Chapter 55
NICO
Gabriel and I landed in the shadow of the mountain, where panicked shouts echoed off the fortress’s front facade, and gunfire chattered overhead in a steady rhythm.
I wasn’t overly worried since between us and those bullets, a towering plume of fire billowed and swelled, devouring everything it touched. Flames reached up and over the top of the forty-foot wall. A minute later, everything was quiet.
Gabriel and I hurried to the front doors.
“They’re warded,” I placed my palm against the dark stone and closed my eyes. “But the sigil should work.”
Gabriel dragged the medallion out of his pocket, murmured a simple spell, and the doors opened with a faint click.
Twenty feet away, Dante drove his fist straight through two feet of solid rock, heat surging with the blow.
Rock melted around him, lava hissing where it dripped into the snow, the whole castle groaning beneath his assault.
“Or that works, too,” I said grimly, not really giving a shit if this whole place came down, so long as Emberline wasn’t inside when it did.
“I can’t feel her,” Dante roared, completely lost in his frenzy, ripping through another section of wall with his bare hands, the air around us churning with smoke and heat as guards rushed toward him from all sides, screaming threats, weapons drawn.
Dante lifted his hand, and they vaporized.
“Holy shit,” I muttered, the stench of burning hair and skin washing over us. “We have to get to Emberline before he tears this entire building down.”
“Agreed.” Gabriel looked past me into the fortress, torn. “I’ll stay here and monitor my brother; you get our girl.”
Our girl. I liked the sound of that.
“She’s downstairs. Basement.” I explained quickly. “In case I don’t come back. Door is at the far end of the eastern wing. Metal stairs. That’s where she’ll be.”
“Go while they’re focused on him,” Gabriel ordered, then we both paused as Dante roared out Emberline’s name along with a shower of sparks and smoke, red-hot lava dripping from his fingers. He was… fuck, I didn’t have words for what he was.
I’d seen some shit in my life, but whatever monster Dante had turned into didn’t have a name. Not one I knew. A beast crafted from fire and fury and instinct, yet there was a dangerous intelligence there too, hidden behind the rage.
“Maybe you should…”
Gabriel shoved me through the doors. “Fucking hell. I’ll be fine. Just fucking go.”
I pulled up my shadows and crossed the entryway, then the soaring ballroom where Rocco had held his party, flattening myself against the wall as guards raced past toward the front.
Smoke was already spilling into the fortress, but the further in I moved, the more I finally caught a hint of her scent.
She was here.
Gods, please let her be alive. Please let us not be too late.
I hurried down the last corridor, flinging open the door leading to the stairwell, an industrial affair of metal and concrete, and I took a minute to listen for the sounds of reinforcements. Then I prowled down the three flights, keeping my eyes peeled for guards.
But there was nobody here.
I reached the bottom when the smell hit me.
The smell of fresh blood. A lot of it.
Terror tore through every vein, erased every thought, until there was nothing left but rage and a need to kill whoever hurt her. My hand trembled where I gripped my knife. I doubted I could shoot straight if I had to.
Above me, the dull thudding of feet grew closer, vibrations punctuated by screams of pain and gunfire.
I glanced back up the stairwell. Metal. Dante would melt through that in a heartbeat, and if he was trapped down here and burning uncontained, he would bring a hundred thousand tons of rock down on our heads.
I couldn’t waste time on weakness.
I needed to become the clear-headed soldier Emberline needed me to be. The one without feelings, the one not compromised by my fear for her.
A shout had me lifting my head.
“Dante.” Gabriel barked from up above. “If you bring this place down, you’ll bury Emberline, right along with us. Either get out, or get a fucking grip.”
Godsdamn it.
Through the doorway leading to the basement, a plume of flame exploded like a dragon’s breath. The fortress didn’t even feel solid anymore, like every stone was shifting on its foundations.
Down here, the scent of her blood was so strong. That’s what was drawing Dante—that’s what was making him wild with panic. More screams erupted, more fire, and then…
“Go. Find my wife and get her to safety.” Dante’s booming voice echoed off the stone walls, the metal. “I’ll hold off the rest of the guards.”
Gabriel raced down the steps, leaping down the final flight, landing beside me in a crouch. There was a corner up ahead. We could turn that corner and walk into a wall of gunfire… or nothing.
“Dante’s guarding the door. Nothing will get through.” He lifted his head, the color draining from his face. “Gods, all I smell is Emberline’s blood.”
“I know.” I swallowed. “I fucking know.”
We turned the corner together, into a long, empty hallway lit by flickering LED’s, casting a blue-white glow on the stark walls.
“No,” the word burst out of me like a moan. “No.” We both charged, jostling for space in the tight corridor, both of us racing toward the only thing that mattered.
Emberline was sprawled halfway down the corridor in a puddle of water and blood, dressed in nothing but her underwear, a knife still clutched in her hand, a metal shackle bolted around one wrist, the attached chain stretching into the room behind her…
I followed the line of that chain, and every one of my savage instincts flashed back into place at what lay beyond her, the vampire twitching on the floor, a hook punched through his thick neck.
Bruno. He was going to fucking die. He was going to suffer.
But she was more important than vengeance.
“You’re safe, Emberline. We’re here.” I brushed wet hair away from her face, and her eyes fluttered. I lifted her wrist, her pulse jumping beneath my touch. “She’s alive,” I could barely breathe from relief. “She’s alive.”
“She’s lost a lot of blood, and those cuts on her wrists are deep,” Gabriel’s eyes drifted back to the room, back to Bruno, something even colder than rage burning in his eyes. “We need to get her to a healer.”
“Dante should be here when she wakes up,” I said. “He has to know she’s okay.”
Gabriel nodded, looking back down the hall like it was the last place he wanted to go.
“Then let me go and talk some sense into my brother.”