Chapter 24
EMBERLINE
Candles flickered as I waited alone in the back of the chapel, stomach in knots, white flowers spilling from every surface while soft music played somewhere in the background, a Vivaldi concerto, maybe. The sound almost drowned out the raging storm outside.
I’d dreamed of this day since I was little.
Of a fairytale wedding to a handsome prince, of flowers and promises and candlelight. And as much as my heart ached for this to be real, I reminded myself this was only the first chess move in a long, dangerous game.
A game I had better win.
The weight of a hundred eyes stayed on me as I walked down the aisle toward Gabriel.
Head held high. Shaking hands hidden beneath my bouquet. Mind made up.
My uncle and Luca sat by themselves, my only family present, my brother’s face as white as my dress, my uncle’s pleased smile giving me goosebumps as I passed them by.
I’m here, Em. My brother’s voice sounded muffled inside my head. Right here. My own thoughts were too chaotic to send anything back except a vague mental touch to let him know I’d heard.
The chapel felt small, intimate. The ridiculous skirting kept getting tangled around my ankles, all frost-white silk and suffocating lace as I struggled to the front of the chapel, feeling like I was smothering.
Up at the altar, Gabriel was rock solid, carved from the same immovable stone as this ancient building.
Broad shoulders thrown back, bright blue eyes reflecting every flicker of candlelight, cleft chin barely brushed with stubble.
He was bigger in here, wider, taking up too much space.
Or maybe that was this stupid corset, cutting off my airflow.
I glanced up, and his stare burned hotter, then his teeth sank into his bottom lip, giving me a glimpse of his fangs. White. Sharp. Perfect.
He looked at me like he wanted to devour me, worship me, and kiss me, all at the same time, so much feral intensity burning in his gaze, I had to look away.
Heat throbbed in my cheeks, exploding through my body a dangerous tangle of nerves and adrenaline, and I swayed beneath this dangerous, carnal sensation melting my body to honey.
We are enemies by blood, and this is only pretend, I repeated as I stopped beside him, wishing we weren’t enemies. Wishing right now I wasn’t alone and scared of what lay ahead.
Then Gabriel curled his big hand around mine, squeezed tight, and my nerves dissipated into a tolerable hum.
“Emberline DiRavello,” the DiSangue Order priest intoned, the crimson sigil at his throat gleaming like freshly spilled blood, his deep voice echoing off the stone. “Gabriel Dominico. You stand before us today to…”
His words washed over me, old phrases plucked from ancient pagan rituals, a smattering of Latin, a mixture of a hundred different ceremonies from the two thousand years our species had existed.
I let them slide past, focusing instead on the faint scar beside Gabriel’s brilliant blue eye, the subtle tic in his cheek every time someone in the audience shifted position.
The priest pulled out a silver blade, and my body tensed. One cut, a few more words, and this would be final. My life as a DiRavello would be over, and my quest to bring down an empire would begin.
“You’re trembling,” Gabriel frowned as the priest turned his back on us and spoke to the crowd, the knife held over his head.
“This will be over soon, and you have no need to fear me, Emberline.” He was trying to sound calming, and there was real warmth in his eyes when he added, “This isn’t a prison sentence, Emberline.
I take my responsibilities seriously, including keeping you safe. ”
“I know.” My palm was sweating where it was clasped in his hand. All I could think of was those fucking white sheets and what came after this ceremony, the wicked delight in Rina’s eyes. I wasn’t worried about their catty accusations; I was worried about how I was going to…
Boom.
The doors blew inward, an explosion of sound that hollowed out my ears.
A sweep of rain-drenched cold flooded the chapel, extinguishing candles and conversation, leaving the priest frozen in place, hands above his head.
One hinge ripped out of the stone and skittered across the stone floor. The heavy wood slammed against the walls hard enough, a chunk of plaster crashed down, vases of flowers shattering across the floor.
A lone figure stood in the opening, backlit by driving rain and flashes of lightning.
Every shadow seemed to draw toward him, darkness unfurling from the corners of the room, creeping across the floor. No one moved except Gabriel, shifting in front of me, shoving me back, but everyone else was locked in place, blank faces staring.
Outlined by the storm, the stranger stepped inside like a conquering king.
Tall. Broad-shouldered. Wild, dark hair curled from the rain, sluicing water down his stained leather coat, hanging open over a black shirt that clung to a powerful body built for brutality—scarred knuckles, corded forearms, the faint gleam of ink disappearing under his collar.
The stranger looked like he’d been thrown into the pits and crawled out of them a hundred times over, spat out the blood, then gone back for more.
I’d never seen anything like this male. Never had anyone affected me like he did, like a physical punch to the gut, and something shifted inside, from nervous fear to reckless excitement.
Suddenly, everyone was scrambling for the exits. Nico was shoving his way toward us through the panicked audience, while Gabriel’s hand tightened on my arm.
Don Marcello shot to his feet, screaming, “Intruder. How did you get past our wards?” His deep voice cracked like a whip through the chaos as he motioned his soldiers into action.
“Take him down, don’t let him leave the island alive.”
Like he hadn’t just been marked for death, the stranger’s gaze slid over the room, taking in the armed guards, the black-robed priest, Gabriel…me.
I still hadn’t gotten a good look at his shadowed face, but his mouth curved up in an evil smile, fangs flashing as the full weight of his scrutiny settled firmly on me before his dark gaze moved to Don Marcello, that vicious smile growing crueler.
“Miss me, Padre?” he drawled.
The word rocked the room like another explosion, vampires stopping, turning, gripping the backs of chairs for support. Someone in the crowd uttered an ancient plea for protection. Another hissed out a curse.
No. Not someone. Nico.
