Chapter 24
GAbrIEL
My world was nothing but dust and screaming.
The Fossa was choking on its own ruination. Sand and grit hung so thick in the air, torchlight turned to smears, and fleeing bodies became silhouettes. The dome above us cracked open like an egg, and through the ever-widening wound, sunlight knifed down in hard, bright bands.
The light revealed what the darkness had kept hidden.
Blood, staining the sand black. Broken bodies, dazed faces streaked with ash and hope. Inmates stampeding like animals who finally smelled freedom in the air.
Guards shouted orders over the panic, trying to rally lines that no longer existed. To subdue prisoners who were no longer docile. Years of discipline were collapsing, right alongside the ceiling.
Up on the broken platform, the Overseer swung his head back and forth, peering through the dust-choked air, trying to find us in the chaos. His executioner was positioned behind my brother, a huge axe gripped in his beefy hand. They were luring us in.
A trap to finish us all off in one fell swoop.
But that fucker wouldn’t hesitate to kill my brother out of sheer spite, and that was a chance I wasn’t willing to take. I kept my head low as the three of us navigated the confusion, never losing sight of the burly executioner, the Overseer, or the guards holding my brother’s chains.
Beside me, Emberline slipped through the crowd like a shadow, black hair loose, blood drenching her chest, gripping a short sword. Nico moved on my other side, shoulders squared, no hint of confusion, expression set in that lethal calm he always wore right before a battle.
The sifting curtain of dust turned us into shadows. We used the broken hunks of stone for cover, darting from one to the next, dodging the fighting between prisoners and guards. Crouched behind a hunk of rock, I paused…
Long enough for the three of us to exchange a look.
Emberline nodded once, Nico’s jaw tightened, and we split.
Nico angled left to lure a knot of guards away. Emberline slipped right, using the stampeding prisoners as cover, coming up behind the platform and into position.
I took the center, weaving between the crushed bodies littering the sandy pit. Once I cleared the frenzied fighting, I’d hurl myself into the jaws of a monster.
And I couldn’t fucking wait to cram the Overseer’s brutality right back down his throat.
A scream rent the air as a guard went down beneath a swarm of prisoners. Another tried to raise a crossbow and barely got his shot off before two convicts overwhelmed him with stolen swords. The tide was turning. The guards were outnumbered.
Half the prisoners were now armed, and honestly, more fucking power to them.
Another explosion rocked the ground beneath me, and I thanked the gods I’d left that mortal arms dealer alive.
A miracle, considering how badly I’d wanted to slit his throat during our meeting at the docks.
He’d been arrogant—stinking of sweat and greed—until I’d put a gun to his temple and offered him a choice.
Help us. Or die, another nameless victim of Venice’s dark criminal underbelly.
He’d chosen the former because if mortals loved anything more than money, it was breathing.
The mortal was an integral piece of today’s success. Giovanni had spies everywhere—vampires in every city, every port, hidden in every shadow. That crafty vampire knew everything that happened within our world.
But using humans as allies?
A human might as well have been invisible.
So, our arms dealer had slithered out of Venice like a rat from a plague-infested ship and become our wrathful god from the air. Dropping bombs. Blowing up the perimeter, punching holes through ancient stone and centuries of arrogance.
And as long as we were on one of those helicopters within the next fifteen minutes, Giovanni, even with all his power and influence, would never get here in time to stop us.
The thought filled me with cold satisfaction as I broke free of the crowd and approached my brother.
Blood stained his mouth and chest. He’d fed then, and beneath the layers of filth, he was healing.
Those guards holding his chains looked nervous as fuck because even weakened, my brother could tear them limb from limb.
Dante’s head lifted, a vicious smile creasing his lips as our eyes locked.
Hello, brother. Come to join the fun?
You have a strange idea of fun. Half the prisoners and guards are pulped beneath the roof.
Pity about that. Dante peered behind me, a crease in his brow. Where is she…
The Overseer shouted, the executioner swung up his axe, easily five feet long, the head forged from a solid hunk of iron, etched with markings.
I didn’t think. I moved, throwing myself between that blade and my brother.
But Emberline was faster, materializing out of the gloom like a wraith, sword gripped in both hands as she surged forward from behind. The executioner, lifting the heavy axe up over his head, didn’t stand a chance.
His body bowed as she stabbed the blade into his back, the tip punching out through his sternum.
The axe clattered to the ground as Dante moved, swinging those chains out in a wide circle, looping them around the nearest guard’s neck, snapping his head sideways.
Nico and I took out the remaining guards.
We formed a defensive line while Dante reached for Emberline, his fingers skimming her cheek, when a guttural laugh rolled through the dust and noise.
“What a sweet reunion,” the Overseer’s voice boomed over the chaos. “Too bad it will be your last.”
Somehow, the bastard was still alive, cleverly out of our reach on the floor of the pit, surrounded by eight burly guards. He was still naked to the waist, something my brother didn’t miss.
“He’s mine,” Dante murmured, pulling Emberline against him, where I was forced to watch them stare into each other’s eyes as she used those keys to unlock his shackles. He dragged his knuckles down her bruised cheek. “Are you alright, tesoro? You gave me a scare out there.”
“You gave me a scare for the past month, so consider us even. How long do we have, Gabriel?”
I swallowed down my jealousy and checked my watch. “Ten minutes until extraction. Let’s wrap this up.”
Dante’s eyebrows rose in a silent question, then his attention was wholly focused on the grinning monster we all wanted dead.