Chapter 21
DANTE
The moment Emberline opened her eyes, I knew something had gone wrong.
Catastrophically wrong.
One second, she and Nico were lying motionless in a sea of pillows on the floor of Valeria’s villa, surrounded by flickering candles. The next, they bolted upright, gasping for air as though they were drowning.
Now, ten minutes later, I reminded myself patience was a godsdamned virtue as rage simmered beneath my skin like poison. I wanted answers, and I wasn’t fucking getting them, at least, not quickly enough for my liking.
Moonlight poured in through the floor-to-ceiling sliders. My brother paced back and forth in front of the view, stopping only to run a hand through his hair before moving again, as if he couldn’t bear to stay still.
“If you woke Emilia up, if you accomplished what you went in there for, then why do you both look like you’re barely holding it together?” I kept my tone even, so I didn’t spook Emberline.
She was sitting on the sofa near the fireplace. Gabriel stopped behind her, one hand resting on the back of the couch like he wanted to touch her but wasn’t sure he should.
Nico lingered in a darkened corner, deliberately keeping his distance.
From her.
From all of us.
Just like he had ever since Rocco’s clusterfuck of a rescue mission.
But something was different between them, now.
Like something had irrevocably broken.
“I told you this was a bad idea,” I accused, my composure shredding. This was too soon for I told you so, but I was too furious to hold back. “You thought going into a different realm was safe? It’s not. The risks are just… different.”
Emberline kept glancing over at Nico, as if she expected him to do the talking.
Which was a first.
My wife was the one with the ideas, the one with the plan. The one who never held back from saying exactly what she thought… except for right the fuck now.
“Someone had better start talking, or…”
“I think we’re all on edge right now,” Gabriel—ever the politician—cut me off smoothly.
“Let’s all take a deep breath and get a hold of our tempers.
” He shot me a look that clearly said, I’m talking to you, motherfucker.
“If you woke Emilia up in this dream state, then she woke in the real world, correct?”
Emberline dipped her head in a dazed nod. “She should have, yes. She seemed to indicate her first order of business would be… her sons.”
“Good. I hope those arrogant little fucks get their asses handed to them,” I growled. “So, we’re to assume that after you woke Emilia, that’s when things went wrong?”
Once more, Emberline practically begged Nico with her eyes to say something, but he took a shuddering breath and tightened his fists.
Unable to stand the strain of not touching her, I crossed the room in three strides and pulled Emberline into my arms, tucking her greedily beneath my chin. She didn’t stop trembling, sweat coating her skin, every breath shallow and quick.
I felt her forehead. Clammy.
“I’ve got you, tesoro.” I smoothed her hair back. “I’ve got you. You’re safe. Nothing can hurt you now.”
She made a small sound in the back of her throat, like a wounded animal, and Nico’s shoulders hunched in. “What is going on, Emberline?” I murmured against her ear. “You are freaking me out here. One of you had better start explaining, or I am seriously going to lose my shit.”
“I can’t,” she said miserably. “The important thing is that Emilia is awake. We succeeded in waking her up from stasis. That’s all I can talk about.”
“Did someone hurt you… after you woke Emilia up?”
“It’s not my story to tell,” she said softly, her fingers curling around my shoulders, and my eyes flicked over to Nico.
Who looked completely haunted, his face hollowed out.
Ruined.
Too fucking bad. He dragged my wife into a different realm, brought her back completely traumatized, and didn’t think he owed me an explanation.
He was fucking wrong.
“Even if Emilia’s back, she won’t sit on the council.” Valeria crossed her arms over her chest. “So, while this is good news, the Dynasty is still under Giovanni and Blackwood’s control. Which means I’ll be heading into the city tomorrow for that council meeting.”
My head snapped toward her. “That’s a mistake. We don’t know how Emilia’s awakening changes the dynamics. For all we know, she’ll be sitting at the head of council tomorrow, and Vincenzo will be floating face down in the canal.”
“As tempting as that idea is, Blackwood would never allow her near La Sala.” Valeria drummed her fingers on the table. “She’s a threat to him. Giovanni… Vincenzo… they’ll kiss his ring. Emilia won’t kiss a godsdamned thing. I’ve accepted his invitation, and I’m taking my place at that table.”
“You’re walking into a trap,” I said flatly.
“What invitation?” Emberline asked softly. “Blackwood’s?”
Valeria inclined her head. “He offered me a seat at council. My family’s seat. I accepted. This is our way inside. A way for me to help by gathering information.”
“I agree with Dante. This is too dangerous.” Emberline pushed herself up out of my arms. “You don’t understand what Blackwood’s like.” There was a note of raw panic in her voice. “If he invited you to come, then he wants you there for a reason. Don’t…”
“Oh, don’t stop on my account. It was all getting so interesting.” Rocco Demente leaned in the unlit hall outside the room. I had no idea how long he’d been there. Or what he’d overheard.
He was freshly dressed. His missing hand was still wrapped up in gauze from Valeria’s healers.
Any other vampire would be ashamed.
Rocco wore that injury like a badge of honor.
The old vampire’s condemning gaze swept across the room, stopping on me, his lip curling like he already had a special place in hell all picked out for my corpse.
“You should be the ones rotting in prison cells,” he sneered. “The fact that my daughter thought you were worth saving… well,” that lip curled higher to reveal a yellowed fang. “Speaks to her judgment, doesn’t it?”
“What do you want, Rocco? You’re already drawing air, which is more than you deserve.” I was so out of fucks to give when it came to this bastard. “Go somewhere else to stew in your bitterness and leave us alone to put the Dynasty to rights.”
“To rights?” He snorted. “Is that what you’re doing?” His eyes lingered on Nico, that cunning expression turning thoughtful. “Be careful of who your allies are. You never know when you’ve let a traitor inside the walls.”
