Page 84 of Devoted

“And when did you become privy to this plan?” I huffed.

“This morning when I was cooking breakfast. For your brother, I’ll point out, who seems to be eating for two. Gabriel received the message and relayed it to me. Now I’m relaying it to you.”

Ah, so that’s what Gabriel and Dante were meeting about.

“How are we going to kill him?” I asked. “When he’s been in hiding for weeks? If you’d just let me go to the city, I’m sure I could get into the palazzo and…”

“No,” Nico instantly cut me off. “There will be no more solo outings. They are too dangerous, now that my father has guards inside the city. If there were that many Drax in the Sala del Giuramento, he’s building an army. They’re preparing for war, which means the city will become a battleground.”

“Valeria did say the main focus of yesterday’s business was establishing a perimeter around the Sala del Giuramento. For security purposes.” I peered out over the water, thinking. “Which means they need space to operate with no outside scrutiny.”

“That’s a big building.” Nico slid me a sideways look. “Lots of rooms for nests.”

I shuddered. “If we engage them in Venice, there will be casualties. Human casualties.”

“Many of them,” he agreed. “But human deaths have never concerned my father. Neither do vampire deaths. In fact, death doesn’t seem to concern my father at all,” he said bitterly, his voice fracturing.

“And why is that, Nico? Could it be because he knows who Death really is?”

It was a joke. A guess.

A stab at a truth I knew couldn’t possibly be true.

Nico looked away, down the sprawling beach, where a flock of gulls dove for fish. He wasn’t going to answer. Maybe I didn’t need an answer. I’d had quite enough surprises in my life lately, thank you very much.

“You don’t want to go down this road, Emberline.” Nico’s voice was choked with regret. “Nothing waits at the end but pain. I can’t give you the answers you want. Certainly not the ones you deserve.”

For a moment the silence built between us, and I was tempted—so, so tempted—to take the coward’s way out. To let this one truth lie, undisturbed, until time and a thousand other secrets buried it deep.

But this was Nico.

I loved him. All of him. I couldn’t imagine—not for a single second—there was a part of him I wouldn’t love, that I wouldn’t protect with every piece of me.

“Just tell me the truth, Nico. Why doesn’t death concern your father?”

But Nico just looked down at me sadly. “Because he intends to leash Death, much like he leashed me as a child. Because all he’s ever wanted was power, and if he possessed dominion over Death itself… nothing could stop him. Not us. Not Emilia. Nothing.”

“So, what I saw last night…”

“What you saw last night was not Death, but rather, an Emissary of Death.” He blew out a long breath, raw and exhausted, as if he’d been carrying this burden for a long, long time.

Alone. Always alone.

Well, he wasn’t alone anymore. He had me. And Dante and Gabriel.

Despite the hollow weight at the pit of my stomach, despite the fear making me shiver in the summer heat, I shifted on the sand so I faced him. “Tell me everything, Nico. I want to know who you are, and I’m not afraid of the truth.”

He paused, still debating, clearly torn, jaw working stiffly before he finally answered.

“Think of Death as the ocean, but one of his emissaries as… the waves, breaking on the shore.” We watched the tide roll up to our feet before retreating. “Death is as infinite as the cosmos, but his emissaries… they can appear as many things. Reapers. Ferrymen. Ravens. Even vampires.”

My throat tightened on the truth, even though I told myself I was prepared.

I was not. But I wouldn’t abandon Nico like his father had, now when he deserved so much more. “But I thought that was just a dream, and…”

“I warned you not to go down this road, princess,” he said in a calm, patient tone that sent a shiver straight into the very heart of me. “Yet here we are, and it’s too late to turn back.” He stretched his legs out so the foam curled around his heels. “Ask me anything, and I will tell you everything.”

“Are you the Emissary of Death, Nico?”