Page 85 of Devoted

“I am a male who was given a second chance, and took it.”

“How?”

His eyes slid to me. “I lied to you before, Emberline. I didn’t walk out of my father’s house when I was twelve. I was carried. My broken body lay on a pyre and burned. A sacrifice to my father’s rage and cruelty. But in that fire, somewhere between this realm and the next, I was offered a choice. Serve the darkness and live again. I made the deal, if only to get vengeance on my father.”

I focused on the water, losing myself to the onslaught of blinding rage, the beach smearing as my vision darkened, my insides eviscerated by the truth.

Whatever suffering I could have imagined, this was far, far worse.

Barely able to breathe, I whispered, “How does that even work? If you burned on a pyre, then…”

“I don’t know. I woke in a field in the middle of nowhere.” He sifted sand through his fingers, letting the grains fall slowly. “I couldn’t remember how I got there; all I knew was I was free. I started walking east, and I didn’t stop until I reached the ocean. From there, I hopped on a freighter, and a week later, found myself in Venice. Picking pockets, stealing food, sleeping wherever I could find shelter. I had training—my father had seen to that—so I could fight better than most. I survived.

“One day, I followed some Brotherhood soldiers from the city to the Draconi training grounds and managed to stay hidden for a full week before I was discovered and dragged in front of the Draconi Master. He was… impressed. Severin took me under his wing, and for the first time in my life… I felt like I could belong somewhere.”

“How did you even…” I wanted to know everything. How he’d survived by himself, who had taken care of him when he was sick, my heart flooding full of desperate, useless grief.

I shook my head. “Never mind. And then? When did you meet Gabriel?”

“When I was still a greenback soldier, and Gabriel was chafing under his father’s control. Severin offered me up as a sparring partner. Gabriel accepted. Over the next few years, we became close. Then I was sent to the Fossa to become a Vendetarri. During a fight, I recognized Dante from a photograph. Gabriel used me to pass information back and forth, and soon enough, I was their most trusted friend.”

“So, what I saw last night…”

“Was a mistake,” he snapped. “A foolish mistake. When I’m in a different realm and my emotions run high, I sometimes slip into my other form, and after hiding my secret for decades…” Nico dragged his hand down his face. “Now he is sure of the truth. That was what my father really wanted last night. For me to reveal myself.”

“What will he do with that information?”

“Come after me with everything he has. Use you and Gabriel and Dante against me. Tighten the screws on the city to draw me out of hiding. And that’s just to start.”

“How…” I clasped my shaking hands together. “How could he use you… or your powers? I mean… he’s pretty powerful on his own.”

“You haven’t exactly… seen me at my worst.” he slanted me a look. “And I would never use my true powers in this realm; they would be devastating. But he could force me to dreamwalk. Kill his enemies in their sleep. Open doors to different realms. Take him there, where he could corrupt and manipulate and ruin. I never should have volunteered to run the investigation. I shouldn’t have gone to Rome.”

“So… he burned you on a funeral pyre.” I choked on the words, gagged on them, on all the images they painted inside my head. “And then… there you were. Alive and one of the Draconi Brotherhood. Interrogating him. That had to be a shock.”

“He was so fucking pleased when I showed up in Rome, and he connected the dots,” Nico whispered. “I sat across from him and saw the wheels turning. And I was foolish, thinking he wouldn’t know who I was. It had been over thirty years since I’d seen him. I looked different. I smelled different. And still, he knew me at first sight. My own arrogance fucked me over.”

“You need to tell Gabriel and Dante. And Severin. And Emilia. We all have to be on the same page.”

He dragged his hands down his face and stared out over the water. “They won’t understand. I mean, this is ludicrous.”

“Why not? Emilia brought me back from the dead, and my husband has a fire demon trapped inside of him.” I bumped shoulders with him again. He’d told me the truth, and here we were, sitting in the sunshine, the waves still rolling up on the beach, the world still spinning in circles.

“You being an Emissary of Death is hardly a newsflash, Nico.” I managed a grin that didn’t fool him one bit, and he flashed one back at me.

“Around here, it’s just another Tuesday.”

31

DANTE

Rage built and built as I looked between my wife and Nico, holding hands on the couch.

Built slowly, as my brain sluggishly processed information that simply refused to compute. The dreamworld and her parents. Blackwood and his threats. How I’d warned them different realms only presented different dangers. How they’d both ignored me.

Well, I’d been right, and look what happened.

As for Nico… keeping secrets from us seemed to be a habit, not an exception. After his latest betrayal, I was wondering if I could ever trust him again. Because turning into a demigod seemed like the sort of thing you might want to clue your friends in on.