Chapter Seven
Antonio
Why was she asking that now? A chill stole down his spine as he considered that perhaps more had already happened than what he witnessed. But no, it couldn’t have. Her clothes had been intact, with only a slight rumpling of her tank. He blew out his breath, trying to put those dark thoughts from his mind. If she wanted to talk to him about what happened, she could be the one to bring it up. He couldn’t be the one to push if she wasn’t ready.
Antonio blew out a soft breath as Audiv moved closer to him. She put her head on his shoulder and he wrapped a careful arm around her. He felt the muscles in her body relax as he did so, and some of the tension in his own body released as well.
“Why waiting was a mistake for me,” he murmured.
“If you want to talk about it.”
It had been a while since he had thought about the forces in life that had led him to this point. He sat and considered for a moment, trying to figure out how to word it, and how much to tell her.
“When I was younger, quite a bit younger, I fell in love. Her name was Greta, and she was the perfect woman for me. We were best friends first, and we could always count on each other for support and encouragement. We were perfect together.”
Audiv peered up at him with a quizzical brow.
“We wanted each other,” he continued, “but I wanted to wait until marriage. She wasn’t religious at all but understood what I wanted and was fully supportive of my desires. I wanted to get married, she did too. But she wasn’t Catholic. And because of certain influences…” He trailed off, wincing as he remembered the look on Greta’s face when he had told her that there was no future between them. “They were wrong. I know that now. But I let them cloud my judgment. I broke up with her. I only realized what a mistake I made years later when I met her again. She’d married, had two kids… and converted.”
Audiv sighed as she shifted her position to be laying more into his chest. “The influences that led you to break up with her. Were they your family?”
He shook his head. “My family never forgave me for breaking up with her. I was a stupid kid.”
“Hmmm.”
Antonio recognized the sound for what it was—Audiv was thinking of some counter-argument. He had to smile at that, wrapping his arms more securely around her.
“So, if the mistake was that you broke up with her, then how does that make it that waiting wasn’t worth it? Was it that waiting wasn’t worth it, or was it that not marrying her wasn’t worth it?”
Antonio had to chuckle at that. She had a good point. Was the mistake he’d made waiting for marriage to have sex, or was it that he merely married the wrong woman? If he had slept with Greta before they married, would he have had the regrets he harbored for marrying Celine? It was impossible to say. But there was more to it than just that.
“If I hadn’t waited with Greta, then maybe I wouldn’t have waited with Celine. She’s my ex-wife.”
Audiv rose a brow. “Quite the sordid past we have, eh?”
“Like you don’t have a carpet of broken hearts in your past,” he teased.
She tensed and looked away. It was clear he had struck a nerve; after a moment of wondering if he should ask, he pressed ahead with his own story. “Celine and I were deeply in lust. Oh, we liked each other and convinced ourselves it was love. But we didn’t marry because we wanted to spend the rest of our lives together. We married to have sex. I settled for someone who was compatible on a surface level because I missed the warmth of my relationship with Greta and because I was…”
“Horny?” Audiv’s tone became lilting and teasing.
Antonio shot her a brief glare. “I don’t like that word.”
“But it’s an apt descriptor, isn’t it?”
Reluctantly, he nodded. He heaved out a sigh as he shook his head. “Both of us were in the same boat. Wanting to be good kids but also having raging hormones that neither of us knew how to control. It couldn’t have lasted. Maybe if I hadn’t been so pig-headed about being married before having sex, there would have been a lot less pain.”
“It sounds more like a case of the wrong girl, rather than waiting or not waiting.”
“Maybe.”
Audiv rested her head back on his shoulder. “You waited for religious reasons.”
“Yeah.”
“I’m not. I’m not at all religious. I don’t believe in the old gods and I don’t believe in the new gods. Unlike your Greta, I would never convert to Catholicism. Or any other religion.”
Antonio knew why she was telling him this. If there was ever going to be something between them, he needed to understand where she stood and that her position wasn’t going to change. He couldn’t think that he was going to get involved with her and slowly convince her to join his church. He considered for a moment; it wasn’t exactly a disappointment, more like a confirmation about what he already knew.
“And what about your children? What are you going to teach them?”
“That is something I would have to discuss with whoever I marry,” Audiv replied. A furrow marred her brow, and she turned her face into his shoulder. Her voice dropped a few decibels. “Because I am going to marry. Someday. And I don’t want to give away my virginity before then. Not for religious reasons. Just because I have always thought of sex as something special. You’re sharing everything with someone else. I want mine to be special. I don’t care what other people do with their bodies, I just know what I want to do with mine… and Michael nearly took it from me.”
Antonio’s arms tightened instinctively. Audiv started shivering and shaking, her breath turning ragged as she pressed her face into his shoulder. That rage that had filled him when he walked in and saw what he had seen threatened to fill him again. His fires leapt into his throat, and smoke curled from his nostrils.
