Page 95 of Devoted

“How can you be sure it’s they?” I asked. “Surely there’s only one?”

“Drax hunt in pairs or larger groups. There will be at least two, and they’ll stick together. We find one, we’ll find them both.”

“Well, that sounds like a perfect nightmare,” I grumbled. “How many outbuildings are there again?”

“Ten, at least. Plus the boathouse,” Dante supplied helpfully.

“I’ll go round up as many guards as I can find, and we’ll get started.”

35

NICO

My life as a soldier revolved around order.

Order kept the nightmares at bay and the past firmly locked in place.

Order was the only way the world made sense. And puzzles without solutions went against that order.

For the past twelve hours, I’d been racking my brain, trying to solve this godsdamned puzzle.

Even now, in the middle of the night, I leaned over the balcony, ocean brine coating my now-healed skin, scanning the terrain below. Every cloud that blew past the moon made the ground come alive, my pulse jumping every time I thought I saw something move.

Those guards had been killed by a pair of Drax.

All the signs were there.

The bruises—upon further inspection, both guards had the same mark, the size of a thumbprint—and a concerning lack of injuries. But we’d searched the island, the outbuildings and every inch of the villa and hadn’t come up with a single solid shred of proof.

I peered inwards, let my Truthtelling magic rise, instincts prickling.

The Drax were here. Somewhere.

Nestled deep in a hole or shadow, waiting to creep out and suck us dry.

Nobody was sleeping, and all of us knew it was only a matter of when we found the next body. Which could be any one of us.

Even Emberline.

I shuddered, my stomach churning at the knowledge I’d missed something. The island was bigger than I’d given it credit for, full of small, rocky holes in the coral rock, a million places for one of those little fuckers to hide.

But how had they gotten here in the first place?

I tapped a finger on the railing. That was the real problem Gabriel, Dante, and I had discussed ad nauseam. Being welcomed back into the fold felt good, but if we didn’t figure this out—and fast—we were all fucked.

Rocco was my most likely suspect, but there was no evidence he’d left the island.

One of the Demente soldiers was my second-best guess, but according to Severin, they checked out. Much like Valeria herself said… this felt like something more sinister at work. Something I couldn’t quite see, but could feel well enough, at the base of my skull and the pit of my stomach, in the depths of night when I listened for the skittering of claws coming to claim the people I loved.

There was one sure way I could locate the Drax.

And even as I cursed myself for considering this as a viable option, I couldn’t stop returning to the idea, again and again. As the Emissary, I could easily track the little beasts. He would smell them from any distance, reeking like the bowels of the Underworld.

But something else haunted me, a terrible realization only confirmed by my Truthtelling magic.

Once I transformed in this realm, once I fully embraced my fucking destiny, if you wanted to call it that, I was fully committed.

Once I did this, I would become Death’s Emissary.