The Elemental Mysteries: Complete Series (177 page)

Just then, he felt water splash against his feet. Giovanni looked down to see a few inches of water had covered the floor.

A lot of water.

He felt the ground shake and looked for Carwyn.

Bomeni, playing to the strengths of his allies, had opened a crack in the floor, splitting the foundation and the earth below it. Giovanni finally spotted Livia. She was standing in the corner of the room, pulling groundwater from the river that flowed under the castle.

Too much water.

It splashed up around his feet. At the speed and power with which she was drawing it, the room would be filled in no time. The fire along his torso sizzled out. There was no way Tenzin would be able to dry him when she was battling six of Matilda’s guards in the air. Carwyn was holding off Bomeni with one arm and keeping the ceiling from crashing down with the other. Emil was dueling Lorenzo, as his allies battled Livia’s.

As Giovanni dispatched four of Livia’s guards, he saw a red-clad arm float by. He spun just in time to see Donatella Conti take a deep breath. Her eyes were wide and hollow when the sword slashed her neck and her head sailed across the room, landing with a splash as Emil roared out at the death of his mate.

Giovanni’s eyes sought Beatrice. She was holding her own, trying to make her way toward Livia, but he saw her arms were bloody and torn. The room continued to flood with water. They had lost one of their fiercest fighters. And the black clad guards poured into the room like a never-ending stream of death.

He needed to end this.

“Beatrice!”

Chapter Thirty-One

Castello Furio, Rome

November 2012

She heard Giovanni call her name from the back of the room. Beatrice cut off the heads of the two guards in front of her before she sped back to where he stood. Livia’s guards did not follow. They were completely focused on protecting their mistress, who seemed to be pulling water from the ground itself as the battle raged around her. Giovanni grabbed her and slashed at the vampires that fell on them.

“Beatrice, I need to end this. Now!”

“How?” she cried. “There’s too much water!”

Beatrice glanced toward Carwyn. The earth vampire seemed to have finally stabilized the pillars that held up the room, so he turned his attention fully on Bomeni. The fierce immortal bared his gleaming white fangs and sprang on her friend, but Carwyn caught him and locked his long arms around the man’s chest, crushing his ribs with an audible crack before Bomeni howled in pain and fell to the ground. Carwyn stood over him, took the vampire’s head between his hands, and twisted it off in a spray of blood and gore. Then he roared and started into the mass of twisted bodies where Emil still fought.

The room was filling with water. Massive blocks of marble had fallen in front of the doors, so they were blocked, and Livia’s guards still outnumbered them.

Giovanni yelled, “Carwyn!”

The earth vampire turned and looked to them. Then he sped back, tossing away the vampires that followed.

“We need to do something!” he panted. “This water, Gio—”

“It’s filling up the room.” He shook his head. “I can’t build any flame, and even if I could, our allies are scattered. It’s not safe. I would kill our own people.”

“Carwyn,” Beatrice said. “Get to Emil. I’ll try to push the water back, but I’ll need his help.”

Carwyn nodded, but before he could leave them, a drenched and tattered Tenzin appeared with Emil gripped in her arms. He was wounded and bleeding from a deep cut to the neck.

“Your son almost killed him, my boy. I managed to grab him, but I think Lorenzo has fled.”

Giovanni said, “Forget him right now. We need to kill Livia. Can you get to her?”

She shook her head. “They’re watching for me. She has guards that are covering her from the air while she pulls this damn water up.”

“Go. Get as many of our allies as you can and bring them here to the back of the room. Then I need you to bring the wind.”

Tenzin cocked her head. “Truly?”

Giovanni’s voice was hoarse. “I need a hurricane, bird girl.”

Tenzin narrowed her eyes, but nodded before she took to the air.

A kind of barricade built up as they killed and tossed the bodies of Livia’s guards around them in the back corner of the room. Carwyn continued to protect them as Emil gathered his strength in the corner. Beatrice saw the ancient Roman grow stronger with each breath as the water grew higher. He grabbed a passing guard and bit his neck as the vampire screamed in agony. Then he broke his victim’s spine and tossed him on the growing pile.

She felt Giovanni tug on her arm. “Tesoro, we need to end this. We have to kill her.”

Beatrice wiped a spray of blood from her face. “How—”

“As soon as Tenzin gathers as many of our allies as she can, she’ll bring a whirlwind to this side of the room. That will block her guards; they won’t be able to get through.”

“But the water. She’s pulling from the river; there’s no end to it. I’ve tried! I can’t hold it back.”

He turned to face her and shook her shoulders. “
Don’t
hold it back! You and Emil must pull the water away from her.”

“I can’t!” Tears came to her eyes. She was exhausted, and Livia had not lifted a sword.

“You have to. Tenzin’s wind will help. As soon as the room is dry enough, I can finish this.”

A sick feeling rooted in her stomach. “How?”

“You will take shelter in the water. The wind and the water will protect you from the fire. You will be in the eye off the whirlwind with the water around you. The flames will
not
get through.”

She hacked the head off two guards and spun on her mate. “What are you going to do?” she screamed.

Taking advantage of a brief moment of calm, Giovanni cupped her bloody cheek in his hand. In the background, she heard the fall of their allies as Tenzin tossed them to safety. Then the air grew eerily still as the ancient wind vampire began to stir the wind around them.

Beatrice looked up to meet her husband’s eyes. “Gio, please…”

He leaned down and pressed his lips to hers as the wind grew stronger. Soon, Beatrice, Giovanni, and all their friends were surrounded by a screaming vortex that Tenzin whipped into a frenzy. Giovanni wrapped her in his arms, and Beatrice held him tightly, refusing to let go. He finally pulled away, and she could see his look of resolve.

