Chapter Eight

It was a perfect day to be outdoors.

Maricela stretched out on a padded blanket in the shade of a gnarled old oak tree, her eyes closed against the afternoon sunlight. Beams pushed through the branches and leaves anyway, turning the darkness behind her closed lids into a patchwork of dappled shades.

Laughter surrounded her. All the younger Reyes children--plus the little ones who had accompanied their families to the party--were tearing around the courtyard, their voices melding together into an unintelligible cacophony of noise.

It shouldn’t have been peaceful, not in the slightest, but it was. Maricela smiled and opened her eyes, shading them with one hand. “How can they have so much energy? I ate too much lunch, and now all I want to do is sleep.”

“Easy.” Grace sat a few feet away, barefoot in denim overalls, her legs crossed and a sketchpad on her lap. “They didn’t stop long enough to eat.”

“And some of them only ate dessert.” Nita’s skirt held a rainbow of wildflowers deposited by various children, and she was absently weaving the blooms into a crown. “We used to be worse. We’re just getting old.”

“Speak for yourself,” Maricela protested.

“What, about the old part? Or the misbehaving?” Nita flashed her a grin. “I remember the time you helped me replace all the sugar meant for the lemonade with salt.”

“I remember the lectures I got.” It didn’t matter that her momentary amusement over the prank had almost instantly turned into remorse at causing people discomfort. Isabela had taken her to task, admonishing her about the importance of trust and reminding her that the delicate balance of power in their sector could easily be upset. “Even Gideon didn’t think it was funny.”

“Neither did my mother, believe me.” Nita wrinkled her nose as she twisted two stems together. “My aunt wanted to wallop me. My mother made me write out the entire Reyes family tree twenty times to give me an understanding of the legacy I was squandering.”

Maricela’s mother probably would have smiled before quietly, gently chiding her. Of course, if Juana had still been alive to smile at her, Maricela never would have been acting out. And Isabela wouldn’t have been so determined to prove that she could manage her baby sister. And Gideon...

Well, Gideon might have laughed, after all.

She shook off the memories and sat up. “This is nice, isn’t it? Peaceful.”

“You mean the distraction?” Nita tied off her crown with a flourish and leaned over to drop it onto Grace’s hair. “I wonder how long the gossip can keep the other nobles busy. Maybe we’ll get a whole day or two.”

The crown slipped down over Grace’s eye, and she laughed as she righted it. “I swear, the way you two talked about this party, I thought it’d be hell. But so far it’s been fun.”

Because she wasn’t being stalked through the halls like a gazelle by a bunch of noble wildebeests. Maricela snorted. “Enjoy your relative anonymity while you have it, McKinnon. People will see you sitting here with us. And when they see our ball gowns and find out that you made them, then--”

“Then absolutely nothing will change,” Grace cut in with a shrug. “Jaden may have secured a temple commission for me because he wanted me to stay in One, but I highly doubt my brother ever intended for me to marry into nobility. He knew me too well.”

“It’s cute that she thinks that makes a difference.” Nita started in on her next masterpiece, her gaze focused on the bright petals spilling across her lap. “You won’t have it as bad as we do, because no one’s telling you that you have to marry one of them. But trust me, Grace. Gabe’s parents will send every cousin in the bunch past you at least once, just to see if they can woo you by promising to make you queen of a textile empire.”

“Never gonna happen.”

Isabela had staked out a spot over by one of the larger fountains. Lucas was sitting with her, no doubt answering her questions in between visits from the steady stream of people drifting past. Everyone was curious about him, sure, but they were more curious about how the royal family would receive a long-lost member.

If they would receive him.

Nita caught the direction of Maricela’s gaze and leaned closer, lowering her voice. “So what do we think about him?”

“I don’t know yet.” It took actual physical effort for Maricela not to glance at Ivan, who was standing silently by the tree--just like he had been for the last hour. “But I’m not willing to discount him without a chance because his father did a terrible thing. What kind of person would that make me?”

“That’s gracious.” Nita paused and tilted her head, examining Lucas. “He’s handsome. And someone took the time to turn him out in style. How much do you think that outfit cost, Grace?”

“Hard to say.” She tipped her drawing pad up and rested her chin on the top edge. “It’s impeccably tailored, maybe even custom-made. That’s not cheap.”

