Page 153 of Devoted

“Gods, you are such an asshole,” she muttered, but she was smiling as she leaned back against Dante’s chest.

Gabriel kept us pointed due north, slipping into the heavy boat traffic for a few miles to blend in during our approach, the lights of Venice sliding past before we cut away, heading across the dark lagoon at full speed.

The DiSangue island was the only Pentarch sanctuary left that Blackwood and Giovanni wouldn’t dare invade, and besides Severin, Emilia was the only vampire I trusted right now.

“She’ll want to know everything,” Emberline muttered darkly. “About the Basin. About Luca. Gods, about everything.”

She was still in Dante’s arms, but her husband was fast asleep, head tipped back against the side of the boat, snoring softly. He’d stop bleeding, but as soon as we got to Emilia’s, he needed to see the healers.

“Chances are, Emilia already knows what happened,” I said, fighting the urge to tell her sweet lies we both knew weren’t true. “She usually does.”

“Well, I noticed she didn’t exactly launch a rescue mission,” Emberline grumbled.

“Maybe it’s still in the planning stages,” I teased. “I suppose we’ll find out soon enough.”

“Well, prepare to be disappointed.”

“Oh, you never know.” I waggled my eyebrows, hoping for at least a hint of a smile. “She might surprise us.”

Emberline looked at me sideways, something kindling in her expression—an exhausted fondness, the look of someone pushed far past their limits, pain mixed with courage. I couldn’t help myself. I reached out and dragged my fingers down her soft, warm cheek.

Watched the way her eyes drifted half-closed, how she leaned into my touch.

I gave myself permission to savor her. The delicate curve of her face, her scent, tinged with salt, the sad tilt of her lips, when she should be smiling. She should always be smiling.

I wanted to give Emberline the world.

Dreamed of plucking the stars from the sky to make her the crown she deserved. Wrapping her up in the inky darkness of the night sky so she could wear it like a cape. The harder I wished, the more I ached to make things right. Deep inside me, something broke. Like a mountain crumbling beneath an earthquake. Something ancient and boundless, a weight pressing down on my bones.

The Emissary—for one breathless, stolen second—gazed down at Emberline through my eyes, his heart filled with the kind of vengeance that leveled entire civilizations.

This is right, every instinct inside me snarled, the Emissary becoming a lodestone at my center. A weight that centered me, and for the first time in my life, I opened myself up. Let him see all of me. Embraced this cosmic entity I’d forged a fool’s bargain with as an angry, wounded child.

We will protect her, my blood sang. Her shield and her sword.

“Nico,” she said carefully.

“Princess?”

“Thank you for bringing me back. I wasn’t sure…” She turned away, burying her face in Dante’s chest. “It’s getting harder every time. To walk away from that place. I’m afraid that…”

“Don’t finish that sentence. You will always come back. Always.” I stared out over the water, guilt writhing in my gut as we raced over the surface.

I’d made that hole.

The one that threatened to swallow her whole. The one where her parents stood on the other side and visited with their daughter, as though they were casually talking over the backyard fence.

That hole was never meant to exist, and I had no idea how to close it.

The lagoon was dark, the stars were out, and somewhere in Venice, our enemies would soon discover we’d escaped their unescapable prison, and I was sure Giovanni and my father would be at each other’s throats.

Good. Let them tear each other apart.

“And don’t mention it.” I flicked her nose. “I’ll come and drag you out of the Underworld any time.”

She punched me in the arm, laughing softly beneath her breath, then turned and headed for Dante, slumped against the side of the cabin, snoring faintly.

We did have a fight ahead of us, but this time, I wasn’t afraid.