Chapter Six

By the time dinner wound to a close, Ivan wanted to break a few noble jaws.

Alexei Petrov was the only one at the table who wasn’t slobbering all over Maricela with his eyes. The three Reyes cousins and two Reyes uncles--old enough to be Maricela’s father and grandfather respectively--took turns flirting, bragging, and using barely concealed innuendo to present their qualifications as consort.

At least they kept their hands above the table and to themselves. Not that Ivan hadn’t entertained a few fantasies of what he’d do with those potentially wandering fingers anyway--pondering the damage he could do with a lobster cracker had gotten him through an endless dessert.

Now, his job was going to be exponentially harder. Dinner had ended, and people were rising from their assigned tables to have drinks and mingle in the gardens. The Reyes uncles and cousins were drifting away, but before Maricela could leave the table, someone else claimed the seat beside her--and took her hand.

“My favorite sister-in-law’s sister.” Javier Montero looked like a softer, prettier version of Gabe. They both had inherited their father’s height and broad shoulders, but instead of Gabe’s stern features and lean strength, Javier had his mother’s silky black hair, big brown eyes, and far-too-charming smile.

And he wasn’t just slobbering all over Maricela with his eyes. He was doing it with his mouth, kissing the back of her hand in a lingering fashion that tightened instant dislike in Ivan’s gut.

“Javier.” Maricela smiled but extricated her hand by reaching for her water goblet. “How is your mother?”

“Good, good.” He tossed an arm across the back of her chair and leaned in so close that Ivan considered dragging him back by his pretty hair. “I was just telling her we should have you over. Uncle David says the new lambs will be born any day now. Nothing so cute as the first time they stand up on their wobbly little legs.”

“I’m sure they’re adorable. Perhaps Isabela should take the children to see them.”

Ivan had to press his lips together to avoid smiling at how deftly she sidestepped him. But the momentary urge to smile faded almost instantly--she hadn’t gotten this good at skillful evasion without years of practice navigating a minefield of overly friendly men.

Dinner must have been exhausting for her.

Pushing his chair back, Ivan stood just as Javier’s fingers left the back of the chair, no doubt headed for Maricela’s shoulder. Ivan clamped a hand around the man’s wrist, squeezing hard enough to provoke a grunt of surprise, then released him. “Sorry,” he lied, gripping the back of Maricela’s chair so he couldn’t put his arm back. “Are you ready to go meet your brother?”

“Very,” she murmured, rising to slide her arm through Ivan’s. “Thank you for the invitation, Javier. I’ll be sure and pass it on to Gideon.”

Javier’s pleasant smile slipped the moment Maricela’s back was turned. Ivan met his irritated glare with a blank expression of his own before turning to lead her away from the table.

Her fingers dug into his forearm. “Will you even believe me if I tell you the parties aren’t usually this bad?”

“Are they not?”

She shook her head as they passed under the shadow of a tree at the edge of the garden maze. “When I was younger, they were almost fun.”

The yearning in her voice spoke of a desperate need for respite. Thanks to Reyes’s thorough little notebook, he knew how to provide it. He steered them through the maze’s entrance and let the stillness and shadows of the high hedges wrap around them. “Before you had to deal with suitors?”

“Honestly? It’s hard to remember a time before I had suitors. But they’re going to be more plentiful and more insistent this year.” She shrugged. “Isabela has decided it’s time for me to get married.”

“Does Isabela get to decide that?”

Maricela didn’t answer. Instead, she reached out and plucked a leaf from one of the hedges.

The maze had a trick to it. Reyes had written it out, and Ivan had dutifully memorized it. After two right turns made in silence, he steered Maricela to the left at the next fork and spoke again. “Do you want to get married?”

“What I want doesn’t matter. I mean, it does, but it also doesn’t.” Her thumb brushed the inside of his elbow as she released his arm. “It’s what I’m supposed to do.”

