by A. L. Knorr
"Well, I'm sure one will appear soon."
"What else did he say?"
"He explained what I already told you, about always staying hydrated," she said, yawning. "That's it for this one."
She selected the next clip and pressed play. She watched for a moment and then nodded and said, "This is the one about the eyes." She watched the rest of it. I watched over her shoulder as Nicodemo made gestures with his fingers and pointed to his own eyes.
"He explains that one of the most difficult things to master is the red glow. If you're not careful, when you're angry, upset, or excited, the fire will show through your pupils. He said that the secret to controlling the glow is to master your emotions. This is one of the reasons that I deliberately kept Isaia's life quieter than Cristiano's. Thank God Pietro has never noticed it, or if he has he must think it's a trick of the light. He said that to keep the glow dim, when you get emotional, to breathe deeply and speak slowly. He recommends starting a meditation practice, and to always think before you speak."
"Fantastic," I said. "That is so not my strong suit."
"It gets easier. Eventually, you'll learn to recognize the feeling of the glow, and you'll be able to control it. It’s just difficult at first."
We both gave face-splitting yawns and then laughed at each other’s watery eyes.
"Shall we resume again, tomorrow?" I suggested. I was dying to know more, but I was rapidly losing focus.
She nodded. "If you're sure."
I yawned again. My jaw cracked. "I'm sure."
"Okay. I'm going to check on Isaia. It's..." she looked at her watch. "Three thirty."
We dropped the mugs off in the kitchen sink and I followed her to Isaia's room. as soon as we stepped into his room, we saw that he was sleeping deeply, giving off soft little snores.
"I can't believe he spoke," she whispered, stroking his hair back.
"He's healing, Elda," I whispered.
We grinned at each other in the dark.
Her smile faltered. "I'm not sure how I'm going to explain it to Pietro. After all, his first word was your name."
"I don't think that has to be weird," I said. "He's been spending a lot of time with me and you guys saw from the start that he likes me. I don't think he'll question it."
She nodded. "I hope you're right."
We left the room, and she closed the door. I was headed to the stairs when she said my name. I turned back.
"Thank you. I know you didn't have a choice, but you gave me my son back. You saved his life." She looked at me from down the hall, her hand on her bedroom door. Even at a distance I could feel her gratitude.
My throat closed up and I didn't trust my voice. I nodded and we went our separate ways.
By the time I got to my room, I felt utterly exhausted. I looked at my phone to see that Dante had texted shortly after I had run away from him.
We need to talk.
Frowning, I shut my phone off.
Chapter 22
I stepped into the shower, turning the water to cool. It was only mid-morning but the day was already stifling and heavy. Surely this was going to be the hottest day since I'd arrived. I imagined I could hear the water sizzle as it hit my body, evaporating instantly. I felt like there was a bonfire raging inside of me, but outwardly nothing looked any different. The heat outside made the fire inside even more uncomfortable. I'd had three frozen fruit slushes for breakfast in an effort to cool down.
It had been over a week since Isaia had begun to speak and he’d steadily improved with every day that passed. When Pietro came home from London, he'd been overjoyed when Isaia actually ran to greet him. Elda and I had shared a happy look at Pietro's pleasure, though it was loaded with the secret we both carried.
Isaia had begun to play a bit of soccer with Cristiano, even if it was only for a few minutes at a time. This morning, I’d delivered them both to swimming lessons, grateful that they'd be in a pool today, instead of running around under the unforgiving sun.
Dante had called and texted me multiple times each day, asking to meet. I ignored all of his attempts to communicate and was thankful that I'd never told him where I lived or which family I was working for.
My phone chirped and I frowned, suspecting that it was him. I poked my head out of the shower to check my phone. Pleasure washed through me when I saw that it was Raf.
I'm back from Milan. Can a guy entice you to meet up for cold drink in Giardini later today?
Me: You said the magic words. What time? I have to pick the boys up in two hours.
Raf: For me, before is better than after. I have to work tonight. Can you do in a half hour?
