Ruby Fever EPB, page 31
His magic detonated. The blast rushed from him in a radiant pulse. The creature scuttling around on the floor trying to bite through the invisible wall on null space died. At the bottom of the hill, Krause collapsed, screaming. I couldn’t hear her, but I saw her straining.
Anyone or anything within a nine-hundred-meter radius of Alessandro had their magic ripped away from them.
Konstantin slow clapped. “Ever the showman, cousin.”
“Three cars incoming,” Bern reported.
We had given Arkan what he was waiting for.
I collapsed the circle. Keeping it up was like holding a weight, light at first, but growing heavier with every second.
Konstantin stepped out and twisted himself into Smirnov’s shape. “So it’s not environmental after all. Good to know.”
We had just given away one of Alessandro’s secrets to the Imperium. It couldn’t be helped.
The cars disgorged their occupants. I tapped the tablet, zooming in.
Arkan. In the flesh. Average height, athletic build, pleasant face. Nothing at all remarkable about him. He could have been a businessman, a lawyer, a high school volleyball coach.
Another man got out of the car and came to stand next to him.
I went ice-cold.
A woman screamed into my earpiece, a sound of pure fury, and I knew it had to be Lilian.
Alessandro leaped out of his circle, wrapped in glowing magic, and strode into the pavilion. He stared at the two men, and his face was full of rage.
Franco Sagredo stood next to the man who had murdered his son. He wasn’t restrained. Nobody was holding a gun to his head. He didn’t look in distress. He stared in our direction, derision on his face.
Arkan waved.
“What a charming family reunion,” Konstantin said.
“One more word, and I will shoot you,” Leon said, not a trace of humor in his voice.
Franco raised his hands. Orange magic clutched at them, and he leveled a rocket launcher at us.
I ran.
We dashed out of the pavilion and down the stairs. Behind us the Wedding Cake exploded.
Leon sprinted to the other side, where the wall was still intact, pulling his guns as he ran. Cornelius took off toward the main house.
Alessandro turned and walked up the stairs back onto the wall. A hole gaped in the pavilion, but it was still standing. The reinforced walls resisted the blast.
The hill was a sea of flames. Someone was walking through them, like a ghost conjured from fire.
There was no pyrokinetic in Arkan’s roster.
The wildfire parted and I saw the mage’s face. Adam Pierce.
How? He was supposed to be incarcerated in an impregnable prison in Alaska. He was supposed to spend the rest of his natural life surrounded by ice and cold.
There has been an event in Alaska.
Oh my God.
Alessandro didn’t even see him. He was looking at Arkan and his grandfather.
I took his hand.
“È un uomo morto,” the Artisan said.
Franco Sagredo was a dead man.
A wall of flames surged ten feet high and rolled toward us. The temperature spiked.
“We have to move.”
He gave no indication that he heard me.
“Mom, I need a bullet,” I said into my mike.
“I’ve tried. The fire is too hot.”
How the hell was Adam generating fire hot enough to stop high caliber rounds? No pyrokinetic could . . .
He gave him the serum. Arkan gave the Osiris serum to a Prime. Holy shit.
The fire was roaring like a living creature, deafening. He would never hear me.
There was nothing we had to counter that. This was Armageddon.
A dark object arced through the sky. For a second, I thought I’d imagined it, but then my brain processed what I was seeing.
“No!”
Linus’ mech landed on top of Adam Pierce. The two men vanished in a white-hot ball of fire. The blast wave of heat smashed into us, picked me up, and threw me against the wall.
It didn’t hurt nearly as much as it should have.
I opened my eyes. Somehow, Alessandro had wrapped himself around me, his magic cushioning the blow.
Linus died. For real this time. Nobody could survive that.
“What was that?” Arabella demanded.
“Nothing.” My grief and fury jerked me to my feet.
The flames had vanished, and the mech was glowing red.
They killed our grandfather.
Static crackled in my ear.
