Page 112 of Devoted

“Which he’s not going to do.” Nico yawned, fingers laced behind his head. His wineglass was half empty, his bare feet dangerously close to Gabriel’s map.

“Actually, he will.” I’d been turning over the Basin problem in the back of my mind for the last two hours and had come to one irrefutable conclusion.

“My uncle would leave the security of Venice for the Basin. He would do anything to reclaim the thing, and we just so happen to have two. The real one and the fake one. We could leverage his own greed against him. Lure him into the open, and the Basin is the best way.”

“We could set a trap,” Severin agreed, standing behind the settee, the same spot where he’d been since he’d arrived. “What did you have in mind?”

“First, I want solid numbers, Severin,” Gabriel interrupted, setting down his pen. “We’re not leaving anything to chance. I want to know we can bury them with firepower, if nothing else.”

Severin clasped his hands behind his back, chest out. “Four thousand Draconi soldiers are at the fortress. Battle-trained, long-service veterans, not conscripts and many are powerful enough to hold their own against any magic-wielders Giovanni has fighting for him. Blackwood’s guards will make a stand, but only the ones who create the Drax are marked. Nico told me to look for the silver stars, and we’ll take them out first.”

Four thousand.

“Numbers on Blackwood’s contingent and any Dynasty guards who defected to join his ranks?” Gabriel looked to Severin, but it was Valeria who answered.

“Less than a thousand at last count, according to my spies,” Valeria said from the floor, holding her phone face down. “That number may even be lower.”

“Four hundred priests will fight with you.” Emilia’s voice was firm, the first time she’d spoken since she’d arrived. “They are not soldiers, but their magic is every bit as strong as our enemies, and they know how to fight. And in this battle, their particular brand of magic will be effective, given what we are facing.”

“The Drax,” I said.

“The Drax,” she confirmed. “They are constructs of dark magic, birthed from forbidden spells. My priests cannot fight them the way Nico can—his shadows are birthed from a different source—but they can encase the nests using ancient binding spells before they are complete.”

“So… they’ll stop the Drax from hatching?”

“Exactly. Not kill them but trap them before they cross over into this realm. Which won’t address the existing Drax but will prevent them from adding to the numbers.”

“We still don’t know how many Drax there are.” Dante’s jaw flexed. “We don’t know how many his guards can summon or how quickly. We’re planning around a variable we can’t quantify.”

“Which is why the guards who summon them are the priority target,” Nico explained. “They also have a dark mark here.” He tapped a spot below his right jaw. “There will be a black stain, like a tattoo, and those silver stars on their lapel.”

Dante looked at me.

“We’ll have to get close, then,” I mused.

“Which is why you’re not getting close at all,” Dante growled. “Moglie.”

I refrained from rolling my eyes. “We’ve been over this, marito. We don’t exactly have the excess manpower to…”

The first sound could have been anything. A soft click, like a joint popping, the kind of thing you dismissed out of habit. And yet, the fine hairs along the back of my neck stood all the way up.

“Something just happened to the wards,” Emilia murmured, staring down the darkened hall. “Almost like…”

The thing materialized out of the dark hallway.

Like shadows fragmenting apart, then solidifying.

The Drax was wrong in all the ways I remembered from before, too many legs moving in a horrible, purposeful rhythm, its shell of a body gleaming, mouth gaping, mandibles clicking.

Valeria curled in on herself and moaned.

A second one appeared directly behind the first, and for one frozen second, everyone in the room went completely still.

As one, we burst into motion, the coffee table flying sideways as Severin vaulted over the couch, papers scattering, wine glasses shattering, shards flying everywhere as he threw himself in front of Emilia.

Dante burst out of the armchair. Nico was on his feet, shadows bleeding from his hands, lips pulled back from his fangs as he roared out a warning. Gabriel had his knife out—useless against these things—lunging for Valeria, taking her arm and dragging her behind the couch.

Sensing movement, that first Drax lunged for Gabriel, rounded body low to the ground.