The Rios streak of responsibility ran deep. He’d spent enough years watching Gideon to understand that, but some things seemed too personal to accept out of duty. “Your brother hasn’t gotten married yet.”

“No, not yet.” She turned to face Ivan, her long gown tangling around her legs as she walked backwards before stopping. “I lied to you.”

“You lied? About what?”

“Last training day. I let you believe that I wanted an escort to the festival, but I--” Even in the moonlight, the flush on her cheeks was visible. “That’s not what I wanted.”

All the emotions he’d locked down so carefully gave one, violent kick.

Odd, how much the shading of memories could change with new context. Not that he was any stranger to the idea. He’d had good memories of his uncles. Being lifted onto a knee so he could sit at the table with the grownups. Being scooped up off the ground when he fell. Pats on the shoulder and ruffled hair, the short, blurry-around-the-edges recollections of a young child.

But after he’d grown old enough to understand, shadows had seeped in around the edges. Those memories were darkened by the cold chill of nights sleeping on the street, curled against his mother, because he was being punished for the crimes of men he’d never realized were bad.

Now that Maricela had confessed her physical attraction to him, the memory of their interaction at the training day shifted subtly. He knew that he’d looked at her with fondness and reverence. With devotion. He never would have imagined crossing that big, bright line. Not even in his head.

He couldn’t help it now. She wanted him. Had been wanting him. Now that he knew wanting him wasn’t a whim or adrenaline, it was hard not to be pleased by that. But he couldn’t.

He would not.

He’d never had any trouble controlling his mouth before. He didn’t even like to talk. But the words slipped out without his permission. “What did you want?”

“A lover.” She turned and stepped farther into the shadows. “I should have been honest with you then. Now it’s too late to find out.”

Yes, too late. Far too late. Because she’d asked him to hold them to what was right, and she was sweet. Sheltered. Too innocent to realize that murmuring the word lover while it was just the two of them, standing in shadows deep enough to disappear into, was actual, literal torment.

Ashwin would be envious of how efficiently she was torturing him.

They came to another intersection, and he had to swallow hard to get even one word out. “Go right. That should bring us to the center of the maze.”

“Have you been here before?”

“Reyes drew me some diagrams. And I did some recon while you and Ana were with the seamstress.”

She made a soft noise of amusement. “It took me a week to find the center of this maze. I was probably seven or eight years old, and I spent every afternoon of our visit meticulously mapping this damn thing.” She cast a quick glance over her shoulder at him, her expression unreadable. “I’m starting to think it would have been a bad idea, anyway.”

His emotions kicked again. “Us becoming lovers?”

“Yes.” She emerged into the center of the maze, where benches made of quarried rock and stone surrounded a large, ornate fountain. Water shot into the air and cascaded down, the droplets catching the moonlight like tiny diamonds.

The music from the party was a distant hum. The voices had faded away completely. It was peaceful here, with the gentle music of water over stone and the wind through the leaves on the hedges and nothing but the clean smell of earth and plants and nature.

Maricela belonged in a place like this. Outside, under the stars. Not trapped in her house or stuck between swaggering suitors who leaned too close and whispered constant invitations she had to pretend not to understand.

The breeze tugged at the ends of her long hair, tossing it across her face, and his fingers itched to smooth it back into place. Before he could give in to temptation, she reached up and tucked the rogue strand behind her ear.

The silence between them wasn’t comfortable. It was charged, her last words hanging there like a tense challenge. “We can’t be lovers,” he said softly, a reminder as much for himself as for her. “But we can be friends.”

“Yes.” She smiled, and the tension dissolved. “What did you think of the dinner?”

A lifetime of habit almost had him locking down his reaction, as was proper in the presence of a Rios. But the word friend still hovered in the air, so he reacted like he would have to a Rider.

He rolled his eyes.

Her laughter rang through the small courtyard. “I’ll have you know, that was some of the finest seafood money can’t buy. Didn’t you notice the Petrov heir at our table? The one who wasn’t being a creep?” She sank to one of the benches. “I’m sure that’s how Estela got her hands on enough lobster to feed fifty people.”

