KICK ASS: A Boxed Set (62 page)

“Where are you?”

Find a window that faces the ocean
.

She stopped. Wasn’t he here? In the castle? How was he talking to her? Acid churned in her stomach and shot up her esophagus, nearly choking her.

The magic.

Farrow had caught up with them. He was contacting her. Rafe and Mariah had warned that he was gaining knowledge of the magic, but how had he known she was here?

“I don’t trust you,” she said, trying to keep her voice quiet even though she wanted to scream at the top of her lungs.

Of course you don’t. But you can come to me of your own free will, or I can make you. Which do you prefer?

She stopped. If he had defied death despite throwing himself off a steep California cliff and now could speak into her mind, maybe revealing her exact location by going to a window wasn’t the best idea.

I don’t want to hurt you, Gemma. I need your help. And as you can see, I have quite a bit to offer you, as well
.

She swallowed deeply. He was telling the truth. Still, her instinct to turn and run was strong—stronger than she’d ever want to admit.

Of course, he didn’t know about the power she’d inherited from dear old Dad. He would expect mistrust. “Why should I believe you?”

He did not answer. She walked farther down the dark corridor, turning two corners and flashing the light into rooms with open doors to guest suites in the midst of renovation. One or two were nearly finished, with plush beds and paintings on the walls, glittering glass cases filled with bric-a-brac that matched the eighteenth-century time period of the decor. The room at the end of the hall had a large, ocean-facing window. She paused at the threshold. Farrow could hear her, but did he also know what she was thinking?

Because if he did, she was in serious trouble.

* * *

Mariah jumped when Ben stepped back into the library and gained their attention with a clap of his hands. “Okay, people. I think it’s time for us to get this show on the road.”

“What show?” she asked.

Ben exchanged a nervous glance with Rafe. He and Paschal stood, and Mariah felt her heart drop to her toes. The time had come.

Surprisingly, her heart seemed to bounce back into her chest just as quickly as it had dropped, lighter than it had felt in a very long time.

“Oh,” she said with a smile. “Think we could be alone for a few minutes?”

She held out her hand to Rafe. Despite the personal inroads she’d made in the last twenty-four hours, she had a few private confessions to make before she outwitted a curse that had held him for nearly three centuries.

With a grin that made her insides liquefy, he took her hand in his and marched them into the dining hall.

Then he jerked to a stop.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

“This room. It is exactly as I remember it.”

He led her deeper inside. Incredibly impressive, the space was dominated by a long, carved table that could easily sit fifty people. The walls to their immediate left sparkled with clouded stained glass. In front of them, a fireplace large enough to fit a small car (or roast a whole cow) sat amid one of the most glorious mosaics Mariah had ever seen. Made up of tiny tiles in various sizes and colors, the scene depicted a small Gypsy camp with multihued houses and even more vibrant villagers.

Something about the artistry was so alive, so compelling. Mariah had seen a lot of native art in her life, but nothing had compared to this.

“Is this Umgeben?” she asked.

He managed a nod and tugged her along when he crossed the room. The mosaic started just above the fireplace, so they had to stand back to take in the full picture.

“This is my village. This is my home.”

The surprise and wonder in his voice caught her off guard. “I thought you’d been in Rogan’s castle before. Wasn’t this mosaic always here?”

“Yes, I believe so.”

He shook his head, as if breaking the hypnotic draw of the artistry in order to speak with her. “The mosaic did not have such detail. Not that I remember. However, Rogan was still having work done on it the last time I visited him. I refused to enter his house long before it was completed.”

“Why? Because of Sarina?”

Rafe turned away from the wall and flexed his fingers open and closed. He noticed the nervous gesture immediately and shoved his hands into his pockets. “I knew about Sarina’s infatuation long before my brothers, but no, that was not the reason.”

“You and Sarina were close,” she provided.

He nodded. “We shared our Gypsy heritage. Our playground was the forest and caves of Valoren, not prim English gardens. We had a mother to raise us, not nurses. We loved our brothers, but we were often separated from them. They spent months at a time in England. Damon studied abroad and tended to our father’s holdings. Aiden, Colin, Paxton and Logan each went to school away from Valoren, leaving Sarina and me to play with the other Gypsy children.”

