet. Only when Naoki was throwing every curse he knew at Dante did he finally crawl back up and take that lovely cock deep, tongue laving, throat working, cheeks hollowing as he sucked and tasted and finally made Naoki scream.

Withdrawing slowly, enjoying the cock in his mouth, Dante finally pulled off and rose.

"You are ridiculously good at that," Naoki said between panting breaths.

Dante smiled crookedly. "Lots of practice."

Naoki flinched. "I'm sorry, I didn't—"

"It's over, tesoro-mio. I can't say it didn't leave its scars, but I will not let my past completely control my life." He laughed. "Only mostly. Now, back to more pleasant matters." He pulled Naoki up and kissed him thoroughly, until his worries were replaced by moans of Dante's name.

Then he shifted them, so he was the one spread out on their clothes, and Naoki was straddling him, pressing against his cock in a way that nearly undid Dante right then and there. "Come, tesoro mio, show me what you can do. I want to watch you ride my cock."

Naoki laughed; he looked beautiful and utterly decadent like that: hair a mess, skin flushed and gleaming with sweat, lips swollen, that well-fucked look about him. He shifted so he could wrap a hand around Dante's cock and stroke it teasingly. "You? Making me do the work? That is a twist." He rose up on his knees and shifted again so that Dante's cock lined up with his hole. "How convenient for both of us I'm quite shameless where you're concerned and am making a habit of being ready."

Dante groaned at that, hands clamping down on Naoki's hips as he sank down slowly—agonizingly slowly—on Dante's cock. When he was fully seated, the bastardo lingered there, nails biting into Dante's chest, leaving little half-moons that stung pleasantly. "Move, damn you."

Laughing again, throaty and smug, Naoki slowly rose up and then shoved back down, making Dante jerk and moan and swear. He did it again, then over and over with increasing speed, fucking himself thoroughly, and all Dante could do was let him, match his movements, give himself over entirely to being used for Naoki's pleasure—and finding so much of his own in the process. Exactly how he'd wanted it.

He came just moments later, holding those fine hips more tightly than ever, thrusting up into Naoki's tight heat one last time before coming apart. Naoki came all over his chest, body clamping down on Dante's cock as his climax rolled through him.

As they came down, Naoki gently pulled off his cock and spread out on his stomach next to him, more beautiful than ever. "I hope there's nothing else important we have to do tonight, because my energy stores are depleted."

Dante chuckled, sitting up and skating a hand along his back, lingering at that beautiful ass he could not wait to spread wide again sometime soon. "You're an addiction, tesoro mio. The finest in existence. Come, we've nothing to do now but go to bed. Tomorrow the city will be a tizzy about Hardegin being arrested, and while I'm sure your family will be summoned to answer questions, after that we should be able to slip away without issue."

"I hope so," Naoki replied. "All I have to get through is my mother, and after that the rest is easy." He took the hand Dante offered and went easily into his arms as he stood. "You're an addiction yourself, Amore Dante."

"More like an infuriating itch you can't get rid of, I know," Dante replied.

Naoki snickered and gave him a very thorough fondling. "I don't know I'd call it an itch."

Laughing with him, Dante dragged him through the house to their bedroom.