Chapter 57
NICO
The laughing had stopped.
Yeah, these worthless fucking cowards sure lost their sense of humor, now that they’d run out of time.
I crossed the deck in two steps, the boat tilting ominously beneath my weight. They’d killed the motors, so we were drifting, the choppy Adriatic sloshing against the keel. Two guards dove over the railing, choosing a watery grave over Death.
I snatched their souls before they hit the surface.
They tasted like sewage. Like hate and resentment and malice.
They were the lucky ones, so to speak.
The remaining guards raised their weapons and opened fire, some of them casting their pathetic magic.
I expanded, catching every bullet and thrown blade, every burst of power, not allowing a single threat to touch my friends.
And while I wasn’t particularly cruel in this form—Death was cruel enough—I couldn’t stop hearing their mocking laughter.
Every time I did, anger spiked a little higher.
I spread my form out across the width of the boat, no longer a shield to protect my friends from danger, but to keep them from seeing the guards’ fate. So they wouldn’t hear the screams. The begging. The wet, gory sounds as I shredded them apart.
I saved the blunt-faced guard for last.
The bastard who dropped Emberline overboard and laughed. The one who’d threatened to do more than touch her.
For that, I took his hands.
Then his eyes, because he’d dared look at her. Then his tongue, for every foul word he’d spoken in her presence. Only when he was writhing in his own piss and blood did I end him.
When I was done, the engines were still idling, the boat drifting sideways, stern pointed at nothing, stars shining brightly overhead, the universe unconcerned at the amount of blood staining the deck.
I looked up, took a breath, and tasted the truth.
Salt and wind, the taste of freedom, and my friends alive.
The future still ahead of us.
The Emissary took some persuading, but eventually, he retreated. He still didn’t like this world. It was too big and too loud, but he didn’t so much mind being out here on the water. He liked the stars and the taste of the salt air.
I turned to my friends and dangled the keys from two fingers.
“Let’s get everyone unlocked,” I bent over and freed Emberline first, then Gabriel and Valeria.
I knelt down beside Dante and carefully undid his shackles, laying his arms down flat. He was still unconscious, but breathing evenly, all his injuries superficial enough not to be life-threatening.
Emberline nudged me aside, checking him over, smoothing the hair back from his face.
“You won’t have access to your magic until we’re off this boat,” I explained, kneeling beside Valeria as she doubled over, her face twisted in pain. “Your arms hurt because the blood is rushing back. Give yourself a few minutes, and the sensation will fade. Are you injured? Cut?”
She stared straight ahead as if she didn’t hear me.
“Valeria, you’re covered in blood,” I said gently. “I need to know if you’re hurt.”
“This isn’t mine.” She hiccupped out a sob. “It’s Gia’s. The Drax… I tried to save her, even though it was too late. It went for her, instead of me, and by the time I reached her, she was gone.”
“I’m sorry.” I rubbed her cold hands, just so she knew someone was here. “What happened today isn’t on you. That was Giovanni and Blackwood. Not you. Understand?”
She dipped her head, tears clinging to her eyelashes.
“Lie down.” I eased her down onto the bench, not ideal, but it was out of the wind. “Close your eyes and try to rest. I’ll wake you when we get to where we’re going.”
“And where is that?”
“Somewhere safe,” I assured her before crossing to Gabriel. “We should get moving. Unless someone has a better suggestion, I think we should head north, toward Venice.”
“I have so many questions,” Gabriel muttered, throwing me the side-eye as he made his way to the cabin. “But they can wait until we’re not drifting at sea.”
“Everyone, hang on. We’ll be moving soon,” I called, then followed him inside, ducking down so I didn’t hit my head.
“Where to?” Gabriel asked, hitting the throttle, the engines roaring to life. “It’s not like we have a lot of options. In a few hours, when this boat doesn’t arrive at the destination, they’ll start hunting us.”
“Lucky for you, I have a solution to both of those problems.” I grinned. “Head toward the city, then due east, toward the DiSangue island. We’ll hole up with Emilia. Once everyone is on land, I’ll find somewhere to sink the boat and dematerialize back in a few hours.”
“That’s the…” Gabriel paused, considering my suggestion, then nodded. “Actually, that will work.” He pushed the throttle down, cut the wheel to the right, and we were flying toward Venice.
I went back up on deck and crouched down beside Dante and Emberline. Her hair was plastered flat, salt water crystals drying on her face, and she had a dazed expression I recognized from the aftermath of a long, dangerous day—shock and exhaustion mixing into a bone-deep numbness.
“You,”—she narrowed her eyes, looking at me like I’d done something wrong—“are going to teach me how to really swim. Not just a pretend lesson you use as an excuse to fondle my ass.”
“And here I thought you enjoyed our little detour in the cove… but you’re right.” I grinned. “Given how we literally live on the water, that seems like an excellent idea.”
“I’ve been saying this for months,”—Dante rubbed his head—“but I noticed you didn’t ask me to teach you.”
“Fine, you can help,” she grumbled. “Given how hopeless I am at staying above the surface, it will probably take the both of you.”
I blew out a breath. I had so much to say. I wanted to tell Emberline how my heart had stopped when she’d gone overboard. How I’d wanted to strangle my father for everything that happened today. And kill her fucking uncle.
But right now, my priority was getting everyone back on land before Giovanni sent out reinforcements.
