Chapter 26
GAbrIEL
The black, unmarked helicopter hit the desert like the fist of an angry god.
Sand spun up beneath the rotors, a violent storm that swallowed everything—the world became skin-shredding grit and shrieking wind, and I wondered if this was how the Fossa finished us off, after all—by burying us in a torrent of sand.
The side door slid open, and a pale-faced, sweating mortal in a headset leaned out, screaming something I didn’t need to hear to understand.
Get your asses moving. Now.
Nico went first, hauling himself up and in with brutal efficiency. He leaned down and lifted Emberline inside, blood smeared along her cheek and throat, then Dante went next, crowding in beside her, hand clasping her waist, as if he couldn’t bear to let her go.
This was it, then.
I swayed on my feet as reality swept in, jealousy turning to despair. My brother was alive, and my fantasies of having a life with Emberline were as dead as the prison we’d left behind us. It had been a fool’s dream, and now I’d have to find a way to survive without seeing her every day.
Knowing she belonged to my brother and never to me.
I climbed in last, yanking the door shut behind me, cutting off that choking dust.
I swore to the gods, if I never saw red sand again, it would be too soon.
As we lifted off, I took my first good look at my brother in the light.
Dry skin stretched over bone, blue eyes fever bright.
He was starving. The kind of starvation that wasn’t fixed by sucking a guard or two dry.
It would take him weeks to recover his full strength, and if I knew my brother at all, he wouldn’t wait that long.
No, that haunted look in his eyes told me the second we landed, he planned to head straight to the DiRavello palazzo and rip Giovanni’s lying head off his plump little body.
I couldn’t say I blamed him.
I’d spent one night in that fucking place, and I wanted to kill everyone who was responsible for creating that hellhole.
But Emberline was curled into him, face pressed against his chest—even though he smelled like death in this enclosed space—her fingers threaded through his. I doubted anything would pry them apart for the next few weeks.
My brother caught my appraising look. “I’m fine,” he mouthed, tipping his head back against the plastic headrest and closing his eyes, rings of dirt and blood circling his throat.
The cramped cabin reeked of human fear. There were too many bodies in too small a space—four vampires packed in with five mortals and enough tension that someone might snap.
One of them managed to make eye contact. “You have the coordinates?” I asked, touched the beacon implanted in the nape of my neck, the one that had been sending our location back to my new, very valuable friend, the arms dealer, sitting silent in the back of the chopper, which suited me just fine.
Fucker could keep his mouth shut forever. He’d served his purpose.
“We locked in on your signal last night, so yes.” The young man touched the cross hanging around his neck as Nico rolled his eyes. “Five minutes to drop off.”
“We’re heading back to the fixed gate,” I explained to my brother. “It’s not far and will take us back to the city in one jump. We can dematerialize to the safehouse from there.”
The humans exchanged a look, but kept their mouths shut.
I supposed, in their line of work, questions led to a bullet in the head, which made my life so much easier.
Mortals were delicate creatures, and right now, trapped in a vibrating tin coffin with four vampires—two of us bloodied, one half-dead, one barely holding himself together—they were realizing they were in over their heads.
“You did well. There’s a bonus for each of you,” I told them as the desert fell away beneath us in a rush of red sand and broken rock. I took one last look at the gaping hole that had been the Fossa—now a gash in the sand, as if someone had reached down and stabbed the desert with a knife.
Emberline’s eyes fluttered for half a second before she forced them open again, stubborn as always. Dante wrapped his arms around her, and the next second, she was fast asleep.
Nico braced a hand on the ceiling, trading a long, pointed look with me.
Yes, we had my brother back, but we were fucked.
We’d just declared war on Giovanni, and whatever hope we’d had of operating from the shadows was gone.
Chances were someone had survived the carnage, and word would—eventually—get back to him that Emberline was alive, Dante was free, and then our battles would be fought in the open, on the streets of Venice.
Dante kept his arms around his wife, watching the humans beneath lowered brows, fangs showing beneath his battered lip, something unhinged in his gaze. He’d stayed away from civilization for a decade after he escaped the Fossa last time, because he’d been… unfit to be around other vampires.
He’d been ranting about the same thing when we’d tried to get him out.
I had to wonder… what if a month of torture, starvation, and fucking brutality sent him back to that dark place? Or would he pull himself together and fight, as we’d planned?
