“Come on, Pietro.” Chiara gave her son’s hand a small tug. She looked up at the big male, her cheeks flaming with color. “I’m sorry. He’s just starting to learn about manners.”
Scythe shrugged vaguely, but his bleak eyes lingered on the pretty Breedmate. “It’s all right.”
Savage cleared his throat. “We should get moving. It’s past sundown now, and we have a lot of time ahead of us on the road.”
As he spoke, the faint sound of a woman’s scream went up somewhere in the distance outside the sassi. Scythe heard it too. His dark head jerked to instant attention.
Just as another shriek sounded—this one closer and belonging to a man.
A man who was screaming for his life.
Savage’s blood iced over with dread. “What the fuck?”
Scythe drew a phone out of his leather trench coat and brought something up on the display. His curse was guttural, vibrating with fury.
“Rogues,” he said grimly.
He turned the device so Savage could see it. On the screen was live video from several different cameras positioned in Matera’s city center. The surveillance showed humans racing in all directions, while a group of Rogues—he counted half a dozen in just the few seconds he watched—poured into the streets on the attack.
“Oh, my God,” Bella gasped, her terror-filled eyes rooted to the small display.
It wasn’t the first time in recent weeks that a city had been overrun by blood-addicted vampires. Thanks to Massioni’s proliferation of Red Dragon, the narcotic that had turned scores of the Breed into Bloodlusting animals, violence like this was becoming almost epidemic again in many parts of the world.
Savage cursed viciously.
So much for leaving any time soon.
He wasn’t about to risk Bella or anyone else’s life by heading out into the chaos running rampant outside their safe house. And the idea of letting Matera’s innocent population be slaughtered by blood-addicted predators was more than he could stand.
He met Scythe’s fathomless black stare and saw the same resolve in him.
“You got extra weapons somewhere in here?”
The male gave him a curt nod.
More screams rang out in other parts of the town. More death coming closer by the minute. If the Rogues weren’t stopped, it wouldn’t take long before their attack moved down into the ravine.
Savage turned to Bella. He pulled one of his pistols from his weapons belt and placed it in her hand. “You ever shoot one of these?”
“No.” She shook her head vigorously, but the worry he felt spiking through her blood was there for him. “Ettore, what are you—”
“Take it,” he ground out fiercely, giving her a quick demonstration on how to take off the safety. “You aim this at anyone who comes to the door that isn’t me or Scythe. And take this too.” He unclipped a sheathed dagger from his belt and handed it to her. “That blade is titanium. It’ll ash a Rogue in seconds flat.”
He hoped to hell she never got close enough to one of them to use either of the weapons, but he wasn’t taking any chances.
“Stay put, you hear me?” He grabbed her close, imploring her with his eyes and the hard, desperate pound of his heart. “I’ll be back for you as soon as I can.”
“Promise me.”
He dragged her against him and kissed her—a brief, but impassioned confirmation that he wasn’t about to lose her when they were so close to finally having a future together.
It wasn’t easy to release her.
But as the terrorized screams of Matera’s citizens continued to ring out, he knew he had little choice.
He turned to Scythe, now his unlikely ally. “Let’s do this.”
Chapter 12
The screams carrying down into the sassi from the city above only seemed to worsen in the few minutes after Ettore and Scythe had gone.
Those terror-filled shrieks—many of them agonized, final cries—left Bella shuddering and heartsick. Frightened to her marrow.
“We’re going to be all right,” she told Chiara and her frightened little boy, hoping her uncertainty didn’t show in her eyes. As much as she trusted that Ettore was a capable warrior—Scythe too—they were only two against what was easily three times as many Rogues.
If anything happened to Ettore…
“You love him, don’t you?” Chiara’s voice was gentle, sympathetic.
“I love him more than anything in this world. I’ve loved him since I was a girl, back at the vineyard.” She absently lifted her hand to the side of her neck, where she could still feel the claiming heat of Ettore’s bite. “We’re mated, Chiara. Our blood bond is only hours old.”
“Oh, Bella.” Chiara hugged her close. “You deserve this kind of happiness. You of all people deserve it.”
Did she?
Bella couldn’t help thinking that if not for her gift and Vito Massioni’s want of it, Chiara and Pietro would not have been pawns at his mercy all these years. If not for her, Massioni would be dead—finished by Ettore in his mission for the Order.
If not for trying to rescue her from Massioni’s villa, Ettore would already be back in Rome with his comrades, not swept into more violence and death.
High-pitched shrieks sounded again from somewhere outside.
“Momma!” Pietro whined, clutching at Chiara in wide-eyed alarm.
She picked him up and shushed him with tender words, rocking him. “It’s okay, piccolo. Momma’s here.”
Bella reached out to stroke the little Breed male’s head. “Why don’t you both go relax in the back bedroom? It’ll be quieter there.”
Sheltered deeper into the cave dwelling. Away from the sounds of chaos and slaughter outside.
“You’re sure?” Chiara gave her a dubious look. “I don’t like the thought of leaving you alone to wait out here.”
“Go,” Bella gently encouraged. “I’ll be fine. And soon Ettore and Scythe will be back.”
Another sharp cry rent the night, startling Pietro. He started to cry softly against his mother’s shoulder. Finally, on an apologetic nod, Chiara relented and turned to head back to the other room.
Bella took a seat in the living area, eyeing the weapons Ettore had given her. The gun and dagger rested on the side table next to her. She wished she were skilled enough to help him in some way. Feeling helpless made her antsy, made her mind spin from one disturbing thought to another.