Tonight, it was an elegant venue, trendy and modern. The rough, ancient ground was covered with a sharp bamboo overlay that expanded across the length of the piazza with a busy dance floor in the middle. A sheer white tent, with open sides, positioned just over the dance floor glimmered from a brushed silver chandelier hung from the raised center.
A jazz band played soft, upbeat music on a stage set off the dance floor where several couples danced under the twilight sky. Cocktail tables encircled the inner boarders of the plaza, with delectable appetizer trays interspersed among them. The tables were covered with long, sheer, silver tablecloths and on each was an antique pewter pitcher turned into a vase with cascades of white lilies that dripped down the sides in a lavish arrangement. Hundreds of floating silver and white lanterns hung overhead, suspended magically at varying heights. More silver lanterns scattered the boarder of the plaza intending to light up the sky when the sun set on the long summer day.
I gasped at the unexpected beauty of the party and felt Kiran lean in closer, pressing his smiling lips against my hair in a perfect production of a future groom utterly content with the evening ahead.
On our arrival the gathered Immortals, intending to celebrate our upcoming nuptials, turned to us and began clapping out of joyful anticipation. I smiled at them, playing the part of the blushing bride. Kiran pulled me with him into the square and when the applause continued with more intensity, he looked at me, his turquoise eyes blazing.
“We didn't practice this,” he whispered, wrapping his arms around my waist and pulling me against his chest.
I wanted to demand an explanation before he tried anything that hadn't been previously discussed between us, but I couldn't vocalize my concerns against the hypnotic effect of his eyes. He smiled at me, a gentle smile that asked for my trust, before his hand slid up my bare back and he dipped me in his arms while simultaneously pressing his lips against mine in a fevered kiss meant for couples on the brink of eternal bliss.
The crowd broke out into exhaustive clapping, but I forgot about them. My mind fought against the heady, loss of senses his hand splayed across my bare skin induced. His lips moved against mine in an invitation for me to open my mouth completely and lose myself in the moment. I hesitated for a second, trying to find my equilibrium. My magic had already met his somewhere beyond my body and it was reacquainting itself with Kiran's electricity against my will.
Kiran drew me up closer to him and I knew it was a plea to cooperate in front of such a large crowd, so with an inexcusable sigh that sounded more like a gentle moan, I opened my mouth to his. In front of his father and the rest of the kingdom, Kiran publicly claimed me as his bride-to-be with an innocent kiss that when it was finished left me feeling guilty and compromised. But more so, I felt moved, as if I just lived through a religious experience not meant for anything less than angels. Never mind that my hands started to tremble and my breathing was drastically uneven.
When it was finished, when we stood together in front of the crowd, with my cheeks flamed red and the proud smirk across Kiran's face, I realized, pretending or not, I could never let that happen again.
In that moment I had forgotten my grandfather, and the war, and everything I was working for. In Kiran's arms, with his body pressed against mine, I had been pushed into another universe, where only we existed, where only a love that died months ago ruled our lives and our hearts.
I slipped my hand into Kiran's and pressed my body against his as though my actions were born of the natural inclination to never leave his side. He pulled me forward to greet his father, but not before he turned to give me an encouraging smile. His eyes flashed with terror and uncertainty, the acute knowledge that everything I feared and felt resonated inside him too.
I swallowed difficultly and then searched for courage. I just had to get through tonight. I just had to keep up the pretense of this for a little while longer.
I could figure the rest out tomorrow.
Chapter Thirteen
“You gave us quite the scare with your illness, Pprince,” the African Regent, a tall, thick man with pure midnight skin and forest green eyes, laughed. He looked over Kiran with a mixture of mistrust and fatherly concern.
“Yes, I'm told it was rather terrible. I hardly remember anything, to be honest,” Kiran smiled encouragingly at his loyal subject. The noble and dignitary were discussing the drastic decline in Kiran’s health after he and I broke up. I still didn't understand why he nearly died after I removed my magic from him, but nevertheless, I had broken into the London palace last April to finish the job the disease began and instead found myself saving him. “Except of course, Eden. I remember Eden.” Kiran turned his attention and the full force of his intense gaze on me. I let him pull me closer, our magics intertwining like clasped hands around us. “She was my savior,” he finished softly.
I cleared my throat, desperately trying not to let Kiran sweep me away with his pretend sweetness. I felt foolish and naive from the effect his attention had on me tonight. We had circled the crowd for hours, his hands never leaving me, his magic never untangling from mine and his eyes always searching mine out to make sure I felt the force of his love. A love that didn't exist.
I grew angry just thinking about my immature feelings. Why couldn't I remember his sins against me, or my meaningful, albeit difficult, long-distance relationship with Jericho? Even Kiran's magic was irritating tonight. As happy as my own seemed to be locked away in the folds of his electricity, his magic felt different from what I remembered. It was lighter more full of life, and frustratingly more alluring than it ever had been before.
“I think your father would like to speak to you,” I lied. Suddenly, I needed a break. I needed to separate myself from him for just a little while and breathe.
