by Lara Adrian
Chiara and Bella both sucked in their breath. Hell, even Savage felt a jolt of unease as Scythe’s hard gaze slowly descended to look at the boy. When he spoke, the male’s deep voice was as unreadable as his stoic face.
“I tried to help someone a long time ago.”
By the male’s grave tone, Savage assumed his hand wasn’t the only thing Scythe lost.
“Come on, Pietro.” Chiara gave her son’s hand a small tug. She looked up at the big male, her cheeks flaming with color. “I’m sorry. He’s just starting to learn about manners.”
Scythe shrugged vaguely, but his bleak eyes lingered on the pretty Breedmate. “It’s all right.”
Savage cleared his throat. “We should get moving. It’s past sundown now, and we have a lot of time ahead of us on the road.”
As he spoke, the faint sound of a woman’s scream went up somewhere in the distance outside the sassi. Scythe heard it too. His dark head jerked to instant attention.
Just as another shriek sounded—this one closer and belonging to a man.
A man who was screaming for his life.
Savage’s blood iced over with dread. “What the fuck?”
Scythe drew a phone out of his leather trench coat and brought something up on the display. His curse was guttural, vibrating with fury.
“Rogues,” he said grimly.
He turned the device so Savage could see it. On the screen was live video from several different cameras positioned in Matera’s city center. The surveillance showed humans racing in all directions, while a group of Rogues—he counted half a dozen in just the few seconds he watched—poured into the streets on the attack.
“Oh, my God,” Bella gasped, her terror-filled eyes rooted to the small display.
It wasn’t the first time in recent weeks that a city had been overrun by blood-addicted vampires. Thanks to Massioni’s proliferation of Red Dragon, the narcotic that had turned scores of the Breed into Bloodlusting animals, violence like this was becoming almost epidemic again in many parts of the world.
Savage cursed viciously.
So much for leaving any time soon.
He wasn’t about to risk Bella or anyone else’s life by heading out into the chaos running rampant outside their safe house. And the idea of letting Matera’s innocent population be slaughtered by blood-addicted predators was more than he could stand.
He met Scythe’s fathomless black stare and saw the same resolve in him.
“You got extra weapons somewhere in here?”
The male gave him a curt nod.
More screams rang out in other parts of the town. More death coming closer by the minute. If the Rogues weren’t stopped, it wouldn’t take long before their attack moved down into the ravine.
Savage turned to Bella. He pulled one of his pistols from his weapons belt and placed it in her hand. “You ever shoot one of these?”
“No.” She shook her head vigorously, but the worry he felt spiking through her blood was there for him. “Ettore, what are you—”
“Take it,” he ground out fiercely, giving her a quick demonstration on how to take off the safety. “You aim this at anyone who comes to the door that isn’t me or Scythe. And take this too.” He unclipped a sheathed dagger from his belt and handed it to her. “That blade is titanium. It’ll ash a Rogue in seconds flat.”
He hoped to hell she never got close enough to one of them to use either of the weapons, but he wasn’t taking any chances.
“Stay put, you hear me?” He grabbed her close, imploring her with his eyes and the hard, desperate pound of his heart. “I’ll be back for you as soon as I can.”
“Promise me.”
He dragged her against him and kissed her—a brief, but impassioned confirmation that he wasn’t about to lose her when they were so close to finally having a future together.
It wasn’t easy to release her.
But as the terrorized screams of Matera’s citizens continued to ring out, he knew he had little choice.
He turned to Scythe, now his unlikely ally. “Let’s do this.”
Chapter 12
The screams carrying down into the sassi from the city above only seemed to worsen in the few minutes after Ettore and Scythe had gone.
Those terror-filled shrieks—many of them agonized, final cries—left Bella shuddering and heartsick. Frightened to her marrow.
“We’re going to be all right,” she told Chiara and her frightened little boy, hoping her uncertainty didn’t show in her eyes. As much as she trusted that Ettore was a capable warrior—Scythe too—they were only two against what was easily three times as many Rogues.
