She got up to pace the rug, worrying about Ettore. And the more she worried, the more she wondered if this random Rogue attack was actually random at all.

What if Vito Massioni had something to do with it?

She didn’t want to think about the vision she had scried earlier, but the truth was his hideous face had been seared into her mind ever since.

And as much as she dreaded the idea of glimpsing him again, she needed to see if she could learn anything more that might help Ettore and the Order prepare to destroy him.

Taking the gun into the small kitchen with her, she retrieved a rustic stone bowl and filled it with water from the sputtering tap. Although Scythe didn’t require mundane food or drink for nourishment as one of the Breed, his modest home had apparently been outfitted for human residents.

She stared into the bowl of water, trying to ignore all of the pain and death taking place outside her shelter. She focused all of her concentration on the clear pool, but nothing happened.

She tried again, praying for something.

Anything.

But the water gave her nothing.

Her gift refused to comply.

“Dammit.” She heaved a sigh, closing her eyes and lowering her head into her palms.

When she opened them again, she did see a face reflected in the water.

Vito Massioni’s hideous, disfigured face. His unblinking eyes stared back at her, the amber glow of them furious. Insane. Murderous.

His jaws were open, baring the twin daggers of his elongated fangs.

“Hello, Arabella.”

Oh, God.

No.

She screamed and wheeled around, horrified to find the Breed male standing behind her. Her hand shot out to grab for the gun, but Massioni was much faster. With barely a sweep of his arm, he sent the weapon flying into the other room.

She tried to scramble out of his reach, but he grabbed a fist full of her long blonde hair and yanked her back. She crashed against him, her stomach turning at the foul stench of soured blood and death that clung to him.

“Didn’t I warn you never to cross me, Bella?” His arms wrapped around her, strong as steel. His breath was hot and rank as it wormed into her ear. “Didn’t I tell you there was nowhere you could run that I wouldn’t find you? Your family too.” He clucked his tongue, a revolting, wet sound. “Did you think I was so careless that I wouldn’t take steps to make sure of that? The tracer on Chiara’s truck led me straight to you. The Rogues ensured that the warrior from the Order would have no choice but to leave you unattended.”

Nausea swamped her, not only from the horror of their mistake, but from the repulsiveness of Massioni’s nearness. She moaned, struggling in vain to break loose. “Let me go!”

He chuckled. “Stupid girl. Didn’t I tell you there would be pain if you deceived me? Now, there will be death.”

Bella struggled and fought, but it was no use. Even severely injured from the blast that should have killed him, Massioni was inhumanly strong.

He was also deadly, even though his burned, mangled skin was raw, open wounds still seeping on his forearms despite the massive amount of blood he had likely consumed in his efforts to heal.

Bella’s gaze fixed on the worst of the wounds that mangled the flesh of his arms. Maybe there was a tender spot on this dragon after all. Her bile churned, but she pushed past it to dig her fingers as deep and as savagely as she could into the ruined muscles and tendons.

He howled in anguish—and when his grasp loosened in reflex to the pain, she threw herself out of his grip. Stumbling to the floor, she scrambled away into the living area, hope surging through her.

But it was short-lived.

Chiara rushed out of the far chamber. “Bella? Oh, my God!”

Her scream when she spotted Massioni brought Pietro out of the bedroom behind her.

What happened next occurred so quickly, Bella could hardly comprehend it.

One moment, Massioni was doubled over in agony and anger. The next, he had Pietro by the wrist, holding the little boy up like a prize. Like a slab of meat caught on a butcher’s hook.

Massioni’s amber eyes burned even brighter in his rage. He snorted and sniffled, his lips peeling back from his teeth and fangs. There was a deep madness in his transformed gaze. In his feral, blood-stained face.

Oh, shit.

He really was crazy. Worse than crazy, but she hadn’t realized it until now.

He had drunk too much blood since he escaped the blast.

Vito Massioni was lost to Bloodlust.

He was Rogue.

“You shouldn’t have done that, Arabella. Now, you’re really going to suffer.”

His tongue slid out, snakelike, as he eyed the Breed child that dangled from his grasp. Then he looked back at her as she slowly got to her feet from her stumble into the other room.

His head cocked at a chilling, exaggerated angle. “I think we’ll start by letting you watch me rip this boy’s heart out and eat it in front of you both.”

 

 

Chapter 13

 

“I don’t think so, asshole.”

Savage held a semiauto in his hand as he stood in the open doorway, his eyes lit up with fury, his fangs pulsing with the need to shred Vito Massioni to pieces.

He and Scythe had split up after leaving the sassi, working the attack from both ends of the city in order to contain the situation as best they could. Savage had just ashed his third Rogue of the night when all of a sudden it felt as if his heart was about to burst out of his chest in ice-cold terror.

Bella’s terror.

Their bond had told him instantly that she was in danger. He hadn’t been prepared for what he saw as he entered the sassi safe house and met with the hideous, Bloodlust-afflicted creature facing him now.

“Let the boy go, Massioni.”

Savage would have opened fire already if Bella wasn’t standing between him and a clear shot at the slavering Breed male.

Besides, in Massioni’s current condition, he was as volatile as a human on PCP. Putting him down cleanly would take a lot more rounds than Savage had left in his pistol.

Or a titanium dagger.

Unfortunately, he’d buried one a few minutes ago in the skull of a Rogue who’d ripped the throat out of a nun inside one of Matera’s old churches. His other blade he’d given to Bella.

He saw no trace of the gun or the knife he’d given her.

And there wasn’t time to consider alternatives so long as Massioni had little Pietro hanging painfully by his wrist while Chiara wept and pleaded for mercy on her son.