Ruby Fever (Hidden Legacy, #6)(44)

He leaned over, brushed a tear off my cheek, took my hand, and kissed it.

“I’m not sad,” I told him.

“I know. You’re crying because you’re angry.”

I leaned against him. “Are you angry?”

Orange sparks flared in his eyes. He wrapped his arm around my shoulders and squeezed me to him. His magic wound around us, violent and charged with power. It didn’t feel like anger. It felt like wrath.

“Very,” he said.

I laid my head on his shoulder. “Good. Let’s be angry together.”



The hill around the Compound was pitted with large holes, as if someone had tossed a handful of grenades about. A crushed metal wreck that might have once been a vehicle smoked slightly on one side of the road. On the other side, three other wrecks, crumpled and smashed like discarded Coke cans, formed a modern art installation dedicated to House warfare—one on its side, one upside down, and a third torn in half.

Arabella must’ve been furious. There was plenty of that to go around lately.

Patricia met us at the main house, flanked by a medical team and my younger sister. The moment the Bus doors slid open Arabella bounded inside.

“Mom!”

“I’m fine,” Mom answered. “It’s minor. Don’t freak out.”

“You smell like blood and smoke!”

I turned to Patricia. “Casualties?”

“None on our side.” She turned and pointed to the left.

A row of bodies lay on the ground, sealed in body bags. One, two . . . Nine. An enormous metal club, covered with dark stains, rested next to them. Connor had given it to Arabella for her eighteenth birthday. That explained the ruined vehicles. Good. I was afraid she might have stomped on them. The last time she went on a stomping spree, she cut her monster foot, and after she reverted to human form, we had a devil of a time making her get the tetanus shot.

“Arkan deployed a pyrokinetic and a psionic, backed by a few professional killers,” Patricia reported. “Your sister informed me that she would handle it. She did.”

It would have taken a better psionic than anyone Arkan had to panic Arabella. When she raged out, there was no room in her for anything except fury. Trying to induce fear would have just pissed her off more.

Alessandro finished helping my mom out of the Bus and handed her off to the medical team. His phone rang.

His face snapped into a harsh mask. He took the call and walked away. Italian again, too low for me to hear clearly.

The dead bodies lay in a neat row, like matchsticks in a box.

“What about the three guards who went out with my mother?” I asked.

Patricia’s face was a professional mask. “An SUV rammed into them on Sam Houston Tollway at ninety miles per hour. The vehicle rolled. The first responders had to use the jaws of life to get them out. Katrina is fine, except for the concussion. Mohan has a broken leg, but Lex is in the ICU in critical condition.”

Lex, tall, funny guy with an easy smile and a sprinkling of freckles on his broad face. He had gotten married six months ago. His wife was pregnant.

Nausea came, sudden and overwhelming. I felt so ill.

My sister had to kill nine people today. My mother had a hole in her leg. Cornelius had needed eighteen stitches and I was bandaged like a mummy. I had no idea how injured Leon was. Lex was in the ICU clinging to life. Both the Office of Records and the Harris County DA were involved in this mess, not to mention the FBI, which “was not happy.” I knew exactly whom to blame for all of it. Anger wrapped around my head like a vise and squeezed.

“Where is he?” I asked through clenched teeth.

“In the armory.”

I turned and marched back the way we’d come, heading to the wall, and left, to the squat building that served as our armory. Patricia tried to keep up with me. Her legs were longer, but I was younger and a lot madder.

“Prime Sagredo was extremely specific that no harm can come to the Prince.”

“I won’t kill him. He’ll just wish he was dead.”

“Catalina . . .”

I pushed the armory door open and barreled inside. The armory was a bunker, a rectangular concrete box of a building bathed in harsh electric light. Metal cages lined the walls in neat rows. Most held weapons. One held Konstantin. There were no guards. Patricia had locked him in and watched him remotely.

He looked the way he’d looked when I first met him in Linus’ house: blond, blue-eyed, breathtaking. A picture of urbane elegance with sunlit charm.

I stormed toward the cage. My magic whipped inside me, bucking and straining to break free.

Konstantin gazed at me from inside the cage, a small smile on his lips. “I tried to warn you.”

My anger was threatening what little restraints I had left. He was a threat. People I loved were hurt because of him. I had to kill him now, so nobody else would get hurt.

“I never wanted any of this to happen.”

“Bullshit. This is exactly what you wanted to happen. You set us up. You made Arkan think that his best friend betrayed him and asked us for asylum. You knew Arkan would retaliate. You ensured that he and the Office of the Warden would collide.”

My voice was rising. Magic vibrated in it. I hadn’t aimed it at Konstantin, not yet, but I was so angry. Somewhere deep inside a voice warned me that this wasn’t me, but the flood of magic inside me drowned it.