Chapter 34
EMBERLINE
An hour later, the healer’s verdict was inconclusive.
Valeria’s dead guards were simply… dead.
No sign of injury, no trace of poison in their systems, their weapons still holstered. There was no blood under their fingernails, none at the scene, and all the blood in their bodies was accounted for, which pretty much ruled out vampires.
We were, if nothing else, thirsty as fuck.
But not knowing what killed them was worse than knowing.
Luca had wandered out of his room long enough to discover the kitchen was off limits, then disappeared, presumably for another nap.
Now that the healers were freed up, Gia was tending to Nico’s burns. Under her expert care, pink skin replaced the blisters, and he no longer cringed in pain. Dante, my eternally stubborn husband, had predictably refused their services for his many cuts and gashes.
I was still grappling with what I’d seen at the fortress.
How Nico had expanded, not just in size, but in presence. How his unearthly form had unfurled into something monstrous before writhing shadows shredded the fortress apart like it was made of paper, not stone.
True, I hadn’t seen a lot.
Everything had happened so quickly, in a matter of seconds, really, and I’d only caught glimpses of Nico through the black ribbons whipping wildly through the air. He’d grown to an immense height, his skin the color of fog, stretched so tightly over bone, he’d been more skeleton than male.
Asking him to access his magic had been a mistake.
I’d known it was a mistake, but I hadn’t pushed back. And now Nico had withdrawn into himself again, expression vacant, body burned because my husband risked his life diving into that deadly tangle of shadows to save him.
To drag him back to safety.
“We’ve ripped apart the villa, the entire island has been searched,” Valeria hissed, dragging a hand through her no-longer-perfect hair. “There’s no sign of anything. Nothing except one tiny bruise and a whole lot of questions.”
Nico’s entire demeanor changed, bleary eyes sharpening as he rose to his full height. My hands went clammy at the sudden shift, at how quickly the Draconi soldier locked back into place.
Nico’s full attention snapped to Valeria. “What did you say? A bruise?”
“It’s nothing,” she dismissed. “Barely the size of a mole on his neck. Could be a beauty mark of some kind.”
“What color is it?”
“Purple… or black.” She shrugged. “The healers checked the bodies over and said it was nothing. We need to…”
“Get everyone out of the villa and lock it down.” Nico sprang instantly into action, crossing to the sliders, scanning the sun-drenched trees outside.
“Dante, get Emberline out of this building. Valeria, you, too.” He prowled smoothly to the hall entrance, peering down the long expanse, no sign of his injuries slowing him down.
“Stay in the sun. Nobody goes alone; travel in groups of three, minimum. If someone doesn’t have magic, make sure they’re well-armed. ”
For a second we stood frozen, and then…
“You heard him.” Valeria turned to Gia and her healers.
“Tell everyone to get outside and stay in the sun. I’ll find you when we have this cleared up.
” The three hurried off, white robes fluttering behind them.
Valeria put her hands on her hips. “I’m not leaving my own godsdamned villa, Nico Draconi.
Not without a good reason. Start talking. ”
To her credit, she hadn’t asked any questions when we’d shown up, beaten to hell, pale-faced and sweating. She hadn’t even argued when I’d commandeered Gia to heal the burns all over Nico’s body.
I surreptitiously rechecked my knife sheath, then my boot for my extra blade, watching Nico roam along the perimeter of the room, searching behind furniture and in every corner, shadows pooling around his hands.
If we were evacuating, I needed to find Luca, but first…
“You’re freaking me out, Nico. What are you doing?” I whisper-shouted. “At least tell us what the bruise is all about.”
“The Drax feed on souls. Because of their bloodthirsty nature, they prefer to take their victims viciously, using their teeth and those mandibles to tear into flesh, devour their prey like the feral creatures they are. But sometimes…”
He paused in front of an enormous armoire, took a breath, then flung the doors open, my heart lurching up into my throat.
Nothing.
“There are times the Drax are more subtle, especially when they don’t want to be discovered. Then, when they steal your soul, they barely leave a mark behind at all. Something easily dismissed… unless you know what to look for.”
Oh gods…
“Only one small, indistinguishable bruise, about the size of a mole.”
“Fuuuuck,” Dante muttered, yanking me against him as Nico continued to move around the room, peering into every shadowed corner capable of hiding a creature.
Or a nest.
“Fuck, indeed. Somehow, my father snuck his little beasties onto this island, though I cannot for the life of me fathom how. That would take at least one Summoner, and they don’t exactly blend in.”
“What is a Drax? Or a Summoner? What are you talking about?” Valeria’s perfectly plucked eyebrows scrunched together, and she grabbed my arm, as if she needed something to hang onto. “And we’ve had no new employees in years. Everyone is vetted and loyal or at least paid well enough to stay loyal.”
“We, uhm… might have been keeping something from you,” I admitted in a hushed voice, not taking my attention off Nico. “To be fair, we never thought you’d see one.” Not exactly true, though I’d hoped none of us would see one ever again.
