by Jenn Stark
“If you…care for me, or whatever this is, you’re in danger, aren’t you? Tesla can beat you. Viktor could.”
Armaeus pulled back, gazing at me with something almost akin to pity in his eyes. “No,” he said, his lips quirking into a weary smile. “Tesla isn’t stronger than me. Viktor isn’t either. They think they are, but it’s not true.”
“But Nashville…”
“Nashville was by choice.” He shook his head. “It wasn’t planned—none of it was planned to work the way it did. I did not realize the shields would damage their bearers. But I was not caught up in the maelstrom as you feared.”
I leaned away from him. “How…” I frowned. “You were frozen.”
Armaeus’s smile grew more rueful. “Think back, Miss Wilde. The electricity that shattered through Nikki, Max. It then jumped to you, correct? And then you…”
“Threw it at Tesla,” I said. I propped myself on his chest, reveling in the feel of him. “It never even struck you, did it?” I shoved his shoulder, scowling. “Why did you play dead?”
“You had things well in hand, and I wanted to see what Tesla had prepared for you. Unfortunately, I couldn’t track you as quickly as I’d hoped, but I came as soon as it seemed reasonable.”
“You’re the worst,” I muttered, then brightened. “But you’re also good, then, right? If you’re stronger than Tesla or Viktor, there’s no one else on the Council to worry about.”
“Except you,” Armaeus said.
“Me? Yeah. I think you’re good there.”
“No.” His gaze swept over my face; his hand touched my hair. Lovingly. Almost reverently. As if he would have this one chance and never be allowed to touch it again. And then he spoke words of utter impossibility.
“You can kill me, Miss Wilde. You may not accept that, but it’s true. And I would let you, in the end. If your hand rose against me, I would fall.”
“What?” I blinked, jerking back.
Armaeus held me fast. “In the beginning, when first we met and I pursued you, there was fear. Incredible fear on your part. I couldn’t understand it, didn’t want to understand it. The attraction between us was undeniable, and that was all that mattered, all that ever mattered. But you—refused. Your mind, your body, everything about you pushed me away.”
“You were immortal. I wasn’t,” I said. “That was bad juju.”
“Not for the reason I assumed, however. I held the power, yes. That power was opposite yours and far greater. You were still learning what and who you were.”
“Still not quite done with that,” I muttered, and he chuckled quietly.
“Then I became mortal and—something shifted between us. Weakened the hold I had on my own convictions, despite all I knew to be true. When I returned to the immortal state, my power and pride returned with me, but now—with you immortal—I find I’m once more compromised.”
“And that’s bad?”
“Not now,” he said, and his arms tightened around me, allowed me to rest in his embrace again. “But someday, yes. Someday it will be bad. I know it as surely as I sense the arching power of a new day just beyond the horizon. Someday you will be asked to make a choice, and I will kneel before that choice—unable to stop it, unable to stop you.”
“Unless you—” I waved my hand. “Make this go away.”
He leaned down, drifting a kiss over my hair once more. “Yes,” he whispered, but there was something in his tone that arrowed all the way through me, resonating deep in my own impossibly perfect DNA.
And suddenly, I knew.
As surely as if Armaeus had shouted it from the tallest spire of his fortress of mystical glass and steel, I knew the truth. The possibility and the staggering, unimaginable peril. The Magician would try to stop what was happening between us, and maybe he could stop it, with anyone except me.
But I wasn’t an ordinary Connected, not anymore. Maybe not ever. And as strong as the Magician was, he did have one weakness. One terrible, possibly deadly weakness, and it was more profound than he fully realized.
Me.
He hadn’t been lying in the depths of Hell, not in the end. He loved me. Mirabel might have been his first love, and he might have sworn off his heart ever since, but that didn’t change the fact that this impossible, unearthly sorcerer, the coldest, most calculating immortal on the Council, the deadliest threat to Connected humanity and also its best chance of survival…loved me.
And I—I held all the cards. Even if I didn’t know how to play them.
We lay like that for minutes more—maybe hours. Eventually, Armaeus’s arms loosened around me, his body relaxing, his breathing dropping into the soft cadence of sleep. Slowly, carefully, I withdrew from his bed, allowing myself only a few minutes more in the darkness, staring down at him.
No matter how staggering the truth I now knew in the deepest reaches of my being, it didn’t change the fact that there was something powerful opposing the connection forming between the two of us, something that had been set against us from the beginning. Something that beckoned even now, dark and deceptive, winking in the night. I didn’t know how to combat that opposition, but…I couldn’t let the Magician go either. Not here, not now…
“Not yet,” I murmured softly, the words coming out as a plea.
I turned away from him then, heading across the lush sea of carpeting, scooping up my clothes as I went.
A few moments later, I slipped into the night.
Chapter Thirty-Two
My phone registered a connection before I turned left onto Las Vegas Boulevard, and I tucked it back into my hoodie, smiling despite myself at the gift Armaeus had given me. Had he realized it? Probably, after my question regarding being tracked.