“I was only five when the Prophet died. I don’t know if I really even remember him, or just the paintings.” Nita gestured over to where Gideon sat with his back against a tree, deep in conversation with Hunter’s father. “He looks like your brother, though, only younger and prettier. My mother’s probably already trying to decide if she can marry me off to him, or if that would seem like too much of a power play.”

Maricela wasn’t sure if she felt sympathy at his sudden infamy, or simply relief that the spotlight was off her, even if only for a little while. She decided to go with relief. She glanced over, found Ivan watching her, and winked.

His demeanor was usually so serious when they were out in public. But for a second, she thought she saw the corner of his mouth twitch up. And his eyes were warm, meeting hers with silent understanding, as if he knew exactly what she was thinking.

Her cheeks heated, and she looked away. Careful, Rios. She was walking a dangerous line, but it was so much safer to indulge in a tiny bit of flirtation when they were out like this. It had to be light, and it couldn’t go anywhere. It wasn’t anything like flirting with him while they were alone, when the tension between them twisted tighter and tighter, until it felt like the tiniest thing might make it explode.

A little girl with jet black pigtails and Nita’s big brown eyes stopped at the edge of their blanket, her shy gaze falling on Maricela as she silently held out a full white rose with red-tipped petals.

“Thank you, Alene.” Maricela took the bloom by its stem and twirled it between her fingers. “Do you know what my mother used to do with roses?”

Nita’s youngest sister shook her head.

Carefully, Maricela plucked a single petal from the outer edge of the rose and ran her finger over its velvety surface. “She told me rose petals were the softest things in the world. And then she would show me, like this.” She rubbed the petal against her cheek. “You try one.”

Very seriously, Alene tugged one of the petals free and touched it to her cheek. Her sudden smile of delight showed two missing teeth. “It is soft.”

“Of course it is. Maricela would never lie.” Nita dumped the petals out of her skirt and caught her sister around the waist, hauling the giggling girl down to her lap. “Grace, this adorable little brat is my baby sister, Alene. Last time I saw her, she was covered in mud, but someone must have dumped her in a horse trough.”

Grace held out one hand. “It’s very nice to meet you.”

Alene accepted Grace’s hand with a practiced shake, but her gaze was fixed on the pad of paper balanced on Grace’s knee.

As soon as her hand was free, she leaned in and whispered something to Nita. Sadness flashed across Nita’s face, gone almost as soon as it appeared, and she repositioned Alene to face Grace. “Go ahead and ask, sweetheart. It’s okay.”

Alene’s voice barely rose above a whisper. “Are you drawing? Can I see?”

“Sure.” Grace flipped the sketchbook around, revealing the vague outline of a knee-length dress. “I make clothes, but before I can sew them, I have to draw out my ideas. Would you like to help me?”

Alene hesitated until Nita beamed encouragement at her. “Go ahead. Show her how good you are already.”

They stretched out on their stomachs on the blanket, their heads together, the pad and pencils between them. With Alene’s attention firmly locked on her task, Maricela moved closer to Nita and lowered her voice. “What’s wrong?”

Nita picked up one of her discarded flowers, but instead of braiding it, she slowly shredded the leaves and petals. “She loves to draw. She’s loved it since she got big enough to wrap her fist around a pencil. But my mothers think drawing is frivolous.”

The arts were prized in Sector One, but sometimes the focus tended more toward crafts--especially amongst the noble families. If an artistic endeavor couldn’t reliably produce practical goods for sale, it wasn’t encouraged. In fact, sometimes it was discouraged.

Which made sense, in its own claustrophobic way, for the older children. But Alene was so young. “She’s just a baby.”

“Estela isn’t taking chances with the younger ones. Not after Reyes ran away to join the Riders, and Mateo--” She bit off the name of her brother who’d been disowned, a frown darkening her face. “And I utterly failed to trap you into a marriage neither of us wants, so I’m a big disappointment, too. And Alene is the one who pays for it.”

Their culture was rooted in honoring traditions, but at what cost? “I can ask Gideon to speak with her--”

“No.” Nita exhaled, visibly struggling to regain her usual composure. “The last thing any of us need is Gideon showing an interest in anything related to me. That’ll only encourage her.”

