Page 32 of Entranced By the Basilisks

There’s a knock at the door and Ma’s brow furrows. “That was quick.”

“Maybe they got McDonald’s,” I tease, gratified with Ma’s look of repugnance for the golden arches. She’s the one who didn’t give them any direction.

I leave her in the kitchen to open the door.

Ari smiles at me over a paper grocery bag. “I hope you don’t mind if I cook something.”

I turn toward Ma. Her brows are high.

“If the man wants to cook something, he should cook something,” she says.

I lean in, the move brings me closer to him than I mean to, but I don’t retreat just yet.

“It better be good,” I whisper in warning. Though, if the food is bad, Ma may rethink pushing me at these men whether she considers them serious suitors or not.

Ari’s grin is slow and has me swallowing down butterflies.

“Oh, it will be.”

14

ARI

If I’ve learnedone thing in my long life it’s that every single family is different. And in order to win the opportunity to court Emilia, to convince both Jasper and Emilia that this can work, I need to impress the matriarch. Mrs. Rivera is a tough critic, but I’ve faced harsher.

She loves her daughter and while I’m not at that point yet—we’ve barely spoken—I know new beginnings when I see them. The sensation of meeting a person and feeling like they’re the connection you’ve been missing for lifetimes.

It’s just how it was when I met Jasper. Bloody from being cornered in an off-the-beaten-path hallway by others of our kind in a place that should act as a sanctuary for us all. He’s always been just as painfully proud as he was in that moment, hurting and ready to bite any hand reaching out.

“What are you looking at?” he spits at me like the blood on his face isn’t there and his eye isn’t swollen shut.

And to charm him, to get close enough to convince him to share his body and life with me, I’d offered him something he couldn’t refuse.

I offered to teach him to fight.

Ha, that bears more similarities to the current situation than I realized.

I make sneaky glances while I chop onions to where Jasper and Emilia sit at the table. They’re discussing work, and with the enthusiastic way Emilia gesticulates, I foresee my heart being captured by yet another workaholic. Stress lines her eyes as she describes all the projects that will need to be outsourced pronto and Jasper makes notes on his phone.

The stunning serpents, the visual proof of her being Chosen, are hidden by the glamour once more.

I want to see them again. To know that this is all real. Our miracle.

But it’s good to hide that for now. There will be others who will disagree that Emilia belongs with Jasper and me. The longer that we can keep them from finding out, the better and the more likely that she’ll chooseus.

Emilia belongs with us. I feel it in my bones, see it in the way that Jasper watches her too closely, but Chosen have always had the final decision about their matches.

Mrs. Rivera makes a dismissive sound from her place at the counter when I add the lamb to the kofta mixture.

The process of thinking through family dynamics is a rusty one for me. I’ve been alone for so long, it’s hard to remember the ways people sway and change together. I’ve kept to the sidelines because every time I’ve visited a family unit, it would remind me of what I lost.

This moment in Mrs. Rivera’s kitchen is no different. Even with how old the memories are now, the love on Mrs. Rivera’s face when she looks at Emilia stabs my heart. My mother looked at me like that once upon a time, right before rolling her eyes and correcting my cooking method.

I swallow down the memories.

“You seem to know what you’re doing,” Mrs. Rivera remarks.

“Even I’m not arrogant enough to impress you with subpar skills,” I say, even though I cheated and had Jasper pick up fragrant rice from the Middle Eastern place down the street while I went for groceries.

---