Chapter 46
EMBERLINE
Ishould be exhausted and drained, but I was neither.
Even with very little sleep, my soul very nearly getting sucked out by an eight-legged monster and nearly losing my hand, I bounced up and down on my toes, brimming with energy from the blood of three powerful males.
Ready to deliver some payback to the fuckers who’d made my life hell for the past months.
My knives were sharp.
My boots laced, my muscles loose and ready.
A calmness washed through me, the steadiness I always reached for right before a fight, where everything faded away except for the task in front of me.
A complex task broken down to the next step… and the next… and the next.
Nico was going over our ingress into La Sala for what was technically the fourth time, the six hand-picked Draconi soldiers gathered around him, looking deadly serious and not the slightest bit bored, arms crossed over massive chests, eyes focused, mouths tight.
They looked capable enough, and I prayed they all survived.
It was one thing to risk yourself, quite another to shift the danger onto strangers, and they all looked so young, though with vampires, appearances were deceiving. They could easily be the twenty-five years they appeared on the outside—or a hundred.
“We’ll be operating inside my shadows once we pass the outer perimeter.
” Nico was in hyper-focused mode, stripped of his usual humor, completely in control.
Someone these soldiers could trust to get them in and out.
“We have a cipher to drop the wards on the doors, then, once we’re inside, me and Dante will take point.
I’ll focus on the Drax; he will focus on Ashbound.
Your job is to take out the Summoners first, then regular guards, then Dynasty guards last. We kill everything we come across, no exceptions. ”
As one, the males nodded, then moved away, checking weapons with efficient skill.
“Are you clear on what to do, princess?”
“Is there a word,”—I tapped my chin, pretending to think—“for when someone explains a thing to you repeatedly despite clear evidence they understood it the first time? Oh wait, I have it… annoying.”
“Go ahead and make your little jokes. When we’re in the eastern wing, and you can’t remember if we turn right or left, don’t come crying to me.” He reached out and flicked my nose.
“Firstly, that fucking hurt,” I rubbed my stinging nose. “Secondly, we turn right, and thirdly… I never cry.”
“Of course, you don’t.” He rolled his eyes. “Tell me that again when the halls are crawling with Drax and smelling like the bowels of hell.”
Admittedly, that sounded pretty godsdamned terrible, but I wouldn’t give Nico the satisfaction of an answer. Besides, I was ninety-nine percent sure his plan would be borked well before we left the east wing.
“Your team dematerializes in ten minutes. Are you ready?” An outwardly calm Gabriel vibrated with pent-up energy, compulsively checking his watch, then his weapons, his full attention locked on our small group gathered in the entryway of the villa.
Not a perfect staging area, but we were close enough to make Venice in one jump.
“Severin’s forces are standing by at the fortress; Emilia is waiting at the temple. The moment you send word, we’ll move.” Gabriel pinned me down with a stern look, warning in a low voice, “In and out, bella. Nothing heroic.”
“Oh, you say that every time.” I waved my hand in the air. “Heroics are kind of my thing.”
“You’re determined to give us both heart attacks, aren’t you?” Dante tipped my chin up with two fingers and kissed me hard, then pulled away. “Don’t fuck around. Come back to me in one fucking piece,” he ordered.
“I always do, my bossy husband.” I brushed his clenched jaw with my fingertips. “And right back at you. We walk in and walk out together. Just like always.”
“Just like always,” he echoed before stepping away.
“Right.” Nico scanned the small group, taking tactical inventory. “Let’s…”
Movement at the far end of the corridor.
My instincts registered danger before my mind fully recognized the figure emerging from the shadows, stumbling toward us, one hand outstretched, the other dragging along the plaster as if he needed something solid to guide him.
Luca.
My first thought—he’s come to wish us luck.
Then I saw his face.
He was the color of death. Greyish pallor, none of his usual tan complexion left, his skin translucent and splotchy. Luca’s poor sheared-off hair was plastered to his forehead, his temples gleaming with sweat, and his eyes were glassy. Unfocused.
His mouth moved.
No sound came out.
“Luca.” I reached him just as his knees buckled, bracing my shoulder under his arm just before he hit the floor. I eased him to the ground, his limbs shaking. Too much heat radiated through his shirt, as if he was consumed by fever.
Fuck. “I’m here. I’ve got you. I’ve got you, talk to me—”
He made a sound. Something that might have been my name or a groan of pain; it was impossible to tell.
“What the fuck happened?” Gabriel dropped down beside us. “When did this start? Luca, can you hear me?”
Luca’s head lolled toward Gabriel, then he started choking, some horrible airless rasp of sound, his fingers clawing at his throat.
“Get the healers,” I screamed. “Get someone to help him.”
“Move, Emberline.” Nico elbowed me out of the way, ignoring the fact my brother was fucking choking to death, grasped the hem of Luca’s shirt before I could ask what he was doing, and ripped it wide open, baring his chest, shoulders, his… right arm.
“Holy gods…” The words ended on a hiss of air as I tumbled backward, surrounded by a solid wall of legs, my shock growing faster than the shocked silence spreading out around us.
The black started at Luca’s wrist and ran up over his shoulder, spreading in irregular, branching lines the way frost spread across glass—except this was my brother and the black was… what the fuck was I even looking at?
On his bicep, the skin had split wide open, weeping something that was not quite blood, reeking of dark magic and rot.
Blackwood’s magic dagger must have hit Luca that day at La Sala.
All this time, I thought I’d knocked him out of the way, but… the proof was right in front of me. Nico must have reached the same conclusion, blowing out a shaky curse before pulling the shirt closed.
“That wound has been festering for days,” Gabriel said urgently. “We have to get him to the healers.”
“I agree. Let’s move. The infirmary is the best place for him.” Nico pushed to his feet, not looking at any of us, but past us, down the hallway, his brow pinched together in worry.
“What are you thinking about? What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. It’s just…” He shook his head. “We’ll carry him to the infirmary and have Gia and her healers look at him. They’ll know better than me how to treat this. Maybe… it’s just an infection.”
But he said that as if Luca would be lucky if that was all it was.