Page 9 of Cry of Blood and Joy (French Quarter Vampire Enforcer #2)

Chapter Eight

Enzo

Ruin narrowed his eyes as he whipped out his phone. “Keir? Enzo Di Salvo is here.” His face tightened. “Yes, my lord.”

I could hear Keir talking, and he sounded curious about what I had to say.

Ruin slid his phone back into his jacket and tilted his head. “I assume you know the way.”

“I do.” I brushed past him without another word. The sooner I got the information and got out of here, the better I could protect Joy. Steve was vulnerable during the daylight and if Angelo discovered them…

It was something I couldn’t risk.

I climbed up the stairs, and two guards were at the front door. Keir must have contacted them because they opened it for me.

I slipped past where a servant waited for me. He was tall and thin and had deep blue eyes. He wasn’t an Unseelie. He was human. Interesting. “Lord Rankin is waiting for you.”

He escorted me up the polished marble stairs, our footsteps echoing softly in the grand foyer before we reached the second floor.

The elegant parlor beyond screamed money—high ceilings with fancy molding, cream walls decorated with painted flowers and vines that circled the room.

The fake garden looked real enough I almost expected to smell actual flowers instead of old wood, expensive furniture polish, and tea.

Crystal chandeliers lit up expensive furniture and dark red chairs. Thick rugs covered the hardwood floors. It was the kind of setup that cost more than most people made in a year.

Keir sat in a wingback chair by the windows, drinking tea from expensive-looking china. White with gold edges—fancy stuff that made me want to break something.

Behind him stood Lorcan Blackthorn, his chief enforcer, positioned like a dark shadow against the room’s refined beauty.

His usually cropped hair had grown out slightly.

But it was his expression that made me pause.

Instead of his typical mask of frozen hatred, cold calculation, and barely restrained violence, he wore a smirk.

Not the cruel smile of anticipating pain, but something almost.. . amused.

What was that about?

His servant motioned to me. “Enzo Di Salvo, my lord.”

“Thank Jacobs,” Keir said, dismissing the servant with a wave of his pale hand. The human melted back into the shadows almost as if he were Unseelie. Ancient tomes lined the walls, their leather bindings exhaling the musty scent of centuries-old secrets.

Keir put the cup down on the table and settled into his high-backed chair.

His fingers steepled as he gazed up at me with the calculating look of a chess master considering his next move.

The morning light streaming through the tall windows glistened off his white hair, making him look like he was angel.

More like a dark angel. “Tell me, Enzo,” he said, his voice deceptively casual.

“Has your mate hurt anyone else with her powers?”

The question cut into my heart. My chest tightened, and a familiar burn of protective rage built up in my gut. “Angelo told you?”

“Yes.” Keir’s lips curved into something that wasn’t quite a smile. “He was quite emphatic that he wants to kill your mate. Graphic, even, in his descriptions of what he plans to do to her.”

My hands clenched into fists at my sides, knuckles cracking audibly in the sudden silence. The memory of Joy’s terrified face when her powers had exploded outward flashed through my mind—the way she’d collapsed afterward, sobbing apologies, begging for forgiveness.

“Was Serenity seriously hurt?” The words came out rougher than I intended, scraped raw by guilt that wrapped around my ribs like barbed wire.

Keir’s expression softened slightly, though his eyes remained watchful. “She’s in a coma, Enzo,” Keir said softly. “My healers have seen her and don’t know when or if she’ll wake up. Angelo won’t let this go unpunished.”

FuckFuckFuck

Joy would never forgive herself for this and I wanted to protect her. Maybe if she didn’t know...but if she found out from someone else that I had lied or kept it from her, she’d be furious with me.

“What about her father—the Archangel Raphael?” Desperation almost cracked my resolve to remain cool. Surely the most powerful healer in existence could save his own daughter.

He shrugged, though unease flickered across his features. “Angelo hasn’t been able to reach him.” His fingers drummed against the arm of his chair. “Radio silence from the heavenly realm. Either Raphael doesn’t know what’s happened to his daughter or…”

He didn’t finish the sentence, but the implication permeated the air like a poisonous cloud. Or he’s choosing not to intervene.