“The Gypsies were your family, too.”

His gaze drifted back to the mosaic. “Not all of them.”

“I thought Rogan was a nobleman of some sort.” Rafe lifted an eyebrow. “Are the two mutually exclusive?”

“In most countries, yeah.”

“Rogan kept his roots hidden well. He preferred that men of power and influence, such as my brother Damon, or my father, consider him royalty of some small Slavic country. But he was Romani. I saw it in his eyes the first time we met.”

“Why would he hide his bloodlines from your father? I thought the earl loved the Gypsies. Your mother was Romani. And wasn’t your father the one who came up with the idea to colonize your people rather than imprison them in London? Or worse?”

Rafe frowned. They’d discussed all this before, but she knew he struggled with his feelings about his father just as she had fought her emotions for hers. And her mother. And her brothers. And Ben. She’d pretty much had issues with everyone she’d spent prolonged periods of time with.

Watching Rafe tussle with his own emotional demons made her anxious to say the words she’d never imagined she’d speak. But she hesitated. Rafe’s eyes glazed as he stared at the mosaic—as he stared at his past.

“My father cared for the Gypsies, yes. But he mistrusted Rogan from the moment they met. I doubt his revealing the carefully guarded secret of his lineage would have engendered faith or confidence. Rogan needed my father so he could have access to the Gypsies, so he could build this massive castle on promises of bringing wealth and security to the colony. Before we had a single hint of his magical abilities, he had enthralled the entire encampment with his charisma. He was a nobleman who paid homage to our
Chovihano
upon his arrival and who brought flowers daily to my grandmother—buds that did not grow in the valley and yet stayed fresh for days on end. He charmed us all.”

“Including Sarina?”

“Worse,” Rafe said. “He completely enraptured my Irika. If I had not married her, I might have lost her to him forever.”

Twenty Six

Emotions Rafe had thought he’d cleansed from his soul long ago came raging back. Jealousy and guilt battled for dominance. Rafe had loved his wife. He’d loved his sister. But in the end, he’d lost them both.

Mariah ran her hand along his shoulders. Her sympathy caressed him, and he needed the sensation too desperately to shut her out. He’d already told her about his inability to save Irika, and he’d confessed how he’d failed to discourage his sister’s affection for the sorcerer whose magic had led him here. But he had not shared how his own actions had helped create both tragedies.

But he could no longer deny his past. Not if he wanted to live again.

“Irika was very beautiful,” he said.

“To have the handsomest man in the village—that would be you—and a powerful nobleman both desire her for their own,” Mariah said, her voice soothing, “she must have been stunning.”

His gaze swept the mosaic for any sign of Irika’s long, dark hair and penetrating eyes. Instead, he spotted the old woman who painted intricate landscapes on thimbles. Cinka. Cinka Dobravich. Nearly blind, she could not see to greet a visitor from across a yard, but her talent in miniature had been striking. And near the center of the display, he caught sight of the strapping young lad, one of four sons of Ivo and Esme, who’d so often disrupt Stefan’s naps by drumming on the fence outside their cottage. In an upper corner, nearly out of his line of sight, he saw a gray-haired man in a bright red shirt who wore the thoughtful, determined expression of the
Chovihano
, right down to the mole on his left cheek and the downward curve of his lips. Belthezor wore a bundle on his back, which was odd, but otherwise, he could practically feel the man’s gentle gaze as if he stood right beside him.

“I don’t see her,” he said.

“These are actual people?”

“Yes,” he said, equally amazed. Why would a man as self-indulgent as Rogan have this intimate masterpiece in the most public space in his castle?

“What did she look like?”

Mariah stepped back, her stare lost in the collage of faces. The scene was the village viewed from atop one of the mountain cliffs. Colorful
vardos
and festooned, ramshackle homes anchored a portrait brimming with action. The tiles on the communal fire at the center of the mosaic glittered, picking up the light from the chandeliers in the dining hall. Pieced together with expert care, the representations of children and animals evoked movement, even when they were entirely still. The artists had captured the weary, hunched shoulders of the butcher and the sprightly step of his much younger wife. But no sign of Irika. And no man at all who looked like him.

