Gunmetal Magic (19 page)

Raphael glanced at me.

“His mouthpiece made sure to remind me that I no longer had the Order on my side.”

“Ah.”

Ah what? Ah—too bad? Ah—I understand? Ah—serves you right? “They know who I am; they know I’m tenacious. Why not spend ten minutes answering my questions? Then I go away, and everyone’s happy.”

“You think he’s hiding something?”

I sighed. “I don’t know. I’m collecting information and I’ve run into a roadblock. Short of staging a break-in, this party is my best bet.”

Raphael snorted. “A break-in. You?”

“I thought about it,” I said. “I think he has the roof heavily warded and there are a lot of surveillance cameras. He did leave a very nice route open for me, with cameras not covering it even, so I’m pretty sure it’s trapped six ways to Sunday. I’d probably go through the basement instead. But again, since he isn’t in the office much, there’s not much point.”

Raphael stared at me. I wished he would stop doing that. Every time he turned to me, my heart kept trying to pirouette out of my chest in a futile attempt to flop itself at his feet. Meanwhile my hands wanted to wrap around his throat and strangle him. It was good that my brain was in charge.

“Who are you and what have you done with Andrea?”

“I’m the new and more-screwed-up version. Or much improved, depending on the way one looks at it.”

He stared straight ahead. “I thought being screwed up was something we had in common.”

“No, I was always the fucked-up one. You were the spoiled one.”

The line of Raphael’s jaw hardened. “I’ve worked since I was sixteen, six days a week. I’ve built my company from nothing with ten thousand dollars of seed money I borrowed from the Pack, just like everyone else, and I’ve paid back five
times that. I am supporting the entire Clan Bouda now. Nobody gave me any special treatment. How exactly am I spoiled?”

I blinked at him. “Seriously?”

“Yes. Please, enlighten me.”

“You remember last year you wanted to take that vacation in the Keys for a week?”

He glanced at me. “You’re going to hold our vacation against me? You loved it.”

I did. It was just me and him and the ocean. “Do you remember that bouda family wanted to join the clan about the same time? The De La Torre family?”

An individual shapeshifter joining the Pack was a relatively simple affair. He presented himself to the alphas of his clan, and if they said yes, they would then in turn sponsor the shapeshifter before the Pack. With families and small packs, the process became complicated. Multiple background checks and individual interviews later, a special date had to be set, and alphas or betas of other clans had to be present.

Raphael shrugged. “What about the De La Torres?”

“Aunt B had the date set and you had to be there to sponsor them with her.”

“Yes.”

“And you told your mother that she was welcome to do whatever she wanted but you were going on your vacation.”

“I’d worked seven-day weeks for two months nonstop.”

I bared my teeth at him. “Are you going to let me make my point or do I have to bite you to keep you from interrupting?”

“If you bite me, I’ll bite back. And I grow bigger teeth.”

Oh, it’s like that, then.
“But I’m much more motivated.”

He snarled. I snarled back and snapped my human teeth at him. A little crazy light sparked in Raphael’s eyes, but I couldn’t figure out what it meant. I used to be able to read him better. I used to know exactly what he was thinking—it registered on his face and if it didn’t, he would tell me. He was more closed in now, self-contained and hidden. There was a steely resolve there, and a hint of danger under the surface. Raphael had become unpredictable. It was exciting. Exciting was so not the emotion I was looking for.

“What, nothing to say?” he asked.

“I’m waiting to see if you’re going to do something or just flash your pretty teeth.”

“Don’t tempt me.”

I gave a mocking sigh. “Oh, I would. But then I would have to bring your battered body to your fiancée and I hate hysterics. Or did you mean the other sort of tempting?”

Raphael laughed. It was a wild laugh that promised all sorts of evil things. Fun evil things.

Something loomed in front of us.

“Bus!” I barked.

He looked at the windshield and swerved, avoiding an overturned bus by a couple of inches.

Tiny needles of adrenaline prickled my skin. I shuddered, trying to shake them off. The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end. Spots ghosted just under my skin, making faint stains on my arms.

“What was the point of bringing up the vacation?” Raphael asked.

