THE PRIEST'S WIFE: CURSED VOWS

On our wedding night, he bled gold.

I remember the exact moment. The way the candlelight caught the liquid as it dripped from his palm. Not red. Not the crimson I'd expected from a man who'd just signed a marriage contract with his own blood. Gold. Like molten jewelry. Like the wedding band that was supposed to slide onto my finger but never did.

I thought I was hallucinating.

I thought the champagne had been stronger than I realized.

I thought maybe, just maybe, I'd finally lost my mind—the way my mother had lost hers before she died.

But then Dante Rossi looked at me with those ancient eyes—blue-gray like a storm over the Mediterranean—and whispered something in Latin I couldn't understand. His voice cracked like he was praying. Or pleading. Or both.

He pulled his hand away from mine so fast I felt the air shift.

The gold blood had stained my white dress.

I stared at it. A perfect droplet near my breast. It shimmered in the low light of the penthouse's master bedroom, catching the gold fixtures, the gold frame on the bed, the gold crucifix above the door. Everything in this place was gold. Cold and expensive and suffocating.

Everything except him.

Dante Rossi backed away from me like I was the monster.

His palms were still bleeding. He pressed them together like he was praying—like a man at confession. The gold dripped between his fingers, splattering on the white marble floor. He didn't seem to notice. He was staring at me like I was a ghost he'd been expecting but wasn't ready to meet.

"Disprezzami," he said.

I blinked. "What?"

"Disprezzami. Please." He took another step back. His broad shoulders hit the wall. He was trapped. A six-foot-three man with a killer's build and a priest's hollow eyes, and he looked like a cornered animal. "Say you hate me. Say you despise me. Please, Elena. It's the only way."

The only way for what?

I opened my mouth to ask, but nothing came out. My throat was dry. My hands were shaking. My wedding dress—the one my father had picked out because he still owed the designer money—felt like a straitjacket.

I didn't know this man. I'd met him exactly twice before tonight. Once in a lawyer's office, where he'd signed papers without looking at me. Once at the altar, where he'd slid a ring onto my finger that was cold—unnaturally cold—like it had been buried in ice for a century.

He hadn't kissed me at the altar.

He hadn't even looked at me.

The priest—a real one, not like him—had said, "You may kiss the bride," and Dante had shaken his head. Just once. A barely perceptible movement. And then he'd walked me down the aisle like he was escorting a prisoner to execution.

Now we were in his penthouse. In his bedroom. With his blood dripping gold onto the floor.

And he was begging me to hate him.

I took a step toward him.

He flinched.

"You think I hate you?" My voice came out steadier than I felt. "I don't even know you."

"Good." He closed his eyes. His jaw was tight, tendons standing out against the sharp lines of his face. "Keep it that way. Don't get to know me. Don't—"

He stopped. His breath caught.

I realized his palms were smoking. The gold blood was evaporating into thin air, curling upward like incense. The room started to smell like church. Like old candles and holy water and something else. Something darker. Like rust. Like iron.

Like death.

"Answer me," I said, and I hated how small my voice sounded. "What are you?"

"Nothing."

"You're not nothing." I looked at his bleeding hands. "That's not nothing."

"It's not something you should see."

"Too late."

He opened his eyes. And for a split second—just a fraction of a heartbeat—I saw them flicker.

Gold.

Not his pupils. Not a trick of the light. His entire irises blazed golden, like his blood, like the cursed ring on my finger, like everything about this night that I couldn't explain.

Then the gold was gone, and his eyes were blue-gray again, and I wondered if I'd imagined it.

"Go to sleep," he said. Not a suggestion. A command. His voice had changed. Deeper. Colder. Like the man who'd signed the contract in the lawyer's office. Like the monster my father had sold me to. "The guest wing is down the hall. I'll have your things moved in the morning."

I waited for him to say more.

He didn't.

He pushed off the wall, walking past me like I was invisible. He was wearing a black suit—custom-made, probably more expensive than my father's entire debt—and the gold blood was smeared across his cuff. He didn't wipe it off. He didn't seem to care.

He headed for the door.

"Where are you going?"

He didn't answer.

"Dante."

He stopped. His back was to me. His shoulders were tense—not with anger, I realized, but with something else. Something that looked a lot like grief.

"I'm going to pray," he said quietly. "That's what I do at night. I pray. And I try to forget."

"Forget what?"

He turned his head. I saw his profile in the candlelight. Handsome. Devastatingly handsome. The kind of man who could make a woman forget her own name with one look. The kind of man my father had chosen because he knew I'd be too weak to resist.

But his eyes...

His eyes were older than his face. Older than any thirty-five-year-old's eyes should be. There was something ancient in them. Something that had seen too much. Felt too much. Buried too much.

"I try to forget the other seven," he said.

And then he walked out the door, leaving me alone in a bedroom that smelled like incense and gold blood, with a ring on my finger that was still cold, and seven dead wives on my conscience.

---

The guest wing was almost as large as my entire apartment.

