Chapter Two

Maricela had a plan.

It wasn’t a great plan, seeing as how it hinged on somehow securing Ivan’s cooperation, and he wasn’t going to like any of it, not one bit. But she was desperate, tired of being locked up like a child after dark.

And she was horny. God above, she was horny.

Maybe if she broached the subject casually enough, Ivan wouldn’t realize she was fomenting revolution until he was neck-deep in it. With that in mind, she sat quietly at the small dining table in her sitting room and waited for him to finish his security sweep of her suite.

It took a while. The suite was large, and Ivan was thorough. She had to mark his passage by the soft click of doors opening, because even on the tile floors of her bathroom, his boots were silent. But eventually he returned, having traded his light body armor for a black T-shirt and shoulder holster. Silver glinted from the knife tucked into his boot, and she knew he had more weapons hidden away.

He sat across from her--silent, as always--and Maricela regarded him thoughtfully. “You need a day off.”

His brow furrowed. “No, I don’t.”

“Of course you do. Everyone does, from time to time.”

Ivan shrugged one shoulder. “I’ve taken time off. Two afternoons. I’m fine.”

“How did you spend your afternoons off? If you don’t mind my asking,” she added hurriedly. She had to, or he might tell her even if he resented the question.

He fixed his gaze on the table and remained silent for so long that she started to think he minded very much. “Personal obligations,” he said finally.

Her stomach knotted. Maybe he was already taking care of this stuff, and she was the only one left suffering alone in her gilded cage with her early bedtime.

She propped her elbows on the table, leaned forward, and rested her chin on her hands. “Naked obligations?”

He flinched. From Ivan, it may as well have been a violent recoil. “Absolutely not.”

She had no idea why he was upset. Sexual desire could be a physical need just like thirst or sleep, and there was no shame in having physical needs. And she knew he liked sex--it had been the talk of the temple a year ago when he’d finally ended his long-term understanding with a widowed blacksmith who lived near the market. The acolytes had spent weeks tittering and giggling, making predictions about the next woman to catch his eye.

No one had, at least not that Maricela had heard. Which was unthinkable--he was young, vital, and he wouldn’t lack for willing partners. He couldn’t. Plenty of people found his icy blue eyes and strong features attractive, and surely some of them would find his brooding seriousness equally appealing.

Maricela would know. She was one of them.

But this wasn’t about that. Not entirely, anyway.

She took a deep breath and tried again. “I know you don’t date, but there are other ways to...pass the time.”

He blinked at her and tilted his head a fraction to the left. “I understand how sex works.”

She wouldn’t grit her teeth. She would not. “Then why don’t you take the night off and go have some so I can, too?”

That wiped away his confused expression, and her stern bodyguard was back. “Maricela...”

The note was still crumpled up in her pocket. She smoothed it out on the table, and Colin Visscher’s bold scrawl stared up at her.

My place, ten o’clock tonight.

I’ll use my tongue.

Ivan craned his neck, and she slid it across the table toward him. “Let’s forget about your needs for a minute,” she mumbled. “Maybe you don’t have any. Maybe you take care of them yourself. Who knows? All I know is I’m tired of taking care of mine by myself.”

His face might have been carved from the stone they’d built the temple from. His eyes were chips of ice. He put a finger on the very corner of the note, as if he didn’t want to touch it at all, and slid it back to her. “If you want to see Colin Visscher,” he said in a bland voice, “you can invite him here.”

Because that went so well last time. “Even if you’re in the next room, Ivan, you’re there. Listening.” She shrugged helplessly. “I can’t do this with you listening.”

“You didn’t have a problem with that last time.”

“That was different.” That was back before her tiny little crush on Ivan had had a chance to explode. But the past few weeks had turned that vague interest into a fierce, almost brutal craving for his touch--and she had to head it off now.

The best way to do that was surely to distract herself, right? Colin was convenient, appealing, and the only thing he wanted from her was exactly what she wanted from him.

What she wanted to want from him.

“I’m sorry, Maricela. I can’t let you go out alone.” The muscles in his cheek worked, as if he was having to force his next words out. “If having me in the next room is that upsetting, I can ask Ana to come and take my place for a few hours.”

It would help, but he looked so hurt that she couldn’t tell him so. She opened her mouth to deny it, but the chime on her door cut her off.

“Dinner,” she said instead, trying to sound cheerful. “Could you, Ivan?”

Looking as if he’d been granted a stay of execution, Ivan all but leapt from his chair and crossed the room. With his hand hovering close to his gun, he opened the door a few inches, angling his body to block the hallway. Only then did he pull it wide and allow two familiar servers from the kitchen to enter, both laden down with massive trays.

She hated to put them through the hassle of serving meals in her private quarters. In the absence of a family dinner, she’d always eaten in the kitchens. It caused the least amount of trouble for the staff, and it was a welcome chance to get away from the sometimes-unavoidable formality of her life.

She couldn’t do it anymore. Not since Donny, one of the kitchen staff, a man she’d laughed and joked with, traded family stories with, had tried to murder her brother.

It wasn’t fear that kept her out of the kitchens, not exactly, but they sure as hell didn’t feel like a safe haven anymore. Not with the memory of that day fresh in her mind...and Donny’s blood still on her hands.

“Maricela?”

When she blinked and looked up, Ivan was seated across the table from her again. The door was safely closed, the kitchen workers gone. Dinner was spread out between them, the silver lids already removed and set aside.

And Ivan was watching her with concerned eyes.

Having him look at her like that, with something dangerously close to pity, was unbearable. So she smiled and picked up a serving spoon. “Chicken pot pie, that’s your favorite. Looks like you have some admirers in the household.”

