Page 91 of Devoted

Like I hadn’t fucking warned him twenty times this would happen.

“You can thank me later,” he intoned, the corner of his lip lifting in what might be a smile. “It seems you can outrun death, after all.”

My head fell back onto the ground. “Gods, you are going to make my life a living hell with these fucking jokes, aren’t you?”

The healers had just finished tending to me, and I was wrapped in a blanket when a young Draconi soldier strode across the lawn, giving Dante a wide berth.

“Master Severin, this just arrived from the city.” He handed Severin a folded note, saluted, and marched away.

Sev scanned the message, brow pinched, then ran a hand over his bald head.

Once. Twice.

Three times before he sighed.

“A message from Blackwood himself. An emergency session of the council has been called for tomorrow. Mandatory attendance. No exceptions.”

33

EMBERLINE

We returned to a villa in chaos.

Guards shouting orders, windows boarded over, doors being chained shut.

“Two of my best men are dead.” A furious Valeria strode in, heels clicking, hair streaming behind her like a battle flag. “We found their bodies in the lower level. No sign of struggle, no blood, just… dead.”

More guards rushed past, the stomping of feet matching the tension in the air.

“What sort of injuries?” I was still shaking from what happened at the fortress, the devouring shadows that had snapped at our faces before Dante burst into flames and dove straight into that chaotic cloud. He’d emerged dragging a beat-to-shit Nico across the ground, and now we had two dead guards.

Yup. Today was definitely going to be a shit day.

“Nothing.” Valeria shook her head. “Gia and her healers are looking them over more closely, but there were no noticeable wounds. Poison is the leading theory so far, but we’ll know more in an hour.”

“How did someone get onto the island?” I asked, panic spiking through me like a sharpened blade. And for one small second, doubts rose—had Valeria herself sold us out? Would she, to save her own skin?

“Has Blackwood found us?”

Should we run? Nico barely had the strength to dematerialize back here; anything more, and he’d be incapacitated altogether. And we had no place to go, except back to the Draconi fortress, which was currently a smoking heap of stone.

“We haven’t found the assailants. Yet,” she muttered darkly. “But we will. My men are searching the island, and there are only so many places to hide. We’ll have them soon enough. As for Blackwood…” Her lips pinched. “If he came for us, he’d come all at once, with his forces by his side.”

“You sound sure of that,” Nico said, wincing uncomfortably beneath the blanket still wrapped around his shoulders. Severin’s healers had done what they could for his burns, but they were battlefield healers, lacking the skill of the ones here.

Too bad Gia was hunched over a couple of corpses at the moment, her talents wasted, because I’d planned on conscripting her into service the moment we’d returned.

“This feels… different. I endured yet another tediously boring conversation about following proper committee procedure with him today that made me want to gouge my eyes out. I don’t think he suspects.” She shook her head, then went on, as if she was reasoning with herself, “No, he can’t suspect I’m involved, or I’d be in a cell right now. So, it’s not him. Then who?”

“If it’s poison, then someone who knows their way around the kitchen?” I shrugged. “Or laced their drink?”

“I had the same thought, so we’re searching the pantries, every room in the villa, and the outbuildings. If it’s an inside job, we’ll know soon enough.”

“That’s more likely,” Gabriel agreed. “Perhaps one of Giovanni’s spies, planted in your household back when your father was still in command. An easy thing to miss,” he added sympathetically. “Marcello died by poison in his own home, and I was too late to save him.”

“Because you’re a fool,” Rocco sneered, creeping out of the shadows. “No wonder you’re here, hiding under my daughter’s skirts while the entire Dynasty is being stolen from you. Some Don you’ve turned out to be.”

Gabriel spun on his heel.