Fine.
“They want a war, they’ll get one,” I vowed quietly.
Nico pulled his gaze away from the fire, his expression turning to approval. “Good,” he agreed. “Because now that everything is out in the open, you’ll need that do-or-die attitude. I’ll hide you somewhere safe, thenIwill find your husband while you stay put.”
“You’d better,” I muttered, as the fire raged on, turning the memories we’d barely had time to make into ash. I lifted my chin and made myself a promise.
My uncle was now my enemy, and there was no mercy for enemies.
A lesson he’d taught me, and I’d learned well.
60
DANTE
One heartbeat, I was on the marble steps of the DiRavello palazzo, watching in horror as my home exploded.
Home—where Emberline was.
Home—that was currently on fire.
The next, I was gone—following the tug of my wife’s fear like a moth to a flame.
I aimed toward the familiar sigils I’d carved into the bones of the ancient house, the powerful hum of magic that was mine and mine alone. The ancient magic I thought was unbreakable.Impenetrable.
I was almost there when I slammed into a wall of nothingness.
The world lurched sideways.
The tether of fear vanished, the sigils… were gone. Midair—nothing but a collection of diffused atoms—I frantically searched out her scent, her power, our bond, the lodestone that kept me grounded.
Oh gods, had I saved her last night, only to lose her today?
Panic had me reforming too soon, and instead of the rough wood floor of my bedroom, I materialized into a plume of choking smoke, nothing but emptiness gaping underneath me.
I plummeted straight into the fire.
But I’d been re-born in a firestorm, forged into amonster that flames could no longer touch. The monster trapped inside me basked in these flames, licked his lips and smiled.
This was like coming home.
I hit broken stone and burning beams hard enough my ribs shattered. The impact drove the air from my lungs in a sharp, agonizing rush. Searing heat engulfed me, hot enough to melt bone, my shoulder crunching into a chunk of masonry, one hand slamming down into burning embers.
There was no house.
Only a ragged crater of rubble and smoldering blackened beams. The neighboring walls were blackened, scorched, and cracked, as if they’d barely survived the blast.
I peered through the conflagration, heat licking my face.
There was no trace of my wife.
No citrusy scent, no bed with tangled sheets, no half-full coffee cups.
Just ruin.
Ruin…and the strong reek of ozone. Spent magic, in addition to human-made chemical accelerants. Brimstone and some strange foulness that had me straightening slowly, scanning every smoldering inch of the wreckage, muscles locking in place.
Some mortal shouted in the street. I barely heard, holding my shattered ribs as I stumbled into the inferno, not feeling the blaze licking at me from every direction. My wards had been carefully layered—a series of ancient, powerful protections woven where they mattered most—around the places my wife would be.