The mortal arms dealer sat opposite us, legs wide, one thumb casually looped into his pistol harness like he was trying to prove he wasn’t afraid. Which was a lie.
His pulse throbbed in the hollow of his throat.
His sweat reeked of adrenaline.
But he was that particular breed of mortal we vampires dealt with over the centuries, both greedy and tough.
The kind who would do anything, risk anything, for enough coin.
They had existed since the first ships landed at the Venice docks, and they would exist long after I was gone, but for today, this mortal had earned his money.
He cleared his throat, trying to maintain the appearance that he was in control in front of his men, and I could hardly blame him. In our line of work, weakness—for both of our species—was a death sentence, and I might have need of him again.
“Well,” he shouted over the rotor thrum, voice pitched too loud, “I’d say I came through for you and then some.”
I just stared.
He shifted in his seat. “I did everything you asked. I delivered. I blew the perimeter, I gave you your,”—his eyes flicked to Dante, then away as if looking directly at him might invite death—“your kin back. So. Let’s renegotiate.”
Nico’s gaze slid toward him, slow and flat. Even Dante’s eyes narrowed, exhausted but sharp.
I leaned forward just enough that the arms dealer’s heart rate spiked again, letting my voice cut through the noise without raising it.
“You’ll get what you’re owed. As agreed.”
He swallowed, his Adam's apple bobbing beneath the sheen of sweat, his men looking anywhere but at the two of us. “Look, this was a delicate operation, and I trust you to pay me, I’m not saying I don’t, but I’m just… I took on a lot of risk today. Men and munitions, anything could have gone wrong.”
“And yet, it didn’t,” I said evenly. “And never call my character into question. You’ll get the balance of your payment the moment we’re back in Venice.”
The arms dealer’s mouth tightened. A flicker of resentment crossed his face. He couldn’t bully me the way he bullied other men, couldn’t leverage another few hundred thousand out of me because he decided he had the advantage.
But there was a thin line between greed and foolishness.
This time, he tried a more dangerous tack. His eyes narrowed. “I figured it out, you know. Why you picked me. Giovanni can’t trace this back to you because you used a human. Now, I held up my end. I’ll want something substantial in return.”
“I’d say your life is pretty godsdamned substantial,” Nico purred, not looking at him.
“Of course, I might be wrong about that. On the other hand, we could kill you all, bury you out here, and no one would be the wiser, and see if the city misses a bunch of piece-of-shit mercenaries.” He shrugged.
“I doubt they would, but I could be wrong.”
The arms dealer went still.
“And to think I was actually considering using your services in the future.” I tsked. “You will be paid,” I repeated. “Fairly, for services rendered. Ask more of me, and you’ll discover the difference between my patience and Nico’s blades.”
Silence fell after that, heavy despite the roar of the aircraft.
The helicopter droned on, slicing through the heat. The desert before us was endless sun-bleached dunes that stretched out into eternity. Finally, the helicopter banked right and started to drop.
I glanced at my brother.
He was alive. We hadn’t been too late. I should’ve felt relief.
Instead, I felt something colder.
Rage at what Giovanni had done. Rage at what had almost become of us in that place. Rage that Emberline had been in danger, that I’d nearly been outmaneuvered, when I’d been so sure of myself yesterday.
And beneath my anger, the quiet clarity of what came next.
The helicopter dropped, and Dante’s arms tightened around his wife, holding her steady. Nico’s hand pressed tight to the ceiling as we dropped lower, the bright desert turning rockier.
Nothing out here looked familiar, because everything was exactly the same. I pulled out the cipher from a small pocket sewn into the hem of my pants, hidden where the guards never thought to search.
The metal was warm and getting hotter.
The skids hit rock, not soft sand, the cabin shaking. Emberline’s eyes popped open. The door slid open again, and a sweep of hot air rushed in, grit filling my lungs and abrading my face.
Nico leapt down with catlike precision, then turned, reaching up for Emberline as she climbed out. Dante followed—with agonizing slowness—and I was right beside him, shoulder under his arm before his knees could give way.
The mortals stayed inside.
Their job was to deliver us to our required destination. Nothing more.
The arms dealer leaned out, pointing a finger like he still needed the illusion of authority. “Don’t forget,” he called. “You owe me.”
