Chapter Twenty-Seven

Ivan spent a thousand years drifting in and out of consciousness, grateful in one moment that he had survived and wishing fervently for oblivion in the next. Kora was always there, her cool hands soothing as she reassured him and added something to his IV that wrapped soft, sweet numbness around him.

When he finally woke up completely, the worst of the pain had receded to a dull, wearying ache. He squinted against the light and shifted on the bed until a sharper stab of pain from his ribs convinced him not to move.

“Hey, now.” Gideon appeared next to him, one hand dropping to his shoulder. “It’s nice to have you back among the living.”

“Is--” His voice cracked, and Gideon vanished again before returning with a cup and a straw. Even taking a few sips took more effort than he wanted to expend, but the cool water soothed his throat. He tried again. “Is it?”

“Oh, I’m still mad at you.” Gideon set the cup on the table next to Ivan’s bed and dragged his chair closer. “You showed a stunning lack of judgment. And you made me look like a fool.”

The casual way he said it made it cut deeper. Ivan might have been able to rally in the face of shouting rage, but not this quiet, wry, terrible disappointment. He had to swallow twice to get out two simple words. “I’m sorry.”

“You should be.” Gideon sat back in the chair and stared at him. “All the Riders knew. Diego Reyes knew. It will be quite a blow to my reputation if I admit that the infallible Gideon Rios couldn’t see what was happening right under his nose.”

Ivan opened his mouth to apologize again, and Gideon held up a hand. “No. I didn’t see it because Maricela’s still so young. And I want to shake you and say that you’re too old for her, you should have known better, and you should have told me.”

Bleak, helpless despair rose inside him, the kind of pain that made his broken fingers and ribs feel like pinpricks. He wished fervently for Kora and more of her oblivion drugs, but there was no relief. Just the disappointment of the one man he’d always wanted to honor, the man to whom he owed so much. “Gideon--”

“Let me finish, Ivan.” Gideon folded his fingers together and let them rest across his chest. “I’m angry with you because you kept a secret. Distraction could have gotten one or both of you killed. My baby sister went out into the sector with a bodyguard she loved so deeply, she was willing to step in front of a bullet for him, and if I had known that, I would have assigned her to someone else.”

“You’re right.” Gideon didn’t interrupt him this time, so Ivan continued, each word shredding him. “She could have died, and it’s my fault. But I didn’t know. I swear, Gideon, I didn’t know she’d do that. I told her to stay--” He faltered, because it was almost a lie.

He hadn’t known that Maricela would step in front of a bullet for him. But he wasn’t surprised, either. It was what the Rios family did. They protected the people they loved with their own blood.

He just hadn’t realized how deeply she loved him until that moment.

“I know,” Gideon said softly. “I’m mad at you, Ivan, but I’m more mad at myself. I tried to pretend Maricela hadn’t grown up, and I let that make me blind. Not just to your affair, but to all those suitors and the pressure she was under. You gave her something no one else could--a chance to be happy.”

Ivan struggled to follow what his leader was saying. He didn’t sound disappointed anymore. He sounded almost...

No. No hope, not this time. “I want Maricela to be happy,” he said carefully. “I’ll do whatever you want me to do. Whatever it takes.”

“Be careful with promises like that,” Gideon replied wryly. “Because what I want you to do is stay away from Maricela until you’ve thought this through the way you should have thought it through from the beginning.”

“Thought what through?”

“What it means to be a Rios--or to be married to one.” Gideon braced his elbows on his knees. “The life of a Rider is bleak and hard, but it still can be your own sometimes. A Rios doesn’t have that luxury. You belong to the people, from the moment your feet hit the floor in the morning to the moment you close your eyes at night. You even belong to them after you die. There’s no privacy. No respect for the fact that you’re just a human being, one who has good days and bad. Who gets tired and sad sometimes. You aren’t a person anymore. You’re a symbol. An object. A holy relic.”

“Gideon--”

“You like interrupting me, don’t you?” He shook his head. “My sister loves you, and you make her happy. There’s a part of me that wants to throw you right into her waiting arms, because I can be selfish when it comes to making that girl happy.”

His voice dropped as he leaned forward. “But you need to know all of it. If you marry Maricela, the nobles will hate you. The people might, too. They could make you disappear after you die. No sainthood, no legacy. And while you’re alive, it will be difficult. You’ll be visible all the time. You’ll have to learn to make small talk and shake hands and smile at people you hate. And if you start to resent her for that, you’ll make her miserable. But how could you not resent it?” A wry smile curled his lips. “I wouldn’t wish it on anyone I cared about. And I care about you.”

It was so much, too much to take in. Ivan’s head throbbed just trying--or maybe Kora’s drugs were wearing off. Everything felt too bright and too sharp, and he couldn’t tell if Gideon was trying to scare him away or offer his blessing.

Gideon stood. “Kora will be here soon to look you over. We’ve discussed what’s best for your recuperation. It’ll take a few weeks before you can even think about going back to work, so I took the liberty of sending a message to your mother. She’s getting a room ready for you at the temple where she lives. You can rest. And you can think.”

Ivan stared up at the man who had rescued him from homelessness, who had encouraged and defended him all his life.

