Page 126 of Fratelli: Eternal Bloodlines

Her heart clenched, but his next words soothed her fraying nerves.

“I’ve got you.”

“As I do you,” she said, a quiet smile touched her lips despite the danger.

Without a word, she tapped into her power, and let it flow with subtle ease through her. The Vespa surged forward, faster and more certain than before. She didn’t tell him—it wasn’t necessary. Let him think it was all him, she thought with amusement. True love wasn’t about control or submission; it was trust—trust that she could help without losing herself, even with a vampire as her partner.

And as the storm thickened around them, her faith in him never wavered.

It hadn’t yet beena century since the hoodoo witch Julia Brown cast her curse. But what did that matter? Each day brought Vittorio closer to his fate, regardless of her timeline. For him, time had become irrelevant. Though he was cursed with immortality, he knew there was an end, and the end was near.

“One hun’red years from ta’dey, one hun’red years from ta’night. Dere will be one, only one, and he be de worst of you. De bringer of death. You made it so. I made sure you see, and you know!”

Vittorio had ravaged the people of Syracuse, leaving a trail of drained bodies in his wake. His stomach was full of their blood. He’d stripped a dead man of his clothes, restoring some semblance of dignity to cover his nudity. The cane in his handhad belonged to a woman he’d left slumped on her porch, her life drained. Yet rather than slink home like a beaten dog, he walked with pride through the night.

The moment he entered his home, a strange presence chilled the air. A wave of déjà vu washed over him. His thoughts, clouded by centuries of pillage, changed like a blood moon eclipse—brief moments of clarity had soon become swallowed by darkness. Was he being watched, or was that yet another fractured memory?

Vittorio tried to focus. He leaned heavily on his cane; he made his way to the blood-bar in a room he barely recognized.

Darlene had smelled him long before she found him. Though not a vampire, she summoned herself in a metaphysical form—dark smoke had taken her inside and she used that to be unseen as she drifted in the room and observed from the shadowy corner of his lair. She waited.

“Father?” Her voice resounded like Domencio’s. “Do you not see me?”

Vittorio froze, his cataract-ridden eyes wide. He sniffed the air. He knew that scent—his brood. Domencio had returned. Or had he been there before? Confusion gripped the old Don.

“Why are you here ahead of your brothers?” Vittorio asked.

“My brothers aren’t the answer, Father. I am,” Darlene replied, as Domencio. “That’s why.”

Vittorio sighed. He poured a glass of warm human blood into his crystal goblet. He gave no thought to how it appeared in his cabinet. He certainly never filled a pitcher. Still, his needs were always met, to match his dissolving memory. He had not forgotten the sixteen people he had killed earlier in the night. The thick liquid filled the glass, and he savored its warmth as it slid down his throat. It helped, but not enough. To feel whole, he would need to drain a thousand more bodies. The thirst never ended.

“Does it hurt, Father?” Darlene asked.

“Are you mocking me?” Vittorio answered.

“Lucio betrays you. He has the cure, twins, and he keeps them secret. Do you know why?” Darlene taunted.

The Don’s grip tightened on the goblet. The hoodoo witch had warned him his sons would turn on him and each other. But of all his children, Lucio had been the most loyal. Or so he thought.

“Did you hear me, Father?” Darlene, her voice more insistent now.

She had Domencio’s memories—his pain, his resentment. She remembered the bitter conversation Domencio had with their father, the rejection that had broken him. Now, she forced the old vampire to relive that rejecting moment with her. But this time, there would be a different outcome.

The forest pressedin on Sonya. Her empathic powers were caught. It became a suffocating weight of shadows and tension. Dark energy coiled through the air, thick and pulsing, like the forest itself was alive. It breathed in sync with her. Her chest tightened; muscles tensed as if the unseen force threatened to collapse her lungs. The silence wasn’t peaceful; it waited—anticipated something cruel.

Shakespeare brought the vespa to an abrupt halt. The front tire barely braked through the edge of the blackened thicket. The headlight sliced through the gloom, but the light became swallowed by the shadows, eaten by the darkness within. Sonya got off first. She removed her helmet and tossed it to the ground. Shakespeare was a bit more cautious.

He got off slowly and kept his eyes and senses alert.

“How are you, goddess?” he whispered in her thoughts.

“I’m okay,” Sonya forced the reassurance between shallow breaths, voice shaky. Her pulse hammered at her throat. It betrayed her. Even the air tasted wrong—metallic, bitter. She wasn’t sure if the forest watched her or if something far worse lingered in the dark.

“We’re not alone,” Shakespeare warned.

The moon hid behind storm clouds. A light drizzle filtered through the thick canopy above. Yet the forest floor became covered with an eerie glow, the fog swirled in beneath them like breath exhaled from something ancient and unseen. Sonya’s heart skipped, her skin prickled.

She looked ahead. She followed Shakespeare’s gaze. A slow approach was made toward them on the narrow, winding path by a cloaked man. She soon discovered it was Phoenix. His dark, battle-worn attire could have belonged to another century—fashioned for the knights of the templar, yet with an unsettling elegance. Each step he took echoed, soft yet menacing, like a countdown.

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