by Dela
“Vamos, amor,” Gabriella moaned, tugging Dylan off the chair.
Dylan smiled at the twins and shrugged his shoulders submissively, though he followed her without complaint. She swayed her hips like a duck as they glided off to the dance floor. Max and Casey stared at the incapacitated Dylan in awe.
Lucas threw his sweater on the table next to the boys and looked to me. “You too!”
“What?”
He grabbed my hand and yanked me off in the same direction.
“What are you doing?” I asked, tugging in the other direction, even though I couldn’t overpower him. I didn’t want to be next to Gabriella as she danced. I imagined her, graceful and seductive, her movement and body flawless—as it should be when you dance. After Lucas had dragged me ten feet closer to the dance floor, I gave up resisting. Gabriella and Dylan were already in the zone by the time we joined them. I looked away, feeling shy. How am I going to top that? Every move is like a Tony Award–winning bit of choreography.
“Don’t think,” Lucas said before I could protest that I shouldn’t dance.
I was worried about the bodies bumping into us, but he angled himself in front of me as if they didn’t exist. My body pulsed as he decreased the space between us, watching me intently as he did, and rested his hands on my hips and moved them in rhythm. As his body moved slowly with mine, and he looked down, engulfed in our movement, I surrendered. I put my arms around his neck and stepped closer. Soon our bodies rocked in sync, our hips swaying together. Our skin grew sweaty with close contact, but Lucas only pressed himself harder against me.
Songs later, when my legs grew tired, Lucas broke the space between us.
“Let’s take a break.” He smiled, fanning out his shirt, which was stuck to his chest. I shook my head and realized that I was out of breath.
Max and Casey were standing at the rope at the top of the stairs, pointing to girls below and whispering.
“I wish I spoke Spanish,” I heard Casey say.
Max threw a hand to his chest. “Bro, all you say is, ¿Señorita baile?” His pronunciation was embarrassing, but worse was the motion of two stick figures he made with his fingers.
Casey nodded like some stoned hipster. “Zara, hands down, this is the best Christmas ever.”
“Good,” I replied, amazed that I was getting along with my brothers.
“Where did you take our sis today, bro?” Max asked.
“To one of the homes I grew up in.”
“That’s it?” Casey replied, sounding kind of shocked.
“Pretty much.”
Max and Casey looked away as if we were boring and continued where they left off.
“Max, Case, we’re leaving,” Dylan said from behind us. “We’ll catch you at home, Lucas.”
Casey nodded, looking disappointed.
“Don’t worry, the ladies will be here tomorrow too,” Dylan promised.
Outside, the cool night breeze graced my skin as Lucas tugged me toward the black tree line with a secret grin.
“This way,” he whispered.
I caught his excitement, and we ran into the forest, plunging into the shadows until the parking lot was out of view. The branches brushed along my arms and behind my back, but I was focused on Lucas, who watched me back. My heart picked up its pace again as he slid his arms around my waist and pulled me into him.
“This is more like it,” he whispered.
I stared back, sensing a wall inside him crumbling further as he leaned his head against mine.
“This is my someday,” I finally said in the silence.
He responded with a closed, velvety smile that made my head spin and my toes tingle. As he tilted his head toward me, I inched closer and prepared. I puckered my lips just as his briskly touched mine, but then they turned to stone. He pushed himself away from me, his eyes large with shock. I stared at him, confused, but then I heard it too: the loud beat of a drum.
I covered my ears as it grew even louder and yelled, “What is that?”
His skin suddenly looked pale in the darkness. “We must go.”
I backed away in confusion.
“NOW!” he yelled.
We rushed to the car and bolted for home, my hands still fumbling for my seatbelt.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
“The executioners are declaring war. They will be here by morning,” Lucas said through tight lips.
“But I thought you said they couldn’t come back after Solstice.”
He swerved onto the small gateway road, the boxy palace ahead a beacon in the dark. “I said they wouldn’t come after Solstice, not that they couldn’t. They are breaking the laws now too.”
Lucas swerved toward the light. The fluorescent whiteness made the garage seem like a surgical theater. The Castillos were standing together next to the boat Dylan had taken out earlier, the jaguars at their feet.
“Did you hear it, their drums of war?” Valentina asked nervously as we pulled in.
“Yeah.” Lucas met me on the other side of the car, looking distracted.
The ghostly drumbeat pounded in our heads again.
“What is that?” I asked irritably.
“It’s Xibalba,” Tita answered in a daze. She turned a deathlike gaze on me, her eyes void of expression. “They’re coming for you.”
“Tita, silencio por favor,” Andrés interrupted. “Zara, honey, I need you to stay in the house with your family until we return. The Aluxes will be here to guard you, but you cannot leave the house,” he stressed. “You will tell your family that we had last-minute family business, and that we will be back in a couple of days at the most.”
“A couple of days?” I shrieked.
“Tita will put a spell on the house to protect you, but no one will be allowed to enter or leave. It will be safe,” he added in a reassuring tone, though his body betrayed his unease.
“I don’t like this,” I said.