“You’re right, I know you’re right.” But watching Alene’s face light up at the simple pleasure of dragging a pencil across paper broke Maricela’s heart.

Obviously, it did the same thing to Nita. She looked away--and Maricela wasn’t surprised when her gaze drifted to where Hunter was kicking a ball around with some of his cousins. “I’m going to have to do it, you know. Pick someone rich and biddable, so I have access to my inheritance and can support my brothers and sisters if they want a different life.”

“You wouldn’t. You couldn’t.” But even as Maricela breathed the words, she knew they were lies. Nita could, and she would--if it meant securing her younger siblings a future where they could live as they pleased instead of wilting under the pressure of immutable expectations. If they never had to quietly yearn for the impossible while woodenly satisfying their duties.

Nita picked up her discarded crown, but half the flowers had been crushed when Alene had rushed to Grace’s side. Her fingers lingered over the bruised petals. “We do what we must.”

But they couldn’t help what they wanted, either. Especially when those desires were only intensified by the lure of the forbidden.

Maricela didn’t have to look to know where Ivan was standing--about four feet behind her, a little to her left. She felt the distance, as clearly as if she’d measured it.

Physical attraction aside, he saw her as an icon, a figure, a piece of their culture and religion. She wasn’t a woman to him, she was a living milagro, a thing to be touched only in respectful worship. Maricela clung to that thought, embraced it. Because if that ever changed...

She wasn’t sure she could stop herself from sinking into rebellion, no matter who she hurt in the process.

»»» § «««

Five minutes on the back of a purebred stallion was all it took for Ivan to miss his motorcycle.

Granted, his bike wouldn’t have been a lot of use galloping across untamed fields and along wooded paths and over crystal-clear brooks. And the horses were incomparable. The Reyes family’s primary business might have been their ranch, but their secondary passion was breeding horses for speed and fearlessness.

Kind of like Reyes and Nita. Three of Maricela’s would-be suitors had already fallen out of their damn saddles trying to compete with Reyes, who barely seemed to need the reins to control the fire-spitting monster he’d claimed. They’d long since left the rest of the guests behind, and the concentration it took Ivan to keep up with the three of them was tempered by Maricela’s smile as the stress of performing for everyone else slipped away.

Hopefully, Maricela wouldn’t get competitive with Nita. Ivan wasn’t even responsible for the girl’s safety, and his stomach still clawed its way into his throat as she jumped her horse across a river that seemed about five hundred yards wide for the endless moments she was airborne.

Maricela, thank God, slowed as they approached the river. But Ivan’s relief sputtered out as she laughed and let her horse prance into the shallow water. It splashed everywhere, kicked up by the horse’s hooves, soaking her loose white pants until they clung to her skin.

In the bright afternoon sunlight, all that thin white fabric was basically see-through. And now they couldn’t go back until she dried off, or he’d have to punch half of the guests for gawking at her.

She laughed and patted her mount’s neck as he turned circles in the stream, sending fresh waves of sparkling water up over her. “I know, I know. It’s hot today.”

Nita circled back, an equally bright smile on her face. “Having fun splashing around?”

Reluctantly, Maricela guided her horse up onto the bank. “If he gets much wetter, he’ll shake me right off into the dirt.”

“He has better manners than that.” Nita patted the satchel thrown across her shoulder. “Since we’re out here, I’m going up river to find some clay for my glazes. You guys mind hanging around?”

Maricela looked longingly at the gentle hill that rose before them. “We might ride ahead a little.”

Ivan crossed the river more sedately, reaching the far bank with wet boots just as Reyes galloped back to them. “Nita wants to go look for clay,” Ivan told him. “Maricela and I are going to go on ahead. We’ll wait for you at that pond over the border into the Rios land.”

Reyes waved him off.

This close to Maricela, Ivan could see that the water had splashed up so high that tiny droplets clung to her bare arms. Her sleeveless white tunic was probably clinging to her body in enticing spots, too, but he refused to look as he guided his horse toward the hill ahead of them.

“Thank you,” she murmured.

The soft gratitude in her voice hurt. Because after three days at this party, it had become rapidly clear that guarding Maricela physically wouldn’t be a problem--but that nothing Ivan could do would protect the rest of her.

