Page 9 of His Eternal Claim

My Selene is off-limits unless her excuse of a Father tries to buy a seat. Her aunt is married to Ricci, the old fucker and Cosa Nostra’s current maestro, but that doesn’t count.

Even if her Father does, it’d be too late. A part of me wants him to, so that I can make her mine, but it’ll shift their focus onto her. Once they realize I have a weakness, they’ll do anything to harm me.

Because I am the heir to the throne. I have a plan.

“Three Euros!” she chirps, slamming her small palm on the wooden counter. “Three Euros off, Signor Rossi, or I tell your wife you’ve been sneaking grappa behind the flour sacks again!”

The old man relents, grumbling under his breath as he tosses a handful of extra sweets into her basket just to get her to leave.

Something pulls at the corner of my mouth. A smile. A fucking smile. I catch it and kill it, scoffing as I push off the wall. I’ve killed three men this month for looking at me wrong, and here I am, turning into a goddamn poet because a girl in a sundress bullied a grocer.

“You’re a menace,” I mutter as she skips toward me, the sweets bag cradled in her arms like a trophy.

“I bargained!” she beams, her eyes sparking with a light that shouldn’t exist in a town owned by the Vitale shadow. “Three Euros, Zag! I’m going to buy us gelato with the leftover.”

I look at the sweets. Rossi would never have dropped the price for anyone else; he gave it to her for a steal because no one can say no to her. Because she carries the sun in her pockets and hands it out.

“He overcharged you on the saffron to make up for it,” I lie, just to see her nose crinkle.

“He did not!”

She reaches out, her fingers snagging the belt loop of my jeans, pulling me into her orbit. “Don’t be a grump. You’re always so… dark. Like a thunderstorm waiting to happen.”

I am the thunderstorm, Dolcezza.

Something darkens in me as I track a group of boys staring at the way her dress clings to her hips. I slide my arm around her waist. One of the boys catches my gaze, sees the cold, dead vacuum there, and looks away.

I’m a psychopath in training. My Father tells me I have “the gift” of detachment. The one that will help me become the Don. But when Selene leans her head against my shoulder, the ice in my veins thaws so fast it hurts.

“Let’s go to the wall,” she whispers.

We walk to the edge of the cliffs overlooking the sea. The wind whips her hair into my face… jasmine and heat. She drops the groceries and turns to me, her expression losing its playfulness.

It’s that look. The one that sees right through the armor to the bruised boy underneath.

“You’re shaking,” she murmurs, taking my hands. My knuckles are raw from the heavy bag I spent four hours hitting this morning, trying to beat the image of my Father’s belt out of my head.

“I’m fine.”

“Liar.” She doesn’t flinch; instead, she lifts my hand and kisses the scarred skin of my knuckles. A clumsy, soft ghost of a kiss. “There. Better?”

“It doesn’t work like that,” I say, my voice like gravel.

“It does. It always does.” She stands on her tiptoes, her breath warm against my ear. “Promise me, Zagreus. Forever. Even if I forget who I am, even if the world turns upside down. Promise you’ll find me and look for me to tell me what hurt you.”

I look at her, and the obsession that has been rooting in my marrow since I was nine years old finally blooms. It’s a terrifying, possessive thing. I don’t just want to be her friend. I want to be her air. I want to build a cage of gold and silk and keep her where the blood of my world can never touch her.

“You won’t forget,” I say, my grip on her waist tightening until she gasps. “I won’t let you. You’re mine, Selene. I’ll make you my wife. I’ll burn this whole fucking country down before I let anyone take you.”

She doesn’t look scared. She just laughs, a sound that makes the darkness in my chest feel like a shameful secret. She pulls away, spinning toward the edge of the cliff where the limestone drops off into a churning, turquoise abyss.

“Look at that, Zag,” she says, pointing a slim finger toward the highest point of the jagged rocks, where the spray of the Mediterranean hits the stone. “I want a house right there. White stone, tall windows, and a balcony that hangs over the edge so I can hear the sea screaming at night. Will you make it for me? A house on the cliff?”

I roll my eyes, leaning back against a rusted railing. “It’s a geological nightmare, Selene. The foundation would erode in a decade.”

“Oh, shut up with your ‘foundation’ and your ‘geology’!”

She sticks her tongue out at me, her hair whipping around her face like a golden halo. “You’re a Vitale. I thought you lot could do anything. Are you telling me you’re too weak to build me a house on a rock?”