Me: *thumbs up*
I cranked the water to cold and stood under it for as long as possible. I slammed off the shower, thinking I might soon resort to ice baths. After I toweled off, I ran a pick through my wet tangle of curls and left it to air dry. I pulled on a bright turquoise summer dress and jammed my feet into my flip-flops. My wide-brimmed hat would keep the sun off my pale face, so I set it on my head.
The moment I stepped into the street, I could feel waves of heat coming off the stones. The air was still and stagnant, but as I walked toward Giardini and hit the calle along the ocean, the breeze picked up. I entered the large park behind a waterfront restaurant. Kids played in the park while parents sipped iced drinks and wilted on park benches.
I took the opportunity to punch out a few texts to my friends. It was mid-summer already and we still hadn't heard a peep from Akiko. Targa had reported a "friends only" status with the cute fighter-pilot-looking dude. I hoped he got promoted to something more than friends soon, for her sake. Targa was in desperate need of an authentic crush. She was so unenthusiastic about romance of any kind that I sometimes wondered if she was born libido-less. And if that wasn't a word then I'd submit it to Oxford's Dictionary with Targa's photo as the definition.
Georjie had admitted to spending more time gardening than on her laptop and I sputtered a disbelieving, "What!?" Picturing her with dirt under her fingernails and her hair under a kerchief sent me into paroxysms of glee. Her adopted cousin, Jasher, who had started out as 'friendly as a nest of vipers,' now had a 'cautiously optimistic' forecast. My mouth tweaked a smile. At least things were moving in the right direction. I told them that I'd demoted one pretty Italian boy to the bottom of the heap - 'anal discharge' was the term I'd coined, and I chuckled at Georjie's 'puke' emoticon in response to my graphic insult. Then I told them the other pretty Italian boy was now tagged with 'promise.'
I chose a bench in the shade near the fountain where Raf and I had agreed to meet. I tucked my phone away, took off my hat, and enjoyed the breeze moving through my damp hair. Kicking off my flip flops, I spread my toes, letting the air cool my sweaty feet. A spot of dirt smudged the middle toe of my left foot. Strange, I'd only just showered. I bent to rub it away, but it didn't disappear. I pulled my left foot up and set my heel on the bench so I could take a closer look.
There it was. The mark. It was even tinier than Nicodemo's, and brown like a mole. It was rounded on one side and had curls of flames on the other.
My magus mark.
I swallowed, but my throat had gone dry. Somehow, that little mark at the base of my middle toe made the whole thing real. So, it was done. I was a magus. I shouldn't have been surprised, after all, because the pain was my constant companion. But the mark... I ran my thumb over the little flame-shaped mole, feeling breathless.
"Thirsty?" asked a warm voice.
I looked up to see Raf smiling down at me, two beautiful dimples accenting his cheeks. He looked even better than I remembered, with sparkling eyes and hair curling in the humidity. His broad shoulders blocked out the sun while he held out a cold bottle of lemon soda.
"You read my mind." I grinned and stood.
He leaned down and kissed my cheeks, putting a hand against my lower back. I put my arms around his neck and pulled him into a hug. Instantly there was a thin wall of heat between us.
>
"I like this greeting," he said, squeezing me. "Even in hot weather. I can't figure out why Italians haven't adopted it yet." He put the cold soda against my shoulder, probably expecting me to squeal, but the chill made me sigh with pleasure.
We parted and I took the soda. One sip, and already my parched throat felt better.
We sat on the bench together.
"Welcome back,” I said. “How was Milan?"
"It was boring. All work and no play, and no pretty Canadian girls to keep me company. What have you been up to while I was away? Did you enjoy Festa del Redentore?" He turned his shoulders toward me and put an arm up on the back of the bench.
"It was amazing. Fed introduced me to a bunch of her friends and we watched the fireworks from a boat. Then we went to a beach party on Lido and had a bonfire and a dance."
"Oh, really? I hope you didn't meet anyone too interesting," he joked.
I was trying to decide how to respond to this when a voice behind us said, "Yes, Saxony. Did you meet anyone interesting?"
