Page 2 of Devoted

I closed my eyes and did a breathing exercise, which didn’t work. Jealousy was a crazed stalker, stabbing a knife into my bleeding heart over and over again. See how he talks about her? Didn’t she look amazing in that gold dress while you looked like you’d just been dragged out of the canal?

“Let me go, Dante. Just… I can’t listen to you defending your ex-fiancé right now.”

“Tesoro. We’ve been over this. She’s not my ex-fiancé,” he said patiently.

Everything about this situation—especially his godsdamned patience—pissed me off. I had the inexplicable urge to punch him, but his arms were like iron bands, and I couldn’t get my hand free.

“Dante, I mean it, let me go,” I threatened, but he pressed me down to the bed.

“Not until you listen to what I’m trying to tell you, Emberline. There is nothing between me and Valeria. She did a good thing yesterday, and…” He nuzzled into my throat. “Our goals are aligned. Together, we’ll bring down Blackwood and Giovanni, and she is going to help us.”

I snorted. “Or she’s going to sell us out. I know which option I’d put my money on.”

“Valeria is in the past, Emberline. I swear on my honor, you own my heart. And my future. And everything else. There’s nothing I want from her other than revenge on our enemies, while from you…” His teeth closed on the tendon in my neck, tongue greedily tracing my vein.

“From you, tesoro, I want fucking everything.”

“Gods, just look at you two. That’s so fucking hot,” Nico sighed wistfully, head tipped to the side, eyes shining.

“Too bad we’re in such deep shit.”

2

GABRIEL DOMINICO

Standing in the villa’s luxurious living area, I didn’t hear Valeria’s footsteps until she was right behind me.

“It’s a bit early in the morning for brooding, don’t you think, Gabriel? Or are you trying to stare a hole through the glass?”

I pulled my attention away from the magnificent view—turquoise water and jutting, monolithic rock, softened by rows of silver-green olive trees and beyond that, the rich green of an untamed jungle.

Valeria Demente’s cool voice was unhurried, filled with the eternal boredom of someone who had spent decades playing her father’s political games in ballrooms, courts, and bedrooms. Every one of my survival instincts went on alert. She was dangerous, in too many ways for me to list, but right now, she was our best… no, our only chance of survival, and I would sell my proverbial soul to the devil herself to save my friends and the woman I loved.

Gilded by the morning light, the female was extraordinary, carved from pure gold, from her sleek fall of hair to that shimmering gown she wore—more suited for evening candlelight than morning sun, but this was her house and her show, so who was I to judge?

“My apologies,” I dipped my head, tearing my gaze away from the view as I turned to fully face her. “I can’t stop watching the ocean. I’ve never seen anything so blue.”

A lie, in part, since the water was the same shade as my eyes, but for some inexplicable reason, I had been returning to this same spot all morning. Perhaps I was trying to fill the aching cavern in my chest that had opened up last night when I’d started thinking of my mother, wondering how my life would have been different if she’d lived.

Or maybe I wanted to escape this weight crushing down on me.

A month ago, I had nothing to lose. A father I was planning to betray, a dynasty that would exist with or without me. The promise of a mafia crown I didn’t particularly want. Revenge was all that fueled me.

Revenge I’d pursued with single-minded focus bordering on obsession.

Now, everything I loved was at risk.

My brother and best friend.

And I’d found a new obsession. The female who owned my soul. The one I’d follow to the ends of the earth, then burn the world down for, if she would only ask.

And across that stretch of water were two vampires who could take that all away. They would kill my friends and the love of my life, and I had no way to protect them...

Except by forging this devil’s bargain with Valeria Demente.

“I’ve been coming here my whole life.” She glided across the modern living area with the poised calm of someone supremely comfortable in her own skin—or someone who knew they had the upper hand.

“My great-grandfather seized this island a millennium ago, then had a high priestess erect the first wards. No one in the Dynasty knows this place exists. You and your friends are safe, Gabriel. As I said last night, our interests align. And I’d be a fool to waste my chance to forge an alliance with the future Don.”