Cast Into Darkness (40 page)

She tucked her father’s hand against his chest and stood.

The breeze from the sea had intensified, whipping Kristof’s hair around his face, framing those deep-blue eyes. His shirt was ripped across the shoulder and stained with blood, dirt, and sand. Something inside him had loosened, broken. She didn’t know what, only that the tension that had tightened his shoulders and chest had disappeared and his eyes were clear.

Well, good for him
.

They walked down the beach until they were a little ways away from where Victor sat vigil over her father’s body, from where Dylan stood guard over Melina’s unconscious, spellcuffed form. Kristof tapped out a privacy spell, and they waited until the violet shimmer settled over both of them, watching the sun sparkle over the waves.

She glanced back at the beach. Brooke argued with Victor, waving her bangle-clad arms at him. He shook his head, crossed his arms, and turned away from her. She tugged at the sleeve of his uniform like a puppy, taking the silver chain from around her neck and offering it to him.

Some of the pieces of the puzzle fell into place. “Brooke thinks she works for us. Why?”

“Long story. Not important now.” His eyes drifted to the boats far out to sea.

“Isn’t it? Brooke works for you. You sent her after me, after the stone. You could have taken it from me, that night at my place. All you had to do was put it in your pocket and walk out the door and everything would have been over. Why didn’t you?”

He sighed. “I asked myself that more times than you know. I made all kinds of excuses—operational needs, my father not finding out—but none of those reasons really mattered.”

“What did?”

“You. I didn’t want things to end. With you.”

The waves crashed on the shore as she processed what he’d said.

Then, “I’m sorry. About Brooke, the stone, Dmitri, bringing you here, your father… I can’t tell you how much.” He fell silent, staring out at the sea. “If I could change what happened…”

A painful, dry chuckle erupted from deep inside her. “Who are you trying to fool? You wouldn’t change anything. You have exactly what you want. Your father dead. Control of the Makris family. Your sister under your thumb.”

“What if that’s not what I want?” He brushed a strand of hair from her face. The touch of his hand on her cheek made her breath catch.

“Don’t.” She stepped back.

“What if I could throw all this away? Running the family, dealing with Melina, Dmitri, all of it? What if you and I could be together, no politics, no families…just us?”

She searched his face and recognized the deep yearning in his eyes for everything he’d said. The life they’d led at college, built on a foundation of lies—only this time it would be built on truth.

“Kristof…” She leaned into his arms and held him, her head resting on his bloody shirt. He bent down and kissed her, and he tasted like the ocean and lost nights in Ithaca. Her pulse jumped as he stroked the soft place under her ear.

“You can’t walk away from your family. They’ll come after you.”

“Maybe. But after today they’ll have other things to deal with. Melina. Choosing a leader. Chasing down the heir gone rogue won’t be the highest priority.”

She searched his face, looking for the cocky young operative, the secret agent who could run a hundred scenarios through his head in an instant. He had vanished in the flare of a teleport spell. Kristof’s face had softened, and a touch of Kris’s ease had entered his eyes.

“I can’t make any promises,” she said. “I don’t know if…”

“Can we try? Just Kate and Kristof. No lies, no secrets, no families?”

She stood still for a long moment. So many dead, on both sides. So many betrayals. Then she thought about what he’d done on the beach—standing against his sister, providing Victor with the lockpick so he could free himself, using Brooke as a distraction. Protecting Kate from Melina long enough for her to make a deal with the primal magic insider her. Did those actions make up for his betrayals?

She wasn’t sure. But she knew what her heart wanted.

She slipped her arm into his. They walked back down the beach, his hand on the small of her back, and as she leaned into him she felt like maybe, just maybe, something good would come from today.

Kristof held out
his hand to bring them to a halt. Back at the cove, Dmitri faced off against Victor, who still guarded the body of Kate’s father. Behind Dmitri were the three members of the Synedrion. Aunt Elena stood in the deep sand, crimson robes draped around her, arms crossed. Uncle Stavros’s hand rested on a set of talismans pinned to his neat, red military uniform. Dmitri’s father—Kristof’s uncle Yannis—led a row of Makris guards to surround Dylan and the still-unconscious Melina. A troop of Makris enforcers lined the cliff above them.

