Chapter 37 Ezra #2
“Anyway, to repay my debt, he asked me to come here to mediate your release. Because of extenuating circumstances, I didn’t have to promise your safe return, only that I’d try.”
Luca leans forward, resting his arms on the table. His voice drops, edged with suspicion.
“Ren doesn’t change the terms of a debt. Ever. What did you do?”
“My mate overpowered Renato. Nearly ripped his bloody head off. Perhaps I shouldn’t have intervened, but I didn’t want an international vampire incident to deal with on top of everything else.”
“Do you have a vampire mate, too?” Astrid asks, her dark purple eyes wide and curious as she leans over the table.
“I don’t have a vampire mate, sister. But I’m happy you found a vampire worth loving. I’ve only recently discovered the benefits of having a kind and loving mate,” I respond, trying to smile around the bruises on my face.
“If not a vampire, then what is your mate?” my sister asks.
She’s a curious thing, I’ll give her that.
And her accent. Icelandic, I think.
So, she stayed somewhere cold. Pines thick with snow. Skies stretched thin and endless. The kind of quiet that feels like peace, not loneliness.
Maybe we’re not so different, after all.
“Well, that’s a story for another day.”
I don’t trust them with the truth. Not yet. Not until Aurora claims her power. Not until she can wield it.
Astrid’s mouth turns down and her shoulders slump.
Luca’s thumb skims Astrid’s wrist, grounding her.
“She barely spoke when I found her.” His voice drops, heavy with something unspoken. “Now she talks. Asks questions. Laughs.”
He doesn’t look away. His gaze is unreadable but calculating underneath.
“I wish I had met her before they tore her apart.” Luca places a chaste kiss on my sister’s cheek. Astrid leans into him, hiding a smile.
“Understood, Luca. I apologize, sweet sister, that you had to endure such pain. I wouldn’t wish that on anyone,” I say, reaching out to the tiny, sharp-edged woman.
She looks at my hand and then at Luca, who nods and smiles.
Her fingers slip into mine. Our shadows react instantly, tangling and twisting, as if answering some old call.
One of mine flares, a sharp, startled curl up my arm, before it settles.
Tiny points of inky blackness blink around our joined hands, a quiet constellation forming before it fades.
Astrid gasps. I wince then—fuck me—I almost smile.
This must be Luca’s effect on her shadows.
Fantastic. She gets delicate astral poetry, and I get the void-born drama club.
She smiles brightly at me, and I wonder if I could form some sort of relationship with this sibling. With Luca as her mate, she might consider it.
I’ve never given a damn about relationships, especially with my asshole siblings.
But Aurora changed everything.
“Well, I don’t see the need to impose any longer. I will report to Renato that I couldn’t secure Luca. Or should I tell him you’re dead?” I ask, struggling to stand.
Luca’s smirk is slow and sharp, full of quiet certainty.
“Tell Ren I’m alive. And that I’m never coming back.” His fingers tighten around Astrid’s waist. “I have something much better.”
His voice softens, stripped of everything but awe. “I have her.”
“Right. Now I see what Louie suffers through. I’d rather have Astrid kick my ass again,” I say to myself as the vampire and my sister keep gazing at each other.
Even a week ago, I would have called Luca pathetic.
But now, I see him.
He isn’t weak. He’s lethal.
Love hasn’t softened Luca. It’s turned him into something else, something with sharp teeth and unwavering devotion. Something willing to summon the dark energy of the universe, kicking off The Big Rip, if it meant Astrid was safe and by his side.
I get it. The pull. The madness. The need to protect something you’d kill to deserve.
I have it myself. That kind of devotion doesn’t make you gentle. It makes you fucking dangerous.
As if to prove the point, he tosses the red folder onto the table.
“Your notes. We read them.” No apology. No hesitation. Not a goddamn ounce of shame.
Just fact.
He exhales, rolling his shoulders, already done with this conversation.
“La Fauce Vermiglia? It’s real. But it needs something that doesn’t exist to activate it, so I’d say we’re safe. For now.” His head tilts. “Why do you care, Ezra?”
Shit.
I fall back into my seat, heavier than before.
I don’t have a choice. If I want their help, I have to trust them with Aurora’s identity.
A shadow curls around my wrist, second-guessing my decision, too.
“When Renato came to collect on my favor, he met Aurora, my mate. She thought she was human. Had no idea what crawled beneath her world. Not until some Disciple fuck asked her out and tried to kill her.”
I growl, fury burning through every word I don’t say.
“I had my suspicions after our first encounter but didn’t confirm her true identity until it was almost too late.”
The revenants vibrate, a slow tremor building in my bones, feeding on fury I don’t bother to hide.