What could he possibly say to comfort her? In the past, he had faced women who had gone through what she had gone through and worse. That sense of helplessness and anger he had felt then was magnified tenfold. Knowing the no-nonsense woman Audiv had been since he arrived, seeing her trembling and vulnerable like this…
“He didn’t,” Antonio whispered awkwardly. “And he’s not going to come after you. I will protect you, Audiv. No matter what. Please believe me when I say that. I will do everything in my power to keep you safe. I will find him and—”
“No.” Audiv pulled back. Though her face was dry, her eyes were wet. “I don’t want you to find him, Antonio. I want you to stay here with me. I want you to stay in the palace and attend my classes with me and just… be with me. I know that’s ridiculous but—”
“It’s not. I’ll stay with you.” He could also look for Angstrom on the side, or at the very least be involved in the investigation. “I won’t leave your side as long as you want me here.”
Audiv let out a shaky breath and the tears she had been holding back leaked from her eyes. “He took something else from me.”
Antonio’s lungs locked.
“My magic. He’s a warlock, and he stole my…”
She broke into sobs, collapsing back over him. Antonio held her tightly, his mind reeling. Stole her magic? How was that possible…? But the tears wracking her body were unmistakable, and even if he couldn’t understand how it had happened, he knew it had. And all he could do was hold her.
***
Audiv asked him to come with her when she went to tell Indulf about Angstrom being a warlock. The king was grim-faced and distraught when she said that he’d taken her magic and assured her they would do everything they could to find him, and then gave her the assignment to research warlocks and try to find a way to reverse it.
At first, Antonio was shocked and thought that Indulf was putting too much on her. But as Audiv threw herself back into her classes with this new project on the side, he saw why Indulf had done it. Her confidence quickly returned as she was able to continue doing what she loved and had a goal to work toward. He’d taken to sleeping in her living room, the couch being replaced with a pullout, so he wasn’t quite so bloody uncomfortable.
A couple weeks had passed without any news when Indulf called them both to his office. He and his son, Warmund, were both there and looking as grim as anything. Antonio stood at attention, his past military and FBI training kicking in when he was with a superior. Warmund nodded once at him but allowed his father to do the explaining.
“Thank you both for coming,” Indulf said, inclining his head. “First off, Audiv, Katrina tells me that your classes are going much better now. How are you doing?”
“Fine.” She grinned at him as though nothing was wrong. “Classes, as you said, are going better. I’m connecting with my students better and it’s showing in their magic. I haven’t been able to find much about warlocks in my research, but I’ve got a bunch of the new volunteers digitalizing our records for easier searching. I’m fine. Everything is fine.”
Indulf considered her for a moment before nodding. “I would have thought that your parents would have come to see you by now.”
Her smile slipped. “I don’t see any point in worrying them at this point. I’m going to find a way to reverse what Angstrom did. Finding him is the first step in that, though. So, do you have anything to report in that aspect?”
Indulf frowned. Antonio shifted a little closer to Audiv. It was bolder than she should have been, and ruder, too… she shouldn’t speak to her king like that. But Antonio knew where she was coming from. Indulf did, too, and didn’t mention her breach of protocol.
“Yes, actually. That is one of the reasons why I called you here. We’ve received word that several people in the FBI’s protective custody have been… attacked. They’re alive,” he was quick to add, though his eyes darkened. “But it’s clear that those who were meant to protect them turned on them.”
Antonio’s hands clenched. Just as his team had turned on Hazel, the woman he’d been assigned to protect. If it wasn’t for her four dragon mates, she’d have been killed—and he would have been as well. Killed by the men he trusted to watch his back. Killed by the team he’d worked with for years.
“This was also uploaded to the internet.” Warmund tapped a few keys on a laptop, and a video started to play.
Smoke curled from Antonio’s lungs at the sight of Angstrom sitting in front of the camera. He had slicked his hair back and was wearing a suit. An arrogant smile curled his lips, and his eyes glowed with a self-assured righteousness that made the hair on the back of Antonio’s neck prickle.
“Hello to my friends who are likewise concerned with the uprising of dragons and witches across our Christian land.”
Antonio snarled under his breath. He already knew where this was going—Angstrom was going to hijack his religion and God to justify his hatred and violence.
“But fear not, my brothers. For you have a prophet risen by the hand of God to destroy the dragon and his kingdom. I will bring down these dragons and their devil-ways. If any of you have friends or family accursed by the devil’s magic, bring them to me. I will cleanse them and—”
“Turn it off!” Audiv’s face was utterly ashen.
Warmund clicked off the video. Silence fell in the office as Audiv clenched her hands. Antonio stepped forward, opening his mouth to ask if she was alright. She held a hand out to him, stopping him—and then turned on her heel and ran from the office.