She smiled. “I’m sure it is.”

He lay quiet, reveling in the vision of her beside him. He was afraid to move. Afraid that the dream would shatter, and he’d be back in the cold cell alone. She had no such worries and angled herself toward him, leaning over his chest to look into his face.

“Why do you let him haunt you?”

“Andros does not haunt me.”

“Not Andros.”

“Lorenzo does not haunt me.”

“Not Lorenzo.”

He frowned and chanced a single finger to trail along her cheek. “Who then?”

“You. You let the memory of who you were haunt you.”

He paused. “I did many things wrong.”

“You look back at the actions of a child and expect the wisdom of five hundred years.”

“It is far easier to forgive others than to forgive yourself.”

She sighed and laid her head on his chest. “I forgive you.”

“I am dreaming?”

“Yes.”

He fell silent, the protest dying on his lips as he enjoyed the weight of her body pressing against his unbeating heart.

“I love you, Beatrice.”

“I know.”

“Loving you has been the finest thing I have done in five hundred years.”

“You have done many good things.”

“I do not tell you enough.”

She looked up and smiled. “You tell me every night.”

“It is not enough.” He rose and twisted her in his arms, flipping her so that she lay under him. Desperation colored his words. “It is never enough.”

“It is enough.”

“No.” His lips touched the swell of her cheek. They whispered down to her jaw and explored the delicate line that led to the tip of her chin. “Never enough. It should be the unceasing prayer on my lips. The echo in every breath I take.”

“It is enough.”

He drew back and looked into her dark eyes. “I would level empires to be with you again. It is never enough.”

“Mine is not the only love you have.”

“It is the only one that matters.”

“You know that is untrue.”

He ignored her quiet voice and kissed her again. His mouth met hers in growing hunger, his lips and teeth and tongue fighting to hold on to the vision of her. He could feel himself waking.

“I love you, Beatrice. I love you. I thank God for bringing you into my life.”

She grinned then, the mischievous smile Giovanni had fallen in love with when she was a lonely girl in a library, and he was frozen in time. “You don’t believe in God. Not really.”

He narrowed his eyes. “I do.”

“You don’t.”

He scanned her face. Her luminous skin. Her dark eyes and hair. The slight bump on the bridge of her nose. The tiny scars and imperfections that marked her as the only woman in the world. The only woman. For him.

“I believed in God when He brought you to me.”

“You don’t believe in coincidence.”

He could see her fading. The fall of water in the room grew louder, and she began to melt away. Her eyes drifted around the room, but she was the only thing he saw. “Don’t leave,” he whispered. “Don’t leave me.”

Her eyes were filled with tears and her hand lifted to his face, holding his cheek in her soothing hand.

“Ubi amo; ibi patria. Come home to me, Jacopo.”

“Don’t leave me.” He blinked to suppress the tears that came to his own eyes. “Please.”

When he opened them, she was gone, and Giovanni lay silent in his cold cell, the sound of rushing water surrounding him.

He might have lain still for hours; he did not know. He waited to hear the unseen lock turn in the stone door, signaling Livia’s entrance. No sound came, only the falling water that dripped down the walls. His fingers played along the edge of the dagger she had left. It had been over a week and yet his keen senses had detected no weakness in the room. It was round, and the water was fed through some channel that coated the walls with a constant stream and filled the air with a swirling dampness. There was a slight opening where the water flowed, but it was far past his reach. Though he could jump, he could not suspend himself long enough to take advantage of the weakness and because it was round, it contained no corner that he might brace himself.

Giovanni could hear the rushing of some underground stream that flowed beneath the room. The chamber was probably set on a pile foundation of some kind, as had been used to build Venice. Between the river below him, and the water flowing around, it was as if he was floating in a stone bubble. If he was an earth or water vampire, an enviable prison. For a fire vampire… a very effective one. His father always had done quality work.

He stared at the ceiling, trying to determine what lay beyond it. It was impossible to sense past the stone. He was concentrating so intently, he almost missed the scratching sound coming from the floor. Suddenly, he felt the floor buckle beneath him and a shock of red hair pushed through. He sat up, and his heart raced when he saw his visitor.

Muddy. Disheveled. The cloud of red hair fell into her face, but she pushed it back, and Giovanni grinned when he saw the wicked gleam in Deirdre’s eyes. She put a finger to her lips and reached down, pulling a very annoyed looking Gavin up behind her. The wind vampire looked about as happy as a drenched cat.

“This is the most humiliating, most—”

Deirdre slapped a hand over his mouth and pulled Gavin away from the hole that was starting to crumble along the edges. Giovanni saw another hand reach up and Jean Desmarais lifted himself gracefully out of the river. Unfortunately, as soon as Jean entered the room, the force he had been using to push the water back faltered and the room began filling with water. Rapidly.