Umbra Page 3

  Breaking through oak and alder trees, Matteo stared out at the curves and hollows of his favorite wild space in all of Campania. Yet…an awareness of his body intruded upon him: stiff, cold, and furless.

  Matteo blinked sleep from his eyes. The stone ceiling seemed to smash into him. The air was stale. Reality blared through him as the bowels of the Triodia headquarters pressed in around him.

  No window graced the dank cell. The square of glass in the metal door onto the corridor was the only opening. It wasn’t until midday that natural light touched it. The cold emanating from the walls told him it must still be night.

  He’d been locked up in this five-square-meter cell for six weeks.

  A para officer, finally getting a taste of his own medicine; there was some sort of poetic justice in that.

  He could still shift, though. The natural surroundings of earth and roots in the walls meant he could still reach out for the forest’s embrace. And he did daily, using his claws to carve the days that had passed into the cell floor.

  The exertion cost him. His meals were insubstantial and sporadic and barely enough to sustain his human body. But shifting was worth it. Not just to keep track of time but because in his wolfish form, it was easier to tune out the worries that ran rampant. Spending the majority of his time in his lupine body had helped keep Matteo sane. The confinement alone was enough to push one over the edge, but really, it was the not knowing that killed him. His mind tortured him with twisted imaginings about what was going on outside.

  The only thing he had to go on were the guards. An air of fear had fallen over them since that first night of Matteo’s imprisonment. Eager for whatever scraps of information he could glean, Matteo ensured that he was in human form whenever the guards brought him meals. The majority of them—the Roms, mages, and vamps—followed the Triodia’s instruction to the letter, telling him nothing and refusing to speak to him at all.

  But a few held him in such grim contempt that he’d managed to rankle them and get things out of them. The guards who muttered under their breath “mongrel” and “mutt,” he baited. Matteo taunted those who cast their anger his way with their own anxiety. “I can smell your fear of her,” he’d egged, itching to get a rise out of them. Usually, the guards took their aggression out by landing blows. But every now and then, Matteo lucked out. Along with their fists, they threw their gibes. Gibes that had become treasures to him because…they meant Jess was alive.

  She’s alive.

  Once more, Matteo let the guards’ taunts play through his head as if they were something lyrical. “The Triodia will hunt her down”; “She’ll be as caged as you are”; “We’ll have her back and bleeding out again.”

  That hideous night when they’d been hauled in by the Triodia flashed through his head. He and Giovanni had been wrestled away from Jess and hauled down here into the depths of the Cathedral. The vamp, too, had been beaten until he’d blacked out. Giovanni’s bellows echoed through Matteo’s mind, just as they had torn along the corridors that night. His own roars accompanying them.

  Matteo’s powerlessness had been crippling as he’d pictured Jess bound and offered up to the Between. Regret suffocated him as he was cast into the cell. His Triodian friend’s translations about the Eventide prophecy careened through his head. He cursed himself for, Silva help him, believing Jess’s fear of the Triodia was exaggerated. Yet the High Witch had ruthlessly used him as a bargaining chip to get Jess to turn herself in. The unwavering determination of Jess’s expression as she’d looked his way, giving herself up for him, haunted him. He hated himself. Loathed his weakness. How had he allowed himself to be taken?

  But later that night, his torturous panic had been disturbed by screams… Not just one scream. Many. Could it mean, somehow, that Jess had found a way to fight the Triodians? Through the small glass window in the door of his cell, Matteo had glimpsed someone bolt past. Straining all of his senses, he thought he’d smelled the scent of Sulphur. Could it be an Enodian? Almost immediately, a fleeting blur of shadow had fled past his cell. He was almost certain it was Rune. Pure joy rippled through him.

  Matteo had watched out of that pane of glass for the rest of the night, but no one else passed his cell, and the screams had subsided. The glimpse of the Enodian and blurry shadow were the only pieces that Matteo had to build a picture of the events of that night.

