The blinds on the large window at the top of Grandma’s building were open and through it I could see the inside of the motor pool. A bright red monster of a tank sat in the center. Grandma Frida stood on its side in her blue coveralls, digging in it with some weird tool. It was barely nine, and when Grandma Frida focused on a problem, she sometimes worked till midnight.
A heavy door shut somewhere. Nevada crossed the street and walked into the motor pool. Shadow followed her, wagging her tail. Grandma Frida turned away from the tank, waved at Nevada, and went back to messing with the tank’s insides. Nevada pulled one of the metal chairs open and settled into it.
I had upset my sister and she went to talk to Grandma.
I backed away from the edge and sat on my padded couch. Around me the night mugged the city, the air no longer scorching, but still warm. My insides churned. I’d never planned on talking to Nevada about any of it. My sister dragged around a truckload of guilt for forcing me to become the Head of the House and making me think it was all my idea. Now she knew that I knew. I had no idea what she was feeling. It was all terrible and fucked up, and it felt like my soul had been shredded. Anger, sadness, guilt, and sharp wailing anxiety boiled inside me into an awful, toxic mix. I wanted to punch something and cry, but I also wanted to curl into a ball in some dark hole and not come out.
I pulled out my phone, found Alessandro’s number, and texted him.
Where are you?
Where do you need me to be?
I was a fool. On the roof of my building. Look for the Christmas lights.
He didn’t respond.
I switched to Patricia. Someone’s coming to see me. Let him in.
Okay.
I leaned my elbows on my knees and hid my face in my hands. The ache gnawed at me, relentless. What if Nevada ignored me and went to see Victoria anyway? What if I failed?
I ran through my preparations in my head. Victoria would go for Gisela first. My aunt was a walking calamity. She spent her life bouncing from one man to the next, always on the fringe of crime. Both Bern and Leon despised her. She was like a comet—every time she appeared in our lives, disaster followed. If I were Victoria, I’d grab her. She was a veritable treasure trove of sensitive information only a close family member would know, everything from how four-year-old Leon used to wet himself when her then-boyfriend would scream at him to Mom’s PTSD. She didn’t know everything, but what she knew would hurt and it was exactly the kind of information Victoria weaponized.
“What are you thinking?” Alessandro asked.
I lifted my head. He sat on the rail under the string of outdoor lights. The black and grey fabric of his long-sleeved shirt and pants blended with the night. He looked like a thief on the prowl from the neck down and a prince from the neck up. The glow of the lights caressed his face, his bold, strong features, carved jaw, perfect cheekbones, amber eyes under the sweep of dark eyebrows . . .
“If I were smarter, I would kill my aunt,” I said.
“What did she do?”
He didn’t look shocked. He wasn’t outraged. He simply assumed that if I was thinking about it, it had to be necessary. This is who we were. Birds of a feather.
“Nevada is thinking about confronting Victoria tomorrow on my behalf. I tried to convince her not to. I don’t know if I succeeded. If she goes after Victoria, my grandmother will retaliate, and Gisela would make a handy weapon and a good bargaining chip. No matter how fucked up she is, she’s still my aunt and Mom’s sister.”
“If something were to happen to her, would your mother try to save her?”
I nodded. “She would. I should kill Gisela and solve the problem permanently.”
“But you won’t.” He said it with complete conviction.
“No, I won’t. I have to look my reflection in the eyes in the morning.”
“Do you know where she is now?”
I showed him my phone. “In the Royal Club inside Zona Rosa of Mexico City. I’m tracking her phone. She’s banging a guy who calls himself El Temor.”
“The Fear? Is he a criminal?”
“He is a luchador. Just to be clear, I’m not asking you to kill her, Alessandro.”
“I know.” He smiled. “It’s not you.”
He believed in me. I leaned on that like a crutch. I shouldn’t have called him to this roof, but I was desperate for someone who understood.