“Frida,” Linus’ voice said in my helmet. “I need a bit of help. I’m stuck in my mech and it’s quite warm in here.”
Oh my God.
Next to me, the Artisan bared his teeth. “My turn.”
“Go. I have your back.”
He lunged through the gap in the pavilion and jumped off the wall, his magic flashing as he landed. I walked through the gap after him and stood at the edge of the ruined wall.
Franco scoffed and started toward his grandson, pulling two maces out of thin air. He didn’t go for the guns. I knew what he wanted. He wanted to beat and humiliate Alessandro. Alessandro had disobeyed, and Franco counted on their family connection to either enrage his grandson until he became sloppy or make him hesitate.
He was wearing the headphones like the rest of them.
Another wave of Arkan’s soldiers ran up the hill toward Alessandro. Magic sparked among them. Some of them sprouted blades. They were Arkan’s best combat mages. He’d kept them in reserve for just this moment. Alessandro tore through them like they were paper dolls.
Franco was on a collision course, heading directly for him. They were like two knights sighting each other across a medieval battlefield. Nothing was going to keep them apart. Arkan was watching it like it was a movie.
There was no place to draw another circle. The wall was strewn with rubble. That was okay. I didn’t need one.
Twenty-five yards separated Franco and Alessandro.
I took my helmet off and dropped it by my feet.
Twenty.
I sent my magic spiraling forward. Its tendrils found the impenetrable wall of Franco’s mind.
Fifteen.
My magic wrapped around the old man’s consciousness, locking me onto my target.
Ten.
Let me show you how much I love your grandson.
The black wings tore out of my back, and I screeched.
Not just the harpy. Me. The harpy and siren combined into one. I didn’t hesitate, I didn’t hold back. I gave him everything.
My magic bored into Franco’s mind like a laser.
The granite crag that was an antistasi’s mind resisted.
I kept screaming, the torrent of sound geysering out of me.
The granite quaked.
Soft fuzzy blackness crept on the edge of my vision.
You have all of me forever.
I fed the last drop of my power into my scream.
The stone mountain of Franco’s mind cracked.
He fell to his knees, his eyes blank.
I was still screaming. His mind had vanished, but I couldn’t stop.
I had to stop. I had to . . .
“I love you,” Alessandro’s voice said from inside my memories.
I grabbed onto the sound of those words and fell silent.
It was so quiet. The people had stopped fighting and running. They stared at me and some of them stared at Franco, kneeling in the grass with a blank look on his face.
In that silence, Alessandro and Arkan clashed, too fast to follow. They cut and carved at each other, striking, kicking, stabbing. The fight stopped. Everyone watched the two of them twist and spin. This was the point of the whole thing. This was exactly how it was supposed to end.
I walked off the wall, through the gap, and down the hill. Nobody tried to stop me. They parted before me like the proverbial sea.
Arkan was lightning fast despite his age, and he had decades of experience, but Alessandro was faster, stronger, and younger. Skill clashed with fury. Blood flew and I couldn’t tell whose.
Arkan opened a gash on Alessandro’s arm. Alessandro slipped around the blade, fluid, unbothered by the cut, and smashed his heel into Arkan’s kneecap. Arkan’s leg folded. Passive field or no, the raw force of that kick delivered enough impact. Like a suit of chain mail, Arkan’s magic didn’t permit a blade or a bullet to penetrate his skin, but it couldn’t completely cushion him from a powerful blow.
Arkan slashed, protecting his injured leg, and Alessandro drove his elbow into the older man’s face. The blow snapped Arkan’s head back. Alessandro struck out, trying to trip him, but Arkan twisted at the last moment, and sliced at Alessandro’s face.
A thin line of red split the skin below Alessandro’s left eye. He grinned as if Arkan had given him a gift.
The resolve in Arkan’s eyes broke. In that moment he must have realized that he wasn’t good enough. He wasn’t going to win this fight.
His mind lit up.