  It hadn’t been until late the next day that an impassive Triodian scourge had brought Matteo food. The guard had refused to answer any of Matteo’s questions, and he knew all too well that he wouldn’t get anything out of a Triodian blood-sworn vamp. It was a few days later that the first Triodian mage on guard had confirmed Jess’s escape by rising to Matteo’s barbs.

  Yet for the last few weeks, Matteo had been left excruciatingly in the dark. It had become rarer for either Triodians or Roms to attend him. For at least the last two weeks, it had only been the aloof blood-sworn scourge who waited on him. He felt as if he were being slowly starved. The rations he received from the scourge were pitiful, and despite hardly doing any activity, he knew he’d lost a lot of weight. He could feel it in the bagginess of his clothes. But it was the deprivation of information that was getting to him most.

  What did the lack of shifter and Triodian guards on duty mean?

  The sound of the door’s lock scraped the quiet. Matteo’s skin prickled with goosebumps. The guards only ever came to bring his rations during the day. Matteo’s heart thumped. What did a nighttime visit mean?

  Even as anxiety slunk through him, he prayed it would be one of the guards who wanted to let their anger out on him. He wanted a Triodian or Rom with a temper. One he could provoke. His breath came quickly. He fantasized about what information a severe beating might award him. What might they give up to him if he managed to infuriate them enough?

  His mouth went dry as he tried to think of what to throw at them. Desperation clawed through him. Like an addict, he didn’t know what he’d do if it turned out to be a scourge behind the door. He held his body rigidly where he sat on the bed, not wanting to make any hasty movement that might send his visitor away. He needed something. Anything. To sustain him.

  The scent of evergreen with accents of pine and cedar assaulted him. Relief washed over him: a Rom. Almost immediately, Matteo tensed, his head swimming as the scent that had always meant home and safety made him bristle, too, as he mentally prepared himself for the hatred he needed to incite.

  All the air left his lungs when he took in the Rom. His friend—Piera—Giovanni’s daughter, carried a tray, pulling the door shut behind her. Her chestnut eyes swept over him, their familiarity searing his skin. It was a piercing, assessing look Matteo knew so well, taking him back to their time in the Silva Academy together. Piera had always rivaled most of the shifters in their year, even the males. As her eyes bulged, he thought dryly of how easily she’d be able to take him now. He afforded no challenge whatsoever in this state. And Piera was the most competitive person he’d ever met. Whether it was taking part in a swimming race—her favorite sport—or sparring with another shifter, she would be sure, almost every time, to win. Her slim build and average height of five-foot-five belied the stealth and skill with which she moved.

  Piera’s competitive streak had allowed her entry into one of the Triodian tracking units that hunted scourge. It was a job she’d enjoyed. Until Giovanni had pulled her from it to serve as his sentinel a few months ago. A sentinel that Giovanni could dismiss more easily than others. Just as he had the night they’d been taken by the Triodia. Knowing they were meeting Jess, Giovanni had ordered Piera back to her flat early. It wasn’t that she hadn’t questioned both Giovanni and Matteo about what it was that they were keeping from her. They had both been interrogated multiple times about what they were hiding. Demands that now blazed in her eyes.

  Bitterness laced Piera’s voice. “So, this is the big secret—my father’s a blood traitor.”

  Matteo’s brow furrowed. Anger swept through him as he heard
Piera’s close-minded statement. Scorn encased Matteo’s face; the same scorn he’d thrown at all the guards the last month. It felt as if it were the only expression he owned. “Giovanni’s only crime is trying to save an innocent girl from an institute that would murder her. Or have the Triodia and Roms covered up that part?”

  Piera’s face lost some of its anger, momentarily taken aback by his. It wasn’t really her he was angry at; it was himself. He was sick to his stomach that he had been the Triodia’s soldier, serving them blindly.

  He managed to keep the edge out of his voice as he said, “Before condemning your father, don’t you think you should question the actions of the High Witch, such as holding a blade to my throat?”

  Piera paled but her expression stiffened. “They’re saying the girl’s blood is necessary to heal the Between, that it’s been foretold for centuries–”

  “That doesn’t make it right,” Matteo bit out. “And she’s not just a girl. Her name’s Jess and she’s your sister.”