“So.” A long pause as Dante looked me up and down. “You turned into the Emissary. On an iron boat with iron shackles and iron pins in your back. Care to explain?”
“Let’s just say the Emissary doesn’t abide by the rules of this realm.” I paused. “Or any other. The iron only worked on my mortal magic. I can’t pull up my shadows right now, for instance.”
“Why didn’t you do it sooner?” Dante demanded, his tone accusatory. “Before they threw Emberline overboard?”
“Dante, I’m sure…”
“No, it’s a valid question,” I said quietly.
“I had to wait until we passed the containment field. And I hesitated because the last time I let the Emissary loose, I nearly leveled the Draconi fortress.” I sent him a pointed look.
“And on a boat, in the middle of the ocean, with all of you in iron shackles, stripped of your powers… I was afraid I would kill us all.”
“That sounds like a good enough reason to me.” Emberline touched my hand. “I saw you. Not here, but… there.” She waved her hand vaguely between us. “You told me to come back. That we had a fight to finish.”
“And for once, you actually listened,” I teased.
“And how are we going to fight, Nico?” She shook her head. “After what I saw today, we can’t fight that. The Drax, your father, all those guards… there’s no way we can make a stand.”
“Let’s worry about that tomorrow,” I said gently. “Tonight, we go somewhere safe and get some rest.”
She looked at me for a long moment, shivering, Dante’s arm tight around her, and then something shifted in her expression—the sharp edge of fear softened into exhaustion, her body melting into her husband as he firmed his hold around her.
Tomorrow, we’d go back to plotting and planning.
Tonight, we celebrated being alive.
“As far as those lessons, I don’t suppose I could talk you into skinny dipping?” I winked. “I’ve heard swimming is easier au natural, and you need all the advantages you can get, princess.”
“Gods, you are such an asshole,” she muttered, but she was smiling as she leaned back against Dante’s chest.
Gabriel kept us pointed due north, slipping into the heavy boat traffic for a few miles to blend in during our approach, the lights of Venice sliding past before we cut away, heading across the dark lagoon at full speed.
The DiSangue island was the only Pentarch sanctuary left that Blackwood and Giovanni wouldn’t dare invade, and besides Severin, Emilia was the only vampire I trusted right now.
“She’ll want to know everything,” Emberline muttered darkly. “About the Basin. About Luca. Gods, about everything.”
She was still in Dante’s arms, but her husband was fast asleep, head tipped back against the side of the boat, snoring softly. He’d stop bleeding, but as soon as we got to Emilia’s, he needed to see the healers.
“Chances are, Emilia already knows what happened,” I said, fighting the urge to tell her sweet lies we both knew weren’t true. “She usually does.”
“Well, I noticed she didn’t exactly launch a rescue mission,” Emberline grumbled.
“Maybe it’s still in the planning stages,” I teased. “I suppose we’ll find out soon enough.”
“Well, prepare to be disappointed.”
“Oh, you never know.” I waggled my eyebrows, hoping for at least a hint of a smile. “She might surprise us.”
Emberline looked at me sideways, something kindling in her expression—an exhausted fondness, the look of someone pushed far past their limits, pain mixed with courage. I couldn’t help myself. I reached out and dragged my fingers down her soft, warm cheek.
Watched the way her eyes drifted half-closed, how she leaned into my touch.
I gave myself permission to savor her. The delicate curve of her face, her scent, tinged with salt, the sad tilt of her lips, when she should be smiling. She should always be smiling.
I wanted to give Emberline the world.
Dreamed of plucking the stars from the sky to make her the crown she deserved.
Wrapping her up in the inky darkness of the night sky so she could wear it like a cape.
The harder I wished, the more I ached to make things right.
Deep inside me, something broke. Like a mountain crumbling beneath an earthquake.
Something ancient and boundless, a weight pressing down on my bones.
The Emissary—for one breathless, stolen second—gazed down at Emberline through my eyes, his heart filled with the kind of vengeance that leveled entire civilizations.
This is right, every instinct inside me snarled, the Emissary becoming a lodestone at my center. A weight that centered me, and for the first time in my life, I opened myself up. Let him see all of me. Embraced this cosmic entity I’d forged a fool’s bargain with as an angry, wounded child.
We will protect her, my blood sang. Her shield and her sword.
“Nico,” she said carefully.
“Princess?”
“Thank you for bringing me back. I wasn’t sure…” She turned away, burying her face in Dante’s chest. “It’s getting harder every time. To walk away from that place. I’m afraid that…”
“Don’t finish that sentence. You will always come back. Always.” I stared out over the water, guilt writhing in my gut as we raced over the surface.
I’d made that hole.
The one that threatened to swallow her whole. The one where her parents stood on the other side and visited with their daughter, as though they were casually talking over the backyard fence.
That hole was never meant to exist, and I had no idea how to close it.
The lagoon was dark, the stars were out, and somewhere in Venice, our enemies would soon discover we’d escaped their unescapable prison, and I was sure Giovanni and my father would be at each other’s throats.
Good. Let them tear each other apart.
“And don’t mention it.” I flicked her nose. “I’ll come and drag you out of the Underworld any time.”
She punched me in the arm, laughing softly beneath her breath, then turned and headed for Dante, slumped against the side of the cabin, snoring faintly.
We did have a fight ahead of us, but this time, I wasn’t afraid.
I wasn’t afraid of the Emissary or my magic.
And I wasn’t afraid to kill my father.