Page 66 of The Curse of Blood and Silenc

Gianna’s involvement was something else entirely. She wasn’t betraying me—she was protecting her mate. Dimitri’s control was already fracturing over worry for his brother. Of course she’d come. And of course she’d bring Serenity, who never could stand idly by when someone she loved was in danger.

Focus. I forced the fury down, cold logic taking over. I couldn’t maintain surveillance now—not with Serenity walking into the middle of this power play. But charging in would alertBalthazar to her presence. If he didn’t already know. And that hooded figure... Something about his presence set off ancient warnings in my blood. The way he moved, the symbols on his arms that spoke of power older than my own—he was the wild card I couldn’t predict.

I banked left, keeping to the shadows cast by the broken spire. We had three minutes, tops, before chaos erupted. Our original plan now lay in tatters. With Keir’s harpies tasked to surveil the church, it was up to me to intercept Serenity. I signaled Keir with two quick flaps of my right wing, a pre-arranged signal for heightened vigilance.

Time was critical. I needed to reach Serenity before she approached the crypt and Dimitri saw her. Even with Gianna there to calm him, Serenity’s appearance risked driving him to the brink. He would see Serenity as a means to an end—namely, finding his brother. His instinct to protect Valentin would kick in, blinding him to all else, jeopardizing our chance to uncover what Balthazar truly sought from the crypt.

Above all else we couldn’t disrupt the ritual circle they’d carved into the floor. Whatever they were planning to pull through that gateway, containing it would be impossible once it emerged. The symbols were too perfect, too carefully placed. This wasn’t just about power—it was about punishment. About teaching someone a lesson.

No way would Serenity become part of his curriculum.

Chapter

Thirty-Four

Serenity

Gianna draggedme across a creepy graveyard that could have been straight out of a Stephen King movie. Tombs and mausoleums—no one was buried underground in New Orleans, not with the water table so high—crowded together like a city of the dead. The crypts loomed over us, their whitewashed walls stained with black mold and age, their copper and iron fixtures oxidized to a green patina. Spanish moss hung over everything like ghostly veils, and the moonlight cast shadows that I could swear moved the second I wasn’t looking directly at them. I kept waiting for the crypts to open and the dead to emerge.

The narrow aisles between the tombs felt like the streets in the French Quarter, only instead of tourists and music, there was silence and centuries of decay. Some of the older tombs bore names I recognized from Angelo’s history lessons about New Orleans’ oldest supernatural families—Villere, Laveau, DuBois. Their carved facades were elaborate even in decay, stone angels standing sentinel with empty eyes. My heart clenched thinkingabout Dimitri waiting at the Nightshade crypt, ready to tear apart anyone who got between him and his brother.

And Angelo. My chest tightened even more. He would face Balthazar head-on, too proud and too powerful to back down. The demon had already taken so much from him, had violated his territory and threatened his people. What if this was exactly what Balthazar wanted? What if the crypt was just another trap, designed to destroy my vampire king and everyone loyal to him in one brutal stroke?

The night air felt thick, heavy with decay and that copper-penny scent of old magic. Or maybe that was just the fear coating my tongue. Every click of our shoes against the brick pathways was so loud as to be heart-stopping, and I was sure I felt eyes watching us from the shadows between the tombs.

I scanned the graveyard and then the church, my heart hammering against my ribs as I searched for Angelo. Where was he? The shadows between the tombs seemed to breathe, to pulse with wrongness, and my chest tightened with each unnatural movement. These weren’t the familiar shadows I’d learned to read in my months of training. They writhed like living things, carrying whispers that made my skin crawl.

They didn’t contain Angelo. They couldn’t. I’d know his presence anywhere—that familiar cool pressure in my mind, like midnight frost on windowpanes. Now, where his telepathic touch should be, there was only a void that made my teeth ache. Something ancient, dark and evil had severed our connection, replacing it with a crawling unease that slithered up my spine.

Red light seeped from the church’s broken windows, pulsing like an infected wound. Each throb pierced my psychic shields, the ones Angelo had so carefully helped me build. They were crumbling now, leaving me exposed to whatever malevolent force had taken root in the sacred space. If it could do this to me, what was it doing to him?

The thought of Angelo facing this alone made my heart clench. He was powerful, yes, but this... This was the kind of darkness that devoured evil itself. And somewhere in there, he was fighting it without me.

Gianna squeezed my arm reassuringly, but I barely felt it through the numbing fear. We had to get to him and help him. The alternative—losing him to whatever waited in that church—wasn’t something I was prepared to consider.

Near the church, two winged creatures with red eyes perched on a branch. Were they vampires? They didn’t look like any vampires I’d ever seen. Some sort of creature from hell? More demons? After what I’d seen crawling beneath Louis’ skin, anything was possible.

Balthazar had lied to me. Every word, every gesture had been carefully calculated deception. While he presented himself as forthright like Angelo, the truth was far darker. He didn’t share his violent nature out of honesty—he wielded it like a weapon. Each demonstration was a performance: Joy’s torture, Louis displayed as his marionette, Shannon’s throat torn open. The brutality wasn’t random; it was orchestrated. He wanted me to witness his capabilities, to understand the extent of his power. Each victim brought the horror closer to home: Shannon’s savage attack, Joy’s methodical torture, Louis’ complete possession. A deliberate progression, each act more intimate than the last, showing me exactly what awaited those I held dear.

I hadn’t had any nightmares about Shannon. That had to mean she was safe, or at least safer than Joy. He always made sure I saw the worst moments, the darkest possibilities—like he enjoyed watching me wake up screaming, drenched in the terror of what might happen. The visions I’d had of Joy... My chest tightened at the thought of what Louis might be doing to her. No,not Louis anymore—whatever dark thing now wore his skin like an ill-fitting suit.

My resolve hardened, pushing back against the memory of those nightmare visions. I just needed to get close enough to touch Joy, even for a moment. One brush of skin against skin, and I could pull her into the shadows with me and away from whatever they had planned. Angelo had said my angelic blood could sense evil. If I could pick up Louis’ essence—that corruption that clung to him now like a disease—it would lead me straight to Joy. I was sure of it.

I pushed down the fear that threatened to choke me. The memory of the horrible blood messages appearing in our bedroom still haunted me. I couldn’t afford to fail—not with Joy’s life hanging by a thread. Not after seeing her chained up in that chair. Whatever dark force had taken over Louis’ mind and spirit, whatever they planned to do with the Nightshade crypt, Joy wouldn’t be their sacrifice.

Not tonight.

Not ever.

Gianna stopped so suddenly I almost ran into her. “I see him.” She pointed toward a crypt, but I couldn’t make out anything in the darkness between the tombs. My eyes strained against the shadows, trying to separate movement from moonlight.

I hoped she was talking about Dimitri and not something else in Balthazar’s arsenal. After what happened to Louis in my dream, I wasn’t sure I wanted to know what other horrors Balthazar had tucked away in the shadows.

Gianna wrapped her arm around my waist, lifted me up off the ground, then poured on her vampire speed. The world spun past me the same as it did when Angelo carried me—blurry moonlight, shadows, and weathered stone tombs all melting together. My stomach lurched when we stopped. She releasedme abruptly and I staggered, grabbing a nearby crypt to steady myself as the world gradually stopped spinning.

Dimitri stepped out of the shadows, his smirk not quite hiding the murder in his eyes. “Well, well, well. Gianna, what are you doing here? Come to join the party?”

“Not letting you do anything stupid is what I’m doing.” The color drained from her face more with each word, her composure crumbling.

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