“I did pay a local PI firm to keep an eye on her. If I call them, they will take her off the street and sit on her until I tell them to let her go.”
“Now, that’s you. Are you thinking of pulling the trigger?”
“If I do, Victoria will know. I’ve been pretending that I have no idea where Gisela is and have no interest in finding her, because I want Victoria to aim her first blow there. If I show my cards, she’ll switch her primary target.”
“That’s a dilemma,” he agreed.
I hugged myself. I wanted him to come over and hold me. I had this absurd feeling that if only he touched me, everything would be okay somehow. If all the people in the city disappeared, and it was only me and him on this roof floating alone in the fog, I would be perfectly happy. I should’ve felt guilty over it—I was a sister, a cousin, a daughter . . . but in this moment I didn’t care. It was just me and Alessandro.
“You found Arkan after you left,” I said. “What happened?”
He looked at the city, handsome like a painting, silhouetted against the distant lights, then turned to me, and grinned. It was a sharp Alessandro grin, bright and self-mocking. “He killed me.”
“He what?”
Alessandro sighed. “I’d been looking for him for so long. He would surface somewhere, and by the time I got there, he would vanish into thin air, like a ghost. I would start over, collecting traces of him until he reappeared. We played this game for years. I don’t know if he got tired of being chased or if it was a coincidence, but two weeks after I left Houston to look for him, I found him. Or rather he let me find him. I tracked him down to the Montreal Malting Silos, a big abandoned malt factory. Towers and towers of concrete, thirty-seven meters high, in the middle of the city by the river.”
“Did you go in?”
“I did. In my stupid head, it was going to be me against him on top of those silos.”
It had already happened, so why was I so scared for him? “It wasn’t.”
“It was me, him, and four other Primes. I took down three. Then the telekinetic threw a semi at me. I dodged the first pass. The second caught me. It swept me off the roof and I fell off the tower.”
Thirty-seven meters. One meter equaled roughly 3.28 feet multiplied by 37 . . . 121.36. He fell one hundred and twenty-one feet. Oh my God.
“I don’t remember the impact,” he said. “I remember falling and then just black. I must’ve been clinically dead for a few seconds, because they took my weapons but didn’t bother putting a bullet in my brain. When I woke up, there was pain.”
He said it so matter-of-fact.
“Most of me was broken. I couldn’t move my legs. There was so much pain and it was hot and white.” He raised his hands and made a spreading motion as if smoothing a blanket on the bed. “An endless ocean of it. I was on my back and decided to let myself drown. I failed and it hurt so much. I lay there, looking at the sky, waiting for my magic to give up, and I thought of you. It wasn’t anything deep or profound. I remembered your face and thought, I would really like to see her again. So, I turned over, passed out for a bit, and when I came to, I started crawling. Sometimes I’d black out, then I would come to, remember you, and crawl a little more. No, no, don’t cry for me.”
I realized heat wet my cheeks.
“Please,” he said, his voice quiet. “I don’t ever want to make you cry.”
I couldn’t stop. The tears just poured out. He’d crawled for hours, broken and in agony. If I could murder Arkan a hundred times, it would never make up for that.
Alessandro stopped talking. I brushed the tears from my fac
e with my fingertips. “What happened then?”
“There is a field next to the factory. Eventually I crossed it. Someone saw me and called an ambulance. When I woke up in a hospital room, it hit me. I survived. I would see you again. I decided then that I wouldn’t waste this chance.”
My heart skipped a beat.
“It took me some time to recover. Walking was a problem for a while. Holding a fork too. I could grip it, but I couldn’t aim with it. I was training and thinking of what I would say to you. And keeping an eye on Arkan.”
“How?” As long as he kept talking about Arkan . . .
Alessandro smiled. It didn’t reach his eyes. “Arkan types like he wants to punch through the keys. He murders keyboards. His staff orders them in bulk, and I managed to swap one of mine into the lot. It goes dormant until he says specific words, so it’s practically invisible to his bug sweepers. Once a day it sends the recording to one of my email addresses. So I was listening to Arkan run his pack of killers, and then he mentioned your name on a phone call.”
