I’d been halfway around the world, bailing out Jericho in the morning and then forced to rush back to the Citadel, hoping and praying the entire time that Seraphina would still be alive when I got there. Out of everything, I should have been worried about or every person I should have been concerned for, including my King and my cousin, or my little sister, or anyone else, it was Seraphina consuming every one of my thoughts.
I had practically kidnapped her in order to get her to stay with me, but once we were alone, she was there. She was present. She had no more wish to leave that room than I did. And save for a few stolen kisses, the night had been spent in nothing but innocence.
I just wanted to breathe her. I just wanted to feel her heart beat. I just wanted her and nothing else.
But in the morning she had left before I ever woke.
And now, here we were months later.
“Don’t cause a scene,” she warned me.
“Afraid I’ll embarrass you?”
“I’m afraid you’re going to make something out of nothing. I started dating someone else. So what? You’ve been dating a string of someone elses for months now. You didn’t pee on me, Sebastian. Other men are still interested in me, even if you think of me as your property.”
“I don’t think of you as my property-”
“Which is painfully ironic, don’t you think? Since you don’t want me. And now you’re upset because I’m here with someone else?” She started to storm by me. “How cliché can you-”
I grabbed her wrist and stopped her escape. “I’m not upset because I think you’re mine. I’m angry because you’re not.”
I didn’t know why I said those stupid words, or what prompted me to confess something I’d been in denial about ever since she dumped me. I immediately wanted to take them back. If I could have snatched them from the air and swallowed them back down I would have.
My confession seemed to paralyze her. She neither moved nor tried to rip her arm from my grasp. And that turned out to be a small miracle. Because while I internally berated myself for my stupidity and she struggled to wrap her head around my insane confession, a light flared overhead.
I had been constantly in the field for a year now and if it wasn’t for my experience, I didn’t think I would have moved as quickly as I did. Instinct led the way and I yanked on Sera’s arm. In two seconds, I had tossed her over a table and thrown my body on top of hers. I screamed something in way of warning, but most of the other guests had seen the flash of light as well.
The explosion hit the ground a second later. Rock, glass and other debris rained down on my head, slicing open my tuxedo and cutting into my back, neck, and legs. I held Seraphina in my arms tightly, trying my best to shield her from the gruesome attack.
My ears rang with a muffled, high-pitched sound. I used my magic to dispel it quickly and by the time I could hear again, the hazy silence was replaced with screaming and shouting.
I pulled myself away from Seraphina and stared down into her cold blue eyes. “It’s a good thing we were standing so close.”
She choked a little on the smoke. “Let me guess, you’ve wanted to throw me across the room for a while?”
I grinned at her because, well, she was right. “That, and now I can save you.”
“You’re not saving me! I’m here on a date!” Whom apparently she just remembered, because she tried to sit up and look for him. I didn’t let her get very far. Andrei the Giant could take care of himself. “Also, I don’t need saving!”
I couldn’t stop grinning at her. “You do need saving because your date is officially over.”
I scrambled to my feet, pulled her up to hers and then tossed her over my shoulder. She screamed and hollered at me. Her fists beat on my back, but she didn’t put up any real fight.
Which was a good thing because we would have enough of a fight trying to get out of here. Terletov’s men didn’t swoop in to murder us or anything, but I had a feeling they’d already accomplished their first goal. If we didn’t get out of here right this second, we wouldn’t have time to fight with each other, we’d be too busy fighting everyone else.
And that wasn’t nearly as fun.
I glanced around the room and finally caught Avalon’s steely gaze from across the crater in the now empty dance floor.
I tilted my head.
“Go!” he mouthed wildly.
“Everyone else?” I mouthed back.
“Go!” he repeated.
I took one more glance around the vineyard and saw that almost everyone had a partner and was on their way out of here. It was a small reception to begin with and that made it possible to count heads and find all of my friends still alive and kicking.
I also saw Andrei stalking toward us with a concerned look on his face. Imbecile. We didn’t have time for him to worry about Seraphina’s safety. We had to get out of here. There was time to lick our wounds later. But not right now when they would most likely launch another attack on us.
I spun around and took off. Seraphina bounced on my shoulder and screeched at me the entire time. When I finally reached my rental, I tossed Sera into the backseat, locked the door with Magic and jumped in the driver’s seat.
I joined the rest of the cars fleeing the reception and nodded at Talbott and Lilly at the fork in the road that would lead back to the nearest coastal town or deeper into the Italian countryside the other way. Talbott and I drove opposite directions, he on his way to his honeymoon with his lovely bride, me on the way to anywhere-but-here with my kidnapped ex-girlfriend.
I would have paid a lot of money to trade places with him.
I glanced back at Seraphina, who had righted herself and glared at me from the backseat. Her short, black dress inched up her shapely thighs and her long blonde hair tangled around her face. She looked livid.
I turned back around. I didn’t want to mess with that just yet.
There would be bloody hell to pay for my actions, but I needed to make sure she was safe. And only I could keep her safe. Not her stupid new boyfriend Andrei and not her stubborn self.
