Page 53 of Oath of Blood and Joy

My nostrils flared as I caught the trail, turning sharply down a corridor lined with heavy wooden doors reinforced with iron. The scents of despair and hopelessness permeated the air like a thin layer of smoke, clinging to my skin.

“They’re in here.” I stopped before one door, hearing the rapid flutter of heartbeats inside—quick and desperate, like fingers tapping frantically against glass. My hand clenched into a fist, rage building in my chest at what had been done to them.

I kicked open the door with enough force to splinter the wood around the lock, the crash reverberating through the stone corridor. Light from the hallway spilled into a cramped cell barely larger than a closet. Two girls that looked like they were still in middle school huddled in the corner on a thin, filthy mattress. Their faces were hollow-cheeked and pale, dark circles bruising the skin beneath wide, terrified eyes. The stench of unwashed bodies and stale food hung in the small space.

“No.” One of them stuck out her hands, palms forward in a pitiful defense. Her fingers trembled violently, dirt caked beneath broken nails. “Please don’t hurt us.”

The sight of them—so small, so broken—crushed me like being trampled by a stampeding elephant. I’d seen centuries of human suffering, had caused more than my share, but something about their fragile defiance in the face of absolute helplessness made my dead heart twist painfully in my chest.

I crouched down slowly, making myself smaller as I approached them. The dark-haired girl—no more than thirteen—pressed herself further into the corner, her shoulder blades digging into the rough stone wall. Her companion whimpered, a sound so soft it might have been missed by human ears. I couldsmell the adrenaline surging through their small bodies, hear the frantic rhythm of their hearts.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” I said, deliberately smoothing the roughness from my voice. “We’re here to help.”

Distrust flashed in the dark-haired girl’s eyes. She’d heard such promises before, no doubt. In her world, adults lied. Especially men who broke down doors.

Time was against us. Every second we lingered increased the risk. I needed information, not trust—trust could come later, if at all. I met the dark-haired girl’s gaze, allowing my pupils to dilate as I channeled the ancient power that came as naturally as breathing.

“Tell me how many girls and where they are,” I commanded. The compulsion flowed from me like invisible tendrils, wrapping around her consciousness.

The change was immediate and unsettling. The girl’s rigid posture slackened, her shoulders dropping as tension drained from her body. Her eyes—previously sharp with fear and defiance—turned glassy, the pupils expanding until only a thin ring of brown remained. Her expression went slack, and for a moment, she looked like a broken doll.

“There are fourteen of us,” she answered in a flat, emotionless voice that contrasted sharply with her previous terror. A thin trail of saliva escaped the corner of her mouth as the compulsion took deeper hold. “Each room is a cell.”

Guilt twisted in my gut as I watched her vacant stare. Using compulsion on children always left a bitter taste in my mouth, but the alternative—leaving any of them behind—was unthinkable. Joy’s plea echoed in my mind: You can’t leave them here. And I wouldn’t. Not a single one.

The other girl stared at her friend in wide-eyed horror, sensing something deeply wrong but unable to comprehend the supernatural nature of what she was witnessing. Her smallfingers clutched at a tattered cloth bracelet on her wrist—a talisman of normalcy in a world gone mad.

Chapter Thirty-Six

Joy

Serenity and I floated suspended in the billowing, cotton-like embrace of clouds above New Orleans, the city’s twinkling lights peeking through gaps in the misty veil below us. My breath came in to quick gasps as adrenaline flooded my system, but I reined in my fear of falling. I strained to identify familiar landmarks that might anchor me to reality—the illuminated spires of St. Louis Cathedral reaching skyward like a beacon, the inky ribbon of the mighty Mississippi winding its serpentine path through darkness, and the electric glow of Bourbon Street pulsing with distant revelry. Serenity’s arm encircled my waist like an iron band, her supernatural strength the only thing between me and a thousand-foot plummet.

My trembling fingers clutched desperately at her forearm, nails digging into her skin though she showed no discomfort. Cold moisture from the clouds kissed my cheeks and dampened my clothes, making them cling to my shivering body. My legs dangled helplessly in the void, the familiar comfort of solid ground now just a distant memory. Each gust of wind sentviolent tremors through my body, and my hair whipped across my face in wild tendrils, temporarily blinding me and adding to my overwhelming sense of disorientation and vulnerability.

“I won’t drop you,” Serenity said. “I promise.”

Her words were meant to reassure, warm and calm. I tried to believe her, but my fingers dug into her forearm, betraying my doubt. The city lights below seemed impossibly distant, like fallen stars scattered across black velvet.

“How can you be so calm and how long have you had wings?” I gasped as wind rushed over me.

Serenity’s wings adjusted, the massive feathers catching an updraft that lifted us higher. The movement sent my stomach lurching.

“Just recently, but they have become second nature to me.”

I made the mistake of looking down again. The French Quarter’s grid of streets resembled veins of light, pulsing with music and life too distant to hear. A wisp of cloud passed between us and the city, momentarily obscuring my view, and my fear subsided for just a breath.

Serenity swooped down toward Bourbon Street and my stomach did flip flops, a nauseating weightlessness that made me feel both terrified and exhilarated. The wind howled past my ears as we descended, the ground rushing up at a speed that made my vision blur. My mind was spinning, cluttered with fragmented theories and whispered legends. I had heard rumors—stories of celestial beings born of angels and humans, creatures of immense power who walked between worlds—but I wasn’t sure what to believe anymore. The impossible had become my reality, and certainty seemed a luxury I could no longer afford.

As we flew over the familiar streets below, one build caught my eye and made my blood run cold. I spotted Crimson Stakes, the Santi mafia’s casino, its garish red neon sign bleeding intothe night like an open wound. A tremor of fear wove through me as I looked at it, cold and paralyzing, spreading from my core to my fingertips. The memories flooded back with merciless clarity. That’s where I had been kidnapped, not by a stranger or enemy, but my own brother.

His familiar eyes had been vacant, his movements puppet-like as something else pulled his strings. The memory still haunts me at night—my own brother, transformed into something I couldn’t recognize. A cold knot of dread formed in my stomach as I remembered how he’d been possessed and brought me to Maximo where my nightmare began—the basement with its suffocating darkness, the rituals, the blood. My hands trembled at the thought, phantom pain ghosting across old wounds.

The raw anguish of losing him twice—first to possession, then to vampirism—tore at my heart daily. He seemed out of control with his hunger—vicious—not controlled like the others. Every time I saw him, a mixture of love, terror, and devastating pity washed over me. That was the cruelest part—seeing glimpses of my brother trapped behind those hungry, feral eyes. Sometimes I caught myself wondering if death might have been kinder than this half-existence he now endured.

Serenity flew past the casino and headed further down Bourbon Street. The cacophony of jazz music, drunken laughter, and clinking glasses faded behind us as my anxiety pumped through me like ice water in my veins. My breath caught in my throat as she headed toward an antebellum home—Crescent Manor—the Santi family home. My heart boomed louder and louder and louder like a bass drum. Each thunderous beat seemed to echo the warning in my mind: danger, danger, danger.

I knew Serenity and Enzo both lived there, but the stories that Maximo had spun about the vampire mafia king froze my blood.

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