Magic crackled around Arkan. I didn’t see it but in my mind’s eye it was a black wave, dark and empty. It crashed against Alessandro and tore into me.
It was like someone had ripped me free of reality. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t speak, I couldn’t do anything except watch Arkan’s mouth twist into a grim smile in slow motion. In front of me Alessandro stood frozen, his arm raised, his hand balled into a fist.
Arkan smiled wider.
Black glyphs appeared on Alessandro’s skin, spinning over his arms and neck, and burst with brilliant light.
The magic gripping me tore.
It was a one-shot arcane circle drawn onto human flesh. Arkan’s magic grasped all large objects within his immediate vicinity and froze them exactly as it found them. It was exceptionally powerful but very fragile. The circle I had drawn on Alessandro’s flesh was designed to take that initial blast of magic and use it as a fuel to spin and slide across his form. That movement shattered Arkan’s hold. His magic crumbled.
For a delicious second, Arkan’s eyes widened. Fear slapped his face.
Alessandro pulled the null blade out of its sheath, activating it, and stabbed Arkan in the stomach.
The assassin stumbled back. His mouth gaped, in disbelief or pain, I wasn’t sure.
Smirnov stepped out of the crowd. Arkan’s gaze snagged on him. Smirnov twisted and became Konstantin again.
“The Imperium sends its regards,” the prince said.
Alessandro freed the blade and swung. The top half of Arkan slid aside and fell on the grass.
It was over.
Finally, finally it was over. We had laid a trap and it had worked. It was okay to feel things now. It was okay to let go.
Alessandro turned away from Arkan’s corpse and saw me. He crossed the space between us and hugged me to him. He’d lived. He’d survived. My knees shook all of a sudden. If he hadn’t been clamping me to him, I would’ve fallen.
Konstantin turned to the remaining fighters. “Does anyone else want to challenge the Imperium?”
Arkan’s people scattered.
Arabella ran out of the hole that used to be our front gate carrying a huge pincher-like tool. “Where is Linus? I have the jaws of life.”
She’d left the grandmothers alone.
“Why aren’t you protecting the south side?” I called out.
“Protect it from what? Sgt. Heart is there. There’s nothing for me to do.” She saw the mech still glowing. “Hold on, Grandfather, I’m coming.”
Alessandro was staring at me. His face was bleeding, his left sleeve and the arm underneath it were shredded, and there was a strange look in his eyes. He looked a little deranged.
“Are you okay?” I asked softly.
“I’ve never been better.”
The sound of a car’s horn made me turn. A black SUV was making its way up our hillside driveway. It didn’t look like FBI SUVs.
Konstantin frowned.
The SUV came to a stop. It had diplomatic plates.
Three men got out. The tallest of the three looked familiar. Athletic, handsome, dark hair, piercing grey eyes. Where . . . Mihail. Konstantin’s brother.
Arabella pulled Linus out of the mech.
Alessandro’s eyes turned dark. “We had a deal.”
“I’ll handle this,” Konstantin said and started toward the men.
A quiet argument in Russian ensued.
Linus sprawled on the grass. Arabella heaved the jaws of life onto her shoulder and came over to stand next to me.
Mihail sidestepped his brother. Konstantin blocked his way. Mihail pushed him aside. Konstantin stumbled as if hit by a car.
Mihail marched toward us, his gaze locked on Alessandro. “Come with me.”
“I affixed my seal,” Konstantin growled.
“Yes, and our uncle changed his mind. His seal is heavier than yours, brother.”
“What do you mean, come with you?” Alessandro asked.
“My orders are very clear. I am to come back with Orlov, and if you’ve killed him, I am to bring you in his stead. Come quietly. It will be easier that way.”
Arabella stepped in front of Mihail. “I don’t like that deal. How about you take this slightly damaged corpse instead. If you insist, I can throw in a brain-dead Italian count.”
“Too soon,” I told her on autopilot. They were out of their minds if they thought they could just take Alessandro.
