Page 97 of A Dangerous Bargain

His fingers squeeze mine one last time. “Be careful. Don’t curse our bloodlines for generations.”

“I won’t,” I whisper, voice thick with tears. “Our sisters would never forgive me.”

My brother shoves the boat as hard as he can.

I don’t see the demon lunge.

But I hear Niccolo’s screams.

I curl in on myself and cover my ears, knowing he wouldn’t want me to listen, trying to hold back my cries, knowing my fear and horror will only bring more demons closer.

Niccolo is gone.

I’m alone.

CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

I don’t know how long I weep into my knees.

But eventually the tears burn themselves out; Niccolo’s screams fade, settle in a deep, dark part of me I’ll return to in my nightmares. I blink away the dampness and lift my head.

The boat glides silently down the river, into a thicket of gray fog. Eerie wisps of fire undulate across the water. I lean over the boat’s side to get a closer look.

And scream.

There are people in the water.

Their visages are death-pale, a parade of grimaces. Their hands claw for me, shards of bone poking from splintered fingertips. I bolt upright. The boat wobbles, tipping to one side, water sloshing dangerously close to the edge.

I swallow and fix my eyes on the shore, trying to ignore the faces floating like weeds inches away.

Occasionally a darker, sinuous shadow swims beneath the boat, bumping the people out of the way. I clamp my eyes shut and wait for an eldritch horror to burst forth and demand a tithe to stop my boat with its awful power and shred my soul to pieces, but the water’s surface stays still.

As if I’m destined for someone else.

Something else.

A black palazzo emerges from the fog, a snarling, hulking beast of a building with sharp curved turrets and jagged-teeth walls. A long, lonely quay pierces the river before it.

A hooded cloaked figure stands at the very end.

My heart crawls into my throat. The boat drifts closer and closer. From this far away, I have to hope, I have to believe. ’Tis all I have left in this dark, forsaken place.

The boat bumps against the black stone. My lungs stop working. I couldn’t scream if I wanted to. There’s nowhere to hide, nowhere else to go except the river filled with the dead. Their torn fingertips scrape the boat, as if they know I’ll join them soon.

The figure turns, face hidden in the hood.

But the light catches the bow of a smile.

“I’ve been waiting for you, Virgil.”

It’s Lupa. Beautiful, fierce Lupa.

She’s taller, sharper. More like the wolf I named her for. The hand she offers me is tipped in pointed black-painted nails. I stare at the paint, the practice unfamiliar and strange.

“It’s me, I swear it.” Her hand clenches into a fist, an expression almost like sadness flickering across her face. “I don’t know what you’ve gone through to get here, but I promise you’re safe with me.”

I don’t miss how she says with me, and not safe for now.