Raf and I turned as Dante crossed the grass toward us. My heart leaped into my throat. His hands were jammed in his pockets and he strolled as though he didn't have a care in the world. The almond eyes I'd once found so sexy were glued to my face. Why had I never noticed the hard glint before?
I looked at Raf and he looked from Dante to me.
"I guess you did," Raf said quietly. The pleasure was gone from his face and in its place was concern. I didn't sense any jealousy, at least not from Raf, but he stiffened. It was only noticeable because we were sitting so close together.
"You've been ignoring me," Dante said, just as quietly as Raf had spoken. There was no threat in his voice--he made the statement casually, like a comment on the weather.
My eyes flashed down to his hands but they were still in his pockets. I wondered what shape they were in.
He circled the bench and stopped in front of us. For the first time, he looked at Raf. I knew then that the two men knew each other. Of course they did. Hadn't Dante said that he knew everyone?
"Do you mind?" Dante said to Raf. His eyes shifted back to me. "We have something to discuss."
"I'm a little busy right now," I said, annoyed. "Why don't we talk tomorrow?"
"You and I both know that won't happen. So I need to insist," Dante said, again with no threat in his voice, or even impatience. He said it with the quiet confidence that he was going to get his way, at one point or another.
"I'm not going anywhere." Raf’s arm closed around my shoulders. "The lady doesn't want to talk to you, Dante."
I felt a burst of anger come off Dante, like the heat of a little solar flare, but it died almost as quickly as I'd felt it. "You two know each other?" I asked.
"Unfortunately," Dante and Raf both said at the exact same time. They were boring holes into each other with their eyes.
Dante took his hands out of his pockets and cracked his knuckles. If the movement caused him pain, he didn't show it.
Raf stood up.
"Whoa, whoa," I said. Visions of the two of them bloodying each other up popped into my head. "I'll talk to you, Dante. But this will be the last time."
Both of them looked at me, Raf with surprise and Dante with grim satisfaction.
"Saxony—" Raf began.
"I'll be okay." I smiled at him. The fire crackling in my torso confirmed it. Dante couldn't hurt me and he knew it. That was the only upside to what had happened between us the last time I'd seen him. "I'm really sorry we got interrupted like this," I said, shooting daggers at Dante with my eyes. "I'll call you when we're done, okay?"
Raf frowned. Finally, he nodded stiffly. "If that's what you want."
Without looking at Dante, he bent and kissed my cheek. I yearned to call him back, to start over, to go back in time and plan to meet somewhere else so Dante wouldn’t run into us. Too late, though.
Raf walked away, turning to look back a couple of times before disappearing down the path.
"That was rude," I said as Dante sat down beside me. I tried to keep my voice as neutral as his had been this whole time, but the man was a master of hiding his emotions and I wasn't.
"Oh, Saxony." He sat back and threw an arm over the back of the bench the way Raf had. He brushed my curls over my shoulder and put a hand on the side of my neck.
I stiffened. “What do you want?”
"I don't want to be rude, but you've been ignoring me for a week. It's making me crazy, baby."
I took his hand from my neck and opened his palm to look at it. My breath caught in my throat as I saw the half-ring of blisters across his fingers. The shape of my ear. I took the other one and saw the matching burn. Emotions pelted me. He'd been an ass, but I'd let the fire get the better of me.
I looked up at him, regret heavy on my face in spite of myself. He looked at me without a trace of anger or accusation. When he saw my expression, his own face melted with sympathy.
"Aw, baby. I deserved it, and I’m sorry." He put his hands on either side of my face. Though he did it tenderly, the fire licked up my spine, cautious. He brought his forehead to mine for a moment, and then pulled back and looked at me. He stroked my hair back from my face. "I'm fine. I know when I'm wrong."
His apology was so sweet and sincere, that I felt like an even bigger villain over what I'd done to his hands. But I was still upset with him, and Elda's words haunted me.
Stay away from that family.