I stared up at him, dust swirling around the rotors, my hair whipping around my face, his eyes squinting against the wind.
“And I told you,”—my voice carried over the beat of the rotors—“I never forget.”
His finger lowered. The door slammed shut, and the helicopter lifted off, rising into the bright blue sky and vanishing over the ridge, leaving us with silence and the thinnest outline of a door, glowing in the air in front of us.
I stepped forward, sand crunching under my boots, the cipher in my hand.
The silver cipher was etched with symbols and some old runes, a language from centuries ago that was no longer spoken. It had been passed down through our family’s hands for generations. A key disguised as a relic. My father’s talisman, until I’d stolen it to bring down his kingdom.
I tightened my grip on it and murmured an unlocking spell I’d learned as a child.
Light flared—muted, silver-blue—and the portal opened, widening into a rippling oval, and beyond that, cobblestones and houses stretched, the blue of the Grand Canal, sparkling in the midday sun.
“We have to move fast,” I braced myself. “Ready?”
We stepped through, and for an instant, the world vanished.
There was no up. No down. No sound but the thrum of magic, the taste of iron on my tongue, the sensation of being drawn through a needle’s eye.
Then… the smell of saltwater and ancient stone flooded my senses. Noise and voices and the steady tread of a million feet filtered in, the soft slap of water against ancient stone.
We reappeared on the Riva dei Sette Martiri—open air, open sky, middle of the day—the air impossibly thick and humid after the arid desert, the city of Venice boisterous after the darkness and grit of the Fossa. Two humans walked past, taking pictures with their phones. They stopped.
Saw four figures appear out of thin air like ghosts—dust-coated, blood-streaked, one of us barely upright, Emberline’s upper body smeared in red, Nico’s deathly expression carved from stone.
They froze in place, phones still raised.
For half a second, I could see their thoughts.
That’s not possible. Where did they come from? Did you get that on film?
Nico’s mouth twitched. “I’ll handle this,” he murmured, then he was beside them, casually deleting pictures off their phones, pointing them back toward the city, their expressions pleasantly dazed.
“I’ll carry my brother. Nico, you take Emberline,” I held up my hand as they both started to argue.
“We don’t have time for this. Fight with me all you want once we’re back to the safe house, but this,”—I swept my hand across the wide-open walkway, where tourists were strolling,—“is not the place for us to be right now.”
Nico nodded. His eyes scanned the waterfront—guards, cameras, anyone watching too closely. Then he put his arms around Ember, and I took my brother’s arm, praying I had enough strength left for this.
Venice vanished.
And we reappeared inside the safehouse in the space of a breath.
The house felt like a fucking fortress, steeped in wards and Nico’s special brand of magic, secure and hidden away on a back street no one even knew the name of.
My computer was still sitting on the kitchen table, and Ember’s half-drunk cup of tea was on the counter.
I helped my brother to the next room and settled him onto the couch.
“Home sweet home. Take a minute to get your bearings. Nico will want to look Emberline over first, then he’ll take a look at you. You’ll need a healer, a good one.”
Dante looked past me to where Nico bent over Emberline in the other room, bared his fangs, then dragged a hand down his face. “Sorry, sorry, just… fuck.”
“Yeah. Let’s all give ourselves a minute here.” I looked over my shoulder to where Nico and Ember were talking in low, hushed voices, heads bent close together. “Look, things got intense back there. Nico’s head is fucked up. She lost a lot of blood. You haven’t fed properly in weeks. I’m…”
I was what? Worried about leaving them together alone?
They were husband and wife, for fuck’s sake, and none of my business.
Except now, they were. She was. Fuck.
“I’m good, Gabriel, and I’d never hurt Emberline,” Dante clasped my arm in a bruising grip.
“Thank you for watching over her. It’s the only thing that got me through, knowing you were here, taking care of her.
” He swallowed, gratitude blazing from his eyes, while I felt like the most worthless brother in the world.
“I made you a promise. We made sure no harm came to her and tried to keep her under control.” My lips quirked. “But you know how she is.”
“Oh, that I do,” he murmured, but he wasn’t looking at me; he was watching her and Nico together, his brows pinched together, a dark, glowering expression building.
And all I could do was sit there, feeling like an asshole, because once the two of them disappeared upstairs together, I planned to go and drink myself blind.