“Dark skin and hair,” he explained, hoping to find her—to know that something, however small, was left of the woman he’d loved. “Slim and almost fragile. She was a storm cloud hovering above, but never producing a single drop of rain.”

“Whereas I’m thundering all the time,” Mariah cracked.

He laughed, but for only an instant. Irika and Mariah existed on opposite ends of the world of women, but he suspected that it they’d met, they would have liked each other. Even Mariah’s rough edges would not have frightened Irika, who had been born with an angel’s soul.

“And you never saw this mosaic before tonight?” she asked.

He shook his head. “After Irika and I were married, we avoided invitations into Rogan’s inner sanctum. I did not flaunt temptation in front of a man such as him.”

“Didn’t you trust her?”

“Irika? Implicitly,” he said, surprised by her question. “But Rogan? No. When he heard of our marriage, he presented us with a generous gift—a house, solidly built up against the mountainside.” He scanned the mosaic and found his home, surprised to see the windows dark and the yard where he’d once raised goats entirely empty—dead, whereas the rest of the mosaic overflowed with life. He pointed at the structure for Mariah’s sake. “There.”

Mariah levered up on her tiptoes. “And you took it?”

“Irika’s father insisted,” he complained. “He thought it unwise to insult Rogan. But we stayed away from any gathering that forced us inside his domain. I remember talk of the great mosaic, but I do not recall knowing that the villagers would be represented?”

Thinking back so far was a futile exercise. It was hard enough to remember all the major events, much less the minutiae, after two hundred and sixty years.

Mariah’s hand slipped down his arm, her fingers tangling with his. He could not miss the shiver of uncertainty that preceded her question. “Were you already promised to Irika when Rogan came to town, or did she pick you over him?”

Rafe slipped his hand free of Mariah’s and continued searching the mosaic, recognizing the woodworker, Lazar, and his wife, Natasha, surrounded by their trio of daughters. He did not want to feel Mariah’s insecurity when asking about his past. He had enough doubt of his own in providing the answers.

“Irika and I were promised to each other at birth. A marriage between the son of the governor and the daughter of the
Chovihano
ensured good relations among the Gypsies and their jailer.”

He expected her to contradict his classification of his own father, but she did not. He gained some measure of comfort by unburdening his conscience while in such close proximity to the mosaic, which seemed to emanate the same emotional warmth the village had provided when it was thriving and alive.

“Irika and I played together as children, knowing that someday we’d wed. We loved each other long before we exchanged promises with the blessings of our families.”

“You say that as if you’re sorry,” Mariah observed, her head tilted quizzically.

Rafe closed his eyes, remembering the day he’d stood beneath a canopy of colorful scarves, exchanged bites of bread doused in salt and vowed to remain faithful to Irika until death.

“I am not sorry I loved Irika, but I will never forgive myself for rushing our marriage. Once Irika was my bride, Rogan turned his charms on my sister. She was so young. He was a man of the world. And I was not there to protect her.”

Mariah stepped away, her arms hooked behind her back. He knew instantly that she was about to say something he would not want to hear.

“Sarina might have been young, but I’ve never heard you say she was foolish.”

“She was not,” he replied. “Just… innocent.”

Mariah’s eyebrows lifted, as if she doubted any woman, young or old, could be quite as guileless as he professed. He supposed that in this century, the notion would be difficult to accept. But he knew his sister. He knew Irika. Neither could have fought off Rogan’s charms for long.

“Women of my day were not like you or Catalina,” he explained. “Even the
puri
grandmothers who possessed the sight did not see Rogan for what he was. Not, at least, until it was too late.”

“I’m not denying that he was a scary guy,” she said. “Anyone who could devise the magic he did that trapped you for all this time had a seriously warped outlook on the world. But I don’t think you’re giving your sister much credit, and you’re taking too much blame for yourself. Maybe Rogan truly cared for her. Maybe he was trying to make a good marriage, too. Sarina was the daughter of the governor, and you said he wanted a position of power in the village—”