Chapter 52
EMBERLINE
Standing in the villa’s entryway with his arms wrapped around me, Dante smelled like woodsmoke, leather, and something that was uniquely, irrefutably him.
Gods, I was such a fool for believing I could save my brother single-handedly.
I understood now how desperate people grasped at straws—diviners and prophecies and love potions—when all other options had run out.
Right now, I would do anything to save Luca. Anything.
Hope was a dangerous thing, and Dante was right; it was time to stop acting selfish.
“The Draconi fortress, those cells Severin mentioned.” I pulled back just enough to look at Dante’s face. “He said they are secure. That the connection between Luca and Blackwood could be contained or even broken.”
“Emberline, I don’t want you to get your hopes up.” He smoothed his big palm down my cheek with impossible tenderness. “You heard what Emilia said. The corruption is all the way through him.”
“I’m not saying he can be healed.” My voice caught. “But if Blackwood’s using Luca to read our minds… we can’t be around him.” I swallowed. “I’m saying… the fortress might be the best place for him. So long as he’ll be safe. And cared for. Not a prisoner.”
Dante’s hands tightened on my arms. “We don’t have to decide anything right this minute.”
“Actually, I think we do. Emilia can’t help him.
The healers are afraid of him, and if he did anything to…
” I stopped and took a breath. “While Blackwood wouldn’t care who he hurt…
Luca would.” My throat ached. “If my brother injured or killed someone, the guilt would break him, and I cannot put him in that position. And my brother can’t be close enough to read our minds. ”
“Okay,” Dante said softly. “Okay. Nico will speak to Severin, and…”
Someone ran past the arched opening leading down to the infirmary.
Not hurried—ran.
The flat-out sprint of a vampire fleeing from danger, feet barely touching the marble before they were gone, the sound swallowed up by the long corridor.
Danger practically pulsed through the air, and I glanced up at Dante.
His entire demeanor shifted into violence, big body bent into a crouch, braced for an attack. “Get behind me, Emberline. Until we know what’s happening.”
Before I could move, a second person flew past, little more than a streak of darkness. Running in the same direction. Not screaming—which was somehow worse—just the frantic slap slap slap of footsteps, here, then gone.
Dante moved me behind him with one arm, his grip steady and firm. For once, I didn’t resist. My instincts were going wild, hair standing on end, as though, on a physical level, I recognized the looming threat, but my mind was still catching up.
I pulled a blade from my boot—thank the gods I had one—falling into the same ready crouch as my husband.
Then something else came down the corridor.
The sound reached us first—that thin, rhythmic clicking I’d first heard echoing down a long, dark tunnel, the sound so deeply embedded in my nightmares I still heard it every time I closed my eyes.
A black, jointed leg bent around the door frame, the hard-shelled body following, bobbing up and down with every multi-legged step.
Another Drax.
Inside the villa.
Somehow, the beast didn’t notice us, moving past the opening in three lurching, insectile steps, then vanished.
“Tell me,” I panted, fear clawing up my throat, “that wasn’t what I think it was?”
Somewhere deeper in the villa, something heavy crashed. Screams were followed by Gabriel’s hoarse shout, cut off too quickly.
“Dante.”
“I heard him.” He tightened his grip on my wrist. “Stay right behind me.”
We inched deeper into the building. To our left, black, oily tar streaked the glossy floor.
Drops of blood led to our right. Dante followed the blood, the corridor lit by the reassuring glow of expensive glass sconces, but everything else felt wrong—the reek in the air, the way the shadows moved along the walls as if they’d come alive.
More screaming erupted behind us, frantic and hysterical.
“They’re inside,” I breathed. “How the fuck are they inside the wards?”
“I think…” Dante paused, carefully turning to look at me. “Blackwood has been inside since the beginning.” All the hairs on my body stood on end as realization hit me like a punch.
Through Luca. Ever since Blackwood put his magic inside my brother, he’d had eyes inside our safest place. Since then, our protections had meant nothing.
He’s been inside all along. Emilia’s voice in my head, from days ago, and Nico—we searched every inch of the villa and came up empty.
But they hadn’t searched everywhere.
Barricaded inside his room, Luca had met us at the door that day, convinced us he’d been sleeping. Horrified, I worked backward through what I suspected—he’d made the nests. He was a Summoner. The Drax were inside my brother’s room.
“Dante. They’re coming from Luca’s room.”
