Page 33 of Hers to Rule

When her father had recruited Cisco, he’d been barely sixteen but already nearly as tall as he was now. For all his size, he’d still only been a child and had been starving on the street for most of his young life. It took a lot of food to feed a growing gargoyle, and her father had provided all that Cisco needed in exchange for just one thing: loyalty. For twenty years, it had bought him just that.

Rio took up a position a step behind her left shoulder when Cisco angled them toward the door. Rio had already been a part of her father’s household guard for a few years when Cisco joined, a scrawny and awkward teenage puma shifter who had trouble looking anyone in the eye.

The only time Rio had confidence during those first few years was when he was fighting. He’d always been scrappy and physically gifted. Later, he had found more self-assurance under Cisco’s wing and in his bed. Once her father had discovered that leverage he could hold over both of them, he had never let either of them forget it for one second.

Mari shook herself. Dwelling on her father’s history of casual cruelty wasn’t going to help them right now. He was gone. The gargoyle beside her had taken his place, and she had never been more grateful for anything in her life.

Rio held the door for them as they entered the dim restaurant. The walls were tiled in a blue and gold mosaic of arches and swirls that almost seemed to move in the flickering candlelight. The entryway wasn’t large, and there was no obvious exit aside from the one they’d entered through. A tall doorway stood in the wall opposite them, but there was no door, only a differently patterned mosaic. Mari had never been here, though she knew the restaurant’s reputation as a place where the powerful of the city held their most important meetings and their wildest parties.

The slight, blond house witch at the host desk folded nearly in half when he bowed. “Your guests have already arrived, Don Francisco.”

She felt Cisco tense at the same honorific her father had used, but his face maintained a vaguely pleasant expression without a flicker of his unease. “Thanks, James. You can take us in.”

James moved to the doorway with no door and touched one of the rough stones that outlined it. He intoned a word that sounded Slavic to Mari. Magic sprang from his fingers and outlined the door that wasn’t there, drawing a portal in greens and yellows. He gestured them through with a smile. “Enjoy your evening.”

Cisco led them through the portal, head and wings held with confidence and poise. Mari felt the magic tickle her skin as she passed through the surface. Though she wasn’t sure, because it wasn’t her specialty at all, she had the feeling they had traveled a long way in that single step. Her suspicion was confirmed when she glanced out the windows and saw a sunlit ocean of the bluest water she had ever seen beyond the windows.

Magic kept the interior of the room cool and dim, the exact same temperature as the place they’d come from, even though outside it looked like it was probably bright and sweltering. The dining room they had appeared in was opulent and empty save for a single table in the center. Three chairs lined each long side of the table, lavish and elegant in blue and gold. Each one might have been a throne.

Esmé sat at the center of one side, flanked by two people who might have been siblings, each one as beautiful as they were androgynous. They were dressed identically in simple green robes with black hair braided intricately back, copper skin, and eyes rimmed with the darkest kohl.

Esmé herself wore an elegant emerald dress with a sinuous pattern worked in embroidery so intricate and precise that it made Mari’s fingers long to touch the lush curves. Her dark hair was piled high atop her head in a carefully arranged bundle of curls that evoked a similar design to the dress.

“Esmé, so lovely to see you again.” Cisco smiled indulgently. “You look ravishing, as always.”

Esmé chuckled, throaty and dark. “You were always a flatterer, Francisco. One of the things I liked best about you.” Her midnight eyes drifted toward Mari and narrowed. “Mariana,” she murmured pleasantly. “I’m afraid I don’t know what to call you. Are you the Demon Queen of Las Vegas now? Or do you prefer another title?”

Mari kept her face as carefully still as she could. “Mariana is fine. I never shared my father’s taste for titles.” Cisco pulled out the chair opposite Esmé for her, and she took it as gracefully as she was able even though her hands and knees both wanted to shake.

Cisco and Rio took the seats to either side of her quietly.

Esmé took her in with a slow, calculating glance that left Mari feeling like she was being weighed and measured for slaughter. “You look well. Much better than I’ve ever seen you.” Her crimson-painted lips shrank into a moue of distaste. “I never cared for the way he kept you starved and stifled. Your mother never would have approved.”

The mention of her mother startled Mari so much she knew it must have shown on her face. “You knew my mother?”

Esmé smiled like a cat that had finally caught the mouse she’d been stalking. “Serena and I were friends for many years. We trained together as girls.”

Mari hadn’t seen her mother since a few months before her sixteenth birthday. Any mention of her mother after that had been met with violence. “Do you know where she is?”

Esmé shrugged. “The rumor was that he killed her, but Basilio was never one to waste a resource he could harness instead.”

Cisco leaned forward. “You think he stashed her somewhere?”

“Perhaps.” Esmé tilted her head. “If so, I certainly have no idea where.” She raised one hand and gestured to the windows. “Basilio had hidey-holes like this all over the world. I don’t even know where we are.”

“Tunisia,” Cisco offered in a conversational tone.

Esmé grinned toothily at him. “Lovely.”

Mari clasped her hands together in her lap. As much as she wanted to know where her mother might be, or if she was even alive, they were getting off track. “Why did you want to meet with me?”

“I wanted to look into your face when I asked you if you could run the city.”

Mari knew her mouth had dropped open only when she rushed to close it. She glanced at Cisco, hoping he would answer for her, but he only looked at her placidly. “Of course I can run the city. I’ve been doing it for years.”

“I don’t mean magically.” Esmé smiled as if she was bored. Only her eyes gave away that she was keenly interested in what was happening around her. “Anyone with even the slightest magical inkling can feel that the wards have been full to bursting for the last few days. I mean constitutionally. Can you do what it takes to run Las Vegas the way your father did?”

“That’s what I’m for,” Cisco drawled in response.

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