Page 68 of Chains of Blood and Darkness

The only man I felt had been honest with me had been Louis DuPont. He was a good man and had done the best he could to protect me. I knew Louis would tell me to walk away, to let the Santi family be destroyed.

I hesitated, my heart torn between my feelings forAngelo and my own moral code. Could I actually walk away, knowing he’d be murdered, maybe even tortured before he died? My heart hurt at the thought and a lump formed in the back of my throat.

And what would Dracula do to Enzo, Gianna, Elena, Dimitri, and even Lorenzo? I doubt that he would spare their lives. Would they end up like Jacques?

Icy fear slipped up my spine as I thought of Jacques’s horrible death. “You…you have to behead a vampire to kill them, right? Isn’t that what you said?”

“Yes and no. Born vampires, like Dimitri, will someday die of old age, but made vampires are immortal. The only way to kill us is through beheading.”

I swallowed hard, my mouth suddenly dry. “So that’s what Dracula would do to you?”

“Eventually.” The implication made me feel sick. He meant Dracula would torture him.

Angelo left me and walked over to the window to gaze down upon Bourbon Street. He wasn’t a hero, not like Captain America. And yet… he wasn’t all bad either.

In the end, I knew there was no easy answer. My brain said to walk away, to leave Angelo to his fate and wash my hands of the whole sordid affair.

But my heart...my heart couldn’t bear the thought that I would be responsible for his death, that I would have as good as stood by and watched as Dracula tore him apart, along with the others.

With closed eyes, my thoughts drifted. Jacques' brutal, senseless murder filled my mind. The countless other lives lost to the Santi family's thirst came next - their hunger notjust for blood, but for power and control. The weight of these deaths pressed heavily upon me.

I also thought about the man standing before me, the man who had shown such depth of feeling for me. He’d demonstrated a devotion I had never known before. My deadbeat supernatural dad couldn’t leave Mom and me fast enough. He taught me not to trust men, just as Freddie taught me to fear them. Meanwhile, my own romantic history teetered on the brink of you’re-better-off-without-him. I had steered away from men, never wanting to end up like my mom.

But Angelo had changed all of that. He’d shown me something I never dreamed existed, except for in the movies or books.

In that moment, I knew my heart had made its choice. I couldn’t walk away from Angelo, couldn’t abandon him to a fate worse than death. I cared for him more than any other man in my life, even though I wasn’t sure if it was love. I couldn’t even bring myself to utter that word to myself, never mind to him.

I reached for the Aeternum Stone with a trembling hand, my fingers closing around its hard, angular surface like a vice. The moment I made contact, a searing pain burst inside my heart, as if a white-hot dagger had been plunged deep into my chest. I gasped, my breath catching in my throat as agony spread through my body like wildfire.

Every muscle in my body tensed up, and I felt as though my entire body was being pulled inside out. My skin prickled with a thousand needles, and a fiery heat coursed through my veins, leaving me breathless and dizzy. I squeezed my eyesshut, but even behind the closed lids, I could see a blinding light emanating from the very core of my being. How was this possible?

I tried to cry out, but no sound escaped my lips. The pain was all-consuming, to the point that I could feel my grip on reality slipping away. The room around me melted into a distant blur, until all that existed was the stone gripped tightly in my hand and the excruciating sensations that wracked my body.

Just as the pain reached such a crescendo that I thought I couldn’t bear it any longer, my eyes snapped open and the light that had been building inside me burst forth, bathing the room in an eerie, otherworldly glow. I felt a sudden release, as if something had been unlocked deep within me, and the stone grew warm in my palm, pulsing with strange, ancient power.

My head jerked back, a guttural scream tearing from my throat as the agony began to intensify again, making my muscles spasm uncontrollably.

“Serenity!” Angelo’s voice was distant and barely audible over the roaring in my ears.

The Aeternum Stone seemed to come alive, and I could feel the stone’s insatiable hunger as it greedily drained every ounce of power from my being, determined to survive at any cost. It latched onto my energy like a parasite, siphoning off my life force with relentless determination. My legs buckled beneath me, and my teeth chattered so violently I feared they might shatter. The pain was all-consuming, a raging inferno that threatened to incinerate me from the inside out.

I cried out in agony, my voice raw and desperate. Thedarkness closed in on me as the stone’s hunger for me proved too much to bear. My vision faded, the darkness slowly replaced with a dizziness that made my stomach topsy-turvy. With a final, shuddering gasp, I crashed to the floor, my body limp as I felt the energy continue to drain from me.

Chapter Thirty-Two

Angelo

A burst of blinding white light assaulted my eyes, forcing me to shield them with my hand. As the light began to fade, a sudden surge of energy coursed through my body, like an electrical current that set every nerve ending ablaze. It was as if a dam had burst within me, unleashing a river of power that had been held back for far too long.

I gasped as the energy continued to build, filling me with a strength I hadn’t felt in decades. My heartbeat thundered in my ears, and my skin tingled with the sheer potency of the magic flowing through my veins. It was exhilarating and overwhelming all at once, a heady rush of renewed vitality that left me breathless.

As the initial shock began to wear off, I could feel my senses becoming keener, my mind becoming clearer andsharper. The world around me seemed to come into better focus—colors were more vivid, sounds crisper. I felt alive in a way I hadn’t in a long time, as if a veil had been lifted from my eyes, revealing the true depth and breadth of my power to me.

I clenched my fists, marveling at the raw energy that thrummed just beneath the surface of my skin. It was intoxicating, this feeling of strength and capability. With this renewed power, I knew I could face any challenge that lay ahead.

Even as I reveled in the rush of my restored abilities, a flicker of unease passed through me. Serenity had managed to heal the stone, but not completely. I knew that this was only a fraction of my true potential, and the thought of what I might be capable of at full strength both thrilled and terrified me.

Then I turned, and my world shattered into a million pieces.

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