Page 143 of Devoted

Blackwood had used Luca’s magic to incapacitate us long enough for his guards to pin us with iron. Between the pins and the shackles and the fact my fucking brain was bleeding, I was totally helpless.

None of us fought back when the guards hauled us to our feet—my body barely functioning, legs like trunks of wood beneath me. Gabriel bled from a fresh cut above his eye, Nico’s head hung limp, drool threading from his open mouth.

I didn’t even think he was conscious.

Luca strolled out on his own, unhurried, one of the guard’s black military jackets thrown over his shoulders, barely covering that grotesque blackness creeping up one side of his body and face.

Emberline was on her feet, shaken and pale, nipping glances toward her brother every few seconds, taking fast, choppy breaths.

They dragged us back toward the villa, smoke rolling across the bloodstained ground, over the bodies stacked in rows, and shoved us to our knees in front of Giovanni DiRavello, who looked as if he’d won the fucking lottery.

CHAPTER 54

NICO

The night air smelled of blood and fear and smoke.

The burning east wing of the villa was the perfect background for Giovanni, prim in his monk’s habit and sandals, that superior little smile pasted on his doughy face, as if the bastard was here by divine right and not because of unquenchable greed.

All around the edges of the clearing, black-suited guards stood in disciplined ranks, and behind them were the Drax, stretching out like a plague of black locusts, broken only by small groups of pale, skeletal Ashbound.

How fitting.

An army from hell backing the most corrupt vampire I’d ever known.

I let them believe I was unconscious, my body limp, eyes half-slitted, mouth open. As the guards dragged me forward, feet cutting furrows through the sand, I reached again and again for the Emissary, delving as deep as I dared… and found nothing but an empty hole.

Which meant there was a containment field or a nulling spell locking down my magic. I sensed that terrible absence in my bones when they dropped me to the ground in a tangle of bruised, aching limbs. Giovanni waited in the middle of the ruined garden, my father—inside Luca’s body—beside him.

They looked smug. Confident.

Safe because of the shackles.

The pins they’d shot into my body.

And why wouldn’t they? We were beaten. Chained. Powerless.

Little did they know that while iron shackles and pins worked on my shadow magic, the Emissary wasn’t bound by the physical contrivances of this world. Once I was outside this island and whatever containment field my father erected, nothing would keep me from transforming.

And I would shred their little victory apart with my bare hands.

But in the meantime, I had to keep everyone alive.

Giovanni had the look of a vampire who had won and still had a few cards up his sleeve. I’d spent years observing the sneaky bastard, learning to recognize every expression that crossed his weaselly face.

And while my Truthtelling senses were dulled, that look on his face wasn’t triumph.

This was satisfaction.

The look of a male whose victory wasn’t enough. No, he wouldn’t be happy until we were suffering. Screaming for mercy.

“Wake the fuck, up, you. It’s show time.” The shackles bit into my wrists when the guards jerked me up to my knees, cuffed the back of my head, but I barely noticed. They dropped me beside Emberline, thank the gods, close enough I could cover her with my body if Giovanni ordered the Drax to slaughter us.

I measured the distance between me and him… between me and Luca, trying to choose my targets. Making my one and only play count.

The sound of scuffling sounded behind me, followed by muted curses, then Valeria was forced to her knees at the end of the line, hands shackled behind her back, a bruise blooming on her cheek.

My pulse stumbled.