I stood in the doorway, gripping the doorframe, my white dress still stained with gold. The room was decorated in shades of gray and black—minimalist, expensive, impersonal. There were no photos on the walls. No personal touches. It looked like a hotel room. The kind that cost more per night than I made in a month.

I didn't belong here.

I didn't belong anywhere.

I walked to the window. Manhattan sprawled below me—miles of lights, millions of people, a city that had never felt more lonely. I pressed my palm to the glass. Cold. Everything in this penthouse was cold.

Except the ring on my finger.

It was warm now. Throbbing. Like it had a pulse of its own.

I looked down at it. Gold. Simple. No diamonds, no engraving, just a plain band that had been poured into existence centuries ago. I could feel the history in it. The weight of it. The lives it had touched.

Seven lives.

I squeezed my eyes shut. My father had told me Dante Rossi was a businessman. A wealthy one. An influential one. The kind of man who could wipe out the DeMarco family debt with a single check.

He hadn't told me about the priest thing. Or the blood thing. Or the other seven wives thing.

He hadn't told me a lot of things.

I opened my eyes and looked at my reflection in the window. Dark hair, tangled from the ceremony. Dark circles under my eyes from weeks of not sleeping. A wedding dress that didn't fit quite right. A ring that didn't feel like it belonged to me.

I looked like a bride who'd been sold to a monster.

And maybe that's exactly what I was.

---

I found his study by accident.

I was looking for water—the guest wing didn't have any, and my throat was still dry from the champagne—and I took a wrong turn. One wrong turn. That was all it took.

The door was slightly ajar. Candlelight flickered through the crack. I heard his voice, low and rhythmic, chanting in Latin.

I should have walked away.

I didn't.

I pushed the door open, just an inch, just enough to see.

He was kneeling on the floor. No—not kneeling. Prostrate. Face-down on the marble. His hands were outstretched, palms pressed flat, gold blood pooling around his fingers like a halo. He was praying. Not the quiet, peaceful prayers I'd heard at mass. These were desperate. Urgent. The prayers of a man who'd stopped believing but couldn't stop begging.

The crucifix above him was enormous. Gold. Glinting in the candlelight like it was alive.

His shoulders shook.

"Domine, non sum dignus," he whispered. "Tantum dic verbo, et sanabitur anima mea."

I didn't know Latin. But I knew those words. I'd heard them at communion. Lord, I am not worthy. Only say the word, and my soul shall be healed.

He didn't sound healed. He sounded broken.

I watched him pray for a long time. Minutes, maybe. Hours. I'd lost all sense of time. The candle burned lower. The gold blood spread across the marble. And he kept praying, kept begging, kept whispering pleas to a God who'd clearly abandoned him a long time ago.

Finally, he stopped.

He lifted his head. And without turning around, he said, "You can come in, Elena."

I froze.

"You're not as quiet as you think." He pushed himself to his knees, then to his feet. He didn't turn around. He was looking at the crucifix, his hands hanging loose at his sides. The bleeding had stopped. The gold was drying on his palms like candle wax. "Did you need something?"

"I needed water."

"There's water in the kitchen."

"I don't know where the kitchen is."

He was quiet for a long moment. Then he laughed—a broken, hollow sound that made my chest ache. "Of course you don't. You don't know anything about this place. You don't know anything about me."

"I want to."

"No." He finally turned. His eyes were red-rimmed. He'd been crying. Not just crying—sobbing. His face was wet, his dark lashes clumped together, his cheeks stained with tears and gold blood from where he'd touched his face. "You don't want to know me. Trust me. Whatever you think you want—it's not that."

"You don't know what I want."

"I know what you want." He took a step toward me. Then another. He was close enough to touch now. Close enough that I could see the gold flecks in his irises, still there, barely visible. Close enough that I could feel the warmth radiating from his body—human warmth, I realized. The same warmth that had been missing all night. "You want to go home. You want to wake up from this nightmare. You want your father to tell you it was all a joke, and you can go back to your tiny apartment and your dead-end job and the life you had before I walked into it."

"Would you?" I asked. "Would you give me that?"

"No."

"Then you don't know me at all."

His mouth curved into a bitter smile. "I know you, Elena. I've known you longer than you realize. I've known you for 200 years."

I blinked. "What?"

He reached out. For a terrifying moment, I thought he was going to touch me. But his hand stopped just short of my face, hovering in the air like he was afraid I'd shatter.

"Go to sleep," he said again. "We'll talk more tomorrow. I promise."

"I want to talk now."

"I'm not ready."

"Ready for what?"

He dropped his hand. His eyes dimmed. The gold flecks faded until his irises were just gray again. Storm-colored. Distant. "Ready to tell you about the other seven. Ready to explain why I bleed gold. Ready to admit the truth—that I'm not just a man, Elena. I'm a curse. And you... you're the eighth sacrifice."

He walked past me. I felt the air shift as he moved, felt the warmth of him, the incense and candle smoke and something else. Something metallic. Something ancient.

"Sleep," he said from the doorway. "Dream about something beautiful. It might be the last time you can."

