Chapter 53
DANTE
Blood stained the pavement around us, still slowly leaking from her wrists, sliced to the bone as I applied compressions, pressed my ear to her cold chest again, my hands shaking as I fed another tendril of magic into her.
Why the fuck had I left her alone?
How the fuck was I going to live without her?
“Do you even know what you’re doing?” Nico hissed, crouched down beside me, watching the blue glow sink slowly into gray flesh.
“I’ve only healed battle wounds, broken bones, pit injuries, never…
” I couldn’t fucking breathe, couldn’t fucking think, not with her body so godsdamned still on the slick stone, her dark hair plastered to her face, skin the color of marble in winter.
Everything stank of algae, salt, and the copper tang of my own blood where I’d already bitten open my wrist, smearing it against her lips.
Nothing.
No flutter under my fingers. No tiny hitch of breath. Nothing but the distant slap of black water against ancient stone and the roar of panic in my ears.
“Dante.” Nico’s voice came from my right, rough and breathless. “Stop. It’s been too long.”
I ignored him and tipped Emberline’s head back again, sealing my mouth over hers, forcing air into lungs that refused to expand, sending more magic into a heart that refused to beat, even for me.
Please, please, please, just one fucking thump, that’s all I’m fucking asking for.
I’d been too slow.
Too fucking late.
Why did I leave tonight? Why didn’t I come home sooner? Why couldn’t I have waited when I knew, I fucking knew she’d try something like this? She couldn’t leave me, she couldn’t, not when everything was so new, and we were just…
I pressed my palm to her sternum, felt ribs shift beneath the pressure as I fed more and more magic into her. Rough, healing magic, but I poured everything I had into her in shuddering waves until my muscles shook.
“Breathe,” I snarled, tears blurring my vision as I gripped her shoulders and shook her. “You don’t get to leave me like this. Do you hear me? You don’t fucking get to leave me alone.”
Trembling fingers closed around my wrists. “Dante.” Nico hunched over at the edge of my vision, his shadowy shield fraying apart, his eyes wet, his face lined with grief. “Stop this. You’re going to break her ribs.”
“I don’t care,” I rocked her back and forth. “She is not leaving me.”
“We have to get her out of here,” Nico’s voice shook as he glanced up at the still-dark facade of the DiRavello palazzo. “I can’t keep us hidden forever. Make your peace and let her go.”
The words sliced through me.
Never. I was never fucking letting her go.
As far as peace… Anger poured through me in great, thunderous waves, a black river with no end as I imagined all the ways I was going to make Giovanni bleed. Suffer. Scream.
I jerked away from Nico and sank my fangs into my wrist, hot, thick blood flooding my mouth. I forced her jaw open, letting it spill between her lips, praying it would spark her soul back to life.
Come back to me, Ember. I rocked back on my heels, tears burning my eyes.
Come back, and I will never leave you again. Come back, and I will spend every day worshiping you like a queen, every day telling you how I can’t live a day without you. Just… please don’t leave me here alone.
A trail of crimson tracked down the corner of her mouth, mixing with canal water, pooling darkly at the angle of her throat. Nothing.
“She would never give up without a fight,” I rasped. “She’s too stubborn, she…”
“Godsdamn it, Dante.” Nico’s voice broke. “She’s gone.” He crouched down, staring me dead in the eye. “If she were older, maybe she might have survived, but she was underwater for too long, and she’s half frozen…” His voice trailed off, brow pinching together.
“She’s half frozen, which means her body could be in stasis. Enough that…” His gaze snapped to mine, something intense burning there, enough to jumpstart my dead, broken heart. “There might be a way,” he began, then shook his head. “No, I shouldn’t…”
My heart lurched. “Tell me, asshole, or I’ll beat it out of you.”
“You won’t like it.”
“I don’t give a damn what I like. If there is any chance of saving her, I’ll take it.”
He hesitated, jaw working. “We could take her to Emilia. Rumor is, there’s a ritual that brings the dead back to life.”
I’d heard the whispered stories—blood rites in underground chapels, bodies that should have stayed buried getting up and walking under DiSangue sigils, vampires who were never truly vampires again.
“There has to be another way. Any other way,” I groaned, but my voice lacked conviction because even that future was better than a future with no Emberline in it.
“You want her back?” He jerked his chin toward her body. “Or do you want to sit here and argue while she slips away from us?”
“I would give my life to have her back,” I said without hesitation.
Nico’s brow pinched even tighter. “Emilia’s wards will gut us the moment we cross,” he warned. “And we don’t have time to ask for permission.”
“Then let’s not die getting her there.” I slid my arms under my wife, lifting her gently. Her head lolled against my shoulder, wet hair cold against my neck. “At least she won’t feel anything. Us… we won’t be so lucky.”
With that warning, Venice broke into shadow and light as we flew through time and space, where there was no up, no down, only crushing pressure and freezing air blasting my face, the sensation of falling.
Dematerializing with another person was difficult. With a limp, unresponsive body in my arms, my mind a tangled mess, and my own magic badly depleted, this was like dragging a stone up a mountain.