“But Serenity is a healer—” I started, grasping at any thread of hope.

“I doubt healers can heal themselves if they’re in a coma,” Keir interrupted, his tone gentle but final.

The pity in his eyes made my chest ache.

“Especially not from damage caused by raw, untrained power. Your mate’s abilities.

.. They’re unlike anything I’ve encountered, Enzo.

The energy signature alone nearly overwhelmed my most experienced practitioners. ”

My spine snapped straight, every muscle in my body going rigid with defiance. The predator in me reared its head, fangs aching to descend. “It was an accident.” The words came out sharp, deadly. “Joy didn’t mean?—“

“Angelo doesn’t believe in accidents,” Keir interrupted. He leaned forward slightly, studying my face like he was reading a map to my soul. “You know this. You know him. When has Angelo ever shown mercy to anyone he perceives as a threat?”

I didn’t need to answer that. Obviously, Angelo would never show mercy. That left only one option—Joy had to gain control of her powers before he found us. Silence drifted between us.

He tilted his head. “So tell me, Enzo, what is it that you want?”

Lorcan still hadn’t said a word—and that was wrong.

The enforcer I knew would have already made some cutting remark, thrown out a threat disguised as casual conversation, or at least acknowledged my presence with his trademark cold sarcasm.

But this version just watched. Like he was studying me, watching me with that uncharacteristic smirk playing at the corners of his mouth instead of hating me.

Was I imagining things? Reading too much into a moment of quiet? But every instinct I’d honed over centuries screamed he was planning my demise.

He reminded me of a spider spinning its web in some dark corner—silent, patient, designing an intricate trap to catch an unsuspecting fly. His mind was calculating angles and probabilities with that razor-sharp intelligence of his.

The bastard set my nerves on edge like fingernails on glass. Why wasn’t he talking? Something about his posture nagged at me—too relaxed, maybe, or the way he held his shoulders. Lorcan carried months of rage toward me, but now he seemed almost…comfortable.

My skin crawled under his unwavering stare, and the muscles in my shoulders bunched with tension. The hair on the back of my neck stood up, primitive warning signals that had kept me alive through countless dangerous encounters.

With effort that felt like tearing away from quicksand, I wrenched my gaze from Lorcan’s unsettling smirk and focused on Keir. Whatever had changed about his enforcer could wait—I had more pressing concerns.

“You know Joy’s part Unseelie.”

“And?” The single word fell like a pebble into still water, creating ripples of possibilities I couldn’t predict.

My throat was dry, as if all the saliva had been suddenly sucked out. “Do you have an Unseelie who possesses this unusual gift?” The question came out more strained than I’d intended, betraying the desperation I’d been trying so hard to conceal.

Keir’s eyebrows rose slightly, genuine curiosity flickering across his features. “Why?”

“Because she needs to be taught how to manage this power. If she can, then—” I gestured helplessly, the words catching in my throat as hope and fear warred in my chest.

A slow, knowing smile spread across Keir’s lips, but it didn’t reach his eyes.

He leaned back in his chair, fingers drumming slowly on the armrest as he regarded me with the patience of someone who held all the cards.

“You believe Angelo would forgive her and all will be well?” His tone carried just enough mockery to make my fangs ache with the urge to descend.

I had no intention of getting into a philosophical debate with Keir about Angelo’s capacity for forgiveness.

Time was a luxury I didn’t have, and hope was a poison I couldn’t afford to drink.

If Angelo never changed his mind—and let’s be honest, when had my former brother ever shown mercy?

—then Joy needed to learn how to protect herself. Period.

“Do you have someone, Keir?” Desperation bled through my carefully constructed composure.

“I do.” Keir folded his hands in his lap, his stillness somehow ominous in the elegant parlor. “But at the moment, he’s on assignment.”

Frustration twisted in my gut like a knife cutting deeper and deeper.

