by Julie Leto
Cat pressed her mouth to his and kissed him until he was certain he’d inadvertently spun the plane into an inverted roll.
“Maybe not for all your family to show themselves,” she replied. “But let’s get this uncle solid and breathing and then we’ll take some time off for ourselves. Agreed?”
He didn’t bother answering with words, though for the first time, he honestly wanted to say them. He hesitated, not because of the consequences or the expectations of saying, “I love you,” to a woman who mattered, but he wanted to say it right—when they were alone, in the most romantic setting he could imagine. Not on a plane. Not while on the run.
But, while he had her here and the skies were clear, Ben decided that now was as good a time as any to practice a bit more of showing his love through actions and not words.
***
Rafe’s experience with hotel suites had been limited, but when he awoke the next day beside Mariah in a bed big enough for a small family, he realized that wealth had its privileges. He’d always eschewed his father’s predilection for luxury, even going as far as building a vardo at age fifteen out of an abandoned infantry wagon and several splintered doors and dragging the traditional Gypsy dwelling into the middle of his father’s carefully tended English garden, where he announced he would follow the traditions of his mother’s ancestors.
One rainstorm in the middle of a frigid German winter had convinced him that a solid roof over his head and a blazing fire in the hearth weren’t something to scoff at, but moving back inside the manor estate had done nothing to increase his appreciation for comforts like cool silk sheets, downy pillows and room service.
Until now, with Mariah.
They’d arrived in Texas just before dawn, so Rafe had retreated into the stone after watching Mariah stumble into the hotel owned by Cat’s friend. Though he’d lost corporeal form, he had not surrendered to sleep until after she’d picked over a plate of scrambled eggs, showered and slid safely into bed. She’d said very little to him during that time, but he’d sensed, from the moment after she’d returned from talking with Catalina Reyes in the front of the small plane, that she was deeply troubled.
Troubled enough to have slept all day.
A knock sounded from the other room, but Mariah merely turned over and placed a pillow over her head. With a grin, Rafe closed the double doors between the bedroom and the living area, then answered the summons. Ben stood there, not with his father as expected, but with a single sheet of paper clutched in his hands and a concerned expression knitting his brow.
“What is this?” he asked, taking the parchment from his nephew. His nephew. He was having a hard time accepting this, since at nearly forty, Ben was older than he was. In normal years.
“A message,” Ben replied.
“From Paxton?”
He pinched the bridge of his nose, suddenly appearing as weary as Mariah. “I spoke to my father this morning. He has strong reasons, let’s say, to want to avoid any dealings with Farrow Pryce. He’s going to meet us in Florida. After we’ve taken care of this.”
Rafe motioned Ben inside as he scanned the paper. The type was small and seemed to contain only a series of numbers underneath Mariah’s name, which was printed in big, bold letters.
“It’s called a fax,” Ben explained. “The plane was recognized in Mexico as belonging to Chandler Enterprises. The entire chain of hotels received this message.”
Rafe focused on the part of the situation he understood. “What are these numbers?”
Ben sighed in exasperation. “A phone number, but when I…Do you know what a phone is?”
Rafe nodded.
“When I call, whoever answers doesn’t reply. The number is unlisted and untraceable. Could be Hector Velez. Could be Farrow Pryce. Either option isn’t good. But whoever it is wants to talk to Mariah, and Mariah only.”
“She’s—” Rafe started, but stopped when he heard the slide of the doors behind him.
“I’m awake,” she said softly, a different kind of exhaustion in her voice. As if she weren’t just tired from physical activity, but was utterly spent—body and soul. “What is it?”
Rafe wanted to touch her. He sensed waves of indifference rolling off her skin. He both marveled and mourned her ability to contain her emotions so expertly.
He crossed his arms over his chest while Ben explained. As she listened, Mariah continued to look pale and tired, even after nearly sixteen solid hours of sleep. Rafe was about to interrupt to suggest she order a meal before they dealt with the fax, when Mariah accepted Ben’s cell phone and started to dial.
