Of everyone here, he alone knew exactly what violence I was truly capable of.
I dipped my mouth to my wife’s and lightly brushed my lips over hers, smiling at the flash of shock on her still-dazed face. “Ready to leave this rock,moglie?”
Her eyes flashed at the word.Wife.
“Yes,” she agreed, looping her arms around my neck. “Best we go before you burn Don Marcello’s castle to the ground.”
Luca and Giovanni watched from the doorway, Nico and my brother stone-faced as we dematerialized, heading toward a future that was neither safe nor guaranteed.
Yet somehow, I was happier than I’d been in decades.
32
EMBERLINE
Dante’s ‘house’ looked like it was one storm away from collapsing.
Three stories of sun-bleached stone leaned against its neighbors on Calle Morgana like a drunk at closing time—watched over by a row of chipped, worn gargoyles perched along the roofline. Moss crawled up the foundation, and one of the shutters on the second floor hung at a sad, defeated angle, creaking with the wind.
“Home sweet ruin,” I muttered, swaying as Dante set me down on the stone landing. Feeding from him had been… life-altering. Not that I’d tell him that. I still felt like I was floating and wanted nothing more than to fall face-first into a nice, soft bed and sleep for a century.
Unfortunately, any bed inside this wreck probably had bedbugs.
“Charming, isn’t it?” Dante pushed the door open. “I think the place has character.”
“Rats, more likely.” I followed him inside. “Toxic black mold. And possibly ghosts.”
“Good.” He slid his hand under my elbow to steady me. “Then we’ll have lots of company.”
The moment my bare feet hit the threshold, wards hummed over my skin—nothing like the polite, gentile protections of my family palazzo. This magic was sharper.Wilder. Layers and layers of old spells woven together with whatever Dante had dragged back to Venice with him.
Vampire magic with an… unfamiliar twist.
Something almost cruel and vicious, edged with fire.
I glanced up at Dante’s face, brutal by polite standards—his jaw just a shade too strong, eyes too piercing to be considered handsome—but he was compelling. Magnetic. Hard around the edges. The Fossa had peeled away every layer of civilization, leaving nothing behind but pure grit and rage.
“This place is warded like a war bunker,” I muttered beneath my breath.
“Again,”—he cocked an eyebrow—“it hascharacter.”
I shot him a look. “You realize most of us actuallylikethe places we live?”
“Comfort’s overrated,” he said easily. “Survivability isn’t. There’s not a mage in the world who could get through my protections. You’re safe here, Emberline.”
I snorted, but his words struck me in the heart.
Unfair, the way he made me feel all off balance and unsure. The way my body sang at his touch, the way I craved more of his blood. Even worse was this drowsy, relaxed after-feeding glow. I wanted him to sweep me off my feet again and make me feel like I was flying.
Hopefully, this would all wear off soon, and I could go back to hating him.
Weakness was dangerous, especially around Dante and his magic blood, which was making me feel things andthinkthings I shouldnotbe thinking.
Perhaps this was the real reason I’d been limited to bagged blood all my life, this warm, sensual heaviness that saturated my bones and made me feel like I was made ofhoney.It will wear off. And when you wake up, he’ll only be the brute who trapped you for his own gain.
Easy enough to stick a knife in him then.
The entryway was narrow and dim, the floor uneven, the plaster cracked, revealing the original stone beneath. But the bones of the house were solid—shifted a little, maybe, on the mud floor of the lagoon, but not rotten.