“What—” Kate began.

“The Synedrion. Our ruling council, like your Council of Affiliates. Let me handle this.” Kristof let her go and strode toward his relatives. Kate hurried after, her bare feet pulling in the sand.

“—can’t let Kate leave here alive. She used primal magic. That’s a killing offense.” Dmitri addressed his relatives, then turned to point at Kate. His face paled, customary smirk absent.

“She’s not the only one who used primal magic.” Kristof bowed to his aunt and uncles. “This is a complicated matter. It isn’t something that should be decided quickly.”
Time. Got to buy enough time to get her away. Both of us, if at all possible.

Victor grabbed Kate and pulled her away from him. Further from the Synedrion and the enforcers. Good.

“No, we should act now,” Dmitri said. “I saw what she can do. Kill her now, or she’ll destroy us all.”

Uncle Yannis spoke. “Dmitri has a point. He told us what she is—a primal magic caster. And our enemy. Why shouldn’t we act now, while she is here, in our territory?”

“Because if you try it she will destroy you, like she killed Papa. Let her go.”

“We have our own primal magic caster.” Aunt Elena pointed at Melina, still lying unconscious on the sand. “At least, so Dmitri says.”

“Yeah, and she used primal magic to kill, too,” Victor said. “She’s just as guilty of breaking the law as Kate. Come after Kate and we’ll go after Melina. Stalemate.”

Dmitri smirked. “Not exactly. You’re here, now.” He pointed to the row of Makris enforcers on the cliff above them. “No matter how much primal magic she uses, one of their spells will cut you in half.”

“No.” Kate stepped up in front of the Synedrion. She shoved her hand into the pocket where Kristof had seen her put her father’s shield talisman earlier. “There’s been enough killing today.” She looked at his aunt Elena, who drew herself up as if Kate was about to blast her into tiny pieces, then his two uncles. “I was always told there were Rules to this Game of yours. Nulls are off-limits. Normals can’t know who we are or that they don’t run things.” She glanced over at her father’s body, and the pain in her eyes caused his heart to ache. “That we don’t assassinate each other. It seems like the Rules don’t matter anymore. Maybe they should.

“I didn’t want this power. Frankly, it sucks. I don’t intend to use it. You leave me alone, I’ll leave you alone.” She turned and walked back to Victor.

“You can’t trust—” Dmitri began.

“Shut up. You don’t have any say in this,” Kristof said.

“Oh and you do? Uncle Nico never officially named you heir.”

Kristof rubbed his hand across his eyes. He wasn’t going to fall into this trap.
Kate
. He wanted Kate.

“I don’t see any reason we should let them go,” his uncle Yannis said. “Dmitri is right. Take them out now, while they are weak. That’s the only way.”

The light that had blossomed within Kristof died. He turned and looked at Kate, a sad smile on his face that said good-bye in all the ways he couldn’t say out loud.

“My cousin is an idiot and completely unfit to be heir,” he said.

“Me? You’re the one who helped the Hamiltons fight Melina.”

His aunt drew herself up. “You did what? Explain.” Kristof put a hand on his aunt’s shoulder and walked down the beach a few steps with her and the rest of the Synedrion. He mixed just enough lies with the right amount of the truth—that Brooke appeared to be working for the Hamiltons made his case even simpler. He slowly won his aunt over, and she nodded her head when he told her he had to stop an out-of-control Melina from killing their father. Then Uncle Stavros was next to agree. Uncle Yannis was a lost cause. But it only took two to make a ruling.

When they returned, his aunt addressed Kate. “You are free to go, provided you agree to the following: No charges will be filed against Melina, should she recover, or any member of the Makris family for the use of primal magic or assassination. No vendettas will be pursued. All discussion of primal magic will be kept private, between our families only. This agreement will be sealed between you, as the presumptive Hamilton heir, and the Makris heir, Kristof.”

Kate looked up at him, her eyes reflecting the loss in his. “The Makris heir?”

“Yes,” he said.

She let out a breath, and with it, he felt their hopes and dreams evaporate.

His aunt continued. “And you will return the Makris arsenal to us in exchange for your freedom, as your father and Nico Makris agreed before the unfortunate…incident. Now. Before you leave.”