If anything happened to Ettore…
“You love him, don’t you?” Chiara’s voice was gentle, sympathetic.
“I love him more than anything in this world. I’ve loved him since I was a girl, back at the vineyard.” She absently lifted her hand to the side of her neck, where she could still feel the claiming heat of Ettore’s bite. “We’re mated, Chiara. Our blood bond is only hours old.”
“Oh, Bella.” Chiara hugged her close. “You deserve this kind of happiness. You of all people deserve it.”
Did she?
Bella couldn’t help thinking that if not for her gift and Vito Massioni’s want of it, Chiara and Pietro would not have been pawns at his mercy all these years. If not for her, Massioni would be dead—finished by Ettore in his mission for the Order.
If not for trying to rescue her from Massioni’s villa, Ettore would already be back in Rome with his comrades, not swept into more violence and death.
High-pitched shrieks sounded again from somewhere outside.
“Momma!” Pietro whined, clutching at Chiara in wide-eyed alarm.
She picked him up and shushed him with tender words, rocking him. “It’s okay, piccolo. Momma’s here.”
Bella reached out to stroke the little Breed male’s head. “Why don’t you both go relax in the back bedroom? It’ll be quieter there.”
Sheltered deeper into the cave dwelling. Away from the sounds of chaos and slaughter outside.
“You’re sure?” Chiara gave her a dubious look. “I don’t like the thought of leaving you alone to wait out here.”
“Go,” Bella gently encouraged. “I’ll be fine. And soon Ettore and Scythe will be back.”
Another sharp cry rent the night, startling Pietro. He started to cry softly against his mother’s shoulder. Finally, on an apologetic nod, Chiara relented and turned to head back to the other room.
Bella took a seat in the living area, eyeing the weapons Ettore had given her. The gun and dagger rested on the side table next to her. She wished she were skilled enough to help him in some way. Feeling helpless made her antsy, made her mind spin from one disturbing thought to another.
She got up to pace the rug, worrying about Ettore. And the more she worried, the more she wondered if this random Rogue attack was actually random at all.
What if Vito Massioni had something to do with it?
She didn’t want to think about the vision she had scried earlier, but the truth was his hideous face had been seared into her mind ever since.
And as much as she dreaded the idea of glimpsing him again, she needed to see if she could learn anything more that might help Ettore and the Order prepare to destroy him.
Taking the gun into the small kitchen with her, she retrieved a rustic stone bowl and filled it with water from the sputtering tap. Although Scythe didn’t require mundane food or drink for nourishment as one of the Breed, his modest home had apparently been outfitted for human residents.
She stared into the bowl of water, trying to ignore all of the pain and death taking place outside her shelter. She focused all of her concentration on the clear pool, but nothing happened.
She tried again, praying for something.
Anything.
But the water gave her nothing.
Her gift refused to comply.
“Dammit.” She heaved a sigh, closing
her eyes and lowering her head into her palms.
When she opened them again, she did see a face reflected in the water.
Vito Massioni’s hideous, disfigured face. His unblinking eyes stared back at her, the amber glow of them furious. Insane. Murderous.
His jaws were open, baring the twin daggers of his elongated fangs.
“Hello, Arabella.”
Oh, God.
No.
She screamed and wheeled around, horrified to find the Breed male standing behind her. Her hand shot out to grab for the gun, but Massioni was much faster. With barely a sweep of his arm, he sent the weapon flying into the other room.
She tried to scramble out of his reach, but he grabbed a fist full of her long blonde hair and yanked her back. She crashed against him, her stomach turning at the foul stench of soured blood and death that clung to him.
“Didn’t I warn you never to cross me, Bella?” His arms wrapped around her, strong as steel. His breath was hot and rank as it wormed into her ear. “Didn’t I tell you there was nowhere you could run that I wouldn’t find you? Your family too.” He clucked his tongue, a revolting, wet sound. “Did you think I was so careless that I wouldn’t take steps to make sure of that? The tracer on Chiara’s truck led me straight to you. The Rogues ensured that the warrior from the Order would have no choice but to leave you unattended.”