“Yeah, me either,” Gabriella said.
“Aren’t you forgetting about one little detail . . . like the prophecy?” I didn’t mean to raise my voice. I took a deep breath and calmed myself. “The Milky Way’s dark rift, what about that? Isn’t that just another means to another portal? So if you close this one, the Underworld will still have another way of getting out, only then you would have a Celestial coming after you for killing a god!”
“We’ve run out of options. It’s the only shot we have right now at guaranteeing your safety,” Lucas said. His face was tight with frustration as he pulled his fingers through his hair.
“He’s right, Zara. Please, go inside and be with your family,” Andrés said.
“No, I will not just listen. You listen to me!”
I waited for their shocked faces to smooth, but when they didn’t, I continued. “Xavier’s mother came to me for a reason. She was scared, and very cautious, like she was being watched. She risked coming because it was important. There has to be another way to deal with Xavier.”
“Like what?” Lucas said. He looked scared, like someone was about to come and rob him of his rightful property. I had to remind myself that I was the possession he was worried about.
“What if Dylan called for her and asked her to join you? Have her go with you to where the portal is located. Promise Xavier that you will break the curse if he promises to disappear forever. I mean, that’s what he wants, isn’t it? His freedom?”
There were a few disconcerted nods.
“From there, she takes Xavier away, if and only if he promises to stay out of your way, never cross your paths. You know, that sort of thing.” I ran out of things to say.
“That can’t work,” Tita clarified. “The spell I put on him is called a curse because it cannot be revoked.”
“Unless they have Zara,” Dylan mused.
Lucas gla
red at him. “Out of the question.”
“It’s too dangerous,” Valentina added.
“We can’t trust Xavier. I’m sorry.” Andrés turned to his family. “We leave at dawn’s first light.”
I glared back at all of them, expecting Lucas to speak up. But he stood with his family on this one, not even man enough to look me in the eye. The pressure in my head suddenly made my face throb. I fled without another word through the kitchen, past my family in the great room, and into my room.
I belly flopped on the bed and pushed my face into the pillow to muffle my sobs. But when I rolled to one side, my cheeks wet with tears, Lucas was standing by the dresser. I looked away and sniffed.
“What do you want from me, Zara?” he said. “The executioners are on their way, right now. We have to block them before they come with an army to kidnap you and deliver you to Mictlan.”
“Aren’t you worried about the Milky Way being another way for them to come?” I asked, shocked that he wasn’t freaking out.
“Not really, no.”
“And you’re sure you can seal the portal for good?”
He sighed and added an encouraging, “Yes.”
I moved to the edge of the bed and wedged my hands between my knees.
He moved in front of me noiselessly, his face full of remorse. “Look, if roles were reversed, I would feel the same way as you do right now: angry and betrayed. But you need to understand how important it is that you stay in this house. You don’t know how much you mean to me.” He paused. “What happened with your connection and Xavier at Fallen Leaf was too dangerous, and Xavier would do anything to get you now. I don’t know how I could protect you from an army.” His voice trembled as he looked at me.
I picked at my fingernails and, with hesitation, dismissed my own judgment. “I will stay here.”
He watched me closely. “I will come back for you, I promise.”
I fell back and stared up at the ceiling. My instincts still screamed against every grain of this plan, but I had to trust him now. “How do you even kill Xavier? He’s a god.”
The whites of Lucas’s eyes widened, and I could see the risk they were willing to take in his fearful face. “We remove his heart and burn it on an altar.”
I waited a moment as the pieces of their plan came together. I rolled my head sideways to look at him. “So you’re going to lock me in the house?”
“It’s the only way I know how to protect you. We are trying to keep everything as normal as possible so your family doesn’t suspect anything.”
I shot up with a brilliant idea, the last piece of hope I had. “I have a better plan. How about we contact the Celestials?”
“What?” He shook his head as if I were crazy. “We can’t.”
“Tell them everything, let them make the decision. You don’t have to do this!” I cried.
He looked torn as he nodded slowly. “I do.”
I looked down, partially frustrated, partially fighting the pounding in my head. It killed me that everything was out of my control. Because of me, the Castillos were willing to risk exposing their identity. Because of me, Lucas was willing to put his life on the line. Because of me, my family was in the most danger they would ever face, and they didn’t even know it.
His feet moved into the patch of floor I was staring at, so close that our knees touched. He tilted my chin upward, and the dim lamp highlighted his features as he raised his eyebrows.
“We’re not over. I am coming back for you,” he confirmed, the deep promise splitting the air between us.
He held on to me, and I could almost feel him still questioning his desire to act on how he felt. I wanted him to do it, get it over with, because I knew with every fiber of my being that my first time would be with him.
“What are you waiting for?” I whispered, pushing away just enough to look him squarely in the eyes. I wished I had the courage to do it myself, but I didn’t.
His passion was there, in all its drowning intensity, but he looked conflicted. “I’m holding on to anything I can as a reason not to do this.”
