Chapter 50
DANTE
Death was inside the house.
Stalking the halls. I felt her in my bones, a cold, creeping presence waiting with infinite patience to claim another soul. If my father even had a soul.
Water glass in hand, I paused to look at Marcello one last time.
The Don’s body lay stretched across the bed like a king laid out for burial, the heavy drapes drawn tight to keep out the weak gray light creeping over Dominico Island.
The air was thick with the stench of rot barely held at bay by sage and myrrh, something bitter and medicinal that coated the back of my throat.
The poison had been insidious, etching blackened veins along his throat and face, his hands twisted, as if he was still suffering, even in death. An ignoble ending for a truly evil male, and all I could manage was to feel cheated.
Across from me, Gabriel stood rigid and silent, his gaze fixed on the male who had made us both. Ruined us both, in his own way—me in the Fossa and my brother through decades of cruelty and control.
Always control.
I should have felt relief. Satisfaction.
Instead, there was just… a dull sort of disgust, as if his death wasn’t quite gruesome enough, yet worse than anything I would have ever wished on anyone.
Servants were already preparing him for the pyre, arranging his robe to hide his hollow, sunken chest. His hair had turned wholly gray in the space of a few weeks, a halo of white around his gaunt, skeletal face.
With a respectful murmur, the entire room moved around Marcello, orbiting him like he still held power here.
He didn’t.
Not anymore.
His heavy gold signet ring was on my brother’s finger. In the next hour, Gabriel would use that to seal formal death notices to every family and claim the title of Don. And our war with Giovanni would be out in the open.
Good. I was fucking tired of sneaking around and hiding. I wasn’t made for the shadows. I was made for the battlefield, and I was ready to fight.
Out of nowhere, my hand trembled.
Water sloshed over the edge of the glass.
I went still, my body searching for something that wasn’t there.
For a second, I told myself it was nothing. That the noise of the room, the press of bodies, the wards woven into the castle walls were interfering with my ability to sense Emberline, but…
Where was my wife?
The glass crashed to the floor.
Servants scurried to clean up the mess.
Gabriel scanned my face, his steady gaze narrowed.
“We need to secure the island. Right now.” I hissed, already feeling the fire rise inside me, heat coating my skin.
“There’s something wrong.” I reached outward, through the castle, across the island, out over the water.
Nothing. There was nothing. “Lock this entire place down,” I shouted, tearing out of the room, past stunned servants and soldiers watching with their mouths hanging open.
The hallway blurred as I tore through it, boots striking stone hard enough to echo. Guards stepped aside without being told, something in my expression warning them off before I could open my mouth.
I burst through the bedroom door hard enough that it slammed against the wall.
Empty.
The mattress was half on the floor, sheets twisted from where she’d fought.
Two male scents in the room. The cutting, chemical smell of chloroform saturated the air, strong enough to knock out a horse.
My wife’s faint scent lingered beneath that—citrus and lavender.
I bent over and roared, screaming out all my rage and frustration.
The demon tried to explode, but I held him back. Bringing this house down around me wouldn’t help my wife, and there were people inside. Loyal servants. Family.
Emberline was gone, and she was in danger, and I needed to think clearly. She wasn’t on the island. In fact, I couldn’t pinpoint her location, not even through our blood bond.
Cold settled in my gut.
“No,” I muttered, stepping further inside. “No, no…”
I could still smell her. See the imprint of her body in the bed.
But through the bond—nothing. I reached for that tether instinctively, grasping for the thread that had never failed me before. Ember. Answer me. Where are you? Only a hollow, yawning silence answered, and my heart seized in my chest.
Gabriel stepped into the room, his presence calm, controlled. The heir, fully assuming his new role as Don, two soldiers flanking him. “What happened? Where is Emberline?”
I rounded on him, the words tearing out of me. “They took her, they drugged her, and I can’t sense her through the bond; it’s like our connection has been cut off.”
“They knew we were distracted.” His gaze swept the space in a single, efficient pass, jaw clenching—the twisted sheets, the disturbed bedding, the open door.
He turned to the soldiers. “Do a head count, I want to know who the fuck this was. Find Nico, tell him I need him at the house,” he snapped over his shoulder. “Now.”
They scattered instantly.
I tore through the castle like a storm unleashed, ripping open doors, shoving past anyone who got in my way.
Every room. Every corridor. Every shadowed corner, muttering to myself the entire time.
By the time Gabriel and I regrouped in the outer courtyard, my pulse hammered, the thin air doing nothing to cool the heat building under my skin.
I needed it to pour down rain. I needed to submerge myself in the lagoon before I imploded.
“We have to find her,” I growled, gripping my brother’s shirt, shaking him. “This was Giovanni. He’s after the Basin. He’ll hurt her, Gabriel, and we have to get to her before he does.”
My mind was chaos, my emotions twisted wreckage. The ifrit was playing a waiting game, looking for my moment of weakness, and when that happened…
“You and Nico have to go after them. I can’t…” I swallowed down my pride. “Lock me up, lock me away. I’m dangerous. I’m no use to her, not like this.” I was babbling, driven by a primal fear that stole my breath.
My brother wrapped his hands around my wrists and slammed me against the wall.