Me.
Just me.
“Where are you taking me?” she demanded in a low voice.
I bit back a smile and said, “I was thinking Budapest.”
She sucked in a sharp breath but then seemed to level out some. “It won’t matter.”
She sounded so positive and self-assured, I couldn’t help but ask, “Why not?”
“Because the first chance I get, I plan on killing you.”
I couldn’t hold back the grin any longer. I might be a dead man, but at least I was a satisfied dead man. It probably would have killed me anyway to watch Andrei fumble his way around rescuing her. She didn’t have time for that.
But I wasn’t so sure I had time for her, either.
Chapter Two
Seraphina
Eight hours later and I still wanted to kill him. Badly. So badly my fingers tingled and my blood burned.
He had me holed up in a cheap motel in northern Italy. He said nobody would find us here, but I suspected he knew there would be no way for me to call anyone to come get me.
My purse had been lost during the attack. It held the keys to my father’s beautiful Lambo, my cell phone and my makeup.
That’s right, I was trapped in a dingy motel room with my ex-boyfriend and no makeup. I didn’t even have emergency toothpaste.
God, Sebastian. It was like he loved to make my life miserable. I swear, he loved it. The second I started to feel anything other than completely wretched, he swooped in, created World War Three kind of havoc and then disappeared into the night. He couldn’t just once stick around and clean up his mess. Oh, no. That would be far too mature and decent of him. He much preferred to watch me suffer from a distance.
He was like a child. He didn’t necessarily want to play with me. He just wanted to make sure none of the other boys on the playground got to touch me.
Selfish. That’s what he was. For as long a
s I could remember he had been the most selfish person I knew. At one time, it had been sort of endearing. Well… up until the point that his selfishness imploded our relationship.
“I don’t like the look on your face,” the man I was silently contemplating murdering commented from across the room.
“And why’s that?” I asked innocently. He was technically stronger than me and his powers manifested a bit more tangibly than mine did. If I wanted to get the upper hand with him, I had to trick him, lull him into a false sense of security and then pounce.
“It’s the look you get right before you destroy something.”
I dropped the act. It wasn’t worth it. He should know I was going after him. He should have to suffer through the anxiety. “And what have you seen me destroy, Sebastian?”
“My hopes and dreams. My faith in humanity. My manhood.”
I rolled my eyes and threw my body back on the tiny bed that creaked every time I shifted my weight. “What are we doing here?”
I was at my wit’s end. He seemed perfectly adjusted. I should have expected that though. He thrived in situations like this. His sarcastic nature and laid-back personality made it possible for him to adapt to any scenario easily. I was so much more high-strung than he was, so days like today were especially difficult for me.
A normal boyfriend would have felt bad for his neurotic girlfriend and taken steps to pamper her or at the very least help her also adapt. Sebastian was not a normal boyfriend though and when we dated before he seemed to relish throwing me into situations where I would flop around like a fish out of water and make a fool of myself.
Just once, I wanted him to put my needs above his own. Just once. It didn’t even matter that we weren’t a couple anymore and that I could hardly stand the sight of him. I just wanted for him to think of anyone other than himself for thirty seconds.
Was that asking too much?
He replied to my question, “That idiot you brought to the wedding would have gotten you killed trying to escape in that stupid orange clown car you drove. I did what was necessary to ensure your safety. You should be thanking me.”
Definitely asking too much.
“You assume I would have let Andrei drive us out of there.”
“No, I know you would have insisted that you drive. Which is also how I know you would have ended up dead. I saved your life, Seraphina. Face it.”
“You didn’t. And I won’t.”
He groaned. “You’re going to make this as difficult as possible, aren’t you?”
“You’re making this as difficult as possible. Let me go, Sebastian. Nobody is out there looking for me. I’m not in danger anymore. You did whatever it was you set out to do; now mandatory visitation is over. You need to let me go home now.”
He gave me a sideways look before peeking through the front blinds. “I’m just waiting for a phone call from Avalon and then we’ll be on our way. Yeah?”
“Separately?”
He didn’t answer. Instead, he walked over to the other side of the room and rummaged around on a small desk. There wasn’t much to look through and neither one of us had brought a suitcase in.
“You could have at least let me grab my luggage! Then I could get out of this ridiculous dress. And these shoes!”
“We could walk around the market,” he suggested. “I saw some shops when we drove into town. They would have something for you to change into.”
“I don’t have any money!” I growled at him. “How can I purchase clothes, when I don’t have any money?”
He didn’t respond. He just kept moving some embossed letterhead around the table as if he were putting together a puzzle. When his eyes finally did lift and meet mine, I sucked in a sharp breath.
Anger simmered in his hazel depths. Bright, hot and heavy. I had to be aggravating him, but I couldn’t seem to stop my verbal poison spewing all over him.