Mihail stepped to the right.
She matched him.
He looked down on her. She was a foot shorter than him.
“Move,” he ordered.
“Move me,” she told him.
Mihail reached out and tried to gently push her aside. Only she didn’t move.
“I don’t know what you are, but I’ve had a bad day,” he said. “Getting in my way is not healthy.”
“Oh you had a bad day?” She pointed behind her at the Compound. “I live here. Look at my house. Now look at me. Turn yourself around, get into your car, and drive back to wherever you came from, and maybe I will let you walk away.”
Mihail glanced at Konstantin.
His brother shrugged. “Those are your orders, not mine. I did my job.”
The muscles on Mihail’s jaw bulged. He raised his hand, very deliberately put it on Arabella’s shoulder, and shoved her out of the way. Arabella took half a step, caught herself and shoved him, knocking him two steps back.
Mihail inhaled like an enraged bull. He swung at her. Somehow she dodged and slammed her shoulder into him. The prince flew back, landed hard, and rolled to his feet. Something hot and feral flared in his eyes.
“No, Misha, no,” Konstantin warned, putting every drop of big-brother authority he could muster into his voice. “Not here.”
Mihail’s face trembled.
“She’s a civilian. Misha!”
Mihail’s body tore. An enormous monster spilled out, shaggy, ursine, with massive horns crowning his head. It just kept going and going, expanding, huge, enormous, enraged.
My House has a long affinity with bears. You might say we’re practically family. Oh no.
Konstantin swore.
Arabella laughed.
The colossal bear creature opened his maw and roared.
Arabella’s body erupted, and the Beast of Cologne surged out and roared back.
Konstantin gaped, his mouth slack.
They were the same size. Arabella was a little taller, but Mihail was thicker and heavier.
I turned to Konstantin.
He raised his hands. “My brother. The Bear of Kamchatka.”
I looked at Alessandro. “Did you know?”
He nodded. “I didn’t think he’d show up.”
Monster Arabella took a running start and slammed into the Russian Bear. The ground shook. They rolled down the hill, ripping, biting, clawing.
Linus got up and walked over to us. His hair was smoking a little bit and his skin was very flushed.
“Well,” he said. “That’s something you don’t see every day.”
“I know we were going to wait,” Alessandro said, watching my sister trying to stomp on the bear. “Let’s not do that. Let’s get married.”
“Right now? It’s been a long day.”
“Not today. But soon. Will you marry me?”
“I already told you I would.”
“Do I get to walk you down the aisle?” Linus asked.
“I haven’t decided yet. I’m still mad at you and Benjiro Heart is very nice to me.”
Alessandro laughed. I wrapped my arm around his waist, and he put his good arm around me.
Everything was going to be all right.
Epilogue
I lay on the grass and stared at the sky. It was very blue. The grass was itchy, and I was naked, but I didn’t have enough energy to get up, so I just lay there trying to catch my breath.
The Russian prince panted next to me, also naked.
We had brawled for the better part of an hour. Maybe longer. I wasn’t sure how long, but Catalina and Alessandro got tired of waiting and went inside. I was pretty sure the other Russians had also gone inside, too.
We should have stopped before both of us ran out of magic. I had never fought that hard for that long before. Apparently when I ran out of anger, I reverted to my human shape. Good to know for the future.
It was starting to get really warm. If I didn’t get a move on, I would get sunburned on my boobs. Most of me was tan, but my natural skin color was somewhere between mozzarella and snowflake.
I groaned and forced myself to sit up.
The prince was looking at me. I could either demurely clutch my chest to cover up or look back. I decided to look back.
Okay, so they built them really well in Russia. Like, really well.
“You didn’t win,” I told him.
He just kept staring like I had grown a second head. All things considered, a second head would have been less shocking. He must have thought he was the only giant in the world. Ha!
“You’re lying next to a fire ant hill,” I told him. “Roll left when you get up.”