Other people’s needs pressed in on her constantly. She couldn’t set a toe outside her room without being mobbed by them. The suitors who were eager to court her. The ones who weren’t, but were being pressured into it by their families. The lower nobles who had no chance but still stared at her with adoring, worshipful gazes that were uncomfortable to witness from the outside, because Ivan had watched her with the same awe...

And now, seeing her shoulders slowly bend under the pressure, he knew how much that had hurt her.

Everyone at this damn party wanted something from Maricela. Even her sister. Even him.

But not Nita. Nita had given her exactly what she needed--a swift departure from the crowd and some time alone. And as Maricela urged her horse to pick up speed until the wind tugged at her hair, Ivan almost regretted that he couldn’t give her the true solitude she must desperately crave.

The best he could give her was silence and the illusion of freedom.

“I think you’re loosening up,” she continued. “Just a week ago, you would have insisted that we go back for an entire complement of royal guards before an outing like this.”

She probably thought it was true. He wouldn’t tell her that having Reyes within shouting distance was like having an entire complement of guards on standby. “I’m familiar with this area. Your family’s land is on the other side of the hill.”

“Adrian’s estate.” She brought her horse in line beside Ivan’s, so close her leg brushed his, sparking electricity. “It’s being run by a solicitor right now. Waiting for him to claim his inheritance.”

The inheritance her cousin only had because Ivan’s uncles had killed his parents. Even the sizzling contact of her thigh against his couldn’t stop the familiar surge of guilt. Adrian Maddox was never going to claim his inheritance. The seemingly endless grain fields would no doubt go to whoever married Maricela.

No wonder Estela Reyes wouldn’t leave her alone.

They reached the top of the hill, and Ivan reined in next to Maricela and stared down at the gently rolling wheat fields laid out in a well-irrigated pattern along the upper branch of the river. “It’s beautiful land.”

“All of Sector One is beautiful.” Shrugging, she flashed him a look that was both sheepish and brutally self-aware. “If I say I want it, I sound greedy, don’t I? But if I say I don’t, then I sound spoiled. Like even this bounty isn’t good enough for me.”

“So don’t worry about how you sound.” His horse shifted, and his thigh pressed more firmly against hers. He could feel the heat of her skin through the wet fabric of her pants and the denim of his jeans. It made his voice hoarser than he intended. “I’m the only one here to listen.”

“That’s worse. You grew up with so little, and here I am, a woman with everything.” Her words dropped to a whisper. “Hating her life.”

She wasn’t hearing him. Maybe she couldn’t. Christ knew he’d listened to Gideon talk often enough about the responsibilities that came along with his privileges. Maybe the whole family had ground it into her so deeply that she couldn’t acknowledge any other reality.

Touching her was a terrible idea. He couldn’t reach over and cover her hand with his. He couldn’t brush that wild lock of hair away from her forehead. He had to fix this with words, and words had always been his bluntest, clumsiest tool.

So he was blunt and clumsy. “Fuck, Maricela. After the past three days, I hate your life, too. I don’t know how you stay so damn calm.”

A laugh tore free of her. “Do I? I don’t feel calm sometimes.” She twisted the supple leather of the reins around her fingers. “I don’t hate it, not really. My life. I have responsibilities and duties, yes, but even those have up sides.”

Walking the knife’s edge, he gently tugged the leather away from her fingers. She’d twisted it hard enough to leave an indention on her index finger, and he rubbed it with his thumb.

An innocent touch, until he imagined stroking his thumb across her cheek. Her chin. Her collarbone. “Have you ever been outside the sector? Gone anywhere where people don’t know who you are?”

Her brow furrowed. “I can’t believe I’m the one saying this to you, but...that doesn’t seem safe.”

That wasn’t entirely true. There were places he could take her now, after the war--places secured by the legend and reputation of the O’Kanes. But safety wasn’t the point. “Then you don’t know what you’re missing, do you? You don’t know if you really have everything.”

“Wait, are you--?” Another laugh. “Are you trying to make me feel better or worse?”

He barely held back his scowl of frustration. “Fine. I’m not good with words. I just want you to quit beating yourself up. You’re too hard on yourself.”

“I’ll concede the point as yours.” She moved, guiding her horse in a circle around his. “Take it while you can. I don’t admit defeat often.”