Alessandro leaned forward, focused, cold, lethal. His magic whipped out of him, spilling into a dense, potent current. “I meant what I said, Catalina. I won’t let him touch you.”
“I know.” All of the tension, pain, and anger churned inside me. I couldn’t contain it any longer. I had to let it go or I’d explode.
“Your wings are out.”
My wings had unfurled, ghosting in and out of existence. My magic was leaking. We stared at each other, me with my almost transparent green-and-gold wings and him wrapped in a flow of his power.
“Your turn,” he said. “What did you promise Victoria?”
There was no room for lies on this roof.
“I gave you up,” I told him. My voice sounded flat. The more matter-of-fact I was about this, the easier it would be.
His eyebrows came together. “How?”
“You ran into Diatheke alone to save Runa’s brother and ended up teleporting to Benedict’s secret lab. Augustine was the only one who knew the location of it. I needed information to trade to him, so I went to see my grandmother. She gave me what I needed. In return, I promised her that I would never leave House Baylor. I will never marry into another family like my sister did, Alessandro. My family is my responsibility until I die.”
He didn’t say anything.
“I had this silly fantasy that you would fall in love with me. I knew your family would think I was beneath you, but in my stupid head, somehow it would all work out and we would live together happily ever after. Victoria took that away from me. I don’t regret it. I would’ve given her anything to find you.”
He was looking at me and I couldn’t tell what he was thinking. I just had to get through this. Once all of this was out and he left, I could let go and cry as much as I wanted.
“I was going to explain all of it to you, but you were already leaving. It crushed me that I meant so little.”
“Catalina—”
“Please let me finish. This is very difficult for me. When I thought about it, I realized that it was better that way. No messy rationalizations. No false promises. Anyway, there is nothing to be done. Even if Victoria dropped dead tomorrow, I would still stay here. I assumed the responsibility for my House. Nevada trusted me with it. I must see it through. I won’t let our family be torn to pieces by our enemies. I can’t.”
There. I’d said it. I’d gotten it all out before we had a chance to be together. Maybe it would hurt less this way.
“I understand,” he said.
“I know your family’s position on marriage. I read the press releases on your three engagements. Your family is looking for a woman from an established House, wealthy, respected, and able to dedicate herself to being the wife of Count Sagredo. I can’t be her.”
A shadow crossed his face. “What the hell does my family have to do with anything?”
“Your family will want you to return. You will leave again, and I’ll stay right here. It will be painful, but it will hurt worse when you marry, because then I’ll know there is no hope. I’ll never be the other woman. It’s all or nothing for me. I can’t have you for a little bit and give you up. I won’t share you.”
His magic was on fire, but he sounded almost cold. “I’m not leaving.”
I clamped my hands together. It helped me keep my voice from breaking. “I understand, Alessandro. You don’t have to lie to me. You don’t have to promise me platitudes to soothe me. I’m not a child.”
He leaped off the rail so fast, I barely saw it. Our magic collided in a sharp electric burst and he crushed me to him.
“I’m not leaving.” His voice was a ragged growl. “I tried, because I can offer you nothing and you deserve so much more. You deserve someone better, but I’m a selfish bastard and I can’t stay away. I can’t give you up.”
He pulled away from me long enough to look at my face. His amber eyes brimmed with magic. He leaned forward. I knew what was about to happen and waiting for it felt like dying. I couldn’t stand it. My body locked, rigid with anticipation. I couldn’t have taken a single step. It lasted less than a second, but it felt like forever.
He dipped his head and kissed me.
A firestorm raged through me, and suddenly I could move again. I threw my arms around him and kissed him back. I had to taste him, or the world would end.