“You will get your shit together and stop talking nonsense. If Giovanni did this, where would he take her?” Gabriel demanded, and only then did I see the fear in his eyes, the same as was in mine. “Think, Dante. Where do we start searching?”
“He… he wouldn’t take her to the palazzo.” I dragged a hand down my face, trying to force my thoughts into something resembling order. “The ruined abbey is compromised. Their family island is a possibility.”
I turned away, pacing fast enough to grind gravel beneath my boots. I reached for the bond again, shoving violently against that empty space like I could force the silence to answer.
Nothing.
Nico burst into the courtyard. His keen gaze flicked between us, taking in the tension, the way the entire house had shifted into something chaotic and unstable.
“A soldier told me there was trouble. What happened?” he asked.
“Ember’s gone,” I said flatly.
“Taken,” Gabriel added. “Likely within the last ten minutes.”
“Fuck,” Nico breathed, “Did they hurt her? How many? Do we know where?” He whirled to me. “Where is she?”
It pissed me off that he was so afraid. Pissed me off that he thought he had the right to fear for my wife as I did.
“I can’t feel her,” I said, forcing my admission out through clenched teeth. “I should be able to… but she’s…” I cut myself off, dragging in a rough inhale. “Our bond has gone dark. I can’t feel her at all.”
I couldn’t explain how our bond worked; it just did. I’d heard of bonds like this. Mating bonds. But I never called ours by that name. Somehow, I figured I was tempting fate if I called it anything at all.
“Dark? What does that mean, dark?” he repeated.
“She’s not dead,” I said quickly, just the words making my stomach turn. “This is different. The connection is still there, it’s just… blocked at the other end. By magic.”
By someone strong, like Giovanni. Someone who knew enough about our connection to know the right spells to cut me off. Someone who had spies in the right place at just the right time.
“You know why.” Nico’s jaw worked. “He wants the Basin. He thinks she knows where it is.”
The three of us looked at each other, and I thought I would be sick.
“She doesn’t know.” Nico scanned my face frantically. “If they ask her about the Basin, and she doesn’t give them something…”
I squeezed my eyes shut, imagining my brave, stubborn wife facing off against her uncle. She’d defy him on principle and damn the consequences, but she’d never been tortured. Never been hurt by someone who enjoyed causing pain.
I had, and the thought of her hurt, scared, alone—
I turned away, bracing my palms against the cold stone of the courtyard wall. For a second, I couldn’t breathe past the tightness in my chest. I couldn’t do this again, I couldn’t…
“Dante…” Gabriel started.
“I should have stayed with her,” I muttered, the words raw. “She needed water, and I left her alone. I sensed—” I broke off, swallowing hard. “I thought something felt off, and I still left.”
“He won’t kill her,” Nico said quietly, as if that made any of this better.
I blew out a harsh, humorless breath. “That fucking bastard has already killed her once, remember? And we took the one thing he needs for his plan to work. He’ll do anything to get the Basin back.”
“He won’t kill Emberline,” he repeated. “She’s still leverage against us. He won’t waste that.”
“But he will hurt her.” Gabriel stepped closer, his voice low but steady. “Which means we have to locate her. Fast.”
I straightened slowly, dragging myself back together piece by shattered piece as the ifrit shifted inside me, searching for a way out.
“He wouldn’t go back to the palazzo or the ruins,” I decided. “He’d stay out of the city. And the DiRavello island… somehow, I can’t imagine him taking her there. He’s somewhere farther away, secure, outside of our usual territory.”
“We’ll find her.” Nico checked over his weapons. “There has to be a way to track her, and when we find her, we go and get our girl.”
A growl built in my chest, and Nico just met my glower with one of his own, body braced for whatever violence I decided to unleash.
“She is the heart of us, Dante.” Nico’s shoulders sagged, all the fight draining out of him. “We all care for her, and none of us would ever be the same if we lost her. She means too much to us.”
“To me,” I snapped, sharper than I intended.
Nico stood his ground, holding my stare. “To all of us. I won’t apologize for loving her, or protecting her, or worrying over her. I’m done pretending what I feel is wrong. She matters to all of us.”
Fuck. I turned away, scrubbing my face, trying to stay angry. But I couldn’t. It wasn’t his fault he’d fallen in love with Emberline. I’d lasted all of one night, and I’d been a lost cause.
Gabriel’s hand landed on my shoulder. “He’s right, Dante. I can’t imagine spending a day without her. This isn’t something we planned, Dante. It just… happened.”
Fucking hell. My brother, too. For a moment, none of us spoke.
The tension that had been building since the Fossa—the jealousies and petty rivalries—became completely irrelevant against the knowledge that Emberline was in real danger.
“She matters,” Nico repeated. “More than our bullshit.”
“We have to find her.” I let out a slow breath, forcing the rage, the fear, the guilt into something usable. Something I could use to carve out Giovanni’s heart from his chest.
Something that didn’t end with me turning into a ball of flames.
“I… maybe I can.” Gabriel flushed before he looked away. “I fed from her last night. I should be able to follow the blood bond; it’s fresh enough. They might have used magic to block you, but there’s a chance their magic won’t work on me.”
“Then we find her, and we bring her back.” Nico’s mouth curved faintly, though there was no humor in it. “Together.”
“Teamwork is dreamwork,” Gabriel echoed.
I rolled my eyes, reminding myself that punching him right now would undermine his message of unity.