Diamond Fire
“No.”
She smiled. “Silly boy. It happened when he was three years old. His father was a target of an assassination. He was supposed to have been alone in a hotel room in New York, but I went with him. I’d had a bad feeling about that trip. He and I survived, which was all that mattered.”
She got hurt trying to protect her husband. “I’m so sorry.”
“I’m used to it. And my magic makes matters a lot easier. Are you cold?”
“I’m okay.”
“You look cold. Here.”
The big wooden chest on the side of the outdoor sofa opened and a blanket floated to me. Like Connor, Arrosa was a Prime Telekinetic.
“Thank you.” I tucked the blanket around myself.
“Most men in Will’s position would have divorced me. Connor was our only child. It was a risk to rely on only one heir to carry the line forward. But Will loved me very much and here we are.”
“Rogan said that yours was an arranged marriage.” I probably shouldn’t have said that.
Arrosa’s eyes sparkled. “He did, did he? Connor is very angry at my father. Yes, it started out that way. My family isn’t a House. The bloodline frequently produces magic users of Significant and Average caliber, but my grandfather was a Prime. The family always hoped that another would be born and when I tested as a Prime, my relatives threw the biggest party. Hundreds of people were invited. My father, Rogan’s grandfather, had great hopes for me. I was not to be married off; I would remain with the family; my spouse would join the family and take my name; and the two of us would be expected to have as many children as possible in hopes that we produced more Primes.”
Made sense. I had looked up the Ramírez family. To be considered a House, they had to produce two Prime magic users in three generations. Arrosa’s grandfather died before she was born, but if Arrosa had a child who tested as Prime, the Ramírez family could petition to become a House.
Arrosa pulled her shawl tight around her shoulders. “All those plans . . . And then Will Rogan showed up. My genetic profile matched his requirements and he traveled to Spain to meet me. I remember the first time I saw him. I was standing in the library, trying to sort the books, so I had several books floating over my head, and he was walking by and stopped in the doorway. We just stood and looked at each other. I had never seen anyone like him.”
She smiled at the memories. I had a moment like that too. The first time I saw Connor, he was walking toward me through the park and I just sat there and watched him and wished that one day I could find someone like him.
“What happened?” I asked.
“My father told him no. Not many people told Will Rogan no. He was a third generation Prime. His magic was off the charts. He had military contracts, civilian contracts, foreign contracts, and half of the world owed him a favor. It is fair to say that in some respects Connor is a lot like his father.”
In my experience, Connor acted as if the word no meant nothing unless he was the one saying it.
“Will made sure to run into me when I was in town. We talked. Then I met him again. And again. It was so easy talking to him. We were different, but it was effortless. So, he came to see my father again, and my father, who by that point realized that offending House Rogan wouldn’t end well, told Will that he would have to compensate the family for the loss of a Prime. He named an outrageous amount of money. Will wrote the check on the spot. Nearly bankrupted himself.” Arrosa’s eyes narrowed and I saw a glimpse of power, sharp and frightening. Alarm shot through me.
“My father called me into his study and told me that Will bought me, and I had to go with him. And you know what my Will told him?”
“No.”
“He said, ‘Aren’t you going to ask her if she wants to come with me? It’s her decision.’ And my father told him I would do what was best for the family. He didn’t get it. He never did.”
I was 100 percent with Rogan. I didn’t like his grandfather either. “Did you ever regret it?”
“Never. Will was everything to me. We came home. His family wasn’t thrilled that he signed away nearly three-quarters of his assets. His father once called me their Louisiana Purchase. It didn’t matter. We worked together to rebuild what he had lost. We were a great team. He loved me, Nevada. I got to experience the kind of love very few people do. I miss him every day. Sometimes I wake, and I reach over, expecting him to be in bed with me. But he is never there. I do still talk to him. He is buried in the gardens, next to his parents.”
This could be me. If I married Rogan, in a few years I could be sitting in her spot, mourning my husband. Primes swam in dangerous waters. It was almost enough to make you reconsider, but I wanted Connor too much. A week or fifty years, I would take whatever time we could have together.
“Do you love Connor?” Arrosa asked.
“Yes.” It wasn’t even a question.
“And what about children? You are probably not genetically compatible. Does that bother you?”
“I want to have his children. I will love them whether they have magic or not.”
Arrosa’s eyes narrowed again. “Connor, you, and your children will be in danger much more frequently than most people. You are Primes. We live by different rules and my son has made powerful enemies. Some women would take an easier path.”
Okay, I didn’t like what she was implying. I raised my head. “I may not be a telekinetic, but I promise you, anybody who thinks they can harm Connor or our children will have to go through me and they will change their mind fast. If they have a mind left by the time I’m done.”
She scrutinized my face. “What if I decide that I don’t like this marriage?”
My heart made a flip in my chest. I was afraid of that. “Then I’m very sorry. I have the deepest respect for you and I will still strive to be the best daughter-in-law I can be. But I love him, and I will marry him.”
Connor chose that moment to walk out on the balcony, carrying a platter with three steaming coffee mugs filled with tea. “Are you done torturing Nevada?”
“I like her,” Arrosa said.
What?
“How in the world did you manage to get her?”
“He kidnapped me and chained me to the floor in his basement.”
“What?!”
“It was a misunderstanding,” Rogan said and shot me a look. Yeah, payback is a bitch. Deal with it.
“I am going to need the whole story,” Arrosa said.
“Does this mean you will attend the wedding?” he asked.
“What kind of a question is that?”
And my future husband just successfully derailed his mother’s train of thought and sent her into a new direction. Nice.
Arrosa floated her cup to her and sipped. “Have you set a date?”
“In a couple of weeks,” Connor said.
“Out of the question. It will take that long just to inform all of the family.”
Family? What family? I glanced at Connor. “I thought you didn’t have any family?”
“Oh, he does. He has a grandfather, four uncles, two aunts, fourteen cousins, some of them with their own children, and that’s not counting the extended family. Most of them are from my side and they live in Spain. He just doesn’t like some of them very much.”
I pivoted to Connor.
“Some of them are vultures,” he said and drank his tea. “I want a simple wedding, Mother.”
“Connor Anders Rogan.”
Oh-oh. Middle name. Never a good sign.
“I was planning to invite Uncle Inigo,” he said. “And Uncle Mattin. What if we only invite the ones I like? If we’re inviting everyone, perhaps we should invite Kelly.”
Oh, that was a low blow. Kelly Waller was Connor’s cousin and she and her son were the only surviving blood relatives from his father’s side. In a family of magic users, she was born with a weak talent, while Connor’s power was off the charts. She’d married for love instead of genetics, and her parents cut her off. From her point of view, she had lost everything. She and her husband struggled, and she had expected Connor, her baby cousin, to set things right when he became an adult. Instead Connor enlisted in the Army and went to fight his own war. She felt twice betrayed.