She paced as she waited for someone on the other end to respond. She motioned for the two of them to remain silent and then pressed a button that allowed them to hear both ends of the conversation.
“This is Mariah Hunter,” she said once a trilling sound ended with a distinctive click.
“I suppose Dr. Rousseau is with you?”
“No,” she answered with a saucy smirk, despite her hooded eyelids. “I swiped his phone. Look, doesn’t matter who is here, does it? Just say your piece.”
“I have your coins,” Farrow Pryce replied.
She swore to herself. Rafe had not thought to recover the coins in the jungle. His only concern had been rescuing Mariah and taking her as far away from Farrow Pryce as possible. Once the smoke had cleared, Pryce had taken the coins to use as leverage.
“Of course you do,” Mariah replied coolly.
“I’m willing to arrange a trade.”
“How very predictable.”
“Sometimes, the old ways are the best ways. It’s very simple: You give me the stone; I give you the coins.”
“Simple except for the fact that I’m not willing to part with my stone.”
“That is a problem,” Pryce said, exaggerated concern in his voice. “But you see, I’ve already been in touch with Hector Velez. I’ve let him know that not only do I have his coins, but that, thanks to your incompetence, I’m going to melt them one by one until you give me what I want. He did not react well to the news.”
Ben grabbed the phone and slammed it shut. Mariah started to protest, but he stopped her quickly with, “He could trace the call. Until we’re ready, we can’t verify exactly where we are. Now we know what he wants. Now we plan. We need to attack this from an offensive position. The man has money and power—both magical and otherwise. If we play our cards right, we’ll have more.”
Rafe felt a surge of familial pride. Ben reminded him much of his brothers on the night they’d ridden against Rogan. Perhaps if they’d strategized longer, they might not have fallen to Rogan’s curse.
“What are you talking about?” Mariah asked. “Rogan’s magic? Because Rafe doesn’t like to use it. It makes him—”
Rafe was about to protest when Ben interrupted. “I know what the magic does to him. Maybe there is another option. To find it, though, we need to make a deal with the devil.”
Mariah and Rafe exchanged confused looks. “What devil are you talking about?” she asked.
“A particularly crafty fiend by the name of Gemma Von Roan.”
***
“He’s not bluffing,” Gemma said, a humorless chuckle in her voice. Paschal held the phone to his shoulder while Ben waited on the other end of the line. If anyone could accurately predict Farrow Pryce’s next move, it was his former partner in crime. “He’ll melt those coins with glee if he thinks Mariah’s going to die a slow and painful death as a result. She’s committed the ultimate sin—she denied him something he wants and humiliated him in the process. I’ve never met her, but tell her she’s my new best friend.”
Paschal returned to the line and repeated what Gemma said, then added, “I’d advise you to have Mariah free Rafe from the stone and then just trade the marker for the coins, but freeing the phantom doesn’t entirely diminish the magic of the object. If Pryce has both the sword and the stone, there’s no telling how much power he’ll have at his disposal. He could go after th
e Source, and I’m sure you’ll agree that’s not a good idea. The K’vr leadership is small potatoes next to what he could do with such extreme power.”
His son agreed, but made him promise (again) to be careful and stay put in Florida until he, Cat, Rafe and Mariah took care of the problem. Paschal nearly asked to speak to Rafe, but then thought better of it. He didn’t want technology between him and his youngest brother. They’d never been particularly close, and centuries had only added to their separation. He did not wish to exchange small talk. He wanted to look his brother in the eyes and apologize for taking so long to find him.
Paschal slipped the phone into his pocket and watched Gemma twirl Rafe’s flute, which she hadn’t relinquished since her vision at the K’vr headquarters.
“Anything new?” he asked.