“Pull the water into the whirlwind, Beatrice.”

She choked back the tears. “You can’t.”

“I must.” He stroked her cheek tenderly. “Pull the water in, Tesoro. Emil cannot do it alone.”

She looked over her shoulder as the tears fell down her cheeks. Emil was pulling the water in, and the air around them grew damp and humid as he forced the water away from Livia and into Tenzin’s storm. Carwyn’s arms held up the ceiling as the floor trembled. In the distance, Beatrice heard Livia scream when she realized what Emil was doing.

“Pull the water in, Beatrice. You have the strength.
I love you
,” he whispered. “So much. And you are exactly who you need to be. All of this has happened for a reason. Now let me do my part.”

She sobbed as she reached up and clutched his neck, pulling his mouth to hers in one final kiss before she let go with a hoarse cry and lifted her arms. Beatrice felt the rage and the power well up from the very center of her being. She grabbed Emil’s hand and held onto it as the amnis rushed between them and they pulled the water into the storm. The room around them grew dark as the lights went out, but they stood protected in the eye of the small hurricane. The wind around them grew thick with mud and ash, until all she could see was the swirling black of wind and water, and the grim resolve on Giovanni’s face.

He caught her eye one last time before Tenzin plucked him from the center of the storm and lifted him up and over the wall of wind and water. Beatrice let go of Emil’s hand and screamed in rage as she pulled at the river. She could feel the water around her, flexing and answering her call. It danced and sang, waiting for her command.

Immortals around her gaped in silent awe as strings of water reached down to touch each finger, and Beatrice lifted her face to see Tenzin floating in the air above. Her friend hovered for a moment with tears in her eyes, before she came and landed in front of Beatrice, who continued to hold the water in the wind.

“Pull it in, my girl. All the way. The room is dry, but he needs you to protect us so he can finish this.”

“No!” Beatrice cried out in anguish when she saw Tenzin’s tears.

“Yes,” she whispered.

Tenzin placed one hand on her shoulder, and she felt Carwyn’s hand press against her back, holding her as she reined in her element. Beatrice finally nodded, and the water rushed over her skin, comforting her and washing away her tears. Then she called the river over them. As soon as the vampires were enveloped in their watery sanctuary, the room around them erupted in fire, and Beatrice fell to her knees.

Chapter Thirty-Two

Castello Furio, Rome

November 2012

The air was dry and crackled with energy as Giovanni stalked toward her. Livia was trying to call the water toward her, but the river that poured from the gash in the marble floor was pulled with ever greater ferocity toward the storm on the far end of the hall.

Livia was no match for his mate.

He flexed his arms, and the fire burst forth.

Livia turned furious eyes toward him. “Stop!”

Giovanni kept walking, and the guards that rushed toward him turned to ash as he threw out streams of fire that enveloped them as they ran.

More
.

The dry air fed the flames. He stepped over the bodies that littered the intricate marble mosaics on the floor.

More
.

The flames grew higher. He could still hear the sound of voices calling from the eye of the storm. Once they were silent, he knew they were safe. That
she
was safe.

More
.

Livia’s guards scurried and ran around him, trying to find an opening to attack, but his fire only burned hotter in an ever-widening perimeter of flames.

The water rushed into the wind, pulled by his mate’s extraordinary power. The flames along his body grew brighter. The blue fire singed his hair and the smell of it caused a rush of memories. Her cries when Lorenzo had taken her. The punch of a bullet as he fought toward her in the belly of a ship. Her tears on a lonely riverbank.

“You are my balance in this life. In every life.”

Giovanni felt the last scraps of his clothes burn away as he walked toward Livia. With each step, the fire grew. He could feel it, the slow, angry shiver underneath his skin, quivering in anticipation, begging to burst forth. And at the core of his being, Giovanni realized he was exhausted. He could imagine no greater release than to finally release the fire he had suppressed for over five hundred years. He closed his eyes and thought of Beatrice.

The feel of her mouth on his skin.

Her soft sigh as she curled into his body.

The curve of her lips just before she smiled.

“I love you, Jacopo.”

He met Livia’s angry glare, and he could see the moment she truly began to panic.

“Stop!” she cried, giving up the water and snatching a blade from one of her guards. “Go no farther or my men will kill you!”

Giovanni came to a halt, but her guards no longer tried to approach him. The flames churned out, swirling and pulsing along the ground, reaching up the steps and curling around the legs of each vampire who screamed and fell away.

Livia’s eyes narrowed. “If you do this, you will kill everyone in this room. Including your precious wife and friends.”

Just then, the sound of the wind grew still. The room was utterly silent, and Giovanni knew that Beatrice had pulled the water over them. They were protected.

His mouth turned up at the corner, and Livia’s eyes widened in terror as she loosed a feral scream. Giovanni whispered, “Enough.”

Then he lifted his burning arms and released the fire.

Chapter Thirty-Three

Castello Furio, Rome

November 2012

Beatrice had no idea how long she screamed, or how long the fire raged around them. The barrier of water she had erected held against the flames, just like he knew it would. The angry, red glow lit up the room and pressed against them as they huddled in their watery cocoon.

Was it minutes? Hours? Suddenly, the room blacked out.

She rose from her knees, lifted her arms, and brought a fall of water. It fell over and around them, rushing along the floors, pulling black ash from the room as the river returned to its course. Beatrice walked forward and surveyed the room that had been burnt beyond recognition. Slowly the river receded and floating just along the edge of the room was the pale form of her mate.

“Gio!”

She screamed and pulled the water back before he could be swept away. The river answered her and brought his body to her hands. She clutched his naked form; it was cold and limp in her arms. There was a rush of energy, then Tenzin and Carwyn stood at her side.