And then he was gone.

I stood in his study, surrounded by books and candles and a crucifix that seemed to watch me, and I realized I'd never felt less like sleeping in my entire life.

---

I didn't go to the guest wing.

I went back to the master bedroom—our bedroom, I supposed, though the "our" felt like a lie. I sat on the edge of the bed, my white dress rumpled and stained, my feet bare on the cold marble floor. I stared at the gold blood on my dress. It was dry now. Hard. Crystalline.

I touched it.

It crumbled.

I looked at my fingertips. Tiny gold shards, sparkling under the lights. I brought them to my nose. They smelled like incense. Like church. Like the prayers Dante had whispered in Latin.

I didn't know how that was possible. I didn't know how any of this was possible.

But I knew one thing.

I was a DeMarco. And DeMarcos didn't run from curses.

I stood up. I walked to the door. I opened it.

And I found him standing in the hallway, his back against the wall, his hands shoved in his pockets. He'd changed out of his suit. He was wearing a simple black shirt and slacks, and he looked smaller somehow. Less like a monster.

But his palms were still stained gold.

"Couldn't sleep?" he asked.

"Neither could you."

"I never can."

"Because of the curse?"

"Because of the dreams." He looked at me. In the dim hallway light, his eyes were almost human. Almost. "I dream about them. All of them. Their faces. Their names. The way they looked at me before they died."

"Did you love them?"

"Yes." He said it without hesitation. Without shame. "I loved every single one of them."

"And they died anyway."

"They died because I loved them." He pushed off the wall. He walked toward me. Slowly. Deliberately. Like he was trying to give me time to run. "The curse feeds on love, Elena. The more I love you, the more you're in danger."

"Then don't love me."

"It's too late." He stopped. He was so close now I could feel his breath on my forehead. "I've loved you since the moment I saw you in that lawyer's office. I loved you before that. I loved you in 1826, in 1851, in 1902. I've loved you in every life, with every name, in every bride that's worn this ring before you."

"What?" I shook my head. "That doesn't make sense."

"It doesn't. None of this makes sense. But it's true." He lifted his hand. The gold stains on his palm gleamed. "You're not my eighth wife, Elena. You're the first. The original. You're the one who cursed me."

I stared at him.

I waited for the punchline.

It didn't come.

"I don't remember," I said finally.

"You will." He touched my cheek. His palm was cool, the gold stains no longer warm. "The memories are in your blood. In your ring. In the curse that's been passed down for 200 years. You'll remember everything—when you're ready."

"When will I be ready?"

"When the demon appears." He smiled. It was a sad smile. A lonely smile. A smile that had seen too many centuries. "She wears your grandmother's face. She speaks with your grandmother's voice. And she's going to tell you to kill me before the full moon."

"She's going to—"

"She's been waiting 200 years to have you back. To finish what you started." He dropped his hand. "And I've been waiting 200 years to fall in love with you again."

I didn't know what to say.

So I kissed him.

It wasn't a romantic kiss. It wasn't soft or gentle or sweet. It was desperate. Reckless. The kind of kiss that came from a place of confusion and fear and something else—something I didn't want to name.

He made a sound. Low in his throat. A sound that was half-plea, half-prayer.

And then he pulled away.

"No." He shook his head. "I can't. If I kiss you—if I love you—"

"Then love me."

"You don't understand—"

"Then make me understand."

He looked at me for a long time. His jaw tightened. His eyes flickered gold.

And then he did something I'd never expected.

He cried.

Not the quiet, dignified tears of a man who'd been holding himself together for too long. But the ugly, desperate sobs of a creature who'd lost everything, everyone, over and over again for centuries.

I held him.

I held him in the hallway of his cold penthouse, with my wedding dress still stained with his blood, and I didn't let go.

"I'm sorry," I whispered. "I don't know what I'm sorry for. But I'm sorry."

He shook his head against my shoulder. "Don't. Don't apologize. You gave me the best 200 years of my existence—even if you don't remember."

"I want to remember."

"You will." He pulled back. His face was wet. His eyes were puffy. He looked like a man who'd been crying for a very long time. "But when you do—please don't hate me."

"How could I hate you?"

"Because I'm the reason you died." He touched my face. "I'm the reason you've died, over and over again, in every life you've lived. And I'm going to be the reason you die again."

I opened my mouth to argue.

I never got the chance.

Because the lights went out. All of them. The hallway, the bedroom, the study—everything went dark. The only light was the dim glow of the New York skyline, barely visible through the floor-to-ceiling windows.

And then I heard it.

A voice.

My grandmother's voice.

Coming from the mirror at the end of the hall.

"Good girl," it said. "Now kill him by the full moon."

I turned.

My grandmother's face stared back at me from the reflective glass—but she wasn't my grandmother. Not anymore. Her eyes were black. Her smile was too wide. Her teeth were too sharp.

And she was laughing.

"Kill him, Elena. Or I'll take your child instead."

I touched my stomach.

I didn't even know I was pregnant.

But somehow, she did.

---