Page 97 of Fratelli: Eternal Bloodlines

A lab. Cyro chambers. An exam room. Two scientists and a black woman, definitely supernatural, are on a table giving blood and undergoing tests. She wasn’t hurt or angry, just sitting there. She saw me. They didn’t. She looked directly at me and smiled.

Dolly glanced at Charmaine. “Try to get Nzinga to tell you something useful. If necessary, take it from her. And stay close to the camp doors for Sonya and Tristan. My guess is they’ll separate us, so be ready.”

“I agree,” said Charmaine.

As the tall gates opened, star-struck gazes—no men, only women greeted the women. They focused on Dolly and Darlene, bowing as they passed. Their arrival had always been intended.

Bellagio—

“Where do we go? To the desert?” Raven asked as he followed Phoenix, not above ground, but through side doors to more secure rooms in the vaults. The magistrate and crowned leader of the consiglieri ignored him. He moved with a single-minded purpose. Raven fell silent. His unease grew. They needed to reach the upper floors, to make it to the streets. Why waste time on a useless detour?

As they wound through the labyrinth of dark corridors and passed through door after door, Raven tried once more to reach out to Sebastiano—his Don, his mentor, his savior, and his lover. Raven had never confined his desires to a single gender; with Sebastiano, he discovered the freedom of fluidity, an existence beyond the binary. Yet, the absence of his master’s voice was a gnawing void in his mind, an anomaly that unsettled him. Why hadn’t Sebastiano contacted him? And why couldn’t Raven reach him in return?

They approached a final door, taller than the others, forged from impenetrable steel, black as a starless night. With a command from Phoenix, it creaked open. Raven paused at the threshold. An inexplicable force repelled him. The energy in the room was overwhelming, almost sentient. It pressed against his psyche with a feminine intensity. Phoenix entered and seemed unbothered by the force that kept Raven at bay.

Raven watched as Phoenix moved with reverence toward a black chest encrusted with black diamonds and dark jewels. From within, Phoenix retrieved a staff. Raven’s breath caught inhis throat. It was the most beautiful weapon he had ever seen—a golden baton that seemed to pulse with its own life.

“Come in, Raven,” Phoenix called. His voice hit him like the strike of an iron fist in a velvet glove.

“I… can’t,” Raven replied. He struggled against the invisible force that held him in place.

Phoenix’s gaze turned sly, almost mocking him. “Come in.”

Raven braced himself and pressed against the invisible barrier. It felt strangely familiar, like the comforting embrace of a woman in the quiet of the night. The air carried a scent that was both sweet and commanding, the essence of feminine power. He pushed harder, enjoying the challenge. It reminded him of the way mortals’ resistance tested his will when he intended to corrupt and consume them with his vampiric bite. Raven prided himself on being an alpha in all his pursuits, and this was no different.

“What is this place?” he asked in breathless wonder. He crossed the threshold. His eyes widened as he took in the trappings of ancient royalty—gowns, crowns, sandals, all from an era that belonged to a goddess long past. It was unmistakably a queen’s chamber.

“Aries,” Phoenix murmured. His voice was thick with love and sorrow. He held the golden staff with the tenderness one might show a cherished lover. He pressed his lips to it in a kiss that spoke of lifetimes of love and passion lost to him. “This is my wife’s home. What remains of her in this universe?”

A beam of light shot from the staff, sharper than any sword. Raven barely registered it. Too entranced by the surrounding relics, the remnants of power could not be ignored. What did the shields and daggers do? He yearned to touch them, to inhale Aries’s essence, but a flicker of doubt held him back—Phoenix would not tolerate such a trespass.

“Are you saying you were married to a guardian?” Raven asked, his voice tinged with disbelief.

“Mated, for a lifetime,” Phoenix replied, his tone distant, lost in memories. “The best and only good lifetime I’ve lived.”

“Then why are we?—”

Phoenix moved with the speed and precision of a seasoned warrior. The golden baton, now a deadly weapon, sliced through Raven’s neck with a single, fluid motion. His head flew across the room, severed cleanly, and his body collapsed in a lifeless heap. Black blood spilled onto the sacred chamber floor, defiling the space Phoenix had so meticulously preserved in Aries’s honor.

Before Raven could resurrect, Phoenix kicked his head aside. Two monks in long robes and dark cloaks entered the chamber. They worked in swift action to bag Raven’s head and body separately. They moved with practiced efficiency, cleaning the floor of any trace of the black blood.

“Take him to the Venetian with Sophie,” Phoenix ordered, his voice cold, detached.

As they left, Phoenix inhaled deeply. He absorbed the last vestiges of Aries’s presence. After thousands of years without her, he was closer than ever. He retracted the staff’s blade, shortened the baton, and secured it in the loop of his belt. A glance at his watch reminded him it was time to deal with the last two consiglieri in the desert—the guardians would kneel.

MojaveDesert

Tristan slowed the car to a stop. Sonya stirred. She sat up and looked over her shoulder for Shakespeare. “Why are we stopping?” she asked.

“Can’t go further. Look—look at that,” Tristan replied. He nodded in the direction ahead.

Sonya squinted into the distance. “I don’t see… oh?” Her eyes adjusted, and she gasped. The barrier ahead was a perfect mirror of the desert behind them, an illusion designed to keep them from stopping but crashing into the force field. The membrane shimmered, almost imperceptibly, a wall of energy as the blockade.

“Oh, wow,” Sonya muttered.

“You ready, Guardian? He’s here. Showtime,” Tristan said, already out of the car before she could respond.

“What—?”

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