He straddled the opposite side of the bench so he could look at her but keep the maze entrance in his peripheral vision. “So that’s how the seating arrangement works? People bribe Estela Reyes to get close to you?”

“That’s how this whole week works.” She ticked the list off on her fingers matter-of-factly. “Basic line of sight, that’s cheap. But you have to pony up if you want your son or daughter seated next to me at a meal or concert. And don’t even ask how much it costs to get them a room assignment near mine.”

Disgust at the sheer awfulness of it all rose, and Ivan didn’t try to hide it. “They better not think they’re getting into your room without an invitation.”

“Oh, no. Never. It’s not about force.” She leaned closer and lowered her voice. “It’s about access. The opportunity to influence. The same thing happens to Gideon and Isabela, for different reasons. Hell, Deacon and Ana weren’t shoved at a table in the corner with the rest of the Riders who don’t come from noble families, were they?”

He thought back, summoning the placement of the various Riders from memory. He’d expected Gabe, Hunter, and Reyes to be seated prominently, of course, but Deacon had been at a table next to the West matriarch, and Ana had been tucked between Gabe’s parents. “Because Ana’s father’s going to be sainted?”

“Maybe,” Maricela allowed. “William belonged to the Riders, but I’m not sure it matters. We talk about how your families give you up when you take your vows, but those ties never really seem to die. Not on a gut level.”

No, they didn’t. Not the ties to the saints or to the traitors. In his life, Ivan had faced both--younger people who begged him to ask his father for a special blessing, and older people who eyed him with wariness, no doubt remembering the havoc and pain his uncles had wrought on their beloved royal family.

“It’s complicated,” he murmured. Normally that would have been all he said, all he cared to say, but talking to Maricela was...easy, somehow. “There’s only just the two of us, you know. Me and Ana. And Gideon hadn’t even officially formed the Riders before my father died. We don’t fit into the rules and customs. So people see us the way they want to see us.”

“How do they see you?”

The marble bench had a tiny crack along one side. Ivan traced it with his thumb. “All I ever wanted to be was a Rider. But when I first showed up to a trial, people were furious. They didn’t want the traitors’ nephew in Gideon’s inner circle. It had been more than ten years, but that’s all they saw when they looked at me. Bad blood.”

She sucked in a breath. “That’s horrible.”

It hadn’t felt horrible. It had felt deserved, a guilt he’d internalized after a lifetime of lessons from his mother, who had never forgiven herself for not seeing what was happening all around her. It had taken him years to understand that the intensity of her guilt was the product of a chemical imbalance in her brain.

Maybe his was, too. Ivan wasn’t sure he wanted to find out, wasn’t sure there was even a point. Guilt had never gotten in the way of his job--if anything, it made him a more dedicated Rider.

Proving the whispers wrong had always been very good motivation.

He couldn’t say any of that to Maricela, not with outrage all but vibrating off of her. “Your cousin Mad stepped up. Even though my uncles had kidnapped him and killed his parents, he stood up for me. No one was willing to fight him over it.” Ivan shrugged and glanced up at her. “Becoming a Rider means your family is supposed to give you up. It doesn’t mean the sector will let you give up your family. Just ask Reyes or Gabe or Hunter.”

“That’s true.” Her stormy expression cleared as she patted his hand. “I’m glad you were able to find your way.”

Her fingertips burned over his skin, and she didn’t even realize it. If being friends meant Maricela planned to shower him with sweet, oblivious touches, he’d drastically miscalculated.

This was torture.

He tensed, consciously exerting control. He had to find a way to go back to before she’d tilted their world on its side. He couldn’t help imagining Maricela’s husky command to use his tongue and thinking of just how easy it would be here. He could stretch her back on the bench and coax her dress up her long legs. Use his tongue anywhere and everywhere until her hoarse cries drowned out the sound of the fountain and the stars were dancing above them.

He could take care of her.

He could go to hell.