She looked up at him, just as surprised that he was off the phone as he was by the fact that she was still playing with the flute. Below, waves from the Atlantic Ocean ebbed and flowed across the Florida shore in a steady, hypnotic rhythm. The balcony of their suite at the Crown Chandler St. Augustine was lovely, but Paschal longed to return to Isla de Fantasmas, where this entire matter had begun.
“I was just thinking,” she said.
“About?”
She balanced the flute on the tip of her finger, a task made more difficult by the insistent night breeze. “The magic. My newly discovered ability. The combination of the two. I mean, I can copy paranormal powers, right? That’s what you believe.”
“Yes,” he answered cautiously.
“Then if I’m in the presence of someone who is controlling Rogan’s magic, then I’ll be able to steal that, too, right?”
Paschal’s mouth dried. He had no idea whether she could steal the magic, but her ambition was precisely what made her so intriguing. The woman was driven and ruthless in her need to rule the K’vr, but just like Pryce, her ambitions could explode, if given the right opportunity.
But he also knew better than to lie.
“I have no idea what will happen when you are exposed to the magic,” he responded.
Despite the progress she’d made in finding her authentic self, her grin was every bit as hungry as the first time he’d met her.
“Then what are we waiting for?” she asked, standing. “Let’s go find out.”
Twenty One
“You should let him in,” Ben said the moment the door shut behind Cat, who had offered to take Rafe on a tour of the hotel. Mariah was glad for time to think, though she wished Ben had left, too. Gemma Von Roan hadn’t been much help. She’d only verified that they had every reason to fear Farrow Pryce if he had magic at his disposal. Even she was scared. So instead of using the rest of the night to sleep, they’d been plotting until now—only an hour from daybreak.
“Who are you talking about?” she asked, not really wanting to hear his answer.
“The man who needs you to love him.”
She attempted to quell his interference with a scowl. “You want to give me advice about my romantic relationships, mate? That’s rich.”
“At least I’ve learned from my mistakes,” Ben said.
“Oh, so now our previous partnership was nothing more than a mistake?”
She said the words, but they lacked true conviction and she knew it. Her reluctance to open her heart to Rafe went well beyond anything Ben had done to her. She knew that, even if he didn’t.
“We never stood a chance,” he continued. “I was too arrogant and self-absorbed. You were too eager to get out of Australia. And we were both too young.”
“Well, half of that was true,” Mariah quipped. “I was seventeen. You were almost thirty.”
“You lied about your age, I was twenty-five and that’s not the point.”
With her elbows on her knees, Mariah dropped her head between her legs and lost herself in the rush of blood to her brain. Their age difference had never been the problem. She’d simply never excelled at discussing her feelings with anyone. Her father practically forbade it, and her mother…well, her mother tended to try to associate even the simplest of emotions with some sociological theory or cultural paradigm. Mariah knew she was shitty at dealing with things like friendship and love, and that she was better off keeping things casual and arranging all her relationships so that they met some basic need. Like with the Barketts. They owned an airstrip and gave her access to planes and contacts. Great friends for a pilot to have.
Even with Rafe, she shared a symbiotic relationship. When he used the magic, he needed sex. When she was anywhere near him, the feeling was mutual. When she needed his powers to help her find the coins, he’d obliged. Now he needed her to free him by loving him, exposing herself to the possibility of untold hurts and disappointments. Where was the quid pro quo in that?
Love meant sacrifice, and not just on the big things. That part was easy. She’d choose life over death for any stranger, as long as they weren’t trying to take her out in the process. But Rafe needed a woman to love him who was more like Irika—gentle, kind, wise. Not fucked-up from years of keeping her emotions hidden where even the best treasure hunters could not find them—not even her.
Ben slid onto the couch beside her. His jaw was tense, and his eyes, so much like Rafe’s that she couldn’t believe she hadn’t made the genetic connection between the men immediately, gleamed with seriousness.
“I can’t do this, Ben, Not now.”
“You can never do this. That’s your problem.”
“Don’t tell me what my problems are unless you’re ready to hear a damned long list of your own, okay?”