The spark was back in her eyes, that teasing light that had slowly diminished over the past few days. Relief flooded him.

Clumsy and blunt had gotten it done.

Of course, now he had a mischievous Maricela circling him, all bright and smiling and happy, and he could still see the line of her underwear through her transparent pants and trace the sweet curve of her breast where her shirt clung to it.

It was blasphemous to enjoy the view.

His body didn’t care.

It was wrong to want to ease up on the reins enough to let his stallion dance toward hers. It was downright reckless to imagine how easy it would be to get near enough to grab her from her horse. To pull her into his lap. To ride away from all of this with her body tucked so close to his that every movement was the sweetest agony.

She tensed. That was his only warning before she urged her mount into motion. The horse took off, his mane and tail streaming, galloping down the hill with reckless speed.

The urge to chase her was uncontrollable.

It was also his job.

Thank fucking hell.

He’d learned to ride on the mules the Riders sometimes used to navigate the canyons and mountain paths on the edge of the sector. He’d practiced on the horses in Gideon’s stables. He was proficient--Reyes had made sure of that--but the placid, agreeable mounts he was used to couldn’t compare to the stallion he’d been given.

Given his head, the horse ran. The world turned into a blur, and for a few precarious seconds, Ivan’s focus narrowed to staying in the saddle instead of being left behind on his ass. Maricela’s brown hair flowed behind her, and her laughter floated to him on the wind, high and joyous.

Happy.

When they slowed down--and he was sure he could walk without his knees buckling--he was going to drag her over his lap and spank some sense into her. Because this speed was insane. If her horse put a foot wrong, if she lost her balance, if the slightest thing went amiss--

But it didn’t. She moved with the animal like she’d been born to this, and the tiny part of his brain not drowning in adrenaline wondered if that was why her thighs felt so strong whenever she pressed them against him. Maybe she rode like this all the time.

Maybe she’d ride a man like this. Fast and confident and full of joy.

After what seemed like an eternity--or maybe just a few of his frantic heartbeats--she slowed and turned. Her chest heaved, and her face was pink and flushed.

She was so damn happy with herself, he didn’t know how to yell at her.

He eased his horse to a walk--no simple feat, now that the stallion had a taste of exhilaration and wanted to keep running--and stopped in front of her. “Where did you learn to ride like that?”

She turned the question around on him. “Where did you?”

The idea that he could ride as well as she could was laughable, but he accepted the compliment. “Reyes taught me.”

“Me too. I spent a lot of time at their estate, growing up.” Her flush deepened. “Everyone encouraged it. I was supposed to marry him.”

The tangle of emotions that evoked was too messy and ugly to examine closely. Stupid, to be jealous over a woman he couldn’t have and a man who hadn’t taken her. He still wanted to drop an elbow into Reyes’s ribs.

Probably because of the color in her cheeks. “Did you want to marry him?”

“You know, I never really thought about it. Not until he jilted me.” She shrugged. “But no. I don’t want to marry anyone who doesn’t love me.”

It shouldn’t have sounded sweet and sad. Their sector was built on sincere reverence for the very idea of love. For the common folk, it still held true. They married who they wanted, when they wanted. In pairs or in trios, as many people as it took to build a family and a life.

The nobles had probably started out that way too, but it hadn’t taken long for power and practicality to take over. Ivan had seen plenty of emotions in the eyes of Maricela’s most aggressive suitors.

He wouldn’t have called any of them love.

“What about you?”

He tore himself out of his thoughts and turned to find her close again. Close enough to touch. “Me?”

“You.” She leaned forward and absently stroked her horse’s shoulder. “Most Riders don’t get married or have families. Will you miss it?”

He opened his mouth and barely managed to snap it shut before the truth came out. She was good at making it easy to talk, at lulling a man into dropping his guard. No surprise--she’d been taking people’s spiritual confessions from the time she was old enough to speak in complete sentences.

But some confessions were too personal.

Besides, Ivan didn’t know a damn thing about families. All he knew was betrayal and grief and the bleak times when he came home from work to find his mother sitting in darkness, wrapped in a blanket, cradling a tiny saint’s painting of his father against her chest.