Either way, the result was the same. No time had passed to mark the time I’d spent with the Magician. It was as if I’d never been there.
Though that would help me explain my absence to Ma-Singh’s guards, if they asked, I couldn’t help feeling even more that what I’d experienced with Armaeus had been effectively erased, had never happened. That this was merely the first in a series of small steps the infuriating immortal would take to shut me out, to reclaim his hold on his own traitorous emotions.
And I should let him, I knew. I should.
Maybe I would.
Then again…
I walked along the Strip, staring at the enormous tower that soared above the Stratosphere in the distance. Even though the newest Council residence was separated from its closest neighbor by over two miles, it seemed to loom over the other towers, giving the illusion of being larger, more dominant than Prime Luxe, the two soaring edifices anchoring either end of the glittering, clattering boulevard.
I grimaced. My own feeble problems aside, it looked like the pissing contest had officially begun between the Magician and the Hanged Man. That could only end in pain.
“I presume my humble home meets with your approval?”
The smooth, cultured accent of Nikola Tesla drifted to me, and I glanced to my left, unsurprised to see him. If Ma-Singh and Soo’s bodyguards could find me through my reanimated phone, the Hanged Man certainly could.
He wore his suit with elegant ease, his hair brushed fastidiously back from his broad forehead, his narrow, pointed chin almost feminine but not quite. The face of a scholar, a scientist, an inventor. A face already known the world over.
“Have you considered that you’ll be recognized if you continue to dress exactly like the man you were a hundred years ago?” I asked him. “Someone’s eventually going to put it together.”
“Put what together?” Tesla asked, lifting his brows. “In a city filled with shams and impersonators, do you truly believe I’ll garner that much notice?”
His words were light, but I sensed an unexpected bitterness in them, as if Tesla was finally beginning to understand the full reality of his new existence. Dismissed in life, the inventor only truly got his due after he died. Now he was back, but the world had moved on. All his contrib
utions would once again get assigned to agents and interlopers, none of them accruing to his legacy.
As if he could read my thoughts, Tesla chuckled, wagging a finger at me as we walked. “You think I have made a bad trade. A fool’s bet. You’re proud that you and your Magician have lured me back to the Council.”
I shrugged. “I wouldn’t say that. Armaeus needs all hands on deck for the war on magic. Your hands are more capable than most.”
“More dangerous too,” he said. “But that’s a consideration for another day. In the meantime, I bid you good night, Ms. Wilde.” He bowed to me, somehow making the action less deferential and more mocking. “I'll merely ask you once again to pay attention. To the motivations of the Council, to the actions of those mortals who would bring their magic into fuller flower, and to the connections you've already begun to notice.” He smiled thinly. “The world will certainly be paying attention to you.”
Before I could snap a response, he was gone, disappearing with the softest crackle of electricity. I rolled my eyes, then resumed walking, my mind churning over what had to come next. I would have to address Soo’s technoceutical empire, I knew. I’d also have to track these new life-altering technoceuticals to their source. I’d have to continue to reinforce the House of Swords’ protections, while seeking out the other Houses—starting with Mercault and the House of Pents. If the Council thought they were a danger, then they were in danger, there was no way around it.
I’d also have to reconcile my feelings—whatever they were—about Armaeus. I would never kill him, I knew, and yet…how many other things had I known with certainty, only to have everything change?
Burdened with these thoughts, I moved up the Strip toward the Palazzo, the thrum of the city surrounding me. The rap and clatter of flyers fanned against the legs of shills advertising everything from escorts to magic acts, the crash and jingle of slot machines, the shouts of elation and disbelief. As I moved, however, there was a shift in the energy of the crowd around me, an unsettling murmur as people slowed.
I kept walking, pushing through the throng, wanting more than anything to get back to my room at the Palazzo, to shut the door, to retreat once more from the world. Tomorrow I could take on the mantle of the House of Swords again. Tomorrow I could start unraveling the mess of my relationship with Interpol. Tomorrow I could return to the search…
I glanced up, then it was my turn to slow…and to pick up my pace again.
The enormous digital billboards above MGM Grand and Harrah’s had ceased their endless slide show of advertisements, each more brilliant than the last. Instead, they showed the same image. All the billboards up and down the Strip showed this image, in fact. It flashed across the bright expanse of the high-rise casinos, in the digital advertisements atop the taxicabs, on phones, on tablets—even on the smart watches I could see lighting up near me.
It was a video feed of a woman walking beneath the glittering lights of Las Vegas, her hands in her pockets, her shoulders hunched. Slouching forward in her battered jacket and scuffed boots, her eyes shifting from person to person as slowly, inexorably, others started looking around, attempting to locate her by her appearance, trying to triangulate her position by the landmarks surrounding her.
I wanted to run, to scream, to flee, but I couldn’t do any of that, not anymore. I could only keep walking, shouldering a responsibility I could no longer escape.
Like it or not, ready or not…
All eyes were on Sara Wilde.