He leaned back into the cushions. “You think Cat doesn’t point out my shortcomings on a regular basis?”
Mariah smirked. “She doesn’t seem like the fawning type. She’s good for you, I think. Takes your ego down a peg.”
“I think Rafe could do the same for you, if you’d let him.”
Mariah jabbed her hands into her hair, tugging at the roots, trying to make her brain and her heart communicate with each other in a way that could result in Rafe’s freedom. She knew she couldn’t attempt to undo the curse now. They needed his magic in order to thwart Pryce. But after it was all over, if they succeeded, he deserved a life like the ones his brothers were enjoying—living with beautiful, successful women who’d somehow bridged a two-hundred-and-sixty-year difference in culture to fall madly in love.
Her stomach turned. She wandered to the table and picked through the remnants of Rafe’s room-service lunch, scoring a slightly wilted celery stick and chomping on it simply to avoid having to talk.
“Mariah,” Ben pressed.
“You think I don’t want to let him in?” Mariah asked, washing down the tasteless root vegetable with a swig of her lukewarm beer.
“Have you ever let anyone into that heart of yours?”
“You didn’t want in,” she replied.
“Fair enough. But this isn’t about us anymore. I chose my family over you. I apologized then, but I’m not sorry anymore. My father and I aren’t exactly bosom buddies, but we’ve made strides. You and me? We could be friends. Hell, we could be relatives.”
He muttered the last part, but Mariah heard him loud and clear.
“Don’t get ahead of yourself,” she warned him. “Don’t you think your uncle deserves someone better?”
“What’s wrong with you? I mean, you’re headstrong and full of yourself and single-minded and untrustworthy and coldhearted, but other than that?”
She reached across the couch and slapped him on the back of his head.
“Ow!” he protested.
“I am not untrustworthy,” she claimed, then swung around to the other side of the room, away from the alcohol, because it would be all too easy to lose herself in the act of getting truly and honestly dirty, stinking drunk. “But I can’t argue the rest. Has he told you about his wife?”
Ben’s eyes widened. “I didn’t realize he’d been married.”
Mariah hummed, then strolled
to the seat opposite Ben. “Oh, yeah. She died right in front of him shortly after he was trapped inside the stone. Had her throat slit by the soldiers who’d come to murder the Gypsies.”
“No,” Ben gasped.
She closed her eyes and described to Ben what Rafe had told her, trying to picture what he’d gone through—what it had felt like to watch the woman he loved slaughtered when he was inches away, but unable to save her. If Irika had just walked a few more steps and brushed her hand over the marker, would she have freed him? Would he then have been butchered alongside her, or would he have been able to use the magic to save them both?
They’d never know.
“No wonder he’s so brooding,” Ben said when she’d finished.
She sat up, surprised. “Rafe isn’t brooding. He’s surprisingly well adjusted—I mean, for a phantom.”
Ben rubbed the stubble on his jaw. “He’s got a definite darkness in his eyes. Who wouldn’t, after going through that?”
“He’s made up for it,” Mariah said. “For not being able to help her, I mean. He may not know it yet, but I think Irika would have been proud of him. From what he’s told me, she was sweet and quiet and calm. And likely very forgiving. All the things I’m not.”
“You can be calm,” Ben said, a hint of a chuckle in his voice.
“I’m also usually self-sufficient. He’s saved my arse three times already. Pathetic, isn’t it?”
Ben attempted a smile, but while his eyes lit up with humor, his mouth managed only to quirk up at one corner. “Pretty much. But in the big picture, it should be a sign. What more do you need, Mariah, to convince you that he’s the one?”
“But what if I’m not the one for him?” She cursed, deciding this touchy-feely conversation had gone on long enough. “Look, I know I have to love him to free him. But right now, we need to worry about Pryce. And Velez. Once we’re clear of them, I can focus on Rafe. Not until then.”
Ben pursed his lips, slapped his hands on his knees and stood. “That buys you a reprieve for at least another day.”
