Chapter 34

Chapter

Thirty-Four

S erenity

Gianna dragged me 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 thinking about 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 released me 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.

“Stupid?” Dimitri twirled Valentin’s bloodied medallion between his fingers, his smile all sharp edges and barely contained violence. “Let me spell this out for you, since you’re clearly having trouble with basic comprehension: My baby brother is being tortured by psychopaths while we’re standing around having strategy meetings.”

He spat the last words like poison, his eyes darkening with murderous intent. “What am I supposed to do—stand around playing Angelo’s good little soldier?” A dangerous laugh escaped him, one that promised blood and carnage. “Here’s my own strategy—I’m going to rip out some hearts, save my brother, and if anyone has a problem with that”—he spread his arms wide, smirk turning lethal—“feel free to try and stop me. Come on. It’ll be fun.”

He closed his fist around the medallion, Valentin’s blood smearing across his palm. “I won’t let my brother die. And, spoiler, anyone who gets in my way risks being collateral damage.”

“No. I won’t let you sacrifice yourself.” Gianna moved to him with vampire swiftness, gripped his shirt in her fists and pressed her forehead against his chest. Her voice came out raw, desperate. “You’re my mate, Dimitri. You’re my husband.”

Someone grabbed my arm and fear exploded through me like ice water in my veins. The fingers locked around my bicep like iron bands, brutal enough to make me gasp. I couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe.

“The boss won’t be pleased.”

Enzo.

My muscles seized up, torn between the urge to struggle and the knowledge that fighting Enzo would be like trying to get out of a steel trap. He wasn’t just any vampire—he was old, as dangerous as Angelo. He was the kind of vampire that made other vampires nervous. He was fiercely loyal to Angelo and would carry out his bidding without question—and right now, I was exactly the kind of problem he was trained to handle.

Soft footsteps approached, the slow, deliberate tread of a hunter. Each step against the brick path echoed off the tombs with a steady rhythm that made my skin crawl. Not human footsteps—too smooth, too measured.

Enzo put his hand over my mouth and pressed me against the wall of the tomb, his body rigid with tension. His cold skin smelled of copper and earth, and that particular metallic scent that clung to vampires who’d recently fed. “Don’t say a word.” His low murmur was so quiet I barely heard it, though he was pressed right against me. Every muscle in his body had gone predator-still.

My heart thundered in my chest. I felt each beat would give us away, a drum announcing our location. The rough stone of the tomb scraped my back through my thin shirt, and my legs trembled with the effort of staying still. Sweat trickled down my spine despite the cold.

Please don’t be Balthazar Please don’t be Balthazar Please don’t be Balthazar

Dimitri and Gianna pressed themselves against the tomb, blending into the shadows. Her hand gripped his arm, white-knuckled, trying to anchor him in place. I could see the conflict warring in Dimitri’s eyes—the need to protect his mate wrestling with the urge to hunt whatever was coming. Gianna’s other hand pressed on his chest, right over his heart, a silent plea to stay put. The footsteps were getting closer, echoing off the stone walls of the crypts. The measured pace suggested that whoever—or whatever—was out there knew exactly where they were going.

“Open the door,” a male voice said.

My thundering heart stopped. I knew that voice. Louis. But it sounded more gravel than human. Like something was scraping the words across broken glass before releasing them, and whatever was wearing his skin hadn’t quite figured out how human voices were supposed to sound. The memory of the things moving under his skin made me want to gag. This creature wearing Louis’ face, using his voice—it was obscene.

Suddenly, some wolves stepped out of the darkness, and my heart nearly burst. They weren’t normal wolves—they were massive, their shoulders coming up to my chest, with eyes that gleamed with human intelligence. My legs trembled with the urge to run, but I forced myself to remain still.

As they drew closer, they growled and their eyes reflected red in the moonlight like burning coals. These weren’t Trystan’s wolves—their fur was matted with something dark that might have been blood, and they moved as if their joints had been put together backwards, bones cracking with each step. They smelled like wet dog mixed with something rotten, like meat left too long in the sun. Their teeth were too many and too sharp as they gleamed wetly in the darkness. Their red eyes fixed on me with hungry intelligence. These weren’t just corrupted wolves—they were wolves that had forgotten how to be wolves, or perhaps had never known. With each movement, their skin rippled and shifted, as if what was inside didn’t quite fit the shape it was wearing.

Shit, maybe they weren’t wolves at all. Maybe they were hellhounds. I remembered reading about those in one of Angelo’s books—creatures that hunted damned souls, that could smell fear and sin and weakness. The kind of monsters that even demons kept on chains. The way they moved reminded me of the things crawling under Louis’ skin, like something dark and ancient playing at being normal and failing.

The wolves’ growls grew louder, a sound that vibrated in my chest and set my teeth on edge.

A woman suddenly cried out and fell to the ground quite close to me, the impact sending gravel skittering across the cemetery path. My heart lurched in my throat—Joy? No: this woman had blonde hair that gleamed pale in the moonlight. She groaned in pain, and the sound brought tears to my eyes. My hands trembled as I covered my mouth, fighting back the urge to scream.

She whimpered, the sound cutting straight through me, and my body moved before my brain could catch up. I couldn’t leave her here, couldn’t watch yet another person suffer. This woman might not be Joy, but her pain was equally real. And I could actually do something about it.

Enzo stepped in front of me gracefully, the movement liquid smooth, every muscle poised for attack. “Stay behind me.” His voice was a tomb door creaking open, promising darkness to anyone foolish enough to enter. I’d seen what he was capable of when he and Angelo had rescued me from Balthazar. He was just as dangerous as Angelo, perhaps even more because he hid it better. Where Angelo wore his power proudly like armor, Enzo kept his contained, like a serpent waiting to strike.

Louis stepped from around the crypt, and in the moonlight, I could see those things still moving under his skin, like snakes writhing beneath his flesh. My stomach lurched.

Enzo shifted almost imperceptibly beside me, and something in his demeanor made my blood run cold. Gone was the quiet enforcer I knew from Crescent Manor. “Let me make one thing perfectly clear. The lady isn’t going anywhere. And you…” His lips curved into a smile that spelled death. “You’re about to have a very unfortunate accident.”

I remembered what Balthazar said in the dream. He’d said I could heal Louis. I couldn’t let Enzo kill him. At least not yet. Not if I could heal him.

Angelo had said that some possessions ran too deep, changed their victims too much. But watching Louis - the man who’d let me stay at his house when I had nowhere else to go, who’d protected me from Freakie Freddie, who’d always bought me a birthday present when no one else did - standing there with those things moving under his skin... It was like watching something sacred being corrupted, those small acts of kindness twisted by whatever was puppeting his body.

Maybe Angelo was wrong. The thought crept in like hope, dangerous and tempting. My heart thundered, sending blood pumping through my veins. My power stirred underneath my skin, that familiar tingling warmth spreading through my chest, down my arms. Blue light formed around me, lighting me up like a Christmas tree in the darkness, but concealment didn’t matter now. I had to save him.

This was Louis. My Louis. The man who’d broken down a door to save me, who’d been there when I needed him most.

I had to try. Not just for me, but for Joy. I would never forgive myself or be able to face her if I did nothing. I couldn’t lose him to whatever darkness Balthazar had stuffed inside his skin. My power pulsed stronger, light gathering in my palms. If there was even a chance I could burn out whatever was wearing him like a suit... I had to take it. Even if I failed, at least Joy would know I tried to save the father she loved.