love you, Gran, love you, Gramps, always.” Closing my eyes, I hugged them more tightly, destroying the oddness by allowing the pain of love to fill me.
My mother was odd because she only wanted love without the pain.
But I wasn’t going to be like her , I promised myself fiercely. I wasn’t going to be odd. I wasn’t going to hate. Instead, I was going to fall in love, find a man who would love me back, and with him, I’d give Kate and Chris a son, and we’d be a family.
Together, we wouldn’t ever be odd.
****
“We can’t always play this game,” the council member warned Alessandro from behind. “If you persist in continuing with such actions, a fine will no longer be sufficient. You need to remember, Alessandro: being a prince won’t protect you forever.”
The words continued to echo like a taunt in Alessandro Moretti’s mind even after he was already home.
Fucking Lyccan Council, he thought grimly as he reached for a fresh strip of gauze. All they wanted were peace talks and mediations, like that would really stop those stupid pups from talking shit about his family.
A knock sounded on the door then, and Alessandro said immediately, “Come in.” He didn’t need to ask who it was, the scent tingeing the air letting him know who it was without turning around.
Domenico Moretti walked in. Taller than the twins, Alessandro and Alejandro, by a few inches, he was also more powerfully built, as befitting the heir apparent to the Moretti clan. He also used to be considered the strongest and most respected member of their race, someone whose mere glance would have Lyccans quivering in fear.
But that was then.
Now, Domenico Moretti was a mere shell of who he once was. Now, he was a laughingstock, someone almost the entire race loved to ridicule because of the way he had allowed love to make a fool out of him.
Seeing Alessandro seated on one of the bar stools, applying a special salve to his wounds, Domenico came to a stop. Since most wounds, even those considered mortally fatal by humans, would have healed in mere seconds for Lyccans like them, Domenico knew there were only a few reasons to explain why there were still red gashes on his brother’s chest.
“How bad is the poison?” Domenico asked, his face and tone equally impassive.
“Nothing strong,” Alessandro answered dismissively as he finished applying the salve and started bandaging his lower chest. “It’s just what I’d expect from cowards like them.” His lip curled as his spoke, his disgust evident as he recalled the way the pups had ganged up on him, thinking they’d win because they had the numbers on their side.
Idiots. Goddamn idiots, thinking that they could beat him just like that.
“As they were obviously cowards…” Domenico’s mildly spoken words drew Alessandro’s attention back to him. “There shouldn’t have been any point in beating them up, don’t you think?” His older brother paused. “And all eight of them, too?”
Another shrug. “You and I both know they deserved it.”
“Well, both of us also know it wasn’t truly you they were trying to offend.”
Teeth gnashing at the way Domenico was still able to stay calm after everything, Alessandro threw away the used gauze into the waste bin as he asked violently, “What the fuck do you want me to do then? Do nothing even if I hear them call you a fucking dog? Or maybe you want me to do it Alejandro’s way and get revenge by fucking their girlfriends?”
“Not quite.” Domenico’s voice remained even despite the fury displayed by his younger brother. “But yes, I would appreciate it if you do find a woman to regularly fuck.”
Alessandro’s head shot up.
Domenico’s gaze remained inscrutable.
His jaw dropped. So he hadn’t been wrong then. That odd note in his brother’s voice wasn’t something he had imagined, making him demand incredulously, “Are you threatening me?”
Domenico was unsurprised by the way Alessandro