Summoning Shadows: A Rosso Lussuria Vampire Novel Read Online Free PDF Page B

been awake and they had been hurt or murdered, she would have felt it. If they were safe, why couldn’t she sense them? Didn’t the fact that she couldn’t sense them mean their lives had probably been snuffed out? If they had died before she woke, there would be no life for her to sense.
    As much as I disliked the thought, it was a persistent one.
    Piph, it was Renata’s voice that called me back. Her fingers tightened around mine, and though she said no more than my name, I knew she had heard my thoughts.
    Ye need to focus , Cuinn said softly . It may mean nothing. It’s easier for a Siren to sense her vampires when they’re in distress. If she can’t sense them, they should be okay. For now, at least.
    I thought I understood what he meant and let out a breath. I let myself fall into a quiet darkness, finding a place within myself where each thought sank like a coin to the bottom of a still pool of water.
    Now, Cuinn said when it was time.
    I let myself think of Dominique again. Where was he?
    The smell seemed to start in the back of my throat. I know no other way to explain it. It began from somewhere within me; the hint of iron, of cool stone and burning torches, the old stench of human sweat.
    Atta girl , Cuinn thought, keep it going. Follow the thread.
    This time, his magic was nothing like it had been when we had discovered the Dracule. Then, he had known where to find her; the signature of her energy had been so strong. Trying to find Dominique was like trying to find a pebble in the snow.
    Renata held my hand tightly. When she released her energy, I felt a thread pull tight between us. My skin grew warm with the flood of her power, as if someone had thrown open the doors and let in an autumn wind, though I knew this wind had nothing to do with any natural element.
    Renata focused the energy she gave me and I’d never felt something so strange and unusual. So many threads seemed to spiral like a web from the base of her power, all of it contained within her. Was that what it meant to be Siren?
    If Renata was a spider, she navigated those threads adeptly, swiftly sorting through them until she came upon the connection, the link that she desired.
    It was then the vision flared to life, igniting to life behind my lids. The torchlight came into view as the vision in my mind sped up, following a thread that led down a stone hallway lined with dancing torches. When the vision paused at the small cell, it took me a moment to realize that I knew it. It was the holding cell I had been in two hundred years ago.
    Dominique moved out of the shadows. He raised his face in a line of torchlight and his gray eyes shifted as if he sensed something and looked to find it.
    I opened my eyes and the vision shattered. “He’s locked in the purgatorio. And he’s alone.”
    I do not know who had first begun calling the small prison that the Cacciatori used to keep their captive humans the purgatorio . Having been held prisoner in such a place, I can honestly say it’s less a purgatory than a level of hell filled with despair and darkness.
    The Cacciatori hadn’t needed to hunt for humans in some time, since we had plenty of healthy Donatore, so there were no mortals being kept there. It was only Dominique, and though I knew where he was, it left me with another question: Where was Dante?
    Renata stopped me when I started to get up.
    “I could not sense Dante,” she said, and her gaze was tinged with a fear that twisted my stomach into knots. “We will wait until the others return to release Dominique. He appeared unharmed, as far as I could tell, but I’ll not have us walking into a potential trap.” Her voice had taken on a frosty edge, and I knew she was trying to contain her worry.
    I let out a breath and fell back on the bed. It was reasonable, practical, and thoughtful to wait for the others, but how long would it be until they returned? And if it was a trap and Damokles was somewhere nearby waiting for us to find