He kissed me like it was the last kiss we would ever have, like I was dying, and he had to bring me back to life. His arms locked around me, his muscles hard like steel. His hand tangled in my hair. His tongue slid into my mouth. I licked him, dying for a taste, and he made this noise low in his throat that made me shiver.
He broke the kiss and longing swept through me like pain. I almost cried out.
His eyes were molten amber. All traces of pretense fled from him, leaving the real man in their place, focused, dangerous, and driven half-insane by a blinding, irresistible want.
“Don’t stop,” I breathed.
“I won’t.”
“Don’t.”
“I promise.” He pulled me to him and kissed me again. My head spun. I melted against his body.
He kissed my lips, my cheek, my neck, his lips warm, gripping me to him, losing himself in me. “I’ll never stop. I’ll never leave.”
“But your family . . .”
“Doesn’t matter. I love you.”
Mine. Alessandro was finally mine.
I grasped the edge of his shirt, peeled it off him, and threw it away. I kissed his perfect chest, his shoulders, his neck. Each taste was a gift. I couldn’t get enough.
He pulled my blouse off me. His hand caught my back. His swordsman calluses rasped against my skin, sending delicious sparks of lust through me. My body howled to be touched. His fingers brushed me and the hooks on my bra came undone. The bra straps sagged off my shoulders, loose. He grabbed my bra and tossed it aside.
The heat of his skin burned my nipples. Alessandro reached into my bun, dragged the hairpin out, and flicked it away. My hair fell on my shoulders.
He sealed his mouth on mine. His hands roamed my body. He dragged his thumb across my right nipple and a soft pulse of pleasure rolled through me. I gasped into his mouth.
He gave me no time to deal with it. His tongue thrust between my lips, seducing, while his hands stroked my back and lower, unzipping my skirt, sliding past the waistband, into my underwear. He cupped my bare butt and pulled my hips to him, grinding against me. The hard length of him pressed into me. An insistent knot of need formed between my legs, impossible to ignore. I wanted him to thrust into it.
He slipped my skirt off my butt with a sure, possessive stroke. He was stripping me bare on the roof and I didn’t care. He smelled of sandalwood, citrus, and vanilla, and there must’ve been magic in it, because I couldn’t get enough.
My skirt and underwear fell to my ankles. I tugged at his pants. He let go of me long enough to yank them off.
Wow.
He raised his hand. His magic
flashed. His fingers were holding the small foil packet of a condom. He slid it on, saw my face, and halted. “Do you want to stop?”
I dropped my defenses. Every last barrier chaining me in place collapsed. My magic tore out of me. My wings burst into life, glorious, glittering with peridot and gold.
He stared like he’d been struck with lightning.
Look how much I want you.
I opened my mouth. “Do you want me, Alessandro?”
“God, yes.”
He picked me up, holding me like I weighed nothing, and the magic swirled around us, singing. I buried my hands in his hair and licked his lips.
He spun with me in his arms and then I was on the couch, on my back. He loomed over me and kissed my neck, setting my nerves on fire. Goose bumps broke on my skin. My nipples tightened, begging to be touched. I moaned.
His hands caressed my breasts, stroking, teasing the tight peaks. My breath came out in quick gasps. My nipples were so tight, they hurt.
His mouth closed on my left breast. His tongue licked me, wet and hot, and the sudden surge of pleasure rocked me. I cried out and clamped my hand over my mouth.
He kissed my other breast, kneading me, switching back and forth. His teeth worried my nipple. He sucked again and again. My head was spinning. The knot between my legs pulsed. Hot liquid slicked me. If he kept going, I would come before he ever started.
He slid lower, painting a line of kisses down the center of my stomach. I didn’t know if I wanted to pull him back up to my breasts, or to let him go down.
My body needed more. The wait was unbearable.
His fingers brushed the inside of my thighs, pushing my legs open. I jerked.
He raised his head to look at me. “Have you done this before?”
Emerald Blaze Page 29
