Chapter 54
DANTE
Iwatched from the corner of the library as Rocco explained an overly complicated plan to access the complex where Blackwood had taken my wife.
Something about his explanation felt…off.
The details were right, Nico nodding as Rocco went over security measures and the number of guards we could expect. But there was something too practiced in the cadence of his words, in the way he stopped for a leisurely sip of brandy, his expression almost… pleased.
Out of nowhere, the bond flared to life.
Terror hit me like a blade driven straight through my chest—air ripped from my lungs, my body locking as something cold and violent and suffocating flooded my lungs.
Whatever was happening to Emberline… was happening to me.
The frantic, choking pull for breath that never came. Darkness sweeping in. The void that followed. Water. She was in the water.
I staggered out into the hallway, slapping a hand against the stone to keep from collapsing. My heart kicked into a savage rhythm as I fought for air, then Gabriel was there, bracing me up. “She’s drowning,” I choked, the words tearing up my throat. “They’re drowning her.”
Then the bond went eerily, horrifyingly still.
Like a flame snuffed out forever.
My vision blurred. For a split second, I couldn’t move. My eyes swung up to Gabriel’s, my brother catching my arm before I went down.
The bond surged again, and my knees buckled. “She’s back, but I can’t track her,” I growled, fury and helplessness twisting together. “I feel her emotions all over the place, but there’s no way for me to find her.” I slammed my fist into the wall.
“Then stop getting caught in her fear and start thinking,” Gabriel snapped. “Nico. Get out here.”
Nico strode out, took one look at us, and somehow knew.
“He can feel her?”
“Flashes,” Gabriel snapped, bracing me upright. “But it might be enough…”
Nico dropped to one knee, pressing his palm flat against the floor. Dark, ancient magic coiled around him, then me—something dark that stained the air black. This tasted raw, almost familiar… like… pagan magic. Like the kind Albrecht used to wield.
But this was Brotherhood magic. The DiSange priests had their spells and rituals, but the Brotherhood commanded their own arcane magic. Utilitarian spells for protection, defense… tracking.
I’d heard these forbidden spells were used only during times of great need, at the request of their master, Severin… or the Don.
“Yeah, this isn’t strictly legal, since you’re not officially Don, so chances are, I’ll be paying for this,” Nico muttered before his voice dropped into a low and rhythmic chant, words not meant for our ears.
The air around us tightened. Cold crawled over me, as if I was covered in spiders, every nerve in my body coming alive in horror as the sensation spread, then intensified.
“Focus,” Nico ordered. “Focus on the bond, wait for it to open back up.”
That smothering, drowning sensation flooded down the bond again, and I choked, staggering against my brother as I forced myself not to drown in Emberline’s panic, her pain, her…
“Find my wife,” I snarled.
“What do you think I’m doing?” Nico bit out. “Shut the fuck up so I can concentrate.”
“Well, I’ll just be…” Rocco halted in the library doorway, leaning heavily on his cane, eyes widening at the scene, before he schooled his face into a disinterested mask.
“I’m not sure what this is, but I’m sure you don’t need me in the way,” he said kindly.
“I hope you bring Emberline back safely. She was always one of my favorites.”
Gabriel managed to bark out something coherent, then Rocco limped down the hallway, turned right, and disappeared, only the steady tap, tap, tap of his cane echoing back. Good fucking riddance. There was something off about the fucker, anyway.
Shoulder jammed into my chest, Gabriel pulled the sigil from his pocket. “Once we have her location, this will get us past any wards. Soon. We’ll be with her soon, Dante.”
“I’ve found her,” Nico growled, eyes closed, that strange darkness floating around him like a frozen mist. “They’ve got her secured behind a wall of magic even I can’t quite…
wait, I can see where she… I see stone… a mountain…
” His expression shuttered, every bit of the dark magic sucking back into his body as he shot to his feet.
“She’s locked inside a small room, lots of iron buried in the walls and door, which is interfering with my sight. I can’t see inside, but I know exactly where she is.”
He stared down the hallway, body vibrating. “Rocco’s fortress on the mountain. She’s been there the entire time. The fucker’s been stalling us.”
Heat exploded under my skin, something ancient and vicious ripping free, sending Nico and my brother diving into the library for cover. The world was bathed in fire, my vision sharpened into something predatory, something inhuman as I burst out of the castle.
Rocco never made it to the dock.
I slammed the bastard down, hard enough to crater the ground, one hand wrapped around his throat before he could make a sound. Not that he could, staring up at me, mouth gaping open. Heat blistered his skin, smoke curling up between us.
“You knew,” I said, my voice layered with the ifrit’s ancient, inhumane tone. “You planted the spies. You gave her to them.”
“I-I didn’t—” he choked, struggling, panicked eyes reflecting a sea of fire. I tightened my grip, crushing his windpipe until he was wheezing. Something sharp poked my side, and I looked down. A long silver dagger—hidden in the cane, apparently—stuck between my ribs.
“Dante,” Gabriel stopped a safe distance away. “He’s more use to us alive.”
For a moment, I considered ignoring my level-headed brother and ending Rocco here.
I had ways of making his death horrifically slow.
But… the bond flickered again, a desperate squeezing in my chest that had me lifting him in one hand like he weighed nothing.
“If she has been harmed, I will make you suffer tenfold. If they spilled a drop of her blood, I will take a gallon. Your life is forfeit.” I tossed him aside like trash.
Dominico soldiers rushed in from all sides. Gabriel barked instructions, and Rocco was hauled back up to the castle like a sack of potatoes, hair askew, cane left in the grass. I plucked the dagger out of my side, melted metal dripping off my fingers.
“We’re leaving.” Gabriel’s tone was full of cold, clear rage. Emberline had been stolen from under his roof, and my brother was taking it personally. “We will deal with him when we return.”
“Move out of my way,” I intoned, molecules scattering as I prepared to ghost myself to the fortress.
“Wait, Dante, you can’t just…”
My brother’s warning was cut off as I vanished, caught in the rushing wind, tasting snow and darkness and vengeance as if it was the blood on which I existed.