Dante bent his head toward mine, my heart began to pound. The fire in my belly flared higher. I pulled my face back, but he ignored the sign of rejection. He leaned in and kissed the corner of my mouth softly, like the touch of a feather. I stiffened, unsure of what to do. I wanted to end all this in a mature and friendly way if possible; I definitely didn't want to make him an enemy. My heart pounded and my mind raced. How did one disentangle themselves from a relationship with someone unpredictable, without making things worse?
This kiss scared me more than anything he'd done before. I had expected an argument, angry shouting, abuse—not tenderness. What was his game? Then another thought shoved the others aside like a rude fat man shoving through a crowd. It was a thought I barely recognized as mine:
You're a fire magus. Untouchable. Powerful. He can't hurt you.
I felt a surge of confidence in myself. With a hand to his chest, I pushed him back. When I stood up, he stood with me, his hands going to either side of my face, arresting me with gentle fingertips.
He looked deeply and searchingly into my eyes. "Yes," he whispered fiercely. "It's real. You're for real."
As his brown eyes shifted back and forth from my left eye to my right, I remembered what Elda said about the glow. I closed my eyes, cursing inwardly and searching for a way to turn off the red light. It was then that I could feel it, like a burning line of fuel. It traveled from my guts, up my spine, through my neck and through the thin stems of my eyes. I took a deep breath, kept my eyes closed. Mastering my emotions was supposed to be the secret.
"No," he said. "You never have to hide your power from me. Don't you realize?"
I opened my eyes and the look of adoration and desire on his face was so intense it made me gasp.
He bent even closer to whisper, "I've been searching for you my whole life."
Chapter 23
My skin crawled and I stepped back. Dante seemed really unstable now. He knew what I was, and even though I had power in my control, I understood that he could use this knowledge against me.
"I need to think," I said. I felt like I was in over my head, and the only thing that kept me from running away from him was the fire and the power that came along with it. It gave me a feeling of security that I'd never had before.
I thought of the turn of events that had put me into this position, and a spark of rage went flying up from my pelvis. It spiraled through me and then went out like an ember from a bonfire. I had a moment of fear at the intensity of that spark, thankful that it disappeared as quickly as it h
ad come.
"You don't need to think," Dante was saying. "You just need to trust me. No one knows what you are better than I do. I'll take care of you. We'll be unstoppable together. I'll give you everything, and you..." He broke off, naked hunger and ambition lit his face. "You'll be my everything. My Inferno."
Dante's Inferno.
It was too much. I burst out laughing.
His face contorted with frustration. "You're failing to grasp what this can mean for you, Saxony. You'll be a Queen in Venezia, and at the rate my family's territory was increasing when we had Nicodemo, you'll be a Queen of Italy within a decade."
He was talking faster, his accent thicker because of his excitement and earnestness. The laugher died in my throat.
"Our rivals thought things equalized when Nic died. We'll show them how wrong they are. They will not be expecting you. Neither will my father." He took a step closer, reached for my hands. "It's too beautiful. It's... what do they call it in English? Poetic justice."
My stomach clenched as he grasped my fingertips. He wanted what he wanted, whatever the cost.
"Dante, what are you talking about? I can't... I'm not going to help you take over Italy." I fought and failed to keep the incredulity out of my voice.
He blinking at me like he hadn't heard me properly. "Of course you are. Surely you can feel it, too. We are meant for each other. This is destiny."
"I don't know what you think destiny looks like but you're sadly mistaken, this is accident. A week ago I wasn't a magus, I was just a regular girl."
He looked like I'd slapped him. "What do you mean? That's not possible."
"It is possible," I continued. "I wasn't born this way—it was forced upon me. I didn't ask for it and I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy."
When he grabbed my upper arms, his fingers dug into my flesh. His eyes narrowed. "Saxony, don't bullshit me. We don't have time for this garbage."
Anger flared. I pushed his hands off. "It's not garbage," I said, seething. "It's what happened. You remember the day my voice changed? It's never been the same since. That's when it happened, and I wasn't sick. Now, if you'll excuse me, we're done here."