“I would never hurt you,tesoro. Never. I have this under control.”
I swallowed down a sobbing laugh. “It doesn’t look like you have it under control. What the hell, Dante? You’re onfire, for fuck’s sake.”
“Just… give… me… a minute.”
I couldn’t stop staring. At the fire. At the way it leaked out through every scar, as if it was trying to escape. At how those flames licked over his body in slow, sensual waves and turned him into a fucking work of art.
Gods, he was like something out of an ancient legend, a blend of immortal vampire and Vulcan, the god of fire.
“I’m… almost… there.”
He gave a mighty shudder and wrested back control, as only Dante could, stubbornly, teeth gritted against some terrible, invisible pain, muscles bunching in his shoulders until the last of the fire was gone, and only he remained.
Naked as the day he was born.
I shivered. Magnificent.Mine.
“We came here to find the Basin,” he panted, blue eyes shining with determination. “And we’re not failing because of me.”
Nobody spoke after that.
Because what was there to say? We all had a million questions, but right now was not the time to ask them, and besides, if there were more of those things, my husband was the only one capable of killing them.
With the bonesof the abbey laid bare and Nico’s ability to track the relic’s magic, we found the Basin at the bottom of a set of worn stone steps.
Hidden in an ancient crypt where the wet, seeping walls pulsed with the same wrongness as the island itself. The air down here was layered with old, cruel magic, the walls etched with more of those symbols. While the rest of us stared at the Basin, Dante studied the symbols with an unnatural stillness that sent a fresh tremor of fear through me.
“This was almost too easy,” Gabriel muttered darkly.
I bit my tongue to keep from agreeing, trying to ignore the sinking feeling in my stomach.
“If you call almost getting torn apart by monsters, then nearly incinerated, easy,” Nico shook his head. “You people, always wanting to do things the hard way.”
“How will we get out of here?” I asked, looking at seven hundred pounds of carved stone, the shallow bowl dark and slick, as if it had never truly dried. One moment, I was staring at the Basin, the next…it was gone.
“Up here,” A grinning Nico called, outlined by the opening to the crypt. “Like I said… always doing things the hard way.”
Dante, Gabriel, and I took the steps two at a time. I scrubbed my arms at the top, trying to get rid of the creeping sensation of being trapped underground, even just for a few minutes.
“A transporting spell,” Nico explained with a hint ofsmugness. “We use them whenever we transport something large for the Brotherhood. Simple, but effective. I know exactly where I’ll stash this thing.”
“Uncle Gio’s shit out of luck without this,” I noted with a shiver of delight. “He can plot world domination, he can scheme with Rocco, but he’ll never control us the way he wants to.”
“Well done, niece,” Giovanni drawled. “But then again, you always were my favorite student.”
My uncle stood between two pillars of stone, flanked by three of Rocco’s personal guards—including Bruno—with at least seven Ashbound slipping in and out of the mists around us, their lean, pale forms blending so seamlessly with the fog, only their glowing eyes were visible.
The three soldiers brandished guns and looks of intense anticipation.
“So, you did survive, after all.” Giovanni’s plump lips pinched together. “You cannot imagine the worry you cost me, disappearing like that.”
“Good. I hope you haven’t slept a wink since that night.”
“You’ll be dead soon enough. Dante, you cost me an absolute fortune when you destroyed the Fossa. That prison bankrolled my enterprise for centuries. Now I’ll have to find a new source of income. And Gabriel,” he continued with a smile. “My condolences on Marcello’s impending demise. Shame you’ll be following in his footsteps.”
“I’m not following my father anywhere, least of all to the Underworld,” Gabriel muttered, glancing sideways at me, both of us on the same page. He had a fully loaded gun, a knife, and I had two blades. Nico was the deadliest fighter I’d ever seen, but while we could take the guards down, these creatures were a problem.
Because Dante—our secret weapon—had turned into a statue again, chest heaving, fists balled.
