Chapter 36

Chapter

Thirty-Six

A ngelo

Serenity clung to me, heartbroken, sobs wracking her small frame. I wrapped my arms around her, wanting to shield her from the horrors around us. The marks Legion’s claws had left on her throat made my ancient blood burn. I’d dealt with Legion before, back in Italy in 1742. That time, they’d possessed a cardinal. I’d handled it the same way: quick, clean, final.

Luigi would wish he was dead when I got through with him. He had one fucking job: keep Serenity locked up in the bedroom. His failure nearly cost me something irreplaceable. The moment this was over, he and I would have a long, painful conversation.

Louis’ twisted body lay broken and gory on the ground. Legion’s tainted blood pooled black and thick around him, moving like oil even after death. The stench of the corruption—bitter, like sour vinegar—made my stomach churn. I didn’t hesitate when I saw those claws at Serenity’s throat. You don’t, not with Legion. You don’t even try to exorcise them. You just end it. Quick. Clean. Final.

I kissed the top of Serenity’s head. “I’m sorry you had to see that.” The words came out gentler than I expected. Even after centuries, some vestiges of humanity lingered.

Serenity looked up at me, tears cutting tracks through the blood and dirt on her face. “He wasn’t Louis anymore. He was a monster.”

“Anyone who harms you is dead.” It was a simple statement of fact, the same way I might say the sun would rise. “No one will ever hurt you. That I promise you.” In my world, promises weren’t just words—they were blood oaths, carved in bone and sealed in violence.

“Balthazar lied. Why would you believe him over me?” Legion had been my enemy for centuries. I knew their corruption, their irreversible hold. Balthazar played games with truth—I dealt in absolutes.

She twisted her fists in my shirt. “He was my father.” She trembled as another hellhound’s howl split the night. “You don’t know what it was like having Freddie as stepfather after my mom died. Louis was the one that tried to protect me. The whole DuPont family did. I hate Balthazar for turning him into that thing.” Each word carried old wounds, memories of bruises that had nothing to do with supernatural battles. Behind us, I heard Dimitri snarl, followed by the wet sound of flesh tearing.

Like Louis, Freddie had paid for hurting her. One by choice, one by circumstance—both men who’d marked her life. Another hellhound lunged past us, Enzo meeting it mid-air with deadly perfection.

“I know. I’m sorry.” Words I rarely spoke, but the real Louis had earned them. He’d protected what was mine before she was mine to protect. That debt wouldn’t be forgotten, even if circumstances had forced my hand tonight.

She looked up at me with her tear-streaked face. “You had to do it, Angelo. I didn’t want Louis to have that thing…things…living inside him. And… He’s at peace now, isn’t he?”

I kissed her trembling lips. “Yes, he is.” The lie tasted bitter on my tongue, but I couldn’t bear to tell her the truth—that once possessed, souls hung in an eternal limbo between Heaven and Hell. Let her believe Louis had found rest. She’d seen enough horror for one night. The taste of her tears against my lips made something ancient and protective stir in my chest. I’d tear apart anyone who tried to put that look in her eyes again.

The scene had changed. Hellhounds multiplied around us, Legion’s blood staining the ground at our feet. I needed to get her out of here.

Just then, a creak of ancient hinges cut through the sounds of battle. Rose emerged from the Nightshade crypt, carrying a locked wooden dybbuk box. There were carvings on it designed to keep whatever evil was in there firmly within. My stomach recoiled and I moved Serenity slightly behind me, not wanting her to get near it. Even from here, I could feel the malevolence emanating from that box, centuries of contained evil pulsing against its bonds.

I grabbed her wrist. “Where are you going with that?”

Rose jerked her chin up, determination flashing across her tear-stained face. “Balthazar?—”

“You’re not giving that to him,” I growled, watching another pawn getting caught in Balthazar’s web of threats.

Serenity clung to me, still reeling from Louis’ death. “But if she doesn’t, he’ll kill Valentin.”

My jaw clenched. The pattern was clear—first threats, then hostages, then corruption that forced loved ones to become killers. Just as he’d manipulated Serenity with Joy, just as he’d twisted Louis into a weapon. All leading to choices no one should have to make. “He’ll kill him anyway,” I said, my voice tight with barely controlled fury. “Three centuries of dealing with demons has taught me that.”

“No,” Dimitri roared. He sped toward us, eyes crazy with grief. Blood still dripped from his fangs, and hellhound gore matted his expensive suit.

Something was coming out of the darkness. The air grew heavy, thick with a corruption that made my fangs ache. Evil couldn’t penetrate the Nightshade crypt—generations of blood magic and wards had seen to that. I shoved Serenity inside, feeling the ancient protections buzzing on my skin as we crossed the threshold.

She gasped. “What are you doing?”