“The only traitor here is you.” Gabriel prowled across the room slowly, hands in his pockets, demeanor unruffled, the picture of nonchalance. But beneath my brother’s practiced facade, a hungry fury brewed. A violence I recognized all too well.
I rose from the sofa, crossing my arms over my chest.
The entire room went silent.
“Threaten one of us again and I will end you. In fact, say another word, and I’ll rip out your tongue,” Gabriel said pleasantly. “And if you so much as think of betraying us, I will make it my life’s work to see you suffer.”
Rocco’s grin disappeared, then he looked to his daughter, as if he expected her to have his back.
“Let me take you back to your rooms, father.” With an apologetic look, Valeria looped her arm through her father’s, guiding him out of the room. “One of these days, you’ll learn threats get you nowhere.”
He shuffled away, throwing one last venomous glare over his shoulder.
Rocco might look harmless, but we’d be fools to underestimate him. The fucker was dying to sell us out, and I wasn’t opposed to ending him before he had the chance.
As soon as they disappeared, I settled myself back beside my wife. Gabriel sat down on the coffee table opposite us, his expression serious enough to tell me he expected answers.
“Walk us through what happened after you woke Emilia up. Tell us what you can, and we’ll have Nico fill in the gaps.”
I rolled my eyes. Nico didn’t seem interested in filling in any gaps, but my brother was an eternal optimist.
In a low voice, Emberline explained wandering through the dream realm, her mother’s nonsensical warning that should have been taken seriously, how they found the temple empty and woken up Emilia, then how the circle in the temple had trapped them inside, just like her mother had warned.
Gods. It all made me want to rip out my hair. She was speaking to her parents. Going to the fucking Underworld. After Emilia warned her not to.
“And then?” Gabriel prompted gently. “Who set the trap, bella?”
“Lord Blackwood.”
For a moment, my heart stopped beating, a thousand questions all narrowing down to the only one that mattered. Why—how—was Blackwood in my wife’s dream? Where I couldn’t reach her?
I tightened my arms around her, burying my face in the dip between her shoulder and neck.
“If Blackwood set this trap ahead of time,” Gabriel said carefully, “then he must have known you were coming. Does he know about Emilia?”
“Yes.” She dipped her head, her fingers twining into my shirt. “Blackwood knows everything. He put Emilia in stasis, but Nico managed to break his spell. We’d barely finished when Blackwood caught us before we could leave the temple.”
“There’s no way you could have known he’d be waiting,” I soothed. “But… how could he know you were in a different realm? To set the trap, he must have had some sort of warning.”
Emberline stiffened, her gaze straying over to Nico. “You need to tell them, Nico,” she pleaded. “They deserve to know.”
Nico looked gutted. His eyes filled with misery, one hand twitching as if he couldn’t stop himself. The silence in the room took on a menacing tone as the tension built, my brother shifting closer to Emberline. To me.
“I’m…” Nico swallowed hard. “There’s something I have to tell you…”
The hair on the back of my neck rose, Rocco’s rant still fresh in my mind.
A traitor inside our walls.
No. Not Nico. He’d saved me from the Fossa. Twice. He was Gabriel’s closest friend and had been for decades.
This line of thinking was…
“I’m Lord Cesare Blackwood’s son,” Nico’s voice was filled with a thick layer of self-loathing. “I left home when I was twelve and never looked back. Joined the Brotherhood and never looked back. But… his blood runs in my veins. As he reminded me so poetically tonight.”
My brain tripped over the information, a vise squeezing the air out of my lungs as disbelief took hold, telling myself I must have misheard.
Then doubt was replaced by anger.
The raw, hurting kind that came from having a knife stabbed into my back. Twisted.
Years—decades—of lies, compounded by late nights of drinking and secrets shared, of trust given and promises made, and how the fuck could Nico possibly be related to our enemy?
But other things slotted neatly into place, as if they’d always belonged. Nico falling apart over Blackwood’s appearance in Venice. His obsession with the male after that failed investigation, when I’d chalked it up to professional rivalry.
In my arms, Emberline shivered like she couldn’t stop.
Something ugly happened in that other realm.
And knowing Blackwood’s cruel reputation, my stomach churned.
“Did he hurt you? Did he touch you?” I ran my hands over her, searching for anything out of place…
I cupped her face in my hands, tilted her head back and…
there. A faint bruise blooming on her throat, the barest whisper of color.
Somehow, she’d brought violence back from that other realm.
Blackwood touched my wife.
He’d fucking marked her.
My vision whited out, blood boiling, the demon shifting inside my skin, eager to go to the city, find the bastard and finish this.
“He restrained me so he could kill Nico. He forged a blade from the shadows and he… he…” She choked back a sob. “Then the temple filled up with thick, black smoke, and the circle broke. We ran.” She took a breath. “And we woke up here.”
Black smoke.
Black smoke had interrupted the council meeting and saved Emberline and Luca.
Coincidence wasn’t a word I believed in.
Someone was helping us.
And in war, unknown allies with unknown motives were as dangerous as enemies.
“Who is helping us, Nico? Because you know, don’t you?” His expression didn’t change, but something flickered behind his eyes. The truth, maybe, and if I had to drag it out of him through sheer force of will…I would.
“Who the fuck else is involved? This is the last time I’ll ask nice.”
Nico folded his arms, and my temper exploded. I was done with games and secrets, finished with his lies. Pissed that he’d lied to us in the first place.
Playing games with my wife’s life… that was a line he shouldn’t have crossed.
I gently set Emberline on the couch and launched myself across the room. With the force of a charging bull, I slammed into Nico, plate glass shattering as we crashed through the sliding doors, driving him across the terrace until we both tipped over the edge.