“Maricela!” Nita’s voice drifted toward them on the wind, coming from somewhere east in the maze.

“Over here!” she answered, her gaze still fixed on Ivan’s face.

“I’m glad you know your way through this thing.” Grace’s voice, tinged with laughter. “I would be hopelessly lost.”

“I think my coach is turning into a pumpkin.” Maricela rose with a soft sigh. “Except now it’s time for me to get back to the ball.”

He had no idea what the words meant, but he didn’t get a chance to ask. Nita appeared at the break in the hedges, the intricate jeweled beading on her bodice catching the light. She beamed at Ivan before winking at Maricela. “C’mon. Let’s go get the annoying dances out of the way first so we can flirt with cute guards and dance with pretty girls.”

“Of course.” But Maricela’s smile didn’t quite reach her eyes as she slid her hand into Nita’s.

The three girls headed back to the party, with Ivan trailing a few feet behind, all his thwarted desire replaced with frustration of a different kind.

He could protect Maricela from physical harm, but he couldn’t protect her from the demands of who she was. No matter how much he wanted to.

»»» § «««

Over the years, Maricela had learned to treat dances as reconnaissance.

There was a lot you could glean about a person in a few minutes of chatter on the dance floor. So far this evening, she’d learned that Gabe was her favorite Montero for a very good reason, because most of his uncles and cousins were pushy as hell. She’d also found out that tongues were wagging about the fact that Gideon had chosen to bring his entire family--plus all the Riders--to the Rios gathering. Rumors of an impending engagement had already begun to circulate.

Which was probably why the Monteros were being so damn aggressive.

Still, in between the stilted conversations and stomped toes, she discovered some lovely things. Alexei Petrov was a polite, witty man who seemed to be genuinely interested in talking to her, and dancing with him proved a welcome reprieve from the thinly veiled declarations of intent. And her friends were having a good time, something she couldn’t help but appreciate with snatches of their laughter blending into the music.

Mostly, she realized that she was aware of Ivan. Not in that way where she always knew where he was, or how his proximity made her skin prickle. She could feel him watching her, the soft weight of his stare like the barest brush of a hand. And every time she glanced over to test the sensation, she was right.

That was new.

So was the look in his eyes. His expression was set in the same blank mask she’d become accustomed to, but his dark blue eyes followed her with a barely contained heat she told herself she had to be imagining.

“Your bodyguard’s cute.”

The words jerked her attention back to Alexei a moment before their meaning sank in, and she blushed furiously. “I suppose so.”

“All stern and broody.” Alexei grinned and twirled them so Ivan wouldn’t see her blush. “I used to have a weakness for the type. It’s irresistible, you know. Finding out what’s lurking beneath all that brood.”

She fought a smile. “Teasing people is just mean.”

“Hey, now. I thought we were becoming friends. And friends get to tease.” He leaned closer. “Anything that gets us through the week, right?”

“You’re right.” She lowered her voice to match his. “But it’s a sore spot.”

“Ah. Nothing more tragic than star-crossed lovers.”

He spoke with enough melancholy to convince her he knew this from personal experience, which was the only reason she didn’t step down firmly on the arch of his foot.

“So,” he continued, his tone lightening again. “Maybe you can help me out with something.”

“After you’ve teased me so mercilessly? How brash.”

“Consider it a business opportunity.” He looked around quickly. “You know one of the Montero chauffeurs is taking bets on which of us get married off. The odds are all over the place on you, and I’m a lost cause, but your friend Nita...” He waggled his eyebrows and tilted his head toward where Nita was dancing with one of Hunter’s brothers. “Any hint of romance in the air you want to tip me off about?”

The odds of someone successfully wooing Nita were perfectly calculable and exact: zero. Nita would never, ever marry anyone, not even under the fiercest pressure Estela Reyes could muster--not while Hunter was alive. She’d never said it, not in so many words, but Maricela had watched her friend’s infatuation with him kindle and grow into something that nothing, not even him joining the Riders, seemed to shake.