He brought out the worst in me. I was almost positive he always had. I wanted to be anywhere but here. I wanted to be with anyone else but him. Andrei and I had started something good. He wasn’t exactly my type and there were times I wondered if his huge muscles used up all of his brainpower, but he was sweet. And kind. And he went out of his way for me.
We weren’t exactly exclusive like I’d told Sebastian earlier, but it was headed that direction.
Bringing him to Lilly’s wedding had been a huge step in our relationship. I felt like we made this major progress. I was even willing to have some kind of determine-the-relationship conversation with him after the party was over.
Instead, I’d been tricked into dancing with my ex-boyfriend, nearly blown to pieces and then kidnapped by that same ex-boyfriend. Andrei had to be worried sick.
And instead of the progress I hoped to make, this had to be one giant step back.
“Can I at least borrow your cell phone?” I asked in a more humble tone.
I could fight with Sebastian for hours. And that wasn’t a lie. That used to be one of my favorite activities, especially right after we broke up. But so often, arguing with him just turned into some weird, unhealthy version of foreplay and I ended up exactly in the place I didn’t want to be.
It would be better for my sanity if I kept my calm and not antagonize Sebastian into a fight. If I were completely honest with myself, he was better at the bickering thing than me. He had this controlled calm that drove me absolutely crazy. While I screeched at him like a deranged banshee, he just sat back and used his sarcastic wit to push me over the edge.
I knew that. I’d watched him do this to me more times than I could count. But I didn’t have enough self-control to stop it from happening.
And I hated that.
He regarded me levelly. “Why?”
I forced my face to stay neutral. I wanted to bite back that it wasn’t any of his damn business, but that seemed counterproductive.
“I want to let my mom know that I’m okay. Just in case she heard about the attack.” And I wanted to let Andrei know that I was safe too. My parents probably didn’t care one way or the other, but Andrei had to be searching everywhere for me. I wanted to ease his mind.
Sebastian pulled his cell from his pocket and walked over to me. I raised myself into sitting and looked up at him while he loomed over me.
He held out the phone but when I went to take it, he didn’t immediately let go. “I did what I had to do, Sera. I won’t apologize for it.”
I nodded, ignoring the pang in my chest when he called me by my nickname. I loved his accent. That I couldn’t deny. His sexy clipped tones, his rolling vowels. I loved how my name came out of his mouth, especially when he used to be sweet to me.
That was how he sounded now. He sounded like he cared, like he loved me still.
But I couldn’t think thoughts like that and hope to walk out of this room with my heart in one piece, so I said, “I know you think you did what you had to. But we really should have worked something else out. Then you wouldn’t be in this mess with me right now, holed up in some Italian version of a Motel Six.”
“He’s not your type.” As usual, Sebastian ignored everything he should hear and focused entirely on listening to himself talk.
“I’m fine with that. Actually, that makes him sound better to me.” I tugged at the phone until he let go.
“You have good instincts. You should listen to them.”
Well, that wasn’t going to happen. I smiled and waved him off dismissively. He did take the hint and wander off to the opposite side of the small room.
I played with the phone in my hands and thought about his suggestion. Listen to my instincts? Yeah, they wanted me to tackle Sebastian to the bed and make up for all the time spent apart.
My magic played just on the edges of his and no matter how much power I asserted, I couldn’t pull it back completely. I felt him everywhere. I felt him all around me, inside me, a part of me. He filled up the room and my lungs and my chest. He infiltrated everything, the air, the molecules, the oxygen burnin
g through me and once he grabbed hold, he did not let go.
I wanted to believe he did it on purpose and that my awareness of him was somehow his fault. He did this to me. He made me fall in love with him and then he refused to let go. Or let me let him go.
I didn’t even have those feelings for him anymore. I loved him in a way that I would always love him, that echoed with the feelings of a first love. But I wasn’t in love with him.
I couldn’t be.
It wasn’t healthy. We had taken something beautiful and destroyed it. Whatever bristled in the air between us wasn’t love or affection, but unhealthy and toxic.
And I knew he felt the same way.
Besides, it was impossible for him to be in love with me. He loved someone else.
He loved himself.
I would always be second place to that kind of all-consuming, unquestionable love.
Ugh, selfish bastard.
I swiped the phone screen and guessed at Sebastian’s numerical passcode. I got it right on the first try. I smiled to myself and considered stealing his identity and wiping out his bank account.
All of his bank accounts.
The silly boy used the same codes and passwords for everything depending on the length and requirement.
Some things never changed.
I dialed my parents and got their housekeeper. Mom and dad were off on safari apparently. I left a message with Marta that I was fine.
She told me she’d pass the message along. I noticed she didn’t offer to give me a number where they could be reached.
Don’t even get me started on why I didn’t have my parent’s current number. Basically, it started and ended with the fact that they were terrible parents. And I had moved on with my life.
I called Andrei next.
I listened to the ringtone for a long time before he answered in a hesitant voice.
I had exaggerated a little bit when I told Sebastian that Andrei and I were a thing. We’d been on a few dates, but nothing serious. I thought he might have been surprised that I asked him to go to the wedding with me.