I put my free hand on my heart, bowing dramatically at the waist. “I’ll never do it again.”
“See that you don’t.” Harry lifts her head defiantly, no sign of her earlier tears. “Now get out of here. Those kids need a good night’s sleep, and they won’t get it if you keep talking nonsense with me while that nightmare shows them gods know what.”
Half listening, I nod and climb in the car. Ciprian shushes me as I slam the door, a wild terror in his eyes.
“What?” I demand.
“You’ll wake them up,” he whispers.
I turn to the back seat, shocked to find all three of them not only buckled in but sound asleep. I level Ciprian with a hard stare. “How did you manage that?”
He shrugs. “I’m good with kids.”
“Did you knock them out?”
Ciprian rolls his eyes. “Yeah, Alistair, I smacked the shit out of three small, terrified kids to get them to shut up.” He holds his fists up and throws two fake punches at me. “It worked like a charm, but I’m ready for another round if they wake up.”
Shaking my head, I crank the engine and head toward the highway, glancing at my phone to put our destination in.
“You shouldn’t mess with your phone while driving kids around,” Ciprian says, slumping back against the seat. His jittery energy from earlier is gone. I consider teasing him about it, but sleeping children are the best-case scenario. The smart thing to dois keep my mouth shut, drive, and hope they don’t wake until we get there.
“If I fall asleep, wake me up.” Ciprian yawns. “I don’t want to get a bad road-trip report card.”
I consider asking him why he’s so tired all of a sudden, but I hold off. My instincts tell me I’ll learn more about Ciprian by watching him than interrogating him.
Within five minutes, he’s asleep, a few strands of platinum hair falling over his closed eyes. Reckless demon. He barely knows me. I could leave him high and dry in the Valley of Fire to get eaten by coyotes if I wanted to. Smiling to myself, I wonder what Celine and Luca will think when they hear that Ciprian is a wonderful babysitter and a terrible bodyguard.
THIRTY-FOUR
Unspoken rule of the Fringes #32:
Romance on the Fringes is dangerous—stick to sex.
CELINE
I wake to Luca’s scent. One of his arms is tossed carelessly over my waist. The weight, the warmth . . . I’m not used to it. Maybe that’s why my heart is racing.Liar.
Luca swears he loves me.
I can’t even deny it. My magic saw the truth, and even if it hadn’t, the expression on his face was proof enough. Ruthlessly honest. Stubbornly insistent. In that moment, it felt less like he was offering me his heart and more like he was tearing mine from my chest.
Nothing has scared me that badly in years. Not since I found my mom’s lifeless body sprawled across the tile floor of our summer home. That sharp tug in my gut, the pinpricks of electricity racing across my skin, urging me to run.
When she died, my grief and terror were followed by an emotion that shames me to this day: relief. Relief that I couldfinally leave. Relief that—for the first time in my miserable life—I could be free.
Free of the soul-crushing agony of trying and failing to protect her from the man she bound herself to and refused to leave behind.
The truth is, he’d been stealing her from me for years. I lost more of her every time he laid a hand on her. But that day, he stole her permanently.
So I ran. After pressing a kiss to her cold cheek, I made a vow to her and to myself that I wouldn’t let him hurt me again. She would be his last theft.
The only time I ever heard her stand up to him was when they argued about me. He complained I was stealing her attention, slapping her across the face when she told him that was how it was supposed to be. I remember watching in horror, frozen behind the curtains, as blood trickled from the corner of her mouth. She stood strong in that moment, defiant in the face of his jealous cruelty.
“My daughter is the best of us,” she told him, lifting her chin. “She will do great things, with or without your support.”
He made her pay for every word. And while I cowered beneath the heavy linen drapes, I learned a lesson I’ve never forgotten: love is dangerous.
Now, I have someone else I can’t bear to lose.