Wilde Child
In Spring, 2017, the war on magic gets trickier as Sara is forced to use a child as a guide, one of the precious Connecteds she’s dedicated her life to protecting. Putting a child at risk is the hardest thing she's ever done, but no one else can take her down the twisted paths that lead to the heart of the dark practitioners. Their journey takes them ever deeper into the murk of the arcane black market, forcing Sara to confront a new and deadly threat now facing the Connected community. Add to that her ever-evolving connection with the Magician, and unexpected consequences of her new position as head of the House of Swords, and Sara’s pretty sure things couldn’t get more complicated.
That is, until her shocking discovery of exactly who’s running one of the other fabled mortal Houses of Magic…
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A Note From Jenn
Sara’s reading in the opening chapter of Forever Wilde provides clues to how she can find some (literally) buried treasure. The cards’ general interpretations are below, which fit most situations…unless you’re looking for an ancient artifact. In that case, pay more attention to the pictures than the symbology of the cards!
The Tower
The Tower has shown up in Sara’s readings before, and if it shows up in yours…brace yourself, because change is coming whether you’re ready or not! This is the card of established structures that are on the verge of breaking apart, ushering in a period of dramatic transformation. These changes can crash into your life unexpectedly, helping you sweep your life clean. Beliefs may crumble and routines may break down, giving you the opportunity for a fresh start (again, whether you want one or not—the Tower cares nothing for your pre-made plans!). When you draw the Tower, prepare to go with the flow, and don’t hold too tightly to structures that maybe have outlived their usefulness. Really sure that you’re not heading for major disruption? Then the Tower could simply mean that an illusion will be dispelled, that you’ll see things in an entirely new light, or that sudden (and positive!) change will be visited upon you, out of the blue!
The Three of Pentacles
Wow! If you’re feeling a tiny bit proud of your accomplishments, you have every reason to be. The Three of Pentacles is the virtuouso’s card, representing talent, ability, a job well done—that mastered painting, the finished story, the perfectly wrapped-up project. If you’re still in the midst of the work, it’s an encouragement to keep going, because you not only will finish successfully, but you’ll be recognized for your work—note how the artist in the image is not toiling away in obscurity, but interacting with appreciative patrons? That sort of appreciation is in your future, too. Drawing the Three of Pentacles shows you’ve got what it takes to get the job done—brilliantly and with style. So get to work!
The Knight of Swords
Rushing, rushing, rushing! The Knight of Swords is the card of galloping into the breach, ready to take on the fight, flee a situation ballooning beyond your control, and generally jumping into or out of the frying pan, fairly certain that a fire is somewhere close. As a court card, it can also symbolize a person around you who is going through these experiences, or who is pushing you to that level of frenzy. What’s important to remember is that while you’re running at high speed, you need to keep your wits about you (swords are all about mental processes, being logical, and intellectual pursuits) while not forgetting your emotions completely. Either way, when you draw the Knight of Swords, take a deep breath and dive in! You’ll get where you’re going in a hurry, but as long as you’re certain of your path, it’s all to the good.
Acknowledgments
I owe an amazing debt of thanks to readers for Forever Wilde. This was the book that really allowed me to share some of the deeper themes that Sara explores in the series, and it was a blessing to be able to draw the curtain back a little more on the world of Immortal Vegas. When I began the series, I wasn’t sure how much of that world I’d be able to share, and I’m very grateful. Also in this book I get to talk a tiny bit about a real-life character who never fails to make me smile. He’s my older brother: Tom, thank you for all your help on the ghost mines of Montana! And for your laughter, perspective and general ability to be awesome. My thanks also, as always, go to Elizabeth Bemis for helping make the book and my site sing—I appreciate this and your treasured friendship. Gene Mollica outdid himself on the cover of Forever Wilde, perfec
tly representing the setting and challenge of the adventure. My editorial team of Linda Ingmanson and Toni Lee had a Herculean task this time around, but they met that challenge and to spare! Any mistakes in the manuscript are, of course, my own. Kristine Krantz continues to amaze—with your ideas, careful read, criticisms, and simply being the phenomenal person you are. Edeena Cross also deserves all the kudos, as a beta reader extraordinaire. Thank you for your time and passion for these books! And as always, sincere thanks go to Geoffrey—you have given more to this book than, as usual, you realize. It’s been a Wilde ride.
About Jenn Stark
Jenn Stark is an award-winning author of paranormal romance and urban fantasy. She lives and writes in Ohio. . . and she definitely loves to write. In addition to her "Immortal Vegas" urban fantasy series, she is also author Jennifer McGowan, whose Maids of Honor series of Young Adult Elizabethan spy romances are published by Simon & Schuster, and author Jennifer Chance, whose Rule Breakers series of New Adult contemporary romances are published by Random House/LoveSwept and whose modern royals series, Gowns & Crowns, is now available.
You can find her online at http://www.jennstark.com, follow her on Twitter @jennstark, and visit her on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/authorjennstark