Page 34 of Crown of Blood and Vengeance

Anger stirred in my gut, a familiar serpent uncoiling. Damn it. Serenity was trapped behind the gates of hell, and Dracula was my only key to those gates. Without him recovered and at full strength, she remained beyond my reach, suffering in that infernal realm. Every second wasted here was another moment she endured that torment. The cure in that crypt wasn’t just about saving Dracula anymore—it was about saving her.

“You have to take me with you.” The words burst from Steve like they’d been trapped behind his teeth.

I studied him with cold calculation. Blood still stained his lips, but there was something else there now—desperation, fear, or perhaps something more devious. Why?”

“Because I can see them and you can’t.”

I let my gaze dissect him piece by piece. He’d been deep within enemy territory, yes. Enzo had given him immortality, had changed him into a vampire—but had he truly changed his allegiance? With Serenity’s fate hanging in the balance, could I afford to trust him? Could I afford not to? Each heartbeat that passed was another moment she remained trapped, another moment Dracula weakened, another step closer to losing them both forever.

Chapter

Nineteen

Enzo

Angeloand I locked gazes across the bloodstained floor. Joy’s tear-streaked face flashed through my mind—her desperate plea to save her dying brother still echoed in my ears. Maximo had dragged her off to who knows where. Balthazar hadn’t taken that bastard like he had Petar and Rocco. The question was why.

Steve yanked on his chains again, drawing my attention. The maker’s bond thrummed between Steve and me, a connection I’d forged because I couldn’t bear to see her suffer. Now I had to hurt her brother to prove his loyalty. The irony tasted bitter in my mouth.

Angelo tilted his head, that subtle movement projecting lethal authority. “Find out if he’s lying.” His words fell like stones in water, rippling through the tension-thick air. Sunlight streamed through the high windows, catching his ancient form without effect—a power Steve wouldn’t know for centuries, if he lived that long.

Every instinct screamed at me to refuse. I’d already defied Angelo once by refusing to let Steve be killed, but Joy’s broken whisper—“Please, Enzo, don’t let him die”—had made that defiance worth any punishment. But to make such defiance a habit would be suicide. Besides, I knew better than most, pain was a sculptor’s tool, revealing truth hidden beneath layers of deception.

Steve’s chains rattled against the wall as he pulled against his restraints, shrinking away from the rays of morning light that crept ever closer to his position. Fresh blood still stained his lips as he pleaded, “I’m telling the truth. Don’t kill me.” His eyes—so like Joy’s—were wide with terror. The thought of causing him pain made my dead heart ache. What would she think of me after this?

“Oh, I won’t kill you,” I said, walking to the heavy velvet curtains that covered the floor-to-ceiling windows. My fingers curled around the thick fabric. “But we will know if you’re telling the truth.”

As I yanked the curtain aside, morning sunlight flooded the room in a golden wave. Steve jerked against his chains, a strangled sound escaping his throat. As a newborn, his fragile skin would bubble and char in seconds under that light, while Angelo and I could stand in it unscathed. Three days wasn’t nearly enough time to build any resistance to the sun’s touch.

“Through our maker’s bond, I’ll feel every second of your agony,” I said, watching him press himself against the wall as the line of sunlight crept closer to his feet. “That means I’ll know exactly when the pain makes lying impossible.” I tightened my hand on his chains, ready to pull him forward into the light that would sear his new vampire flesh.

His features—features that reminded me so much of Joy—contorted with fear. The choice between loyalty to Angelo andmercy for Joy’s brother burned in my chest. How could I protect them both?

The truth clawed at my insides: to save one, I had to torture the other. There was no clean way out of this nightmare.

Forgive me, Joy. If I don’t do this, Angelo will kill him. The thought settled in my stomach like rotting meat.

I thought of Maximo. Was he hurting her? If he did, I’d rip his lungs out. I just couldn’t figure out how he played into Balthazar’s plan…unless he sold his soul to the demon.

“Enzo.” Angelo snapped his fingers. “Let him feel the sun.”

I grabbed Steve’s chain and forced him into the sunlight. The moment it touched Steve’s flesh, his skin erupted in flames. His body convulsed as a shriek clawed its way from deep within him—a sound beyond language or species, pure suffering given voice. It vibrated through room, shattering any pretense of civilization. Through our maker’s bond, his agony slammed into me like a three-hundred-pound linebacker smashing into an unsuspecting quarterback.

“I’m not lying!” The words burst from him between screams, desperate and ragged. Blisters erupted across his skin, splitting open to reveal charred flesh beneath. The stench of burning vampire flesh filled the room—sweet and terrible, like caramelized sugar mixed with scorched meat.

But he hadn’t reached the breaking point yet. I could feel it through our bond—there were still walls in his mind, still secrets held back. His copper hair ignited like a torch, the flames dancing across his scalp as his face blackened and cracked. Each moment of his torture resonated through our connection, every lick of flame on his skin echoing through my own nerves until I could barely tell where his pain ended and mine began.

“Tell me the truth,” Angelo snarled, his voice cutting through Steve’s screams like thunder over rainfall. “Are demons guarding the Nightshade Crypt?”

“Yes!” The word erupted from Steve’s blackened lips, a howl of agony and truth torn from his burning flesh. His skin continued to char and crack in the merciless sunlight.

My own flesh crawled with phantom fire. Every maker feels their child’s pain, but this—this was beyond bearing. The blood I’d used to turn him just days ago rebelled inside me, screaming at the wrongness of torturing my own creation. My balance faltered as Steve’s agony poured through our bond. Each blister that erupted on his skin felt like it was bubbling under my own flesh. Each crack in his burning skin echoed through my nerves like lightning.

Joy would never understand this mercy—this necessary cruelty. Through the haze of our shared torment, I saw her face, imagined her horror if she could see what I was doing to her brother—to my own child. But better to burn now than die at Angelo’s hands. Better for him to suffer this moment of torture than to hold onto secrets that would condemn him to a far worse fate.

The taste of cremation and butchery flooded my senses—the flavor of my own child burning. The maker’s bond throbbed between us like a living thing, transmitting every second of his suffering directly into my soul. I’d given him immortal life with my blood, and now I was using that same connection to inflict unimaginable pain. Some maker I turned out to be.

Pain exploded behind my eyes and I tossed my head back, my spine arching with the intensity of Steve’s agony. “Angelo…he’s…he’s telling the truth.”

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