“Yeah, I just figured that out.”
We crept through the halls toward the infirmary. Toward Gabriel’s voice… toward my brother.
All around us the villa was alive with the sounds of fighting—screams and shrieks, the clicking of mandibles and skittering feet, heavy crashes and glass shattering. Gunfire ricocheted down the long hallways, echoing away into silence.
We followed the blood trail leading straight into Luca’s room, Dante’s fingers tightening over my wrist, my pulse thrumming frantically as he crossed the threshold, bringing me with him.
There was no sign of Gabriel.
But Luca was sitting up.
Not the weak, confused surfacing of the past few days. Luca tracked our entry with the composure of someone in complete control, his body relaxed, heavily lashed brown eyes open, though they were not really his. Not anymore.
Yes, they were the same chocolate brown as my own.
But something deeply malevolent stared out at us, an arrogant smirk on his lips that my brother would never be comfortable wearing.
Rotting blackness trailed from Luca’s right eye down his arm and side, spider-like veins spreading from the edges, the fingers of his right hand terminating in what were starting to look like claws. Every bit as sharp and black as the tips of the Drax’s legs.
Luca lifted his arms, as if he were conducting an opera.
Then his fingers danced, weaving a complicated spell my brother could never know.
Frenetic movement erupted from all directions, amplified by the marble and stucco walls, growing louder and louder.
The first Drax burst through the open door, a second right behind it.
A third crawled in from the ceiling outside, a fourth positioning themselves over our heads.
They surged through that opening until the room was full.
Not four. Not ten.
Dozens.
Until they filled every corner and the ceiling, formed a circle of teeth around us we’d never escape, while my brother sat in the center with his hands still raised and his eyes fever-bright with the promise of death.
Putting our backs together, Dante and I circled, flames at his fingertips and me with my knife, but this was hopeless. No matter how we positioned ourselves, we were outnumbered, and nothing could so much as scratch one of those hardened shells.
Not fire.
And certainly not my paltry knife.
“Luca, listen to me. Blackwood’s in your head; he’s the one making you do these things. This isn’t you.” I started, as if logic might somehow get through.
“Oh, but it is, little bird.” The amused tone that came out of my brother’s mouth sent goosebumps erupting over my skin, and a growl spilling out of Dante’s mouth.
Little bird.
The same name the Overseer called me.
Hearing those words come out of my brother’s mouth made me want to vomit, but we had to focus on surviving this. Maybe, if I could reach Luca, trapped somewhere inside that shell of a body, he could buy us some time.
And then what?
Leave my brother here?
Fuck, fuck, fuck. I gripped the knife tighter, back pressed to my husband’s, sorting through a list of shrinking options. No windows, only one door.
We could dematerialize, but to where?
Even if we did, we’d only leave everyone else inside the villa vulnerable.
And where was Gabriel? Nico? Valeria? Were they alive, or… I shook my head from side to side, telling myself not to go down that road, not to borrow trouble, as Enzo always said.
The air turned ripe.
Hot.
Reeking with the creature’s foul breath, the thick stench of decay and the tang of fresh ozone. Dante’s fire burst from his hands, pouring over the Drax like a golden wave, sending sparks flying, scorching the pristine walls black. The Drax didn’t die.
“Your fire is nothing against my magic, boy. Flames cannot touch the darkness.”
Dante burned anyway.
He went incandescent, and I ducked my face beneath an arm as an inferno turned the room into an oven.
Drax skittered backward, legs jerking erratically, but never breaking the circle holding us captive.
There were too many. Fire might hold them at bay, but we’d die from lack of oxygen before they would die.
And if even one of them touched us…
“I’ll clear a path to the door. You will run,” Dante ordered, reaching back and squeezing my hand. “You will get out of this room and dematerialize. Go anywhere.”
“No, that’s not a plan, that’s a…”
Blackwood laughed. “I could kill her right now,” he crooned from Luca’s mouth. “I could take her soul, and you couldn’t stop me. For all your fire and all your rage, you’re helpless. Worthless.” That tilt of Luca’s head was so, so wrong.
“I see your every thought, every fear, everything. And yes, you did fail your brother. You’ve been failing him your entire life.
When he needed you, you were not there. You left him alone.
And look what happened, Emberliiiine.” He drew my name out through his teeth with a hiss, warping my brother’s handsome features into something sinister.
He narrowed his eyes and then… he pushed.