“They’re soul-sucking monsters hatched out by Blackwood that look like big, ugly spiders with no eyes and a whole lot of fucking teeth.”
There. Now the secret was out.
“Thanks for that visual.” Valeria shivered, skin pebbling. “So, you’re saying one of these things is inside the villa? How is that possible when the entire island is warded? If anything crossed through, we would have received an alert.”
Nico moved to the hallway, and we all followed him, bunched together like sheep.
“I’m not sure, but they’re here. And if we don’t find them, more people will die.”
“So, how do we kill them?” Valeria whispered, hanging onto my arm like I was a fucking life preserver. “I mean, we can kill them, right?”
“We can’t, but Nico can.”
“You mean out of all of us, only one person can kill these things? I think I’m going to throw up. What the fuck? They can really suck our souls?”
“Like soft yogurt out of a plastic tube.”
“Dante, that’s disgusting,” I scolded, trying to block the image out of my brain. “And you don’t know that for sure.”
“Actually, that’s a pretty accurate description,” Nico murmured, paused, then whipped open the first door he came to. As one, we all jumped, then let out a long, audible breath when he swore and slammed it closed.
“They’ll hide somewhere dark,” he explained as we worked our way down the hall. “On the ceiling or in a recessed corner. They’ll stick to the shadows, and they like the quiet.”
“Like the ones at the Sala del Giuramento,” I whispered to Valeria, her nails digging deeper into my arm. “They were all over the ceiling.”
She jerked me back, her face drained of color. “These things are in the Sala del Giuramento? And nobody thought to fucking tell me? You are all a bunch of fucking assholes,” she muttered.
“I know, right? That’s what I’ve been saying all along.” Nico shot us all a dark look, paused, then flung open the next door. Again, we jumped and sucked in a breath as though fear was a competitive sport.
“You really can be the worst. All clear.”
“That leaves the bedrooms,” I said quietly, moving forward as Nico checked the next door, then the next. “I swear to the fucking gods, if one of those things comes skittering out, I’m going to pee my pants.”
“You and me both, tesoro, I hate those fucking things. And they stink.”
Valeria let me go, then punched my arm. Hard. “I told you something smelled funny during that council meeting. You made a face, but you didn’t say a fucking word.”
“I didn’t think you’d believe me, but yes, I lied by omission.”
“They could have sucked my soul out. At any time. My gods, what else are you keeping from me?”
I took a long look at Nico. “Nothing, I swear.”
We stopped, clogging up the entire hallway as Nico set his hand on Luca’s door, counting down with his fingers as we all held our collective breath.
One. Two. Thr…
Luca whipped his bedroom door open before Nico finished.
Valeria sucked in a panicked breath that ended in a low, porn-worthy moan.
My brother lounged in the doorway, elbow casually braced on the doorframe, naked to the waist and wearing…
loose, gray sweatpants. Fucking hell, those things were like female catnip, especially when the tanned abdomen above the waistband could have been photoshopped.
“Don’t you own a shirt?” I muttered.
“Hello, Valeria,” my brother crooned. “Everyone. Everything okay out here?”
“Everything okay in there?” Nico peered over my brother’s shoulder into the dark room. “Were you sleeping?”
“I was until I heard a herd of elephants stampeding down the hallway. Since I can’t eat, I decided I might as well sleep. Unless the kitchen is open?” He tacked on hopefully, looking at Valeria, standing there with her mouth hanging open.
“Stay inside your room,” Nico snapped. “Don’t come out unless one of us gives you the okay.” He shoved Luca backward a step and closed the door.
We searched the rest of the villa inch by inch but found nothing, not so much as a drop of black, gooey tar.
“I have to let everyone back in. If those things aren’t inside…” Valeria’s gaze skimmed over the wild-looking island, the long stretch of beach. “Perhaps the villa’s the safest place for everyone?”
“Bring them back in,” Nico decided. “But tell everyone not to open the doors or windows and stay in pairs. Groups would be even better.” With a nod, Valeria hurried off.
“We have a problem,” Gabriel murmured as we watched everyone stream back inside, Rocco shooting us an evil glare on the way past, his nose sunburned to an alarming red.
“They couldn’t have just vanished.”
“They don’t have that sort of magic,” Nico filled in unhelpfully. “But the villa’s secure, which means now we have to search the outbuildings, the boathouse, and the entire island. As far as I know, they can’t swim, so they’ll stay on land.”
“How can you be sure it’s they?” I asked. “Surely there’s only one?”
“Drax hunt in pairs or larger groups. There will be at least two, and they’ll stick together. We find one, we’ll find them both.”
“Well, that sounds like a perfect nightmare,” I grumbled. “How many outbuildings are there again?”
“Ten, at least. Plus the boathouse,” Dante supplied helpfully.
“I’ll go round up as many guards as I can find, and we’ll get started.”