I climbed to my feet, a little unsteady, but upright, brushed the dirt off my naked butt, and started toward the wall. Knowing my sister, she would have left a robe or a blanket out for me.
Anyone or anything within a nine-hundred-meter radius of Alessandro had their magic ripped away from them.
Konstantin slow clapped. “Ever the showman, cousin.”
“Three cars incoming,” Bern reported.
We had given Arkan what he was waiting for.
I collapsed the circle. Keeping it up was like holding a weight, light at first, but growing heavier with every second.
Konstantin stepped out and twisted himself into Smirnov’s shape. “So it’s not environmental after all. Good to know.”
We had just given away one of Alessandro’s secrets to the Imperium. It couldn’t be helped.
The cars disgorged their occupants. I tapped the tablet, zooming in.
Arkan. In the flesh. Average height, athletic build, pleasant face. Nothing at all remarkable about him. He could have been a businessman, a lawyer, a high school volleyball coach.
Another man got out of the car and came to stand next to him.
I went ice-cold.
A woman screamed into my earpiece, a sound of pure fury, and I knew it had to be Lilian.
Alessandro leaped out of his circle, wrapped in glowing magic, and strode into the pavilion. He stared at the two men, and his face was full of rage.
Franco Sagredo stood next to the man who had murdered his son. He wasn’t restrained. Nobody was holding a gun to his head. He didn’t look in distress. He stared in our direction, derision on his face.
Arkan waved.
“What a charming family reunion,” Konstantin said.
“One more word, and I will shoot you,” Leon said, not a trace of humor in his voice.
Franco raised his hands. Orange magic clutched at them, and he leveled a rocket launcher at us.
I ran.
We dashed out of the pavilion and down the stairs. Behind us the Wedding Cake exploded.
Leon sprinted to the other side, where the wall was still intact, pulling his guns as he ran. Cornelius took off toward the main house.
Alessandro turned and walked up the stairs back onto the wall. A hole gaped in the pavilion, but it was still standing. The reinforced walls resisted the blast.
The hill was a sea of flames. Someone was walking through them, like a ghost conjured from fire.
There was no pyrokinetic in Arkan’s roster.
The wildfire parted and I saw the mage’s face. Adam Pierce.
How? He was supposed to be incarcerated in an impregnable prison in Alaska. He was supposed to spend the rest of his natural life surrounded by ice and cold.
There has been an event in Alaska.
Oh my God.
Alessandro didn’t even see him. He was looking at Arkan and his grandfather.
I took his hand.
“È un uomo morto,” the Artisan said.
Franco Sagredo was a dead man.
A wall of flames surged ten feet high and rolled toward us. The temperature spiked.
“We have to move.”
He gave no indication that he heard me.
“Mom, I need a bullet,” I said into my mike.
“I’ve tried. The fire is too hot.”
How the hell was Adam generating fire hot enough to stop high caliber rounds? No pyrokinetic could . . .
He gave him the serum. Arkan gave the Osiris serum to a Prime. Holy shit.
The fire was roaring like a living creature, deafening. He would never hear me.
There was nothing we had to counter that. This was Armageddon.
A dark object arced through the sky. For a second, I thought I’d imagined it, but then my brain processed what I was seeing.
“No!”
Linus’ mech landed on top of Adam Pierce. The two men vanished in a white-hot ball of fire. The blast wave of heat smashed into us, picked me up, and threw me against the wall.
It didn’t hurt nearly as much as it should have.
I opened my eyes. Somehow, Alessandro had wrapped himself around me, his magic cushioning the blow.
Linus died. For real this time. Nobody could survive that.
“What was that?” Arabella demanded.
“Nothing.” My grief and fury jerked me to my feet.
The flames had vanished, and the mech was glowing red.
They killed our grandfather.
Static crackled in my ear.
“Frida,” Linus’ voice said in my helmet. “I need a bit of help. I’m stuck in my mech and it’s quite warm in here.”
Oh my God.