Of course he is. I knew better than to ask where or doing what—it was Unseelie business, and Keir wouldn’t tell me even if I begged.

Like vampires, the Unseelie were notorious for their secrets, hoarding information like dragons hoarded gold.

“When will he return?”

“Soon.” The non-answer reminded me of a father answering his impatient child. Soon could mean days, weeks, or months in the immortal world.

“Will you ask him to help Joy?” I was reduced to begging, something the proud enforcer I’d been would have died before doing. But for Joy, I’d swallow every scrap of pride I had left.

Keir rubbed his jaw thoughtfully, his fingers tracing the sharp lines of his cheekbone.

The gesture looked causal, but I could see the calculation behind his greenish eyes that seemed to change color in the light.

He was determining the costs and benefits, measuring what helping Joy might cost him.

“Perhaps. Joy does pose a problem not just for Angelo, but for my family as well.”

I tried to remain calm and not react to his observation. He was fishing for any weaknesses, waiting for me to lose my cool so he could use it against me. That was how he gained his intel and controlled people. Regardless, I needed Keir and alienating him wouldn’t help Joy.

“Then wouldn’t it make sense to teach her how to use the shadows, especially when she’s experiencing negative emotions?”

“I do. But she’s half human, Enzo. That could cause a problem.

” He picked up his tea again, taking a slow sip as if he were discussing the weather rather than Joy’s survival.

“Humans have a difficult time controlling their emotions. I suspect her human half and her Unseelie half may be going to war with each other.”

Then it hit me, the truth I’d been circling suddenly crystallizing with sickening clarity. No wonder her powers were so chaotic, so destructive.

I had seen supernatural beings that were half human before—hybrids caught between two worlds, never fully belonging to either.

The memory of their struggles flooded back, each face a reminder of the cruel reality Joy now faced.

It was a real danger because they couldn’t manage their emotions the way their supernatural halves required.

Her human side felt everything too intensely, while her Unseelie nature craved the kind of cold control mortal emotions made impossible.

And many times they were shunned, treated as lesser beings for not being purebreds.

I’d watched proud supernatural families disown their own children for the crime of loving someone human.

Seen half-bloods turned away from councils, denied positions of power, forever marked as ‘other’ by both sides of their heritage.

My chest tightened with a mixture of anger and protective fury that made my fangs ache to descend. Not Joy. I wouldn’t let her become another casualty of supernatural prejudice, another lost soul caught between worlds with nowhere to belong.

“She’s stronger than most,” I said quietly, though I wasn’t sure if I was trying to convince Keir or myself. “She has to be.”

But even as the words left my mouth, doubt gnawed at me like a persistent ache. Strength might not be enough when her very nature was working against her.

“I have a man—Morden. Like her, he has the rare gift of controlling shadows and could teach her the techniques she needs. However, he’s currently on assignment.

Upon his return, I’ll have him instruct her.

” Keir’s causal mask slipped to reveal genuine concern beneath.

“Her anger is what triggers the shadows, and they will lash out.”

Every muscle in my body tightened up like coiled wire, tension radiating from my shoulders down to my clenched fists.

The cruel irony wasn’t lost on me. Joy’s emotions were her trigger, but emotions were the most human thing about her.

Her capacity to feel so deeply, to love so fiercely, her instinctive need to protect those she cared about even at the cost of her own safety.

It was why I fell in love with her.

The memory hit me like a sucker punch to the gut.

Joy’s smile when she’d caught me watching her yesterday, shy but delighted.

Her smile made centuries of darkness seem worth it just to look at her beautiful face.

She was pure sunshine to my perpetual storm clouds, finding joy in the smallest things while I saw only shadows and threats.

Her humanity wasn’t a flaw to be corrected; it was the very essence of who she was. She saw light where I saw only darkness, hope where I saw only danger.

How could I ask her to suppress who she really was? How could I tell my sunshine she needed to dim her light, bury the very brightness that had pulled me from centuries of cynical isolation?

My throat felt raw, as if I’d been screaming. To save Joy’s life, I might have to help destroy the very thing that made existence bearable again.