  “Half-sister,” Piera snapped. “One I know nothing about thanks to your and my father’s lies.”

  It was Matteo’s turn to look dumbstruck. She wasn’t wrong. Even if he’d been sworn to silence and secrecy on the matter, he hadn’t tried to encourage Giovanni to confide the truth to Piera. He could tell that the sense of betrayal she felt was as acute as he’d feared it would be. If he was honest, he’d long been dreading this conversation with his friend. Not that he’d imagined it would take place in a prison cell.

  Piera marched forwards, and Matteo half wondered if she was about to slam the tray in his face, but she whacked it down on the bed. Despite the shock and unease rocketing through his system, his mouth moistened. His stomach gnawed at itself as the wholesome aroma of bread and cheese tantalized him.

  Piera’s voice recalled his attention. “Besides, she’s not a sister I’d want to own, given what she’s done.” She fidgeted with the long French plait that hung over her shoulder.

  Matteo held his breath, all thought of hunger leaving him. The moment stretched out as he wondered what Piera meant.

  “She portaled the Enodians into this Cathedral and burned it down,” Piera announced. “She’s using her connection with the Sidhe to strengthen the Enodians’ soulfire. She’s portaling into Triodia branches across Italy, allowing her Enodian allies to invade and destroy ancient Silvan forests.”

  A chill swept down Matteo’s spine. For a moment, his breath caught in his chest. He gritted his jaw and shook his head minutely. Matteo pictured Jess’s portal power. Like a Triodian able to use the earthen magic to portal. Its power so startlingly strong that she’d been able to use the earthen magic in the fragments of parchment to open a portal here in headquarters. What else might her magic do? The dissonant sound of the Sidhe’s scream echoed through his mind. Goosebumps prickled over his skin as he wondered about Jess’s connection to the Sidhe.

  The night they’d been captured by the Triodia, Jess had told Giovanni that she was going to Umbra. That answers lay in the fae lands. That there she’d find a way to heal the Between that didn’t entail her sacrifice. So, what was she still doing here on Earth? And why was she invading Triodias? A flicker of the ancient groves that he’d walked through and trained in, skittered through his head. His stomach knotted as he imagined those sacred trees blackened and burned.

  As uncertainty crept in, Matteo chastised himself. This is what the Triodia did. They made everything seem black and white. He reminded himself of all the times he hadn’t listened to Jess: about what truly happened the night she was arrested, about something blocking her ability to shift, about the Eventide prophecies being about her death. He wouldn’t doubt her again. Whatever she was doing, he believed that Jess must be trying to find a way to survive and do what was right. No matter what Jess had been forced to do to survive that night in the Cathedral when the Triodia had tried to kill her, Matteo knew she wouldn’t have taken up with the Enodians, wouldn’t be allowing them to invade Triodias out of vengeance.

  There’s more to it than meets the eye.

  “If she’s invading Triodias, she has a reason,” Matteo said firmly.

  “The world is breaking!” Piera exclaimed. “And you’re defending her.”

  “The world isn’t breaking,” Matteo said, “the Triodia is. And maybe it should.”

  Piera flinched. But she steeled herself and continued. “She’s claimed the Rem Alphahood. She’s raising a shifter army.”

  Matteo’s thoughts whirled at the thought of Jess as…Rem Alpha. She’d never been interested in power or status. Building an army… He puzzled over what Jess had wanted. She’d wanted to go to Umbra. Queen Mara had been interested in Jess since discovering her existence. Matteo pictured the white scars on Jess’s neck and wrists that he’d found on her in the penitentiary. Queen Mara had sent her iron-tinged sluagh to attack her. Jess must be raising an army to enter the Shadowlands to defend herself from Mara.

  Piera took a breath. “She’s invading Naples now. That’s how I was able to get in here.” She glanced at the closed door. “Nearly everyone has been called out to defend Naples. The scourge on duty were indifferent about me visiting you, but I don’t know how long I’ve got.”