He let the change of subject go, and even unbent enough to hold out his plate so she could give him a healthy serving. “The cook knows all the Riders’ favorites. She makes a point of learning.”

Of course she did. The Riders were heroes, beloved by everyone. They carried out Gideon’s orders, acted as the living embodiment of his will. Their word was law, their deeds unquestionable.

Maricela usually accepted that without question. But this time, she had to try. “My curfew doesn’t make any sense.”

“I’m not the one who gave the order,” he replied as he added steamed green beans to his plate and snagged a couple of dinner rolls.

“But Gideon would listen to you if you argued against it.”

“I don’t argue with my leader.” But as he broke a roll in half and spread butter on it, he finally lifted his gaze to hers. “Why don’t you think it makes sense?”

“Everyone knows, right? That I’m confined to quarters after dark.”

“You’re not confined to quarters,” he protested. “You can go anywhere you want in the palace, and even over to the temple if you want.”

With him as her ever-present shadow. “I’m confined, Ivan,” she told him flatly. “So anyone who wants to hurt me already knows that it probably has to happen during the daytime, when I’m out.” She paused, gripping her fork. “I suppose.”

“You suppose?”

“Yes. Well, I mean...” She met his gaze. “We’re operating on the assumption that I’m safer at home. But the last two assassination attempts on a Rios have happened here, within these walls. So maybe our assumption is faulty.”

His eyes softened. Not with pity, but something else--a protective warmth she’d only seen one other time. The first night he’d stayed with her. The night he’d talked her to sleep.

“No one is making assumptions,” he said gently. “New precautions have been put in place. Ashwin has interviewed all the guards and done extensive risk assessments on everyone who works on the estate. And Kora has helped with her intuition. Nothing is going to happen to you inside this house. Even if someone tried, I’m here, Maricela.”

For a single, ridiculous moment, she considered telling him the truth, that his proximity was doing unbearable things to her libido--and, worse, that the more she talked to him, the more she liked him. But he’d already let her down easy once, and she couldn’t go through that again.

She could go straight to Gideon and ask him to assign another one of the Riders as her guard. Ana, perhaps, or Lucio. But no matter her reason for asking, Ivan would consider it a slight, a condemnation of her faith in his ability to protect her, and nothing could be further from the truth. She trusted him more than anyone else.

That was part of the problem.

“Never mind,” she whispered. “It’s fine. Everything is fine.”

He watched her for a few moments before nodding and turning his attention to his plate. He devoured a serving of pot pie and two more rolls before casually saying, “My mother. That’s who I visit when Ana comes to stay with you. I visit my mother.”

“Your mother? I didn’t know--” What, that he still had one? That he had one at all? She bit her lip.

Oddly, the words made the corner of his mouth tilt up. “Most people don’t. My mother values her privacy. She hasn’t had the easiest time.”

Aside from his sainted father, Ivan’s family carried mostly shame. His uncles had been instrumental in the Rios family kidnapping that had instigated a bloody civil war. Maricela’s aunt Adriana and cousin Mad had been held for days, and only Mad had walked away from his captivity alive. He’d lost his mother and father that day, and he still carried the scars.

Maricela tended to think of it that way, in terms of its impact on her family. She rarely spared a thought for the people on the other side of the conflict. “Your uncles were her brothers.”

“Her older brothers,” he confirmed, staring at his plate as he chased a green bean across it with his fork. “When my father died, my mother moved back in with them. She needed help. I was still so young.”

“What happened to the two of you after your uncles were--” She couldn’t bring herself to say the word executed. “Once they were gone?”

Ivan picked up his glass of ice water and drained half of it in two huge gulps. “Things were rough for a while. People didn’t trust my mother. Most people didn’t want to give her work, and sometimes when she got it, they wouldn’t pay her.”

Without thinking, Maricela reached for him. She slid her hand over his, squeezing when he finally looked at her. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine.” He cleared his throat but didn’t pull his hand away. “Gideon found out what was happening and came for us. He got us a place to live until I was old enough to help support her. And when I became a Rider, he found my mother a quiet job in the north temple. She goes by her middle name, and most people probably don’t even know who she is. Who she was.”

Mortification swept through Maricela. She’d been complaining about her situation, never once stopping to consider how much worse it could be. Yes, everyone from her brother to the palace cook was smothering her a bit, but it was out of concern for her safety, not malice.

And Ivan? All he wanted to do was protect her, and she was making things harder than they needed to be, all because she couldn’t control her stupid urges where he was concerned.

No more. “Thank you for telling me.” She squeezed his hand again. “It means a lot.”

He returned the squeeze for a few seconds, his fingers strong and warm around hers. Then he eased his hand away. “Gideon and Kora are the only ones who know. It’s not as bad as it used to be, but some people can still be unkind.”

She didn’t know what to do with her hands anymore, so she folded them in her lap. “I understand. I won’t say anything.”

“Thank you.” He refilled both their water glasses, then nodded to her plate. “You should eat more. You and Nita had a light lunch.”

Out of duty more than hunger, she picked at her dinner. Her mind was still reeling over Ivan’s revelations, all the intimate details of his life that he’d shared with her. Naturally, it could have been nothing more than her status that prompted the admission. Her being part of the royal family--and the younger sister of their religious leader--sometimes made people feel like telling her things was tantamount to confession. A way for them to absolve themselves of their sins.

But with Ivan, it had felt like a revelation.

She shook the thought out of her head and focused on finishing her dinner. It was easy to see the things you wanted to see, whether they were grounded in reality or not. And she had--had, had--to remember that.