Page 83 of Fratelli: Eternal Bloodlines

Phoenix draped a cloak around her shoulders. He pulled the hood up to cover her head, face and hair. With her cuffed hands hidden beneath the cloak, he gave her a gentle yet firm push toward the elevators. Sonya looked around. She noticed they were in a parking garage. It was eerily dark; all the electricity was out.

“Is this for me?” she asked, her voice dripped with sarcasm.

“No, Your Highness, it’s an outage. In the city,” Phoenix remarked.

“Strange,” Raven commented, his eyes narrowed on the dark shadows near the parked cars. “Smells supernatural.”

They bypassed the elevators and headed for the stairs. Raven opened the door, and she was nudged to descend instead of ascend. Sonya tried once more to reach out to Charmaine, to make a connection, but nothing worked.

“Where are you taking me?” Sonya asked, her voice echoing through the stairwell.

Phoenix did not respond. They went down five flights of stairs before reaching a door. The keypad was blank, powerless. Phoenix blasted the steel door open with minimal effort, and Sonya recoiled, enraged at his display of power. She felt utterly helpless.

Tristan made his way down the final stairwell, arriving at the door on the opposite side of the hall. When he entered, he was greeted by blinding light, a stark contrast to the complete darkness of the stairwell because of the electrical outage.

Downstairs, the vaults operated on a different power system. Security was tight; both vampires and humans patrolled the halls. As Tristan entered, everyone instinctively parted for him.He knew exactly where to go, taking an elevator down to the belly of the beast.

At the bottom level, he encountered Phoenix and Raven. Under the cover of a cloak was a woman, her face partially visible, cast in shadows by the large hood. Tristan wondered which guardian she was.

“What the fuck is going on? What caused the outage?” Phoenix asked in his demanding tone.

“Dolly Brown escaped. The guardian or the Brown descendant took out the power. I tried to stop them both, and…” Phoenix’s voice trailed off as Tristan’s gaze locked onto the woman under the cloak. “I failed.”

“Why are you just telling me this now?” Phoenix snapped. “We spoke!”

Tristan stood his ground. “It happened fast. I engaged them. The guardian struck back in the lobby and injured me. She was powerful. I had just recovered when you arrived.”

Phoenix’s eyes narrowed, calculating the truth from deceit. He glanced back at Sonya, then at Tristan. The tension between them crackled in the air.

“Va bene. You take her,” Phoenix ordered. He thrust Sonya toward Tristan. “I need to handle the situation above ground.”

“What? I don’t want her! The guardians are dangerous. Did you not here what I said?” Tristan asked.

“It’s an order!” Phoenix commanded.

“What is happening above ground?” asked Tristan.

“The brothers have arrived. Lucio is being judged,” Phoenix said in the most casual of tones.

The news rocked Tristan to his core. Several times Tristan had reached out for Lucio’s counsel, only to be pushed away. Had it really come to this? How could Don Vittorio sit back and let one of his sons die? Not even his ravaged Alzheimer’s state of mind should allow it.

“I must stand with him. I must!Lo difenderò con la mia vita!” Tristan stepped forward, an act of defiance he had never committed when it came to Phoenix.

“You must stand down,” Phoenix said, stepping forward. “His judgment is not one you can defend. You are consiglieri. No matter the outcome, you belong to the Draca, not to Lucio.”

“I served him! Him alone! Kill me. Because you won’t stop me!” Tristan countered.

Before Phoenix could react, the serpent king Draca, who now ate away at what was left of Don Vittorio’s black soul because of Julia Brown’s curse, roared in the vampire consiglieri’s head the word: “NEVER!”

The dark energy crackled in the air, nearly bringing all three vampires to their knees. Sonya stepped back. She frowned in the face of the oppressive force. The lights in the hall blinked on and off.

Tristan roared back in defiance, as if in pain. The mere thought of his master’s death shattered something human within him. He bulged with rage, and Sonya stepped further back, recognizing the threat. Phoenix looked up as Tristan charged him and Raven. The three vampire consiglieres engaged in a maelstrom of violence. A quick and losing battle for one consiglieri against two, especially against the oldest consiglieri, Phoenix.

Phoenix threw Raven out of the fight and the vampire crashed into the elevator. Tristan was grabbed and slammed down on the ground. Phoenix snarled, his warrior position indefensible. He was older than all of them, even older than Kaida. Phoenix was an ex-slave, gladiator, servant of the Senate, created by the counsel of vampires and Draquria himself.

None of them could stop him, not even the Fratelli. Kaida knew this history. It was her sister in the darkness, Aries, who had fallen in love with Phoenix. Her sister could not resist theunnatural urge to mate with a disciple of the Draquria and was sacrificed by that love. The real catalyst of the war. Until that moment, Kaida and Liora had never known the vampire by name. They thought it was one like Vittorio, who was part of the coven of the senate. But it was not. It was a servant, a simple servant, just like them. The history surfaced in Sonya’s mind when she absorbed the dark energy from the fighting consiglieri.

It was a shared connection that Phoenix recognized. His dark gaze lifted from Tristan and latched onto her.

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