“You’ve got to be kidding,” Victor said. “There’s no way—”

“Whatever,” Kate said. “We don’t need those toys, Victor. I just want to take Dad home.”

Kristof called over a guard. “Get the Hamilton strike force from lockup. And bring me Kate’s possessions. Now.”

They walked down the thin strip of beach together one last time.

“I guess you had to make that deal,” Kate said. She slipped her hand in his.

“Seemed like the only way to keep you safe.”

“I don’t need your protection.”

“You do here. Unless you want to kill a lot more of my relatives.”

She turned to him. “Kristof, I’m sorry. About your father.”

“Don’t be. Things can change here without him in charge. I can be a different kind of leader.”

“Can you?”

“Yes.” He looked down the beach at Dmitri gesturing wildly to his uncle Yannis, at Melina unconscious on the sand. At his aunt Elena taking his uncle Stavros aside. Somehow, he’d figure it out. “Take your people and go home.”

He leaned down and brushed her forehead with his lips. She squeezed his hand, one tight pulse, then let go. He watched her walk back to the cove where his people had brought the rest of the Hamilton operatives to join Victor, Pearce, and Brooke. Grayson Hamilton appeared on the dock in a flash of green light, wooden crates piled at his feet, waiting for the Makrises to pass him through the security grid.

Kristof slid his hand into his pocket and drew out Kate’s pearl buttons. He ran his thumb gently across their smooth surfaces. Then he let them fall, one by one, to the beach and strode through the shifting sands to join his family.

“Get used to
being the heir,” Grayson said as he leaned against the doorway, his thick hair combed back. “Start playing with the tools of power. After the confirmation comes through from the Council, you’ll have to sit in on meetings.”

Kate sat back in the leather chair behind her father’s large walnut desk in his—no, Grayson’s—office. She should get up. Sit in the other chair, on the other side of the desk. The Council of Affiliates had confirmed her as a caster yesterday, after Grayson had shown them her test results and told them what happened in Greece. Well, most of it. Confirmation as the Hamilton heir would take longer. Politics, Grayson said. He had been confirmed as Regent, of course—she was way, way too inexperienced to run anything, much less a family, for years.

“Meetings—on top of training, classes, and what else?” she asked.

“We have a lot of work to do, training you, honing your new powers. Despite everything…everything that happened, the one good thing that came out of this was you. You’re a primal magic caster, Kate. Do you know what that means?” His eyes lit up with a fervor she’d never seen in him. Not when riding a horse to a steeplechase victory or when teaching a student his first spell. “I’m proud of you, sweetheart.” He stepped outside and closed the door.

He was proud. Okay, maybe she had single-handedly decimated the Makris family, become the modern world’s first, and maybe only—no news on whether Melina would ever wake up—primal magic caster, and helped broker a deal that got her and their people away from the Makrises. But the cost? She ran her hand over her father’s cigar box.

The cost was steep.

She picked up the scholarship letter sitting on the desk. Another price to pay. She stared at the words, the sentences, the ultimate confirmation that she could make a career of what she loved. Acting.

Maybe once. Before Brian and the Sanctum. Before Melina. Before Kristof. Now… She crumbled the paper and tossed it into the fireplace, locking that pain in her heart away for good.

She’d be transferring to Harvard—Brian’s school, her father’s school—splitting her time between the estate’s caster academy and Cambridge. Like Victor had said, she needed to learn how to make the powerful people dance to her tune.
Oh joy.

No room for theatre in her life any longer. No role for Cornell…or anything else from her past.

The next time she’d see Kristof they would most likely be trading kinetic punches. Like every Hamilton and Makris had for the last few hundred years. She drew in a deep breath, but the ache in her chest didn’t lessen.

The door opened, and Victor stepped inside.

She shot to her feet. “I—”

“Sit down. It’ll be your chair soon enough.” Victor grabbed a beer from the fridge under the liquor cabinet—Dad’s favorite, a local microbrew.
Asshole
. That was her father’s beer—he shouldn’t make so free with it, he shouldn’t… Tears trickled down her cheek. She wiped them away with the back of her hand.

He pretended not to notice as he took a seat across from her and focused, his eyes going hard then distant as he engaged the room’s security spells. “You know, we’ve never really gotten along. You’re spoiled—”