“Are you sure?” he asked, catching my deception.
“Yes, absolutely. He probably just wants to speak to you for a few minutes,” I explained. I hoped he would take the hint. I tried pleading silently with my eyes and when he still seemed reluctant to leave, I leaned forward kissing him on the cheek. “I'll explain later,” I whispered in a slightly panicked voice.
“If you'll excuse me, then,” he nodded to the African Regent and then walked off, leaving us alone.
I shifted awkwardly on my feet, realizing my timing might not have been the best as I stood alone with the imposing Immortal politician, but I smiled anyway.
“So,” Solomon Camera started, his voice booming and demanding, “You are who they say you are.” He stated a fact, not a question. I understood why Lucan appointed this large, muscular man in charge of all of Africa. Besides his physically dominating presence, he commanded the attention of those around him with a quiet strength that demanded obedience, yet he radiated a charisma that defied his overpowering virility. I also believed that Lucan would only promote those that he believed were truly loyal to him, so this man must be one of his most loyal subjects.
Although there was Amory....
The phrase, “Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer,” came to mind. Still, I didn't know Solomon Camera. I never heard Avalon or Jericho or anybody mention him. I knew the Resistance kept spies all over the kingdom in all of kinds of royal positions, but there was no possible way for me to know if he was Resistance without seeing his tattoo. Besides, if he was Resistance, he would know who I was with certainty.
“Who do they say I am?” I asked, side-stepping his direct insinuation.
“They say you are Delia's daughter, is this true?” Solomon narrowed his forest green eyes at me.
I looked down at the bracelet Kiran gave me, the one that was supposed to interfere with my magic but didn't. I twirled it around my wrist, running my fingers across the dozens of stones, wondering how much trouble I was about to get myself into.
“That is true,” I conceded. “I am her daughter.”
Solomon stared at me for a moment, his face clouding with emotion that I couldn't read. His eyes narrowed into something like anger, but his lips twisted into what I considered a smile of triumph. He considered me for a moment, a long moment in which I fidgeted under his searching stare. And then he lifted his gaze across the plaza and signaled someone with the slightest nod of the head.
I cleared my throat and crossed my arms. This was it. I said something I wasn't supposed to and at any minute Lucan was going to have a prisoner brought to center stage to be murdered. I mentally calculated the exits from the plaza, ready to grab whoever they decided to sacrifice and attempt to run for it.
A middle-aged lady in perfect shape approached us. She was black like Solomon, with silky ebony skin and muscular arms, defined to perfection and resting casually against her white ivory cocktail dress. She carried a champagne glass in one hand, and hooked her other through Solomon's bent elbow.
“Eden, may I introduce you to my wife, Zaphira.” Solomon gestured between us. Zaphira stretched out a muscular but elegant hand and shook mine with warm affection. Solomon continued, “Eden is Delia's daughter.”
I flinched, ready for more attention to be called to me, but Zaphira only commented nonchalantly, “If you are Delia's daughter, then how on earth are you engaged to a prince?”
“I, um....” I wasn't sure how to answer her. I couldn't tell her I wasn't really engaged to Kiran. At the same time I couldn't betray my mother and lie about being in love with Kiran. I glanced around, wishing I hadn't sent Kiran away and then decided to tell the truth, well half the truth, “Kiran and I met at Kingsley, before I knew that he was a prince.”
“Before you knew that he was a prince?” Zaphira lost her composure, and leaned forward not believing me.
“I'm sorry, I should be more embarrassed of my history,” I stumbled through another half-truth. I wasn't embarrassed at all about how I was raised, but I was definitely embarrassed that I fell in love with Kiran and in essence got myself into this whole mess. “I was raised by a human guardian. It wasn't until recently that I was introduced into Immortal society. I don't know my mother, or my father.” Another half truth, I met them once, but still, I don't really know them.
“How is that possible?” Solomon gasped.
“Believe me, I ask myself that question every day....” I smiled and tried to play off the truth with casual amusement, but Solomon and Zaphira just stared at me in the strangest way.
I turned my head again, searching for Kiran. I hoped he was watching me somewhere and if I kept looking for him, maybe he would get the hint. I craned my neck over the crowd, making a desperate search of the plaza and then froze at the sound of both Solomon and Zaphira gasping.
My tattoo. In my effort to find Kiran, I exposed my tattoo.
Dang it.
I swirled my head back around to face them, intending to find a polite excuse to leave and find Kiran. But when I faced them Solomon's expression turned into pure joy, as if I were a miracle playing out before him and Zaphira's eyes were wet with tears. She stretched her elegant hand forward, carefully lifting my hair and examining the tattoo.
“It can't be,” she whispered in reverent consideration.
I lifted my hand quickly to my hair and brushed it over the glowing mark. I knew there would be trouble now. Lucan knew about the tattoo, but trusted me to keep it hidden. When he found out I showed it not just to his subjects, but his employees, he was sure to overreact.