Chapter 2
EMBERLINE
Holy... I bit off the rest of my curse with a snap of fangs and teeth.
I was looking at a powerful witch ward.
Where none should exist.
A faint ring of magic still hovered above the water’s surface—like the glint of moonlight, easy to miss unless you were looking for it. The underwater sigils pulsed once, reacting to Giovanni’s passage, then faded to a softer glow.
This wasn’t just any portal. This was a fixed gate.
I rocked back on my heels. Clever.
My uncle was taking extraordinary precautions tonight, which meant whoever he was meeting… had to be important. And outside the Dynasty Council’s purview.
He hadn’t dematerialized or taken a boat to one of the islands, which meant he couldn’t risk leaving a trail. By using a fixed gate, he simply… vanished into thin air. Completely untraceable.
And to my knowledge, there was no record that a gate existed on this end of the city.
I knew of only two others in Venice. Ancient time rifts, anchored in place by complicated witch spells and arcane pagan magic, and gates capable of transporting you from Venice to anywhere in the world in the space of a heartbeat.
All you needed was to imagine where you were going.
Or step through a still-open gate.
I slid the heavy pendant back and forth along the chain around my neck, searching every surface, every shadow for some clue, any strange marking…
There. On the corner roof of an unassuming house, peeling plaster walls covered by a particularly stubborn vine, sat a carved dragon. Wings outstretched, the gargoyle could have been a simple adornment. But this dragon was carved from obsidian, the dark stone absorbing every drop of moonlight.
My heart hammered against my ribs.
This gate led to the Draconi training grounds.
That meant my uncle’s clandestine meeting was with Severin, Master of the Draconi Brotherhood. Head of all D’Immortali security and one of the most powerful Pentarchs in our Dynasty.
Who also happened to be Nico’s boss.
Who we thought was our ally.
I studied the gate, debating my next move. The outline shimmered faintly, which meant the wards remained open. Technically, I could slip through. Chances were, five hundred highly trained, trigger-happy males waited on the other side.
Chances were, I’d be cut down the moment I came through.
Logic told me to turn around.
Cut my losses, go back to Gabriel, and tell him everything. Let Nico handle Severin with his unflappable arrogance, Brotherhood connections, and dangerous charm.
But… if my husband was here, he wouldn’t hesitate. He would follow my uncle, find out why he and Severin—our supposed ally—were meeting in the middle of the night, then use that information to bury our enemies just a little bit deeper.
But… Dante was imprisoned in the Fossa, wherever that was.
And if we were trusting Severin with our secrets and he was really working for my uncle, then we were all dead anyway, so I had nothing to lose.
With that unshakeable logic, I dropped from the roof to the ground, the wind picking a few dark strands free from my braid. The wet stone was slick with algae from the overspray, and a few old wooden boats thumped faintly against the stone wall with the waves.
Before I lost my nerve, I pulled out the pendant, the crest pulsing faintly with silvery light as I marched to the water’s edge, and murmured a few words into the shimmering air. The underwater sigils flared brighter, and I dropped the pendant back between my breasts and hopped onto the stone wall.
The pendant was a cipher key, bespelled to pass through every Dynasty family’s wards.
Rare. Priceless. Untraceable. The holy grail of vampire cunning and deceit.
Don Marcello had kept this one under lock and key until Gabriel stole it three days ago and carelessly left it lying on a table in the safehouse. Right in plain sight.
His mistake.
Not even feeling the least bit guilty, I stepped off the wall straight into the air.
Blinding light flashed, and for a moment, nothing existed.
No water. No air. No sounds of the city.
Just awful, crushing pressure, like hands closing over every inch of me, squeezing and twisting. Then the gate spat me straight out into a patch of darkness where I flattened myself to the ground, expecting to be picked off immediately.
But the portal had been left unguarded.
A rookie mistake for the seasoned commander of our entire army, but who was I to judge?
“I guess nobody wants any witnesses tonight,” I muttered, ducking down behind a low clump of bushes as I got my bearings.
The air tasted sharper here, of steel and magic and rigid discipline.
The kind beaten into you with fists.
I blinked the last of the gate’s static from my eyes and took in the full effect of the Draconi fortress, an impenetrable stronghold rising from the center of the island like a lonely sentinel surrounded by lesser minions.
I shouldn’t be impressed… but gods, this place was magnificent.
Towering walls ringed the entire structure, wards crawling across their surface in glittering lines, the magic stark against dark, square-cut stone.
Monumental towers punctuated the corners, narrow slits glowing faintly.
An imposing keep thrust up from the center, all sharp angles and no ornament—a place built for defense, not beauty.
In the open courtyard, Draconi soldiers moved in precise lines, training even at this late hour. The crack of blades meeting, the thud of heavy bodies colliding, and barked commands echoed against those high walls in a harsh, brutal staccato rhythm.
Everywhere I looked, there was rigid order.
Lethal efficiency.
This place had forged Nico into what he was. A world where the only things that mattered were authority and obedience. It struck me that our chaotic little revolution was in direct opposition to this unflinching control.
To the long-held Dynasty tenants of honor and duty.
Values Severin held in high esteem. Values he might betray us over.
I crouched down, staring across the courtyard to where Giovanni stood with Severin Draconi, heads bent, voices too low to carry.
Moonlight gleaming off his bald head, Severin was dressed in the plain, dark uniform of his military Brotherhood rather than a noble’s finery.
He had a quiet, noble strength that was dangerous in its own right—I’d sensed his latent power at the Blood Compact—but my uncle represented a different sort of danger, the kind that would plunge a dagger into his back without hesitation.
I crept as far forward as I could, only catching a word here and there whenever the wind changed in my favor, but not enough to tell me if Severin was betraying us.
“It’s a simple fucking favor, and you can’t grant me that?” My uncle threw his hands up, his curse—unbecoming for a man of the cloth—still ringing off the high walls.
What favor? I leaned forward, a twig snapped beneath my knee, and Giovanni’s gaze focused on my hiding spot. Miraculously, a patrol of soldiers jogged past, sweat highlighting every muscle, and before I could second-guess myself, I dove through the gate back to Venice.
Then I climbed back onto that roof and waited.
What favor?
If Severin had turned on us, then I knew how this would end.
All the monsters were going to die, but before they did, I would drag them screaming into the light so everyone could witness their sins.