“Your mother rescheduled everything. She traded a favor to Curran for a special dispensation so the family could stay for another week in the Pack’s territory. She convinced Valencia to bump her ballet recital—forty students had to change their schedule to match the new date. B schemed and shuffled things around. It didn’t matter how many people were going to be inconvenienced, but her baby boy would have his vacation, by God.” I laughed. “I’d walked in on her fighting with Valencia. It almost came to blood. I offered to move the vacation. She looked at me like I had grown a Christmas tree on my head.”

I imitated Aunt B’s voice. “Oh no, dear. You know how hard Raphael works. You two go down there and have a good time.”

Raphael stared grimly through the windshield, steering around potholes in the magic-pitted pavement with surgical precision.

No comment, huh?

“You grew up sheltered and you don’t even know how lucky you are. Your mother loves you more than life itself. She celebrates the fact that you exist.” Considering that both of Raphael’s brothers had gone loup in childhood and B had had
to kill them, I couldn’t hold that against her. “You’re smart, handsome, and respected. You’re a dangerous fighter and you’ve made yourself wealthy—”

“Comfortable,” he said through clenched teeth.

“Okay, comfortable. Women throw themselves in your path. I bet when you brought your fiancée to Aunt B, she didn’t even blink an eye, when anybody else would have gotten tossed out of the Bouda House.”

“Is there a point to you stroking my ego?”

“It’s not stroking. These are plain facts, darling. Raphael, you are adored. You have everything.”

“Not everything,” he said.

“Everything,” I repeated. “If you aren’t spoiled, I don’t know who is. That’s why you can never put yourself in my shoes. All this good fortune gave you blinders. To you, ‘bouda’ means people who think you are a demigod. To me ‘bouda’ means people who break your bones for fun.”

He turned to me again, his blue eyes dark. “This bouda clan never abused you. This Pack offered to protect you and take you in. You betrayed them.”

And we were back to square one.

“We’re here.” Raphael nodded ahead. At the end of the street, a spacious mansion rose against the sky, all carved white stone and gold accents. Beautiful.

A gated parking lot waited for us, complete with an attendant in a small booth, armed with an arbalest. If we parked in that lot, we would be trapped.

“Not in the lot,” I murmured.

“Yeah. Might have to leave fast.” Raphael turned off onto the side street. Good idea. If we had to leave in a hurry, it would be quicker than maneuvering out of a parking lot.

I pointed at the half-ruined building. “That looks nice and shadowy.”

He parked behind the ruin and shut off the engine, killing the constant noise that had provided background to our conversation. We sat steeped in the sudden quiet.

I faced him. “We keep coming back to this again and again, so let’s just do this once and for all, because I don’t want to talk about it anymore. Let’s say the Bouda House got attacked and set on fire, and then some knight of the Order
called asking for my help. Your mother forbids you to leave, because she needs you here. Your clan house is in ruins. I want you to come with me to help the Order. Would you?”

“This is exactly what you don’t understand.” Raphael’s face was resolute. “If my mother put that sort of condition on me, I would’ve told her to fuck herself. Anyone who gives you an ultimatum of ‘pick me’ or ‘save your friend’ isn’t worth your loyalty.”

He had a point. “You’re right. But my question stands. The Order was everything to me, Raphael. It was my pack, my family. Every day I got up and went to work, I took pride in being me, because I was a knight. I helped people. I wasn’t a pathetic little freak creature that everyone kicked and punched whenever they felt like it. I didn’t want to be that creature. Maybe it was cowardly to reject being a shapeshifter and pretend I was a human. I don’t know. I do know that as long as I was a knight, I wasn’t a victim. I mattered, do you understand that?”

“Yes,” he said.

“Do you think it was easy for me? Because it wasn’t. Sometimes no matter what I did, I had shitty choices to make, and I made mine the best I could. So tell me, Raphael, would you have walked away from your mother and your clan to help the Order?”

“No,” he said. His tone told me he finally understood. He didn’t like it, but he got it. The Order had been my family. It mistreated me, but you don’t abandon your family just because they do something you don’t like. We had finally reached an understanding. Sadly, it was too late for both of us.

“Then I consider this matter closed.” I opened my car door and stepped out into the cooling air. A moment later he joined me. We walked down the street toward the mansion.

“I’m sorry about the way things went down in the office,” Raphael said. “I shouldn’t have brought Rebecca. It was petty.”

“Water under the bridge.” I waved my hand at him and gave him a sweet smile. “But if you do it again, I’ll kill you both.”

He laughed under his breath. It was the delicious seductive laugh I remembered. “Be careful, someone might mistake you for a filthy bouda.”

