“My lady. Wait.” Fauna took a step toward us, her expression one of concern when the werewolf’s claws dug in further. I’d only ever been summoned to the Shadow Realm before, I’d never been the one to initiate, so I hadn’t known what to expect in terms of magical payment.
Yet something didn’t quite make sense.
My teeth gritted together as his claws lengthened, nearly hitting the bone. “Why do our bodies need to be attached to enter the spirit realm?”
Domenico brought his mouth to my ear, “Who said anything about the Shadow Realm?”
In a glittering whirl of power, a portal appeared. Before I could twist to Fauna, Domenico hoisted me up and jumped through. Magic sucked and pulled at me—it felt as if we’d stepped into the heart of a hurricane and the only thing tethering me to my body was the shifter’s claws. Almost as quickly as it had begun, we stepped out of the portal and into a room I knew well. Any disorientation I’d felt from the portal disappeared almost instantaneously.
Domenico released me and moved away, watching as my attention darted around the space. Limestone walls and floors. A little cabinet set into a corner that I knew contained cooking supplies, two cutting boards, knives, bowls. I was in the monastery. In the very room Antonio and I had last made bruschetta together. Right before my world upended. A wave of sadness hit me when I thought of my old friend and how brutally he’d been killed.
“Blood and bones.” I pressed a hand to my shoulder and glanced sharply at the werewolf. “Why are we here?”
“You wanted to speak with your sister. This is where she is.”
“Nearly all the princes of Hell are searching for her, and she came to the most obvious place.”
“One, the demons cannot leave the Seven Circles at the moment. And two, your mortal home is likely the last place they’d expect to find her, given your very reaction.”
My heart beat entirely too fast. Vittoria had come home. To the mortal world. Part of me wanted to push past the shifter and run for the door. Instead, I remained frozen.
I longed to rush to my home and have Nonna make sweetened ricotta and smooth my hair back while telling me everything would be all right. That the last few months were only a nightmare, a strange fever dream brought on by her superstitious tales. And maybe a bit too much wine. It very well could be an illusion. Maybe I was still in our trattoria, and Nonna’s warnings about the sea being stirred by the devil was true. Maybe it had all been make-believe, the result of an imagination well tended by reading books. Maybe Claudia and I had drunk ourselves into a stupor and had crafted this unbelievable tale about the devil being cursed.
Nervous laughter bubbled up my throat. In a strange way, being part of a story made sense. Especially when faced with my current reality.
I could go home now. I knew in my bones that Nonna would hex me if I asked her to. I imagined she’d be all too willing to play along in my denial fantasy—to make me hate and fear the seven princes of Hell once more. She’d steal my memories, and I’d live a normal mortal life, dying at a respectable age surrounded by grandchildren and a wrinkled husband.
Perhaps every once in a while I’d dream of a handsome devil with alluring gold eyes, thinking he was just a character in a romance novel I’d once read. No matter how tempting it was to forget my heartache and the betrayal, losing Wrath again was a price I was unwilling to pay.
“How did you manage to bring us here? We didn’t use the gates.” I met Domenico’s hard stare as I sorted it all out on my own. Then I understood. “The witches’ magic only locked those from the outside, they didn’t prevent you from bringing anyone out through other means.”
And Envy couldn’t transvenio us to this realm before we’d gone to House Pride because as far as I remembered, that could be done only during the days before and after a full moon.
“Shifters don’t deal with witches,” Domenico said. “They are one step up from demons. And we do not need to travel through the gates to access other realms like others do.”
But a goddess, even one from Hell, was clearly immune from that hostility. I recalled the way wolves worshipped higher powers, perhaps it was the strength of magic they respected. Or maybe in his own way, the wolf cared for my twin, though the feelings didn’t seem to be returned. My twin was rather indifferent to her latest lover, which made me wonder if she cared for someone else—if she was even capable of that sort of feeling—and was using the wolf in more ways than one.