“Be like your father,” she’d whisper as he moved about the room, changing the solar-powered batteries in their lamps or lighting candles if she’d forgotten to put the batteries out to charge. “Promise me. Be loyal. Be a protector. Be good.”

Irena Wolff had been a strong woman. Was a strong woman. She worked herself into exhaustion, year after year, to provide Ivan with the barest scraps of normalcy in a sector that wanted to forget she existed. Her bouts with melancholy only underscored how much Ivan owed her. She’d fought her own inner darkness to make a home for him.

He was going to be what he’d promised. Loyal. A protector.

Good, like his father.

Even when he felt as broken as his mother at her lowest.

The wind caught Maricela’s hair again, teasing it across her face. He curled his fingers toward his palm, but it wasn’t enough. She was staring at him with those big brown eyes, all open and earnest, and he had never wanted so much to be someone else. Someone who could envision a future with her. A family with her. Someone without treason and shadows and who knew what else running through his veins.

Hell, he’d settle for being worthy to reach out and brush that hair from her forehead.

He wasn’t, but he did it anyway. Her skin was so soft under his fingertips, and he hated how big and rough his hand looked next to her face. He was a weapon, a tool shaped for one purpose, and it sure as hell wasn’t touching precious princesses.

She sucked in a breath and lifted her hand. It hovered over his for half a heartbeat--then it touched his, pressing his palm against her cheek. “Ivan.”

Her cheeks were flushed again. Her thin white shirt was drying rapidly in the hot sun and the warm summer breeze, but it couldn’t hide her immediate physical reaction. Her next breath in was shallow, ragged, as if he’d already slid his hand down her throat to cup her breast and roll his thumb over the tight tip of her nipple.

“We can’t,” he whispered.

“I know,” she agreed instantly. But she was leaning toward him anyway, and if he didn’t stop her she’d sway close enough for his mouth to find hers. It was inevitable. Impossible, reckless, blasphemous. A violation of the oath he’d sworn to Gideon.

And inevitable.

She jerked away at the sound of hoofbeats as Reyes rode into view. Ivan let his hand drop to his reins and told himself Reyes hadn’t had time to see anything incriminating.

Then he turned his horse and caught sight of his fellow Rider’s baffled expression.

Shit.

“Have a good ride?” Reyes called, his brow still furrowed.

“Very nice,” Maricela answered brightly. “Ivan?”

He was seriously fucked. “Is Nita ready to go?” he called back.

“She said something about dress fittings.”

“Oh no.” Maricela urged her horse into a run, leaving Ivan behind to drift into line beside Reyes.

The other Rider squinted at him. “Is she trying to get in your pants?”

“Don’t be an asshole, Reyes.” He picked up the pace so he could easily keep Maricela in sight.

“What? It looked like a thing.” But Reyes let it drop. “How are you handling the festival tomorrow? Want to team up?”

Ivan wrenched his mind back to his job--a harder challenge than he would have liked. “I could use some backup. Though if Kora’s going with the girls, Ashwin will be there. But he’s been...focused lately.”

“Never fucking mind, then.” Reyes snorted. “I’m not getting within fifteen feet of Kora until she has that damn baby. Ashwin’s getting mean lately.”

“You could stop picking fights with him, you know.”

“Leave it to you to pick the least fun solution to the problem.”

Everyone always talked in hushed whispers about Ivan’s death wish, but Reyes was the one who seemed determined to find a swift exit out of the world. “Yeah, I’m a real downer. How’s the search for intel going? Have you gotten anything out of any of your family?”

That made him laugh. “They don’t know anything, and it’s pissing my mother off like you wouldn’t believe. She’s spitting nails.”

“What does that mean for her?” Maricela topped the hill, and Ivan held his breath until they reached the crest and he could see her again as she rode down the other side to meet Nita. “Politically, I mean. I’m never sure how the nobles are gonna react to shit like this.”

“Eh, who the hell knows? Or cares?”

Most people cared. Maricela did, because Lucas could be family. Gideon cared because the man could be a threat. Nita probably cared because if Estela Reyes could see profit in it, she’d be trying to marry her daughter off to the lost Rios heir.

Ivan cared because political unrest might endanger the person whose life he’d sworn to protect. Which made keeping his mind on the job imperative.

And keeping Maricela out of his pants vital.