“Stay here.” The words were an order, not a request. I turned around to face whatever was coming, positioning myself in the doorway. The shadows between the tombs were moving strangely, flowing against the wind like liquid darkness. Whatever Balthazar had unleashed was worse than Legion, worse than the hellhounds. The very air felt like it was rotting away.

Gage drifted out of the darkness. I could smell something on him as if he had rolled in it like a dog. The iridescent black blood of the Unseelie coated his clothes and skin, shifting like oil on water even after leaving its host. The scent of winter frost and dark magic clung to him.

“Open the box, bitch,” he snarled.

He had black blood on him—too much of it. Fighting Keir’s Unseelie warriors was no easy task, even for a wolf like Gage. Where the hell were Keir and his beloved harpies? The Unseelie were elite fighters, trained in the Dark Court’s brutal ways. For Gage to be standing here, covered in their blood...no. Something was off.

I stepped in front of Serenity, then snatched the box from Rose. “Fuck you, Gage. It’s not happening.”

Gage’s laugh came out unusually deep, as if something unholy was already inside him. His eyes glowed with an unnatural amber light. “Oh, Angelo. This was never about the box. It’s about what’s inside it.” He rolled his shoulders, bones cracking and joints popping as if something was trying to reshape him from the inside. “Balthazar promised us power. Real power. Power enough to tear down your precious kingdoms.”

Behind him, Petar emerged from the shadows, his usual cold smile now twisted into something hungrier. The box in my hands pulsed, as if whatever was inside recognized its purpose. Two traitors, thinking they could take down three kings in my territory. The sheer fucking audacity.

Petar ran his eyes over me as if I was just another body waiting to be buried in the bayou. A deadly mistake. One the world had learned generations ago: you don’t disrespect Angelo Santi and live to brag about it.

Arctic, lethal rage swept through me. Valentin, Dimitri’s brother, tortured on my territory, used like some ritual sacrifice. Most likely, he was already dead. The debt ledger in my mind filled with red. Gage’s wolves…these wannabe hellhounds…Balthazar—they’d learn why even demons respected boundaries in New Orleans. No one conducted blood rituals in my city without paying the price.

The fool talked about power like a teenage street thug bragging about his first gun. He had no idea what real power was—the kind earned through rivers of blood, through deals sealed with iron-clad promises and enforced with finality. The kind that made even immortals remember why they feared the dark.

He stretched out his hand. “Give me the dybbuk box and your sweet little Nephilim might live.”

Rage turned my blood to acid. My fangs descended, not with their usual slow slide, but with a savage snap that filled my mouth with the copper taste of my own blood.

“You touch her, and I’ll make what happened to Freddie Evans look like mercy.” Each word hinted at torture techniques perfected in the dark corners of history. “They never found all the pieces, did they? Your father was there that night. Ask him what happens to those who think they can threaten Angelo Santi’s family.”

A howl echoed across the graveyard. Trystan had shifted into his wolf form—three hundred pounds of white fur and French Quarter vengeance—as he slammed into Gage, hurling the traitor toward snarling vampires and hellhounds. He might be a pain in my ass most nights, but he understood territory. Understood loyalty. Understood what happened to dogs who bit the hands that fed them.

Gage whirled around and tore through his clothes. Muscles and bones cracking, but not in the usual way of a wolf’s shift. His skin rippled and bulged as if something was trying to claw its way out. Bones snapped and reformed, longer than they should be, joints twisting in impossible directions. The same red glow from the church started to pulse beneath his stretching skin.

The fur that burst through wasn’t the natural brown and white of his wolf form—it was darker, matted with something that looked like sludge. His muzzle elongated, teeth multiplying in rows like a shark’s mouth. When the transformation finished, he was massive—larger than any wolf should be, with muscles writhing under his fur like live things.

Enzo swiped at him, his nails extended, his eyes red, fangs bared, but Gage knocked him away like he was swatting a fly. He hit a tomb wall hard enough to crack the stone. What the hell? I had never seen that happen to Enzo. I was the one that turned him and he was almost as powerful as me. No wolf should have that kind of power.

Enzo recovered quickly, took out the Void Chain and twisted it around his knuckles. One cut with it, and Gage would be dead.

At least, I hoped so.

Petar stepped back when he saw the Void Chain. Trystan snapped at Enzo as if to say Gage is mine.

The red glow from St. Christopher’s Church was pulsing stronger now, in sync with Gage’s movements. Whatever ritual Balthazar had started in there, whatever darkness he’d tapped into, it was feeding power to his pet traitor. And if this was what Gage could do with just the residual energy...

Gage lunged at Trystan, jaws clamping around his throat with a sickening crunch. Blood sprayed in a wide arc as he savaged Trystan’s neck, turning his fur crimson. The wolf king went down hard, his massive body slamming against the cemetery dirt.