“I like boudas. They’re fun in bed.”

“They?” A sudden edge crept into Raphael’s voice.

“They. Since you are now officially a taken man, you won’t mind if I test-drive someone else from the clan.”

“Like who?”

We strolled through the gates. The guard in the booth checked out my dress and stared. I gave him a friendly smile.

Raphael held up his invitation. The guard examined it and waved us on.

“Enjoy the party.”

“We will,” Raphael answered in a voice that suggested hell would freeze over before he would enjoy anything.

We strolled up the sidewalk.

“Who?” Raphael demanded.

For a man a hair away from mating to another woman, he was very interested in my sexual adventures.

“I haven’t decided yet. I always wanted to have a three-some.”

Raphael stopped.

“Two guys or maybe a guy and a girl. Since you’re more experienced than me, you must’ve had both? Which one was more fun?”

“Why stop at two partners?” Raphael said, enunciating the words very clearly. “Why not have half a dozen? You could hand out numbers to keep order. Get a little cute sign that says, ‘Now serving.’”

Oh, the spoiled bouda didn’t like that. Not one bit. “Don’t be silly. That would be tacky.” I paused by the glass and wrought-iron door, waiting for him to open it.

“Tacky?”

“Yes.”

Raphael swung the door open. Inside, a tiled lobby waited for us, bathed in the bright glow of electric lamps made to look like old gaslight lanterns. I stepped through and nodded to an older woman standing by the door. She wore a dress the color of red wine and her makeup was flawless. Two men stood near her. Both looked like they chewed up bricks and spat out gravel for a living.

“Your invitation,” the woman said.

Raphael handed her the invitation and unleashed a smile. Wow. Ascanio didn’t know it, but he had a long way to go.

The woman’s face softened. She brushed the invitation with her manicured fingers and smiled back. “Welcome to the party.”

Sixteen or sixty, it didn’t matter. Raphael smiled and they sighed. And he wondered why I thought he was spoiled.

Raphael put his hand on my back, gently escorting me to the next room. A spacious chamber stretched in front of us. Its cream walls rose high, supporting a twenty-foot ceiling. The granite floor was polished to an almost mirror gleam. Enormous, twelve-foot-tall windows, framed with gauzy white curtains and thicker golden draperies, spilled the weak evening light into the room. Matching accents ran along the molding. To our right a curved white staircase led upstairs. The entire place felt like a palace, graceful and somehow timeless.

The air smelled of wine, cinnamon, and another odd, but familiar aroma…oregano…no, marjoram, mixing with the lush, smoky sweetness of myrrh. “Interesting choice for potpourri.”

“Spicy.” Raphael leaned to me, that dashing smile still on his face. “I can’t tell if he’s covering up the scent of something bad with this perfume or not.”

We stood for a long second, our nostrils fluttering, taking shallow breaths and trying to break the fragrance down to individual scents.

“I’m a bust,” I said. If there were any hidden odors under that amalgam of herbs and resins, I couldn’t find them.

Raphael furrowed his eyebrows. “Me too.”

All around us people glided across the floor, men in tuxedos and tailored suits, women in expensive dresses and shiny rocks, looking like attendants to some ancient tyrant. Music emanated from somewhere above, gentle, exotic, and unobtrusive, like a hint of an intriguing perfume.

“Why do I get the feeling I’m at court?” I murmured.

“And there’s the king himself,” Raphael said.

The guests parted and I saw a man. Of average height, he had a wealth of wavy hair the color of pale amber. An expensive suit of light gray sketched his lean figure. He turned.

Huh. Anapa was beautiful.

He was in his late thirties, closing in on forty. His narrow
face, with pronounced cheekbones and a strong chin, was masculine but it was a civilized masculinity, refined, aristocratic, and very carefully groomed. Some wealthy men carried grooming too far, trimming their eyebrows and shaving their chins until they looked slightly feminine. Anapa stopped on the right side of that. His hair was perfectly cut but slightly tousled. His eyebrows still retained some shagginess. His lips were full and crisply drawn, but his cheeks and chin suggested the future possibility of stubble. His large blue eyes, with hooded eyelashes, betrayed a lively intellect and a spark of humor. His skin, sun-painted and dark for a blond, spoke of the South, bright sun, and blue water. He didn’t seem Nordic in the least. More like Mediterranean.