In that moment, his closeness consumed me—I had never wanted him more. I could think of many reasons why he should. Then, before I could reach for him, he swallowed, kissed my cheek, and vanished, the curtains on the French doors flapping with his passage.
I stayed on the bed. As much as it ate at me inside, I would not go to him tonight. If he wanted me, he would come. I left the doors open, already feeling somehow trapped, and went to the bathroom to get ready for bed. There was the nightgown that Lucas had promised me, fine white cotton soft as silk, folded by the sink. It slid cool and smooth over my skin. As I brushed my teeth, imagining never seeing Lucas again, I choked.
He promised me. He promised he will return.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Eternal Engagement
Midnight approached, and I still couldn’t sleep, no matter how exhausted I was. My body pounded for Lucas. As I rested on my back, imagining Lucas resting on the other side of the house, a dark figure appeared between the French doors. The sheer drapes blew lightly around Lucas’s black silhouette, shirtless and barefoot. A smile grew on my face as the hunger flashed in his eye. I sat up as he stepped inside.
He didn’t speak. Instead, the prince came silently, passing the foot of the bed with fiery purpose. I reached for the silk sheet and weakly pulled it over my chest as he turned the corner of the bed. His determination was a shield, and now I saw weakness when he stopped at my side.
“Are you nervous?” he asked softly.
I nodded robotically.
He studied me for a moment, my face, my body, before setting a knee on the bed. I slid to the center, trembling. He crawled over to me and knelt at my side. Then he took my hand and placed it on his bare chest. It was sticky in the humidity, but I felt his heart pumping underneath, beating as fast as mine.
He cupped a hand behind my neck and lowered me to my back, leaning over me.
“I’ve no more reasons. Somewhere over the past few months, I’ve fallen for every piece of you . . . your body, your soul, your mind,” he said.
I panicked. I’d always considered myself good looking, but I never dreamed someone like Lucas would want me. He belonged with someone just as exotic as himself, just as timeless, just as royal. That wasn’t me. I looked away, ashamed.
“I don’t deserve you,” I rushed out.
He pushed my chin up with a finger, forcing my eyes to meet his. “It is I who doesn’t deserve you. But I want you. I choose you, Zara, consequences and all.”
“Lucas, I’m scared,” I said quickly. I knew that once we did this, my heart would belong to him forever. “Aren’t you?”
He rolled onto his side and swept a loose hair past my ear. His thumb brushed my lips and made me tremble inside.
“This is my someday,” he whispered.
When I didn’t budge, frozen by his words, he moved. “Hold still, muñeca,” he warned softly, lowering his head.
I stared, expressionless, afraid of what was coming, but then a fiery passion overwhelmed my fear.
He rolled again and pressed his bare skin to mine. He trailed slow, lingering kisses down my neck and across my jaw to the rim of my lips. Then he gently cupped my cheeks with both hands and paused, staring deeply into my eyes. Second-guessing, perhaps? But suddenly, his lips met mine unerringly in the darkness.
A golden burst rose behind my closed eyelids like fireworks. The unfamiliar rush of emotion made every atom in my body explode. I knew he felt it too, because he backed away with a startled expression. But then he grinned with pleasure and leaned in again. I was ready this time as he pulled me to his starving lips.
I clenched my fingers in his hair and brought him closer. I wanted to feel the entirety of him. He slipped one hand under the front of my nightgown and touched my inner thigh
. My body throbbed as he kissed me harder. I moaned—he was squeezing me too hard, but I didn’t want him to stop. The foreignness of his touch set fire to my body, a hotness I’d never experienced, and I wanted more. But he let go and rose to his knees. His hands swept mine up quickly, locking them over my head as he nibbled my ear.
My toes clung to the sheets as he cinched my waist and pulled me toward him, kissing all over my body. I grunted with pleasure as time slipped away. When he released my wrists to draw me closer, I cupped my hands carefully around his neck to pull him back up against me, wanting more of his poison. His lips found mine again, that golden energy derailing my intent again. Lucas parted my lips this time, intertwining his tongue with mine, and I panted, trying to take as much of him as I could.
I gasped when he unlocked our lips and eased us back down to the bed. He pushed my nightgown up above my navel and began licking slowly around it. Then he hooked a finger in my panties and drew them down slightly, licking. A ripple of shivers racked me.
He looked up with fiery eyes, his hot breath inches from my body. It made me pulse even harder for him.
“I’m trying so hard to be good,” he whispered, before licking above the lacy hem again.
The throbbing grew out of control as he scooted back. He slouched over and spread my knees slightly, but then he stopped.
“What?” I panted, nearly exploding with expectation.
He studied my blazing face, then closed my legs, pulled the nightgown down, and lay down on his side next to me.
“I love you,” he whispered unexpectedly.
He draped a hand over my body and brushed fingers over my arm.
Coming to my senses, I smiled bashfully and whispered back what I’d always known. “I love you too.”
I knew it wasn’t normal. I would marry him in a heartbeat—elope, even. But I was still on fire, pulsing, and I wondered why he had stopped.
“There’s no need to rush this. I want you, but later. When we are both ready for it,” he said.