Alexei was still watching her, so she shook her head. “My advice? Save your money.”

“Now that’s what I needed. The good intel.” They spun in another lazy circle as the music swelled toward its climax. “Tell me the truth. Does this whole thing get any less awkward?”

“Hmm.” He’d only been attending the parties for a year or so. He’d never experienced them without the burden of searching for a spouse he didn’t want. “Ask me again in the fall, Alexei.”

“What will be different in the fall?”

“Nothing, probably. But maybe I’ll be able to give you a better answer by then. Because right now, the truth is not so far.”

“Pity.” His dark hair fell across his bright blue eyes as he offered her a smile. “Well, I would tell you that you make it slightly less awkward, but then you’d think I have designs on you. So I’ll just say you’re a terrible dancer and this isn’t any fun at all, and I hope we can continue to not enjoy each other’s presence tomorrow at the picnic or the horseback riding or whatever we’re supposed to be doing.”

“Likewise, Mr. Petrov. Likewise.”

The music wound to a close, and a tall stranger with tanned skin, black hair, and a neatly trimmed beard appeared at their shoulders. “Can I claim the next dance?”

She didn’t know him, she was certain of that, but he seemed so familiar that she smiled reflexively. “Of course.”

Alexei relinquished her with a bow and a wink, and the newcomer slid into place, clasping her hand in his as the musicians began to play a slow waltz. He was tall enough that she had to reach up to settle her hand on his shoulder, but when he guided them into the dance, he moved gracefully. “I’ll try not to step on your toes. I’ve only done this a few times.”

Taken off guard, she answered honestly. “I don’t believe you.”

He laughed, his brown eyes twinkling. “All right, I’ve only done it with someone who isn’t my mother a few times. She taught me because she loved to dance, but I haven’t had much opportunity to practice.”

Maybe that was it--he was the distant cousin of someone at court, but she knew his parents. “I’m Maricela.”

“I know.” He spun her around, giving her a brief glimpse of Ivan watching warily. “I’m Lucas.”

The name didn’t prompt recognition, but he did, so profoundly that she knew she knew him. “Have we met before?”

“Oh, I doubt it.” He tilted his head. “I grew up away from the sectors. In a survivalist commune in the mountains, actually. Hence why I haven’t had many chances to attend formal dances.”

“But your family is here. They must be.” More than money, Estela Reyes valued status. There was only one way to win an invitation to her yearly house party: to have a name or position she prized highly enough to merit it.

“Antonio Montero has taken me under his wing. He was kind enough to bring me with him this week.”

That would do it. Gabe’s uncle wasn’t the patriarch of their family, but he was well-respected and genial. More than that, he’d developed a reputation as having a keen head for business. If anyone could socially elevate a new arrival from the communes, it was Antonio. “Then I hope you enjoy your visit to Sector One.”

“Well, it will be hard to top the pleasure of dancing with Maricela Rios.”

His smile was just right, wide and appreciative without treading too close to artifice. But there was something else going on behind his eyes, something calculated and nervous that left her instinctively looking around for Ivan.

Her gaze snagged on Isabela instead. Her sister gasped, and her champagne flute slipped between lax fingers to shatter on the stones beneath her feet.

The music tapered off with a discordant screech of strings. Murmured voices buzzed around the room, but Maricela couldn’t look away as her sister raised a shaking hand to her throat, her lips forming a single word.

“Abuelo.”

She swayed, and Maricela dove toward her. “Isabela--”

Gideon was quicker. He caught Isabela around the waist, steadying her as his gaze raked over Lucas. Emotion flashed across his face almost too fast for Maricela to track--rage, pain, regret--before he locked it down.

When he spoke, his voice was perfectly even. “I suppose you’re Teresa’s son.”

“Indeed.” The glint was back in Lucas’s eyes. He smiled at Maricela again before sweeping a bow to Gideon. “Fernando Lucas Rios. It’s so nice to finally meet you, cousin.”