He was trapped in the center of the chaos, roughly pushing vampires out of his way, trying to reach the Don, to reach Gabriel, eyes so wide, I saw the whites around them. Then he went stock-still, a knife gripped in one hand, a gun in the other, shock replacing his carefully neutral mask.
“Dante,” Nico whispered.
Gabriel’s fingers slipped from my arm, breaking the spell that held me in its grip as the name echoed through the room, whispered on a dozen shocked tongues.
Dante. Dante. Dante.
The lost son.
The disgrace to the Dominico honor. The heir turned traitor, declared Il Bando di Sangue—cast out by his own blood, sent off to die in disgrace. Gone for fifty years, Dante Dominico had become a cautionary tale—Don’t cross Marcello, or he’ll do to you what he did to his eldest.
My blood ran cold.
“That’s impossible,” someone muttered. “Marcello declared him bandire. He is dead to this family. Dead,” the male called out thinly, his voice cracking with fear.
Dante started walking.
Straight toward me.
He moved with the lazy, dangerous confidence of a trained fighter, boots thudding against the ancient stone as vampires—all of them rich and powerful and dangerous in their own right—scrambled out of the way.
The closer he drew, details became clearer—the thin white scar slicing through one eyebrow, the crooked set of his nose, the faint mottling along his knuckles where battered skin had healed over so many times, all that was left were the scars.
I’d been right about the pit fighting.
This fucker was a brute, but his eyes…
Ocean-blue, like Gabriel’s, but wilder. Filled with rage, the kind I’d never seen before.
They chewed up everything they saw and spit it back out, and right now, those eyes were fixed firmly on me.
I couldn’t move, pinned down on the precipice of a cliff where one wrong move would send me tumbling over the edge.
Nor could I look away.
Nico seemed caught in the same trance, a rock in the center of the chaotic crowd, vampires streaming around him, weapons hanging useless from slack fingers.
Beside me, Gabriel looked like he’d seen a ghost. Mouth slightly ajar, something like fear burning in his eyes. I touched his arm, and he didn’t even glance down, hyper-focused on his brother.
“Stop this, now.” Marcello rose, the full weight of his authority and his magic slamming through the chapel, the walls shivering. “You have no right to step foot on this island. I banished you.”
“Yeah.” Dante tipped his head to the side. “Funny thing about banishment. It doesn’t mean much, as it turns out. Not after fifty years away. Not after the hell I’ve endured.” His voice was a guttural rasp of sound, like every word had to claw its way up his throat.
He stopped at the steps. This close, he smelled of smoke and rain and the coppery tang of fresh blood. There were droplets on his leather coat and a splash of red across his face, mixed into the water dripping off his tangled hair.
The DiSangue priest swallowed. “This is a sacred—”
Dante didn’t even look at him. “You have the wrong brother. But keep that knife out, you’re going to need it,” he said conversationally, eyeing me like a wolf. Every instinct told me to run, but my leaden feet were rooted to the floor.
“You cannot do this, Dante!” Marcello was screaming now, red-faced, as if he was about to throw a clot. “You have been banished, declared Il Bando di Sangue. You are dead to this family, you are dead to me.”
“Do I look dead to you?” Dante’s gaze cut to him, sharp as a blade. “I am still your son, in blood and name. You think some sounds coming out of your mouth change that truth, Padre? You threw me to the monsters, and I survived. Now I’m back. Surprise.”
“Dante,” Gabriel shoved me further behind him. “Let us go speak privately, we could… gods, I can’t believe you’re here. Now.” He sucked in a shuddering breath, and my heart lurched. His composure was cracking, eyes wide with grief and hope and everything in between, shock written all over his face.
“You shouldn’t be here. It’s too dangerous,” he breathed, face pale.
My heart broke just a little bit more, hearing Gabriel’s raw, broken accusation. There was a world of pain wrapped up in those words, and for just a second—so fast I wondered if I’d imagined it—Dante’s face softened.
Then his mouth twisted into a crooked smile. “Fate has plans for all of us, fratellino, and this is exactly where I have to be right now.”
My mind spun. Fratellino. Little brother.
“Get him out,” Marcello snapped to his men. “Now.” Black-suited soldiers rushed toward us, hands on weapons, filling the side aisles, too many to count. Dante didn’t flinch. He simply lifted his hand.
A wall of magic tore through the room like a storm, shoving Gabriel and me apart. He was knocked one way, and I stumbled toward the priest, my bouquet flying, feet tangled in the under-skirting of this stupid dress.
Dante’s onslaught was decisive. Violent.
Sparing no one.
Vampires screamed as they went down, crawling across the floor, silk gowns and custom tuxedoes shredding as the desperate clawed their way toward the opening, a few disappearing into the storm raging outside.
The air around me crackled with something chaotic that did not respect the laws of dynasties or Dons.
No, this was the kind of power that forged dynasties, the kind that ended Dons.
A thrill of excitement invaded my veins, spreading like a shock to the system, and then I got angry.
I’d come to destroy these people, and this fucker was about to steal my only chance at vengeance.
The torches along the walls flared a sudden, eerie blue. The nearest guards froze mid-step, muscles locking, until everyone left in the room was trapped in place, eyes swiveling, bodies trembling under Dante’s compulsion.
Ten feet away, Gabriel swore under his breath. He tried to move—toward Dante, toward me—then stopped, like he’d hit an invisible wall. A wall that cut me off from not just him, but everyone else in the room.
A wall Dante created that was now visible, a blue-tinged dome riven with power that had slammed closed around us. Wave after wave of magic rippled outward from Dante, forming a clear boundary around the altar.
And trapped inside—the priest, a madman, and me.
A high, hysterical giggle escaped my lips. That sounded like the start of a bad joke, except none of this was remotely funny.