Something sweet cut through the filth.
Not the cold mineral stink of stone. Not the iron bite of fresh blood.
A citrusy, floral scent.Tinged with lavender.
Female.Myfucking female.
My heart stuttered so hard, I couldn’t move from my spot on the filthy cell floor, staring out into the dark corridor with hope pounding in my heart like a battle drum. I told myself I was hallucinating. That pain had finally twisted my mind, dangling an impossible dream in front of a dying male.
This couldn’t be real.
But on another bitter whisper of foul wind, the scent came again, stronger this time, and my entire body went taut. Lemons and lavender. Unmistakable. Impossible.Terrifying.
My throat constricted. My fangs ached with a primal, instinctive need that had nothing to do with hunger and everything to do with claiming what was mine.
“No,” I rasped, trying to climb to my feet, fingers clawing at the wall behind me for support.My wife was not here. Emberline was alive, safe in Venice, over a thousand miles away from here, protected by an oath my brother swore, and the Fossa was a secret buried so deep in the sand…
She could not be here.
The scent grew sharper. The air inside the Fossa tightened, the prison quieted to a dense, dark silence.No, no, no, this couldn’t be happening.
I squeezed my eyes closed, finally on my feet, useless leg hanging, shoulder braced against the wall for support. My hands dug into the wall, dragging myself closer to the bars, pain exploding through every inch of my ruined flesh, white-hot, blinding.
The chain locked around my ankle clinked softly, and bones shifted. Something warm slid down my shin. I didn’t stop until my hands curled around the bars, until the cold bite of iron singed my palms.
I shoved my face through the space in the bars, breathing in hard, desperate gasps.
Oh gods.All I smelled was her. She was here… she’d come tofucking save me.
“What have you done?” I moaned to the silent darkness, as if the Fates could hear me. But they couldn’t save us, not from this. No, the Overseer would wrap his hands aroundEmberline’s throat and squeeze, and I would have to watch her die andgods…oh gods, I couldn’t bear it.
“Stay away,” I hissed, voice breaking as the faint sound of footsteps echoed down the corridor. “Stay the fuck away?—”
Three sets of boots. Two of them sure-footed. One uneven. I caught two more scents besides hers—Gabriel and Nico.
My hands tightened on the bars until the iron groaned. I had been willing to die here. Willing to die, knowing they would all live, but now… I tried to think. Tried to plan.
But all I knew was panic as her scent spilled into the corridor like a wave of sunshine.
Then she was in front of me, horror dawning in her dark eyes as she scanned my body, her mouth pinched together in a trembling line. Gabriel and Nico were right behind her, and all I saw were lambs stepping into the slaughterhouse.
“Emberline,” I whispered, and my voice cracked on her name. “What have you done?”
18
GABRIEL
Cold, damp air slid over stone and skin, colder than death; the rot of the Fossa so embedded in my lungs, I felt like I’d swallowed the Underworld itself.
I’d spent my entire life listening to whispers of this place. The brutality. The cruelty. The tortures.
But nothing prepared me for what they’d done to my brother.
Emberline was frozen, Dante staring out of the darkness like a broken, blood-splattered wraith.
“Dante,” she breathed. “Oh gods, what have they done to you?”
A sound came from inside the cell. A rasp that might have been her name. Or a sob.