Nausea swamped her, not only from the horror of their mistake, but from the repulsiveness of Massioni’s nearness. She moaned, struggling in vain to break loose. “Let me go!”
He chuckled. “Stupid girl. Didn’t I tell you there would be pain if you deceived me? Now, there will be death.”
Bella struggled and fought, but it was no use. Even severely injured from the blast that should have killed him, Massioni was inhumanly strong.
He was also deadly, even though his burned, mangled skin was raw, open wounds still seeping on his forearms despite the massive amount of blood he had likely consumed in his efforts to heal.
Bella’s gaze fixed on the worst of the wounds that mangled the flesh of his arms. Maybe there was a tender spot on this dragon after all. Her bile churned, but she pushed past it to dig her fingers as deep and as savagely as she could into the ruined muscles and tendons.
He howled in anguish—and when his grasp loosened in reflex to the pain, she threw herself out of his grip. Stumbling to the floor, she scrambled away into the living area, hope surging through her.
But it was short-lived.
Chiara rushed out of the far chamber. “Bella? Oh, my God!”
Her scream when she spotted Massioni brought Pietro out of the bedroom behind her.
What happened next occurred so quickly, Bella could hardly comprehend it.
One moment, Massioni was doubled over in agony and anger. The next, he had Pietro by the wrist, holding the little boy up like a prize. Like a slab of meat caught on a butcher’s hook.
Massioni’s amber eyes burned even brighter in his rage. He snorted and sniffled, his lips peeling back from his teeth and fangs. There was a deep madness in his transformed gaze. In his feral, blood-stained face.
Oh, shit.
He really was crazy. Worse than crazy, but she hadn’t realized it until now.
He had drunk too much blood since he escaped the blast.
Vito Massioni was lost to Bloodlust.
He was Rogue.
“You shouldn’t have done that, Arabella. Now, you’re really going to suffer.”
His tongue slid out, snakelike, as he eyed the Breed child that dangled from his grasp. Then he looked back at her as she slowly got to her feet from her stumble into the other room.
His head cocked at a chilling, exaggerated angle. “I think we’ll start by letting you watch me rip this boy’s heart out and eat it in front of you both.”
Chapter 13
“I don’t think so, asshole.”
Savage held a semiauto in his hand as he stood in the open doorway, his eyes lit up with fury, his fangs pulsing with the need to shred Vito Massioni to pieces.
He and Scythe had split up after leaving the sassi, working the attack from both ends of the city in order to contain the situation as best they could. Savage had just ashed his third Rogue of the night when all of a sudden it felt as if his heart was about to burst out of his chest in ice-cold terror.
Bella’s terror.
Their bond had told him instantly that she was in danger. He hadn’t been prepared for what he saw as he entered the sassi safe house and met with the hideous, Bloodlust-afflicted creature facing him now.
“Let the boy go, Massioni.”
Savage would have opened fire already if Bella wasn’t standing between him and a clear shot at the slavering Breed male.
Besides, in Massioni’s current condition, he was as volatile as a human on PCP. Putting him down cleanly would take a lot more rounds than Savage had left in his pistol.
Or a titanium dagger.
Unfortunately, he’d buried one a few minutes ago in the skull of a Rogue who’d ripped the throat out of a nun inside one of Matera’s old churches. His other blade he’d given to Bella.
He saw no trace of the gun or the knife he’d given her.
And there wasn’t time to consider alternatives so long as Massioni had little Pietro hanging painfully by his wrist while Chiara wept and pleaded for mercy on her son.
Massioni sneered at Savage. “Done chasing rabbits so soon, warrior? Here I’d been looking forward to taking my time with these three.”
“You heard me. Put the boy down.”
Instead of complying, he raised Pietro higher, until the child’s rib cage was level with Massioni’s open maw. Saliva dripped from the tips of his fangs. “Put down your weapon, warrior.”