Gage was foolish if he thought Trystan was so easily killed. Even with his throat torn open, even with blood turning the ground to crimson mud beneath him, Trystan’s eyes still blazed with centuries of alpha power. He twisted with impossible speed, muscles bunching under his gore-matted fur. His massive paws caught Gage’s shoulders, claws sinking deep into meat and bone. The sound of Gage’s ribs cracking under Trystan’s weight echoed like gunshots through the graveyard.

Trystan’s jaws found Gage’s soft belly and ripped upward. The traitorous wolf’s howl of agony cut off in a wet gurgle as Trystan tore him open from sternum to throat, painting the cemetery stones with pieces of his former packmate’s flesh. Gage’s enhanced blood splattered across the tombs, steaming in the night air—all that extra power meaning nothing in the end when faced with a true wolf king’s fury.

A choked sound escaped Serenity’s throat—not quite a scream, not quite a sob. The dybbuk box burned cold in my hands as I turned to see her doubled over, one hand pressed to her mouth and the other clutching her stomach as she fought not to be sick. The squelching sounds of Trystan tearing Gage apart filled the air, and she flinched with each crack of bone, each spray of blood.

I shifted the dybbuk box to one arm, ignoring its icy bite as I pulled Serenity against my side with the other, trying to shield her from the carnage. Her whole body trembled against me. This was exactly what I’d wanted to protect her from—the raw brutality of our world, where old powers settled scores in blood and bone. She’d already seen too much death tonight. She didn’t need to watch a wolf king reduce his enemy to scattered pieces across sacred ground.

The dybbuk box felt heavier underneath my arm. This wasn’t just about territory anymore. This was about power that could upset three centuries of carefully maintained order. The kind of power that could rewrite the rules of New Orleans itself.

Dimitri’s snarl came a split second before he lunged, hands reaching for it like a junkie desperate for a fix. I released Serenity and caught him by the throat, slamming him against the stone wall hard enough to crack the ancient marble. “Calm down, you fool.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, am I interrupting your perfect little power play here?” His voice was laden with his signature sarcasm, but his eyes were wild with barely contained panic. “You heard what Louis said… My brother’s in there being carved up like a lab rat, and you want me to what—stand here and strategize?” He kicked and flailed his arms. “His very life is at stake. Family first—or did you forget that in your centuries of playing king?”

Petar lunged forward, his fingers like claws as he snatched the box from my grip. Before I could react, he swung it in a vicious arc, connecting with my temple. Stars exploded behind my eyes as my knees buckled. I hit the ground hard, tasting copper and dirt. Ancient rage surged through my veins like molten steel—how dare this pathetic creature strike me?

Through my swimming vision, I saw Serenity stumble, her arms pinwheeling as she fell backward into the dark maw of the crypt. Warm blood trickled down my face, its metallic scent filling my nostrils as Petar’s form twisted and contorted. His body shrank and darkened, bones cracking and reforming until a bat lifted into the air, wings beating frantically as it fled toward the looming shadow of the church. Dimitri lunged, fingers grasping at empty air, then immediately shifted into a bat and flew after him.

Still dazed, I shook my head. “Dimitri, no.”

Serenity got off the floor and stood in the crypt doorway—protected, but alone. I had two options. The smart choice was staying with Serenity. The necessary move was stopping that box from reaching whatever hell Balthazar had cooked up in that church.

Gianna’s scream pierced the night. Three massive wolves circled her, their bodies forming a wall of fur and muscle that cut off any escape. Blood already soaked her clothes, and their fangs gleamed pink in the moonlight—a preview of the fate they had planned for her.

“No!” Serenity burst from the protection of the crypt, power blazing around her until she glowed like a shooting star. Her hands shot up, and pure celestial energy exploded from her palms. The blast caught the wolves like a divine hammer, sending their massive bodies flying like broken dolls.

I leapt off the slab, running toward her, my mind still struggling to process the raw power I’d just seen this impossible girl unleash—the girl who kept shattering everything I thought I knew about her limits.

Then came the sound—like leather being torn by giant hands, like a thousand wings beating in hellish unison. The air itself seemed to thicken with dread.

Serenity’s face contorted in horror. “Angelo, look out!”

I spun just as razor-sharp talons sank into my shoulders. The harpy’s grip was iron, its touch cold as it ripped me from the ground. Through the red fog of pain, I saw another one snatch up Trystan, his wolf form thrashing helplessly in its grasp.

“Let go of me!” I slammed my fists against its scaled legs, but the creature only shrieked—a sound like metal scraping bone. Each beat of its wings carried me further from Serenity, and her desperate cries faded behind me as the harpy bore me toward St. Christopher’s Church. Toward whatever horrors awaited in that corrupted sanctuary.