The man who was offering him a chance. “And if I decide I want to marry your sister?”

Gideon held up both hands. “All I can do is say the family would welcome you. The rest, you’ll have to work out with her. But, Ivan?”

“Yes?”

“She’s worth all the shit that comes with being a Rios. Don’t even think about marrying her if you don’t know that.”

Kora arrived then, flashing Gideon a disapproving look. Gideon laughed and kissed her cheek. “I was nice.”

Ivan didn’t hear her response. He barely heard anything she said as she examined the cuts and bruises and broken bones that riddled his body. Even the pain seemed distant.

The family would welcome you.

It was more than he’d ever dared hope.

But Gideon was right. He wasn’t ready to be a Rios, standing at Maricela’s side under the harsh light of public scrutiny. Not until he’d faced his own inner darkness.

Not until he could face his past.

»»» § «««

It was a lot easier to set up private meetings now that Gideon didn’t think there was someone trying to kill her.

Well, actively trying to kill her. Knowing what she did now, Maricela wasn’t sure she could ever be blasé about security again. But the royal guard could stand post outside the courtyard just as they did her quarters, and no one had to sleep in her antechamber anymore.

It wouldn’t have felt right. As desperately as she missed Ivan, it was just that--she missed Ivan, and having any of the other Riders take his place as her guard would have been torture. She couldn’t let them see how miserable she was, because they were all a bunch of meddling bastards.

The breeze lifted her napkin from the table, and she set her glass of lemonade on its corner to keep it from flying away. “Thank you for meeting me, Nita.”

“Of course.” Nita was unusually subdued, clad in a plain brown dress with her hair pulled back in a messy braid, her eyes red-rimmed with dark shadows underneath. She worried at the edge of her napkin but didn’t look up. “How’s Ivan?”

“Better.” Not that she’d seen him, but Kora had been kind enough not to make her ask about his condition. “He has some injuries that are trickier to treat with regeneration therapy, so he’s taking some time off to recover.”

“Good. That he’s better, I mean.” Nita finally looked up, revealing a haunted expression. “Maricela, I’m so sorry--”

She held up a hand. “Nita, you know me better than that.”

“Maybe I don’t know anyone at all,” she replied, swiping angrily at a tear that rolled down her cheek. “I still can’t believe my father would do that. To Ivan, to the Riders... To his own son. How much does he hate us for not being what he wanted?”

Maricela wasn’t sure that Diego hated them at all--but was that better or worse? She reached for Nita’s hand. “What he did is no reflection on you. None.”

“To you.” Nita choked on a laugh. “You should have seen my mother. She fainted when they told her. She’s scrambling to convince everyone she had no idea. It would be funny, watching Estela swear she’s just a powerless pawn...if anything about this could be funny.”

“I believe her.” Estela would probably have been delighted to have Ivan out of the way, but her methods ran more toward manipulation than murder. And she never, ever would have would have killed her own son to facilitate a coup. “Nita, I have something to say, and I need for you to let me say it.”

“All right.”

Maricela took a deep breath. “I think we should consider getting married, after all.”

Nita blinked teary eyes at her. “You--what?”

“I’m not going to fall in love again,” she confessed. “That’s...not an option. But I can get married for other reasons. Not the mercenary ones everyone seems to toss around, but good ones. I can protect you, Nita. You and the rest of your family.”

“Oh, Maricela.” Tears spilled over Nita’s cheeks again, and she hid her face in her hands for a moment, her shoulders shaking. Then she wiped her face and shook her head. “No. I can’t. I love you, you know I love you. And that’s why I can’t let you do that. You can’t marry a Reyes. You can’t give my mother so much as a toehold. She may not have known about the mercenaries, but she still wants power. And when she’s done playing subdued and contrite, she’s going to grab for it.”

“All right,” she soothed. “So tell me what I can do for you.”

Nita twisted her napkin around her fingers before letting out a rough sigh. “There’s one thing, but it’s kind of big.”

“Name it.”

“Can I live here for a while? Not over with the initiates, but here.” Nita gripped the napkin until her knuckles turned white. “I don’t think anyone else will consider marrying me until my mother finds a way back into the sector’s good graces, and if I’m at home, she’ll try to use me to do it. And I just... I can’t.”

“You can have the suite next to Avery’s.” In the palace, at least, she’d be shielded from the rumors about her father’s betrayal as well as from her mother’s aspirations.

“Thank you.” Some of the tension seemed to leave Nita. She reached for her lemonade and drained half of it, but her eyes were still haunted as she carefully set her glass down. “Can you sleep? I can’t sleep.”

“No.” When Maricela slept, she tended to dream--not the nightmares she’d anticipated, but soft, sweet dreams of Ivan, snatches of moments that felt more like memories.

Somehow, that was worse.

“I keep hearing the shots...” Nita stared past her. “I know why you ran out there. I was so angry with you then, but I understand now. There’s nothing worse than being helpless.”

“Not even close.” Maricela had spent most of her life just letting things happen to her. Sometimes it seemed like the only option when you were surrounded by powerful people, and you just felt like you were in the way all the time. “So what do we do about it?”

Nita managed a ghost of her usual smile. “We’re a couple of smart, super-hot heiresses. I think we should stop letting anyone make us helpless.”