Savage didn’t move. He didn’t as much as blink. Holding his 9mm steady, he only hoped Massioni would believe his bluff.
“Bella,” he said calmly. “Move out of the way, baby.”
Massioni growled. “Don’t you take even one fucking step, Bella, or the next thing you’ll hear is this brat’s screams as I punch a hole through his sternum with my fist.”
Chiara sobbed. Bella looked equally miserable, but she held herself together. She stared at Savage, shaking her head as if to warn him away from doing anything rash.
Well, fuck that. He would do anything to get her out of this, but damn if he wanted to forfeit an innocent child’s life to accomplish it.
He saw little choice but to try to catch Massioni off guard.
In a split-second move, Savage took his shot, hitting the Breed male’s forearm.
Massioni hissed as the bullet bit into his ravaged flesh.
As Savage hoped, he lost his grip on Pietro. The boy dropped to the floor, unharmed.
But then, just as quickly, Massioni snatched up Bella and hauled her against him like a shield.
She screamed. Arms trapped at her sides, she struggled in vain to break loose. The monster who held her only chuckled, seeming to delight in her terror. His glowing gaze was wild with madness. And dangerously smug triumph.
Savage couldn’t contain the nasty curse that exploded out of him. He’d never known this kind of fear. He’d never felt the kind of bleak horror that raked him as he watched his mate sag into a resigned slump in her captor’s arms.
Massioni tilted his head, those insane amber eyes studying Savage too closely.
“What’s this?” he taunted. “Why, you look more than worried for this bitch, warrior. Am I taking something you thought belonged to you?”
“Let her go.”
He held his weapon steady on his target, but he knew damned well he would never pull the trigger. Not when he was staring at Bella’s beautiful, fear-stricken face.
If anything happened to her—for crissake, if she died right here at Massioni’s hands—he would burn the whole world down around him.
“Please,” he said woodenly, too afraid of losing her to care if he had to beg. “Let her go.”
Mass
ioni’s eyes narrowed on him. “You’ve fucked her.”
Savage bristled at the other male’s crudeness. He wanted to flay him just for uttering the words.
A bark of laughter erupted from between the male’s cracked and blistered lips. “Holy hell. You love her. Don’t you, warrior?”
Bella made an anguished sound in the back of her throat. She shook her head at Savage, and as their eyes connected and held, he didn’t so much feel fear in their bond, but a strange and steely determination.
“She’s no good to me now,” Massioni muttered. “Her gift was the only thing of value to me. You’ve ruined it.” He shrugged. “I might as well kill her now.”
Massioni gripped her chin in his soot-blackened, blood-stained fingers. He yanked her head back, and Bella’s sharp cry tore into Savage.
Her pain was real.
But her terror had galvanized into something else.
Something that told Savage to trust what he was feeling, not what he was seeing.
“All right.” He relaxed his stance, lowering his weapon. “All right, you son of a bitch. You win.”
Massioni stilled. Confusion swept over his feral features. His hold on Bella relaxed—ever so slightly.
It was all the opportunity she needed.
Twisting in the slackened cage of his arms, Bella drew the dagger she’d been concealing in her hand and drove it hard and fast and mercilessly into the center of his chest.
He staggered back, a look of shock on his face.
Until the poison of the titanium began to seep into his corrupted blood system. He howled, his face constricting in disbelief and agony. His body convulsed, collapsing to the floor.
Savage was at Bella’s side in no time, pulling her close to him—holding her tight as the Rogue that had once been Vito Massioni began to disintegrate into a puddle of sizzling, melting flesh and bone.
In a few moments, there was only ash where his body had been.
He was dead, and Bella was safe.
Chiara and her son had come through the ordeal uninjured too.
As Savage held Bella in his embrace, he glanced to the door where Scythe had now entered. The former Hunter strode inside his house, his black gaze taking in the signs of struggle and the pile of ash still crackling on the floor. Then he looked to Chiara and Pietro, the pair of them huddled together nearby, and something crossed the remote male’s face.
