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“At last,” he answers, looking delighted. “Some respect. And of course, sweet girl, I am happy to help. We are family after all.”

He walks closer, pulls my head back. Stares greedily at my neck. I know what is coming, and I steel myself for it. The pain when he strikes, the physical sickness at being so close to him. But I needed to be close. I needed him right within my reach.

I wrap my arms around him, this twisted bastard who claims to be my family. This perverted creature feeding on the blood of his own granddaughter.

I wrap my arms around him and hold him tight, and I let myself remember Luca. The moment we met in a damp alleyway in Liverpool. The first time he kissed me and changed everything. The night he rescued me from this man and his sick plans, killing everything in his path to reach me in time. The devastation I felt when I thought Vincenzo had killed him.

I remember all the small moments. The laughter, the love. The mind-blowing sex. The softness and the strength and the staggering sweetness of everything.

I let myself remember, and then I remind myself that it is all gone. Luca’s huge, pure heart, gone.

Then I let out all my rage. My fury. My fear and pain and sadness. I howl at the unfairness of a world that allows this monster to live and lets my beautiful Luca die. I scream at the tragedy of it all, the losses and the hurts and the death.

I let everything wash over me, a hot flood of anguish, a ferocious river of wrath that swallows me whole. My hair starts to swirl, and the sparks start to fly. He is too distracted to notice, too greedy, too gorged on my blood. He is an old man, but a new vampire, and the thrill of feeding is still enough to hold his full attention.

By the time he does notice, sniffing the air and trying to pull away from my fierce embrace, it is too late. The flames are rising around both of us. I will die, yes, but I do not care. It is worth it to see that final look on his face as he realizes what is happening to him, as he struggles and panics and tries to run.

I hold him tighter, my hands gripped behind his back. Yes. It is worth it. He is terrified, afraid, and it is delicious.

I laugh as the fire engulfs us both.

Chapter 31

Luca

Irun all the way there, through the park, through the early morning rays of sunlight. Past startled humans and scurrying animals and the creatures who were hiding from the destruction around the Firenze court.

The battle is far from over, but the dawn is here, and the vampires who went up against us are not strong. They are new, weak, afraid. They started to flee at the first hint of yellow in the sky.

Sophia’s wolf pack had emerged from the melee to chase them, pursuing them through the city streets and pouncing as soon as they were cornered. The shifters who had allied with us helped, taking on forms with wings and hovering over the escaping monsters. The Pennsylvania witches joined the fray, after speaking to Minerva in Italy and learning of the chaos that Tomasso was seeking to bring, the balance he was trying to destroy.

No, the battle is far from over, but it is not lost. At first, looking at those sheer overwhelming numbers, I was convinced that we would not prevail. But one good soldier, I know, is worth a hundred assholes. The Firenze men fought bravely, fought well. Stefano is a loss, but he went the way he would have wanted to—defending his family.

Donna and Matteo cut a swathe through everything that they faced, and even the weaker members of our court helped. Yvonne and Pietro organized supply chains for ammunition, and Roberto the hostage vampire took up a sniping position on the rooftops. He turned out to be a crack shot and saved me on more than one occasion.

It came close once, when I was trapped beneath a deluge of vamps, all of them trying to end me. I found myself submerged in a sea of blood and death, face-to-face with the dead, unstaring eyes of one of the misguided humans who’d joined the fight. I sheltered beneath him, hidden while his heart was ripped from his chest. It gave them a brief sense of victory, distracted them, allowed them to think the big bad witch vamp was gone, and while they were distracted, many of them died. Cosca soldiers, a Seer, our wolves—all ruthlessly disciplined, ready to kill.

I have been in battles before, but this was like nothing I’ve ever experienced. The stench of blood, the agonized shrieks of pain, the sound of the gunfire, the howls of the wolves. It was immense, an assault on all senses.

By the time I emerged, broken and battered, one ear missing and blood pouring into my eyes from my torn scalp, those first hints of dawn were starting to appear. A tell-tale glimmer on the horizon, a lightening of the darkness. It was enough to scare many away and enough to give me my chance. I’d found Aidan, knee deep in gore, fangs bared and a machete in his grip. “I need to find Rosa.”

He nodded, machete striking. “Go! We’ll deal with this.”

I ran. All the way here to this place. I’m a block away when I first smell smoke, and I doubt it’s a coincidence. I open my mind, throw out yet another desperate call to her. Again, nothing.

No, I tell myself, she cannot be gone. I will not give in to despair. If she was dead, I would surely know it.

Onwards I go, forcing my exhausted body to sprint through these normally quiet streets, ignoring the slight kiss of the sun on my skin. The fear of losing Rosa is so much bigger than the fear of the dawn finding me.

I locate the house. See smoke seeping from the lower-floor windows. Know that is where I will find her. I burst through the front door, my nose twitching at the scents. The smoke, yes, and Rosa—lemons and basil—but something else. Something more rotten. Not just Tomasso.

I find the door to the basement, kick it open, leap over the side of the stairs and right into the thick of it. The smoke is dense, choking, filling the whole room. I let my eyes adjust, and I find her. Directly in the heart of the swirling clouds of gray and white—a bright beacon of fire.

She is completely ablaze, standing tall, her arms clutching something to her chest. I edge closer, see that it is not something but someone. Or at least it was. Tomasso Capelli, now a burned husk.

“Stay back!” she calls, her voice desperate, terrified. Her hair whirls around her head, the usually dark strands golden, alight. Her eyes shine with flames, and her whole body is glowing. A tornado of fire surrounds her, enclosing her, trapping her. “I can’t stop this.”

The flames she produces have never hurt her before, but this is very different. This is huge. It’s like she is made of fire.