Next to me, the Artisan bared his teeth. “My turn.”
“Go. I have your back.”
He lunged through the gap in the pavilion and jumped off the wall, his magic flashing as he landed. I walked through the gap after him and stood at the edge of the ruined wall.
Franco scoffed and started toward his grandson, pulling two maces out of thin air. He didn’t go for the guns. I knew what he wanted. He wanted to beat and humiliate Alessandro. Alessandro had disobeyed, and Franco counted on their family connection to either enrage his grandson until he became sloppy or make him hesitate.
He was wearing the headphones like the rest of them.
Another wave of Arkan’s soldiers ran up the hill toward Alessandro. Magic sparked among them. Some of them sprouted blades. They were Arkan’s best combat mages. He’d kept them in reserve for just this moment. Alessandro tore through them like they were paper dolls.
Franco was on a collision course, heading directly for him. They were like two knights sighting each other across a medieval battlefield. Nothing was going to keep them apart. Arkan was watching it like it was a movie.
There was no place to draw another circle. The wall was strewn with rubble. That was okay. I didn’t need one.
Twenty-five yards separated Franco and Alessandro.
I took my helmet off and dropped it by my feet.
Twenty.
I sent my magic spiraling forward. Its tendrils found the impenetrable wall of Franco’s mind.
Fifteen.
My magic wrapped around the old man’s consciousness, locking me onto my target.
Ten.
Let me show you how much I love your grandson.
The black wings tore out of my back, and I screeched.
Not just the harpy. Me. The harpy and siren combined into one. I didn’t hesitate, I didn’t hold back. I gave him everything.
My magic bored into Franco’s mind like a laser.
The granite crag that was an antistasi’s mind resisted.
I kept screaming, the torrent of sound geysering out of me.
The granite quaked.
Soft fuzzy blackness crept on the edge of my vision.
You have all of me forever.
I fed the last drop of my power into my scream.
The stone mountain of Franco’s mind cracked.
He fell to his knees, his eyes blank.
I was still screaming. His mind had vanished, but I couldn’t stop.
I had to stop. I had to . . .
“I love you,” Alessandro’s voice said from inside my memories.
I grabbed onto the sound of those words and fell silent.
It was so quiet. The people had stopped fighting and running. They stared at me and some of them stared at Franco, kneeling in the grass with a blank look on his face.
In that silence, Alessandro and Arkan clashed, too fast to follow. They cut and carved at each other, striking, kicking, stabbing. The fight stopped. Everyone watched the two of them twist and spin. This was the point of the whole thing. This was exactly how it was supposed to end.
I walked off the wall, through the gap, and down the hill. Nobody tried to stop me. They parted before me like the proverbial sea.
Arkan was lightning fast despite his age, and he had decades of experience, but Alessandro was faster, stronger, and younger. Skill clashed with fury. Blood flew and I couldn’t tell whose.
Arkan opened a gash on Alessandro’s arm. Alessandro slipped around the blade, fluid, unbothered by the cut, and smashed his heel into Arkan’s kneecap. Arkan’s leg folded. Passive field or no, the raw force of that kick delivered enough impact. Like a suit of chain mail, Arkan’s magic didn’t permit a blade or a bullet to penetrate his skin, but it couldn’t completely cushion him from a powerful blow.
Arkan slashed, protecting his injured leg, and Alessandro drove his elbow into the older man’s face. The blow snapped Arkan’s head back. Alessandro struck out, trying to trip him, but Arkan twisted at the last moment, and sliced at Alessandro’s face.
A thin line of red split the skin below Alessandro’s left eye. He grinned as if Arkan had given him a gift.
The resolve in Arkan’s eyes broke. In that moment he must have realized that he wasn’t good enough. He wasn’t going to win this fight.
His mind lit up.
Magic crackled around Arkan. I didn’t see it but in my mind’s eye it was a black wave, dark and empty. It crashed against Alessandro and tore into me.
