Page 92 of Devoted

His entire demeanor iced over as if winter had arrived, shoulders squared.

Rocco just licked his lips, looking more like a treacherous lizard than anything else. I remembered how he’d humiliated me months ago in front of the entire Dynasty. Used his daughter as his pawn and leveraged Dante’s past mistakes against him.

“Slither back under your rock, old snake,” I crooned, stepping between him and my family. The family I loved. The family he’d never touch again. “Nobody cares what a washed-up old Pentarch has to say.”

His venomous gaze landed on us, one by one, his lips curling back further. “Soon enough, you’ll be the ones under rocks, mark my words. He’s coming, you know. Those guards were just a warning. Who do you think you are to stand against the inevitable?”

“The ones who will take him down.” My husband prowled forward, step after step, until he towered over Rocco. Until the male retreated, cradling his missing hand as though he could still feel it.

“Behind your arrogance and your silver cane, you always were a sniveling coward, Rocco.”

I couldn’t see Dante’s face, but he’d let the ifrit out to play, an orange glow lighting Rocco’s face as my husband leaned closer, flames reflected in the old male’s eyes.

“Soon enough, there will be a reckoning for you,” my husband crooned. “Your daughter bought you the second chance you never deserved. That will be your last, I guarantee it.”

“You can’t threaten me, you monster.”

“I believe I just did,” Dante said easily, straightening up to his full height. “Or is your hearing going, along with your mind? You’re the fool, Rocco. Now…” He turned to me. “What did you say before?”

“Slither back under your rock,” I supplied, enjoying Rocco’s brewing, impotent rage. “And don’t come back out.”

He cursed us all the way back to his room, and when I turned, Valeria was right there behind me. “Gods, he’s vile.” She stared after him, bottom lip trembling. “I know he’s vile. I ask myself why I bothered, and honestly, on days like today, I can’t tell you I did the right thing.”

“No,” I said slowly, measuring the regret in her long, pained sigh. “You did. Because if you hadn’t, you’d be just like him.”

34

EMBERLINE

An hour later, the healer’s verdict was inconclusive.

Valeria’s dead guards were simply… dead.

No sign of injury, no trace of poison in their systems, their weapons still holstered. There was no blood under their fingernails, none at the scene, and all the blood in their bodies was accounted for, which pretty much ruled out vampires.

We were, if nothing else, thirsty as fuck.

But not knowing what killed them was worse than knowing.

Luca had wandered out of his room long enough to discover the kitchen was off limits, then disappeared, presumably for another nap.

Now that the healers were freed up, Gia was tending to Nico’s burns. Under her expert care, pink skin replaced the blisters, and he no longer cringed in pain. Dante, my eternally stubborn husband, had predictably refused their services for his many cuts and gashes.

I was still grappling with what I’d seen at the fortress.

How Nico had expanded, not just in size, but in presence. How his unearthly form had unfurled into something monstrous before writhing shadows shredded the fortress apart like it was made of paper, not stone.

True, I hadn’t seen a lot.

Everything had happened so quickly, in a matter of seconds, really, and I’d only caught glimpses of Nico through the black ribbons whipping wildly through the air. He’d grown to an immense height, his skin the color of fog, stretched so tightly over bone, he’d been more skeleton than male.

Asking him to access his magic had been a mistake.

I’d known it was a mistake, but I hadn’t pushed back. And now Nico had withdrawn into himself again, expression vacant, body burned because my husband risked his life diving into that deadly tangle of shadows to save him.

To drag him back to safety.

“We’ve ripped apart the villa, the entire island has been searched,” Valeria hissed, dragging a hand through her no-longer-perfect hair. “There’s no sign of anything. Nothing except one tiny bruise and a whole lot of questions.”