Nico Draconi came in next, flanking the Don, and quickly became the most dangerous threat in the room. Even with all my training, after seeing how fast Nico moved through that crowd, I could never beat him to the door.
Especially in these heels.
Don Marcello tugged his tie loose, shirt falling open to reveal his throat. The perfect target, if only I could wrestle the knife I had strapped to my thigh out from under five layers of tulle and silk, race Nico and Severin across the twenty feet separating us, and strike hard and deep.
But that would reveal my hand.
At the moment, my only advantage was…I did not present a serious threat.
I knew exactly what everyone in this room thought of me. Pampered little rich girl, nice to look at, fine for fucking, but overall…weak. And they needed to keep thinking that, right up until the moment I slid my knife between their ribs.
“I grant your request,” Marcello agreed with a vague wave of his hand, dropping into the chair and picking up right where we left off.
“We will meet after tonight’s banquet, Signorina DiRavello, to work out terms. My son, acting as my consigliere, will make the accusation official, but first, we must finish binding the Compact. There are still several members’ blood missing.” He nodded to Gabriel.
“In two millennium, a Blood Compact has not gone unbound, not even because of war or plague. I do not intend to be the first Don to neglect my duty.”
It took two brawny Draconi soldiers to wrestle the Basin into the room, set it down with a resounding thud in front of the Don, and for the first time since I’d found my father dead, I didn’t know what to do except stand here mute, pinned beneath Nico and Severin’s damning stares as the Don picked his blade up off the side table and offered it to Gabriel, hilt-first.
“Take the blade,figlio.Make me proud.”
Son.
Pinned beneath his wild blue glare, Gabriel weighed the knife in one hand and my future in the other while a thrill of fear went through me. Revenge cut both ways, and I was vastly outnumbered right now. I’d threatened his father, and my life was forfeit should theIl Lupo Nerodecide it.
Gabriel held me there for too long a moment, trapped beneath his stony judgment, my heart hammering like a rabbit’s as I waited for him to strike.
“No, Gabri, remember what I told you,” Marcello counseled.
My muscles went buttery with relief when Gabriel turned his wolfish attention back to the Basin and raised the blade over his head.
“I, Gabriel Dominico,” he vowed, his deep voice too big for such a small space, “heir of the Dominico family, swear my life and line to the protection of Venice and our kind. I swear to uphold the Compact, to guard our people, to execute the Don’s will without hesitation. I swear my blood, my strength, my future to the service of the Dynasty. Should I fail in this oath?—”
He dragged the blade across his palm, cutting every bit as deeply as I had, and for a second, I relived my previous pain.
Brief. Sharp.
Cleansing.
Blood fell in thick drops, hissing as it hit the stone. His scent wormed into my senses, like an unwelcome intrusion, all vetiver and amber, woodsy and dark, like I was lost in a forest at night with no way out.
“—let my line be hunted, my name erased, my legacy burned to ash.”
The magic that filled the room was unlike anything I’d experienced before.
Power struck like a shockwave, radiating out from the Basin in expanding rings, pressing against bone and sinew, threading through the air, sinking deep into the walls and the stone.
Deep intome.
I grit my teeth as energy punched into my chest, slamming into my heart, my veins, my marrow. I’d never been trapped in a room like this, never felt the binding of an oath forged from blood and pure will. I wasn’t sure I could survive it.
“I swear this bond to my father, to this city, to every vampire who calls Venice home, even when they are far away. To our survival. To our enemy’s destruction.”
The frescoed ceiling trembled, candle flames flared higher, feeding on invisible currents, because the magic remembered.
Every lie, every broken oath, because the magic did not forgive.
The runes on the Basin’s rim blazed white-gold, shedding sparks that vanished before they hit the stone. For a heartbeat, it felt like the entire palace was breathing with us, then, slowly, the light dimmed.