It was like someone had ripped me free of reality. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t speak, I couldn’t do anything except watch Arkan’s mouth twist into a grim smile in slow motion. In front of me Alessandro stood frozen, his arm raised, his hand balled into a fist.
Arkan smiled wider.
Black glyphs appeared on Alessandro’s skin, spinning over his arms and neck, and burst with brilliant light.
The magic gripping me tore.
It was a one-shot arcane circle drawn onto human flesh. Arkan’s magic grasped all large objects within his immediate vicinity and froze them exactly as it found them. It was exceptionally powerful but very fragile. The circle I had drawn on Alessandro’s flesh was designed to take that initial blast of magic and use it as a fuel to spin and slide across his form. That movement shattered Arkan’s hold. His magic crumbled.
For a delicious second, Arkan’s eyes widened. Fear slapped his face.
Alessandro pulled the null blade out of its sheath, activating it, and stabbed Arkan in the stomach.
The assassin stumbled back. His mouth gaped, in disbelief or pain, I wasn’t sure.
Smirnov stepped out of the crowd. Arkan’s gaze snagged on him. Smirnov twisted and became Konstantin again.
“The Imperium sends its regards,” the prince said.
Alessandro freed the blade and swung. The top half of Arkan slid aside and fell on the grass.
It was over.
Finally, finally it was over. We had laid a trap and it had worked. It was okay to feel things now. It was okay to let go.
Alessandro turned away from Arkan’s corpse and saw me. He crossed the space between us and hugged me to him. He’d lived. He’d survived. My knees shook all of a sudden. If he hadn’t been clamping me to him, I would’ve fallen.
Konstantin turned to the remaining fighters. “Does anyone else want to challenge the Imperium?”
Arkan’s people scattered.
Arabella ran out of the hole that used to be our front gate carrying a huge pincher-like tool. “Where is Linus? I have the jaws of life.”
She’d left the grandmothers alone.
“Why aren’t you protecting the south side?” I called out.
“Protect it from what? Sgt. Heart is there. There’s nothing for me to do.” She saw the mech still glowing. “Hold on, Grandfather, I’m coming.”
Alessandro was staring at me. His face was bleeding, his left sleeve and the arm underneath it were shredded, and there was a strange look in his eyes. He looked a little deranged.
“Are you okay?” I asked softly.
“I’ve never been better.”
The sound of a car’s horn made me turn. A black SUV was making its way up our hillside driveway. It didn’t look like FBI SUVs.
Konstantin frowned.
The SUV came to a stop. It had diplomatic plates.
Three men got out. The tallest of the three looked familiar. Athletic, handsome, dark hair, piercing grey eyes. Where . . . Mihail. Konstantin’s brother.
Arabella pulled Linus out of the mech.
Alessandro’s eyes turned dark. “We had a deal.”
“I’ll handle this,” Konstantin said and started toward the men.
A quiet argument in Russian ensued.
Linus sprawled on the grass. Arabella heaved the jaws of life onto her shoulder and came over to stand next to me.
Mihail sidestepped his brother. Konstantin blocked his way. Mihail pushed him aside. Konstantin stumbled as if hit by a car.
Mihail marched toward us, his gaze locked on Alessandro. “Come with me.”
“I affixed my seal,” Konstantin growled.
“Yes, and our uncle changed his mind. His seal is heavier than yours, brother.”
“What do you mean, come with you?” Alessandro asked.
“My orders are very clear. I am to come back with Orlov, and if you’ve killed him, I am to bring you in his stead. Come quietly. It will be easier that way.”
Arabella stepped in front of Mihail. “I don’t like that deal. How about you take this slightly damaged corpse instead. If you insist, I can throw in a brain-dead Italian count.”
“Too soon,” I told her on autopilot. They were out of their minds if they thought they could just take Alessandro.
Mihail stepped to the right.
She matched him.
He looked down on her. She was a foot shorter than him.
“Move,” he ordered.
“Move me,” she told him.
