“I need more information, brother. I know not what you need me to do! Maximillian?”
My absorption with the box is so consuming, I have not heard the approaching footsteps at my back. When Magique—or whoever the hell this is—appears at my side, it is too late to render any reaction.
“He can’t hear you,” she says with entirely too much patience. “It’s a video box.”
“Pardon moi?” I roll my head in more random patterns. “But it is not vide, my sweet. Not empty.” I wave the box before her. “You see this? What is inside this? Who is inside this?”
Her tranquility does not garner the same from me. How can she be so calm about this? There is a man—my brother—trapped inside this deranged detention! “Let me play with it for a sec?” she asks. “I think I can make him talk. Or at least light him better, so you can see—”
“The hell you will.”
I draw on well-practiced instincts to put a lot of the room between us in a few seconds. My speed is spurred by a gut-wrenching conclusion.
Perhaps she has been right all along.
Maybe she is not my Magique but a shell only appearing as such. Another part of the elaborate illusion that has put Maximillian in a box that fits beneath my arm. In a place that makes it possible for her to reference his torture as if she merely plans on changing the straw in his cell. I can make him talk. Light him better.
I cannot bear to envision what she actually has in mind.
So why does her new approach not chill my blood and raise my defenses? Why, even now, does my breath quicken and my groin harden? Why does my gaze latch on every expressive angle of her face and my imagination liken her light freckles to wildflowers in a fairy glen?
Magical. She is still so magical.
But she is not my Magique. She was the first to tell me so. And now I must force myself to believe it…
But I cannot. I refuse. If Magique is gone, what else is there? What do I have left to believe in?
Not the rest of what she has told me too.
There has to be another way. Another explanation. Another reality.
But not here. Not in the same space in which I can see her, smell her, feel so much of her.
“No. Not here.”
It is a croak on my lips but a roar in my spirit. A rally cry in my senses, waking up the rest of me. I have to get out of here. But where is here? And does it matter? The chamber possesses a door. Whatever lies on the other side cannot be as complicated, conflicting, and chaotic as this. The first step has to be getting away from her.
As far and as quickly as possible.
CHAPTER SEVEN
RAEGAN
“Bastien! Wait!”
An extra whomp of adrenalin provides extra power for my shriek, not that the apartment’s new fugitive is paying attention.
Damn it.
Of all the reaction scenarios I played out for Bastien in my head, this wasn’t one of them—but it should’ve been. To a guy like Bastien De Leon, who’s clearly more into the rough-and-tumble side of court life than his brother, magic doesn’t mean frogs, princesses, and disappearing warts. For him, it’s curses, snakes, and certain damnation—like the kind he’s clearly convinced he’s facing now that he believes I’m not his real Magique.
In his mind, I’m now the fraud who ripped him away from her. Who tore him from his world. Who even “imprisoned” his brother in a “box.” Insult atop all that injury, I got him naked and nasty before confessing to any of it.
“Naked!”
I gasp it out while sliding on the polished foyer tiles. I look down, blatantly reminded that my attire is nothing but a pink tank top and Fruity Pebble boy shorts.
“Oh, God. Nasty.”
Though technically, I’m still dressed in more than he is.
“Shit, Shit, shit,” I spew during my limp-sprint back into the bedroom. It feels like an hour instead of a minute before I find yoga pants and a basic hoodie to throw on. I indulge an extra ten seconds to shove into my Crocs too. Usually, the plastic clogs never see the light of day beyond quick tromps to the park or pool, but every rule has an exception.
It bears repeating, albeit in my reluctant mutter, as I scoop my phone off the top of the dresser. “And it’s six thirty on a Sunday,” I add. “Nobody’s even out walking their dogs right now.”
Clearly, I’ve never been a dog owner.
I’m forced to admit it in full as soon as I finish the elevator ride and burst out onto the street in front of Allie’s building. It’s not a complete dog parade but way more leashes, poop bags, and eyes on my smudged plastic shoes than I expected. Under other circumstances I’d be in heaven, grabbing as many snuggles with the furballs as possible. But there’s no time for that fun because I can’t see Bastien anywhere.
Not a single glance of his fine ass in those luscious breeches or the torso rising from that waistband in its musketeer-worthy glory. I even still myself and listen for extra sounds on the air. Anything abnormal from the cars, motorcycles, bicycles, boats, and airplanes that form their usual twenty-four-hour symphony. Something like a surprised outcry from anyone along the boulevard. Better yet, a spike of Bastien’s discernible growl.
Everything stays too predictably normal.
Meaning my pulse rate edges toward cardiac arrest range.
Still, I ignore the Pomeranian taking a Labrador-sized dump in front of me and frantically look right and then left. Though the first option beckons with the sparkling stretch of the river, getting there from here equates to crossing the FDR, which would intimidate the staunchest d’Artagnan.
My instincts tell me that Desperado has ducked left, toward the blocks where trees with new spring leaves arch toward each other over the avenues. But also toward the heart of Midtown East—and beyond that, more of Manhattan’s confusing tangle. Oh yes, mulls the girl who grew up in this city.
The girl who, seven blocks later, has run herself out of breath—with no scowling and shirtless hunk to show for her efforts.
A man who’s never experienced anything like sidewalks, crosswalks, and skyscrapers before.
A man she’s officially lost in a city of millions.
I moan in frustration while smacking a palm to my forehead. They’ve predicted a heat spigot for today, which explains the slide of my phone in the sweat of my other hand.
At once, I break into another anguished sound. I forgot to slip my spare key card to Allie’s apartment back into my storage sleeve.
It’s time to call in reinforcements. Probably in more ways than one.
“Mmmph. Huhhhlo?” comes a sleepy mumble after I’ve hit one of my top redials.
“Hey. I know you’re in recovering-from-the-set mode,” I blurt, “but this is kind of life-or-death.”
“What?” In nanoseconds, Drue pops from half-comatose to fully juiced. No sorting hat needed to know she belongs in the fifth house: Hyperthorpe. “What is it? Are Fashion Wench and Prince Hottie okay?”
“Yeah. Of course,” I assure, wishing I could chuckle at the nicknames she uses for Allie and Max only when they’re not around. “She texted me earlier from FCO. They’re safe and should be having hot Roma sex by now.”
“They’d better be.” Her grumble is rough and low. An equally scratchy sound has me picturing the frustrated hand she’s running through her bright turquoise waves. “So why the panic dial? Is the apartment okay?”