“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.