Then the world slammed back into place.
My knees hit a rocky shore, arms wrapped around Ember, holding her tight as I crashed through invisible wards. Hungry, vicious magic snapped around us like a thorny web woven from lightning. Wind howled, lashing my face.
My body ignited with pain, a thousand hot needles driving through already over-taxed flesh into bone. I curled myself around Emberline, trying to protect her from the worst of Emilia’s wards.
“Fuck,” Nico groaned, his head snapping back. Shadows leapt from his skin, meeting the magic head-on, smoking everywhere they touched until he looked like he was on fire. “This is fucking…”
Centuries upon centuries of wards layered upon each other, wicked, forbidden spells and ancient blood rites, occult magic wove together to form an impenetrable shield.
One that only recognized DiSangue blood and invited guests.
We were neither.
I threw every drop of magic I had left into a protective shield around Emberline, my muscles seizing as I started going into shock. Beside me, Nico torqued and cursed, skin flaking to ash, his eyes finding mine for one agonizing second.
Nico was burning, blisters bubbling up on his exposed skin, but I was immune to fire, so the wards were shredding me apart, instead, ripping long, jagged gashes into my skin.
We’re going to fucking die.
Pain cut off like someone had thrown a switch, the abrupt absence almost as brutal as being flayed apart.
I found myself on my knees in a wide courtyard lined with ancient olive trees, Emberline clutched against me. My clothes were smoking, torso and arms lined with bleeding wounds where the wards had chewed through flesh.
Backed by four of her silent priests, Emilia DiSangue stood at the top of a set of marble steps leading into the main palazzo, her silhouette framed by a hazy red glow, or maybe my fucking eyes were just bleeding.
She wore a red negligee like a splash of blood against her white skin, dark eyes reflecting light like a predator’s, a fresh bite mark on her throat like a badge.
“Of all people, you two should know better than to…” Emilia’s gaze dropped to the body in my arms, and her expression sharpened.
“Well, well,” she purred. “Il piccolo DiRavello. La prescelta per il sacrificio.”
I forced myself to my feet. Every muscle protested, but I locked my knees and bowed my head, just enough to be respectful without subservience.
“Emilia,” I rasped. “We need your help.”
“I do have eyes,” she said dryly. “You have brought me a dead female.”
“She isn’t—” My throat felt like I’d swallowed glass. “There was… she was underwater for too long. I was too late.”
Emilia’s dark, calculating gaze slid to Nico, his burns still smoking.
“And you two thought that if you brought me her corpse, I would what, precisely? Bring her back to life using ancient magic that is expressly forbidden by Dynasty laws?”
I tightened my grip on Emberline. “Please,” I begged, not caring how I sounded. Pride was a cheap luxury I couldn’t afford. “I will pay any price you ask, do anything you want, just help her.”
She arched a brow. “Anything?”
“Anything at all.” Nothing mattered now. Not my vendetta, not my plan to clean up the Dynasty. Only Emberline mattered, and I would sell my soul to save my wife.
Emilia closed her eyes, reached out, and placed two fingers against Emberline’s throat, just below the jaw. Then her hand slid lower, pressing over Emberline’s heart as I held my breath.
“You were almost too late,” Emilia’s voice drifted lower. “Her soul is unmoored, and she is very nearly gone.”
Something inside me tore.
“But not far,” Emilia muttered, almost to herself. “Drowning is…you are fortunate. The line between here and there blurs in water… and factoring in the cold… there might very well be a chance. Yes, this could work, if the gods smile upon us tonight.”
Slowly, Emilia opened her eyes.
“Understand,” she intoned, the warmth leaching from her tone, leaving something colder behind, “what you are asking is not a healing. This magic is expressly forbidden, according to the Compact. You are asking me to cheat death, and the cost will be high.”
“The cost is mine to pay,” I vowed, as Nico shot me a pointed glare. “And if that means she survives, then I will pay whatever price you ask, Lady Emilia.”
She straightened, folding her hands.
“Very well,” she decided. “I will grant you this favor. I will call her back.”
Relief slammed into me so hard my knees almost buckled. I buried my face in Emberline’s wet hair, fighting back my tears. “Thank you, I—”
“Do not thank me yet, boy.” Emilia’s voice was a cold lash across my hope. “You will not like the cost.”
“I already told you,” I met her serpentine stare with the same one I’d used on adversaries in the pits. “Any price. I will pay in blood or whatever currency you desire, even my life. Because no cost is too high to save the female I love.”
She studied me for a long, slow moment.
“In that case,”—her eyes narrowed down to slits—“let this be a test of your will. You survived The Fossa; perhaps you will survive this, too.”
She gestured to the priests. “Quickly. Prepare the lower chapel. We’ll need plenty of salt, light all the candles, and one of you fetch my black book.”
“Follow me.” She ran those cold eyes over me, and I felt like my skin was being peeled back, one layer at a time. “Do try not to bleed on the floor any more than you already have. The stone remembers.”