  Matteo’s heart started to drum at the strained expression on Piera’s face. For the first time, he imagined what it must be like for her out there. The daughter of the traitor Alpha. A turn-around for the books.

  While they’d been at the Academy, Piera had been nothing less than a celebrity. When they’d started, everyone wanted to be her friend, and then, as they’d got older, every guy wanted to bed her. To Piera’s credit, she’d always hated the attention, confiding to Matteo early on in their friendship that she never knew if someone wanted to get close to her or her status. Consequently, she’d been known as aloof, spurning the advances of all the male shifters because of her belief that they weren’t interested in her but in her title. Most of which was likely unfounded because Piera, as well as being a skilled fighter, with her petite features and thick brown hair was undeniably attractive.

  “How are things out there?” he asked. “Are you…” He felt stupid saying all right, “managing?” he finished.

  She shrugged. “I’ve mostly been on guard watch in the Cathedral. Most of Triodia’s forces have been marshaled here as defending headquarters is the priority. We’re only called out when there’s another invasion. Not that I’ve been allowed to fight.

  “Gretta’s kept me company.” She paused. “She said that you asked her to translate some of the Eventide prophecies a month before you and my father were arrested. About the same time, I was moved from my squad to serve as my father’s sentinel.”

  Gretta was their mutual Trioidan friend from the Academy and the witch who had translated the Eventide grimoire for him. She worked in the Triodian library here at headquarters. He was pleased he’d at least had the sense to keep the reason he was interested in the grimoire secret. Clearly, he’d been right to. His skin crawled to think that even Piera had just stood here and said that Jess’s sacrifice was…necessary. Coldness sluiced through him. Her sister’s sacrifice.

  “My father bound you to silence about…Jess, didn’t he?” Piera guessed with that same scrutiny across her delicate features.

  “He did,” Matteo admitted, noticing the way Piera faltered on saying her name.

  Piera visibly relaxed, her expression becoming milder.

  But guilt writhed through Matteo. It was too easy a way of admitting the full truth. And after keeping so much from Piera, and all she must be going through out there, he owed her that. “But I chose to do everything I could to keep Jess a secret,” he said. “I started researching the Eventide prophecies off my own back, to try to understand Jess’s anomalous magic. And I kept reading up on them and meeting her in secret to protect her…to try to protect her,” he modified. “Something I’ll never regret.”

  Piera’s face blanched. She schooled her features, but the hardness that fel
l over her expression was evidence of her pain.

  Matteo sighed, feeling what a lousy job he was doing in apologizing for concealing so much from his friend, without apologizing for his actions concerning Jess.

  “Well, you’ll be pleased to hear then that they’re talking about bartering a truce with Jess by offering you as a trade.”

  Matteo’s heart thudded into overdrive. On one hand, his traitorous heart leaped at the idea of seeing Jess again. On the other hand, whatever these invasions were about, Matteo was sure she would only be undertaking them if they were necessary. The last thing he wanted was to be used as a pawn in the Triodia’s grand plans. To once more be used against her.

  Piera’s searching tone sounded. “You care about her…don’t you?”

  “More than anything,” he answered thickly. He chanced a glance up at his friend and was relieved to see that Piera no longer looked like she wanted to maul and claw him into the ring; the lines of her face were softer.

  Trepidation slunk through him as he chanced to ask about Giovanni. “Have you heard what they intend to do with your father?”

  Piera grimaced. “The clan’s mood is sour. Almost all the Roms have transferred their allegiance from my father to the High Witch. The Triodia is talking of sentencing him to life—to mollify the clan and to have something to keep Jess in check. Word is they’ll hold him to ensure she stops her invasions.”

  Matteo clenched his fists, furious at the narrow-mindedness of the Rom Clan. The next moment, he reprimanded himself for his own hypocrisy. Hadn’t he been the same until so recently? He remembered overhearing his Alpha’s explanation to Jess that night about how he’d fallen in love with her mother. Giovanni had said it had been the magic of Lessa’s humanness. His Alpha had been branded a traitor for nothing more than falling in love. How well Matteo could relate. Wasn’t he guilty of the same crime?