“That motherfucker almost took her from me.”
Rage seethes under my skin, and my shadows feel it. They coil tighter, denser, pressing against my skin, silently screaming to be set loose.
The Cù Fèidh writhes, clawing at my insides, ravenous for release, too.
Every part of me wants to destroy, rage, devour.
Go scorched fucking earth.
“I get it, Ezra. You’re angry. But tell me. What does this man have to do with your mate? With us?”
Astrid stares like she already knows. Our eyes lock, and she gasps. Her hands fly to her mouth, and tears well in her eyes.
I sigh, dragging a hand over my face, gaze drifting to the ceiling, to the rusted meat hooks, to anywhere but them. Because once I say it, there’s no taking it back.
“Aurora is the Daughter of the Morning Star. What she is … It’s still unfolding. But even now, she’s more than most could handle. And this is before she’s even taken hold of her birthright. That changes the second I return.
“The brute she went on a date with was a high-ranking hunter in the Disciples. They knew who she was. They knew where to find her. And they tried to stop her before she became what she’s meant to be. They didn’t. That’s their mistake.”
“And you left her alone?” Astrid shrieks, her voice a razor-edged echo as she shoots to her feet. “Ezra, you have to go. She’s in danger!”
“All is well, Astrid. She has the protection of her hellhound, and I’m keeping her at my house for the foreseeable future.”
Tears stream down Astrid’s face. She opens her mouth, then shuts it, trapped in the space between past and present.
She looks desperately at Luca, who takes over for her, understanding her limitations.
Luca sighs, leaning back, arms crossed. His expression is grim, but certain.
“Ezra, it doesn’t matter where you hide her. They’ll come. Since Astrid is unlike any underborne they’ve ever seen, the Disciples initially thought she was a Daughter. Their leader told her that only a Daughter of the Morning Star can activate la Fauce Vermiglia.”
Luca wraps his arms around a distraught Astrid, then kisses the top of her head.
I watch for a moment, taking in the tenderness between them and wonder if that’s what Aurora and I look like. If anyone’s ever seen us together and thought—just for a second—that it could be love.
With a sigh, I pick up the red folder and leaf through the sparse notes. They mirror almost exactly what Luca just told me.
“Fuck, I have to get home to her.” I shove everything back into the folder and stand too fast.
The world lurches.
Black spots chew at the edges of my vision.
My legs buckle, and the shadows lunge.
One tightens around my ribs, another braces my spine, straining to keep me upright.
It’s not enough.
I drop back into the chair, a heavy exhale scraping my throat.
The shadows pulse, screaming their own demand: Move. Run. Get back to her.
“Is there anything else I should know?”
Sweat trickles down my back while I battle the spots threatening to take me under. By the way they look at each other, it’s obvious Luca and Astrid are keeping something from me.
“Out with it then! Please!” As I said, I’m not above begging when it comes to Aurora.
Luca’s jaw tightens, his voice quiet but unshakable.
“Isa might be lying. Twisting the truth. But if she’s right—”
My breath catches as a shadow wraps around my chest.
“—then the Daughter has to activate it willingly. And when she does …”
The shadows go still. They know what’s coming next.
“… she dies.”
“Motherfucker!”
My shadows detonate. The folder explodes from the table, hurled across the room by a whip of darkness, pages fluttering through the air like startled birds. The air thickens, packed with heat and fury.
I close my eyes, forcing a breath in. Then out.
“Okay.” I swallow over the lump of fear in my throat and try to wrestle down the panic clawing through my chest.
The beast in my brain rattles its cage with a slow, dark laugh that makes my shadows shiver.
They don’t like this thing.
They know it’s waiting for me to lose control.
Waiting to be unleashed.
Its laughter grows, slow and rhythmic.
Tick. Tick. Tick. Like the second hand of a clock.
A shadow hesitates at my spine, pressing close.
Holding me back.
Keeping me still.
Stopping me from stepping forward.
“Hraedlice,” the beast whispers in the dark recesses of my subconscious.
The thing in my head has never spoken to me before. That’s … deeply fucking alarming.
But I shelve the existential dread for later. I’ve got more pressing horrors to address.
“What does this thing look like? And how would they get a Daughter to detonate the Vermilion Maw willingly? That seems like an impossible task, especially for someone as headstrong as Aurora.”
Luca looks to Astrid, who silently shakes her head back and forth.
“I-I don’t know. They quickly realized I wasn’t the Daughter when I couldn’t produce hellfire. They were so angry,” she whimpers.
Astrid’s gaze goes wide and distant, locked in a memory she can’t escape, the tears falling without a sound.