I chose a bench in the shade near the fountain where Raf and I had agreed to meet. I tucked my phone away, took off my hat, and enjoyed the breeze moving through my damp hair. Kicking off my flip flops, I spread my toes, letting the air cool my sweaty feet. A spot of dirt smudged the middle toe of my left foot. Strange, I'd only just showered. I bent to rub it away, but it didn't disappear. I pulled my left foot up and set my heel on the bench so I could take a closer look.
There it was. The mark. It was even tinier than Nicodemo's, and brown like a mole. It was rounded on one side and had curls of flames on the other.
My magus mark.
I swallowed, but my throat had gone dry. Somehow, that little mark at the base of my middle toe made the whole thing real. So, it was done. I was a magus. I shouldn't have been surprised, after all, because the pain was my constant companion. But the mark... I ran my thumb over the little flame-shaped mole, feeling breathless.
"Thirsty?" asked a warm voice.
I looked up to see Raf smiling down at me, two beautiful dimples accenting his cheeks. He looked even better than I remembered, with sparkling eyes and hair curling in the humidity. His broad shoulders blocked out the sun while he held out a cold bottle of lemon soda.
"You read my mind." I grinned and stood.
He leaned down and kissed my cheeks, putting a hand against my lower back. I put my arms around his neck and pulled him into a hug. Instantly there was a thin wall of heat between us.
"I like this greeting," he said, squeezing me. "Even in hot weather. I can't figure out why Italians haven't adopted it yet." He put the cold soda against my shoulder, probably expecting me to squeal, but the chill made me sigh with pleasure.
We parted and I took the soda. One sip, and already my parched throat felt better.
We sat on the bench together.
"Welcome back,” I said. “How was Milan?"
"It was boring. All work and no play, and no pretty Canadian girls to keep me company. What have you been up to while I was away? Did you enjoy Festa del Redentore?" He turned his shoulders toward me and put an arm up on the back of the bench.
"It was amazing. Fed introduced me to a bunch of her friends and we watched the fireworks from a boat. Then we went to a beach party on Lido and had a bonfire and a dance."
"Oh, really? I hope you didn't meet anyone too interesting," he joked.
I was trying to decide how to respond to this when a voice behind us said, "Yes, Saxony. Did you meet anyone interesting?"
Raf and I turned as Dante crossed the grass toward us. My heart leaped into my throat. His hands were jammed in his pockets and he strolled as though he didn't have a care in the world. The almond eyes I'd once found so sexy were glued to my face. Why had I never noticed the hard glint before?
I looked at Raf and he looked from Dante to me.
"I guess you did," Raf said quietly. The pleasure was gone from his face and in its place was concern. I didn't sense any jealousy, at least not from Raf, but he stiffened. It was only noticeable because we were sitting so close together.
"You've been ignoring me," Dante said, just as quietly as Raf had spoken. There was no threat in his voice--he made the statement casually, like a comment on the weather.
My eyes flashed down to his hands but they were still in his pockets. I wondered what shape they were in.
He circled the bench and stopped in front of us. For the first time, he looked at Raf. I knew then that the two men knew each other. Of course they did. Hadn't Dante said that he knew everyone?
"Do you mind?" Dante said to Raf. His eyes shifted back to me. "We have something to discuss."
"I'm a little busy right now," I said, annoyed. "Why don't we talk tomorrow?"
"You and I both know that won't happen. So I need to insist," Dante said, again with no threat in his voice, or even impatience. He said it with the quiet confidence that he was going to get his way, at one point or another.
"I'm not going anywhere." Raf’s arm closed around my shoulders. "The lady doesn't want to talk to you, Dante."
I felt a burst of anger come off Dante, like the heat of a little solar flare, but it died almost as quickly as I'd felt it. "You two know each other?" I asked.
"Unfortunately," Dante and Raf both said at the exact same time. They were boring holes into each other with their eyes.
Dante took his hands out of his pockets and cracked his knuckles. If the movement caused him pain, he didn't show it.
Raf stood.
"Whoa, whoa," I said. Visions of the two of them bloodying each other up popped into my head. "I'll talk to you, Dante. But this will be the last time."
Both of them looked at me, Raf with surprise and Dante with grim satisfaction.
"Saxony—" Raf began.
"I'll be okay." I smiled at him. The fire crackling in my torso confirmed it. Dante couldn't hurt me and he knew it. That was the only upside to what had happened between us the last time I'd seen him. "I'm really sorry we got interrupted like this," I said, shooting daggers at Dante with my eyes. "I'll call you when we're done, okay?"
Raf frowned. Finally, he nodded stiffly. "If that's what you want."
Without looking at Dante, he bent and kissed my cheek. I yearned to call him back, to start over, to go back in time and plan to meet somewhere else so Dante wouldn’t run into us. Too late.
Raf walked away, turning to look back a couple of times before disappearing down the path.
"That was rude," I said as Dante sat down beside me. I tried to keep my voice as neutral as his had been this whole time, but the man was a master of hiding his emotions and I wasn't.
"Oh, Saxony." He sat back and threw an arm over the back of the bench the way Raf had. He brushed my curls over my shoulder and put a hand on the side of my neck.
I stiffened. “What do you want?”
"I don't want to be rude, but you've been ignoring me for a week. It's making me crazy, baby."
I took his hand from my neck and opened his palm to look at it. My breath caught in my throat as I saw the half-ring of blisters across his fingers. The shape of my ear. I took the other one and saw the matching burn. Emotions pelted me. He'd been an ass, but I'd let the fire get the better of me.
I looked up at him, regret heavy on my face in spite of myself. He looked at me without a trace of anger or accusation. When he saw my expression, his own face melted with sympathy.
"Aw, baby. I deserved it, and I’m sorry." He put his hands on either side of my face. Though he did it tenderly, the fire licked up my spine, cautious. He brought his forehead to mine for a moment, and then pulled back and looked at me. He stroked my hair back from my face. "I'm fine. I know when I'm wrong."
His apology was so sweet and sincere, that I felt like an even bigger villain over what I'd done to his hands. But I was still upset with him, and Elda's words haunted me.
Stay away from that family.
Dante bent his head toward mine, my heart began to pound. The fire in my belly flared higher. I pulled my face back, but he ignored the sign of rejection. He leaned in and kissed the corner of my mouth softly, like the touch of a feather. I stiffened, unsure of what to do. I wanted to end all this in a mature and friendly way if possible; I definitely didn't want to make him an enemy. My heart pounded and my mind raced. How did one disentangle themselves from a relationship with someone unpredictable, without making things worse?
This kiss scared me more than anything he'd done before. I had expected an argument, angry shouting, abuse—not tenderness. What was his game? Then another thought shoved the others aside like a rude fat man shoving through a crowd. It was a thought I barely recognized as mine:
You're a fire magus. Untouchable. Powerful. He can't hurt you.
Confidence surged. With a hand to his chest, I pushed him back. When I stood up, he stood with me, his hands going to either side of my face, arresting me with gentle fingertips.
He looked deeply and searchingly into my eyes. "Yes," he whispered fiercely. "It's real. You're for real."