Mihail reached out and tried to gently push her aside. Only she didn’t move.
“I don’t know what you are, but I’ve had a bad day,” he said. “Getting in my way is not healthy.”
“Oh you had a bad day?” She pointed behind her at the Compound. “I live here. Look at my house. Now look at me. Turn yourself around, get into your car, and drive back to wherever you came from, and maybe I will let you walk away.”
Mihail glanced at Konstantin.
His brother shrugged. “Those are your orders, not mine. I did my job.”
The muscles on Mihail’s jaw bulged. He raised his hand, very deliberately put it on Arabella’s shoulder, and shoved her out of the way. Arabella took half a step, caught herself and shoved him, knocking him two steps back.
Mihail inhaled like an enraged bull. He swung at her. Somehow she dodged and slammed her shoulder into him. The prince flew back, landed hard, and rolled to his feet. Something hot and feral flared in his eyes.
“No, Misha, no,” Konstantin warned, putting every drop of big-brother authority he could muster into his voice. “Not here.”
Mihail’s face trembled.
“She’s a civilian. Misha!”
Mihail’s body tore. An enormous monster spilled out, shaggy, ursine, with massive horns crowning his head. It just kept going and going, expanding, huge, enormous, enraged.
My House has a long affinity with bears. You might say we’re practically family. Oh no.
Konstantin swore.
Arabella laughed.
The colossal bear creature opened his maw and roared.
Arabella’s body erupted, and the Beast of Cologne surged out and roared back.
Konstantin gaped, his mouth slack.
They were the same size. Arabella was a little taller, but Mihail was thicker and heavier.
I turned to Konstantin.
He raised his hands. “My brother. The Bear of Kamchatka.”
I looked at Alessandro. “Did you know?”
He nodded. “I didn’t think he’d show up.”
Monster Arabella took a running start and slammed into the Russian Bear. The ground shook. They rolled down the hill, ripping, biting, clawing.
Linus got up and walked over to us. His hair was smoking a little bit and his skin was very flushed.
“Well,” he said. “That’s something you don’t see every day.”
“I know we were going to wait,” Alessandro said, watching my sister trying to stomp on the bear. “Let’s not do that. Let’s get married.”
“Right now? It’s been a long day.”
“Not today. But soon. Will you marry me?”
“I already told you I would.”
“Do I get to walk you down the aisle?” Linus asked.
“I haven’t decided yet. I’m still mad at you and Benjiro Heart is very nice to me.”
Alessandro laughed. I wrapped my arm around his waist, and he put his good arm around me.
Everything was going to be all right.
Epilogue
I lay on the grass and stared at the sky. It was very blue. The grass was itchy, and I was naked, but I didn’t have enough energy to get up, so I just lay there trying to catch my breath.
The Russian prince panted next to me, also naked.
We had brawled for the better part of an hour. Maybe longer. I wasn’t sure how long, but Catalina and Alessandro got tired of waiting and went inside. I was pretty sure the other Russians had also gone inside, too.
We should have stopped before both of us ran out of magic. I had never fought that hard for that long before. Apparently when I ran out of anger, I reverted to my human shape. Good to know for the future.
It was starting to get really warm. If I didn’t get a move on, I would get sunburned on my boobs. Most of me was tan, but my natural skin color was somewhere between mozzarella and snowflake.
I groaned and forced myself to sit up.
The prince was looking at me. I could either demurely clutch my chest to cover up or look back. I decided to look back.
Okay, so they built them really well in Russia. Like, really well.
“You didn’t win,” I told him.
He just kept staring like I had grown a second head. All things considered, a second head would have been less shocking. He must have thought he was the only giant in the world. Ha!
“You’re lying next to a fire ant hill,” I told him. “Roll left when you get up.”
I climbed to my feet, a little unsteady, but upright, brushed the dirt off my naked butt, and started toward the wall. Knowing my sister, she would have left a robe or a blanket out for me.
