Page 115 of Where Dark Hearts Devour
I lie back against the pillows and turn my head to one side. Sunrays beam through the window, lighting up the darkness in my heart. I close my eyes against them.
“Cristiano has gone to find him.”
What?
My lids pop open, and I turn my head.
“Cristiano found you on the floor of the kitchen this morning and brought you here. He said, um ...” She looks at Papa and Allegra.
Cristiano came back?
Allegra leans forward. “He thinks you were poisoned, Trilby.”
My eyes widen.Poisoned?My gaze flits across all of them. The words “I don’t understand” come out croaky but clear.
“That’s all we know.” Sera bites down on her lip. “I’m sure Cristiano will tell us more when he gets here.”
Cristiano.The beat of my heart is fast and loud.He’s coming here?
Hope swells inside my chest at the thought of seeing him again, but the threat of Savero walking in here is like a pin poised ready to pop it.
A shadow falls across the room, and although I feel as though I’ve been punched repeatedly in the chest, the skin all over my body sizzles. I look up to see Cristiano standing in the doorway. I can’t hear much above the loud thump of my pulse, but my gaze is drawn to a box in his hands.
Papa stands impatiently. “Well? Did you speak to Savero?”
Cristiano’s gaze finds me, and shadows fall from his face.
“It’s been hours since you left for the port. What happened?” I can hear impatience bubbling beneath Papa’s words, but it doesn’t seem to affect Cristiano at all.
He walks a little closer, still looking only at me.
“Was it ...him?” Papa asks, his words gritty and his teeth clenched.
Without saying a thing, Cristiano drags his gaze from me to Papa, takes the lid off the box, and tips it toward my father. I’ve never seen Papa go as pale as I do now. He swallows and looks up at Cristiano, then he silently makes the mark of the cross.
“What is it?” My voice is half-croak, half-whisper. “What’s going on?”
Cristiano looks back at me. Part of me wilts a little at seeing him so soon. It means I’ll have to say goodbye to him again, and I thought I’d already lived through that torture.
I stare at him. I need answers. “My family says you brought me here. You think I’ve been poisoned?”
He steps forward again but remains at arm’s length. “That’s right.”
His voice seeps through my consciousness and lights me up inside. It’s a reaction I don’t want but can’t control.
“But you left . . .”
“I came back.”
His sharp response narrows my eyes. I’m not in the mood or any fit state to play games. I want—I need—the truth.
“Where’s Savero? Where is myfiancé?”
I hope the last word wounds him, because I can’t have this man in my life if he isn’t going to stay. It’s simply too hard. The pain it inflicts on my heart is worse than the pain of poison. And I can say that now from experience, it seems.
I take the exact same power his presence wields over me, double it, and channel it through a glare. “Will someonepleasetell me what is going on?”
And when I say “someone,” I mean the man my gaze is burning holes in.
