Diamond Fire: A Hidden Legacy Novella Read online

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Ramírez Family Tree

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Epilogue

  Announcement page to Hidden Legacy series

  About the Author

  By Ilona Andrews

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Ramírez Family Tree

  Prologue

  Nevada

  All families have odd moments. Our family just has them more often than others.

  I sat at our family kitchen table and stuffed my face with pancakes.

  Arabella, my youngest sister, peered at me from across the table. “Why are you here? You don’t even live here anymore, Nevada.”

  I had officially moved out yesterday. I’d spent the last nine years of my life in the second-floor suite of the warehouse that served as both our home and our business. Given that I now spent most of my time with Connor, otherwise known as Mad Rogan, and we recently became officially engaged, I decided to move out. There was surprisingly little fanfare. I hadn’t accumulated much, and it took me less than a day to pack my belongings into boxes. Rogan’s people got them last night and delivered them to his house, on the outskirts of Houston. Grandma Frida cried a little bit and Mom made a lot of grumpy noises, so I’d stayed the night in Rogan’s HQ across the street just in case they decided to have a nervous breakdown about it.

  I shouldn’t have worried.

  “Leave her alone,” Mom told Arabella. “That’s her third pancake.”

  “So?” Arabella glanced at me.

  I stuck my tongue out at her and cut another piece of pancake with my fork.

  “She’s stress eating,” Grandma Frida volunteered. “Rogan’s picking her up in five minutes. She’s scared to meet his mother.”

  Thank you, Grandma. I choked on my pancake and gulped my coffee. “I’m not scared.”

  I was totally scared. He’d wanted to take me to see her right after the trials, but I begged off for three days. There was no escape now. I had to meet my future mother-in-law.

  Arabella squinted at me. Grandma Frida was past seventy and Arabella was still fifteen, but in that moment, they looked remarkably alike: both blue eyed, both pale haired—although Grandma Frida’s curls were white because of her age—and both wearing identical sly expressions.

  “You’re wearing a pair of new jeans and your favorite green blouse,” Arabella said.

  “So?”

  My sister dipped her blond head under the table. “And pretty, strappy sandals. And your toenails have polish.”

  “I can have polish on my toenails.” Usually I wore sneakers because I occasionally needed to run in the course of my job, but I owned three pairs of sandals too.

  “You better brush your teeth,” Grandma Frida said. “You don’t want coffee breath.”

  My toothbrush was at Rogan’s HQ. Damn it.

  “Stop it, the two of you,” Mom growled and turned to me. “You’ll be fine.”

  After Dad died, Mom became an unmovable rock in our turbulent sea. No matter what happened, she would be there, fixing it. It took me a long time to learn to look past that armor. The last year made that especially clear. But today I needed that rock and so I grabbed on to it.

  “Mom says I’ll be fine,” I told them. “You’ve met her, Arabella. You could just tell me what she’s like.”

  Arabella smiled. “I like watching you squirm.”

  My phone chimed. A text from Rogan. “You’re missing the show.”

  “What show?”

  “Come outside.”

  I really wanted to run upstairs to my old room and lock the door. I couldn’t do that for two reasons. One, I was an adult, and two, my other sister, Catalina, moved into my room, so it wasn’t technically mine anymore.

  It was absurd. I was a trained private investigator with almost ten years of experience. Baylor Investigative Agency existed today because I took it over when Dad got sick and made it successful against all odds. Not only that, but I was a Prime, the highest level of magic user one could reach. My paternal grandmother had the same talent, and people cringed when they heard her name. I had stood up to her and to a dozen other Primes. In the past year I’ve been shot at, hit with a car, burned, teleported, and frozen nearly to death. I had a bus almost dropped on me, I faced a psionic who nearly destroyed my mind, and I told Connor Rogan, the Scourge of Mexico, “no” repeatedly and stood my ground. I should be able to meet my fiancé’s mother.

  I could do this.

  I got up, put my plate into the sink, hugged my mom, and went to the door.

  A gunmetal grey Range Rover waited in front of our warehouse. Unless you looked closely and knew what you were looking for, you would never guess that the car was armored.

  Rogan leaned against the vehicle. I’ve seen him in a twenty-thousand-dollar suit and in dirt-stained jeans and a T-shirt. No matter what he wore, he always had a kind of rugged masculinity about him. You got a sense that nothing would knock him off his stride. Whatever came up, he would handle it and he wouldn’t panic. The fact that he was huge—over six feet tall and built like he fought people for a living—only added to it. Today he wore a pair of jeans and an olive T-shirt. With his bronze skin and dark hair, he looked like some sort of jungle explorer.

  Oh no.

  I stopped.

  “What?” he asked.

  “We match,” I ground out.

  “So?”

  “I’m going to go change.”

  He caught my hand and drew me to him. His dark blue eyes were laughing as he leaned down and kissed me. He tasted of mint and coffee and the touch of his lips anchored me. You know what, it would be fine.

  “You look great. Also, if you leave, you’ll miss the best part.”

  He nodded to my left. I glanced in that direction.

  A sapphire-blue Maserati GranCabrio was parked at the curb. Next to it, directly under my—no, my sister’s—window stood Alessandro Sagredo.

  When I first saw Alessandro’s picture shortly before the trials, I thought he looked like the son of a gladiator ready for his first match. That impression was even stronger in person. His face still had traces of softness, but they were quickly disappearing. The lines of his face were becoming hard and precise, but whichever form they would take, one thing remained certain—Alessandro was cursed to spend his life being ridiculously handsome.

  My shy quiet sister was leaning out of her window and seemed clearly agitated.

  “No!” Catalina declared.

  “Why not?” Alessandro’s voice held just the slightest trace of an Italian accent.

  “Because what you’re feeling for me isn’t real.”

  “Who says I’m feeling anything? I’m just suggesting we go for a drive.” Alessandro nodded at the Maserati gleaming bright blue in the sunlight. “I have the car right here.”

  “No.”

  Only a few days ago, our family had to undergo the trials to prove that we possessed at least two Primes and therefore could be declared a House. We needed the protections granted to the emerging houses desperately, which meant that I and my sisters had to demonstrate our magical abilities before a panel of Prime judges. Alessandro was Catalina’s test. A powerful Antistasi Prime, he could nullify others’ magic, while my sister possessed the ability to make people love her. They had stood facing each other, with a white line between them. Then Catalina told him a story about our vacation in Florida and by the end of
it, Alessandro crossed the line and fought the four people who tried to stop him. He’d shrugged it off in seconds, but my sister was declared a Prime.

  “I thought Catalina’s magic wore off with time,” Rogan said quietly.

  “It does. I don’t think he’s here because of her magic. He followed her on Instagram before the trials.”

  Rogan’s dark eyebrows crept up a fraction of an inch. “And that’s significant why?”

  “He is a teenage heartthrob and Herald’s darling with a couple million followers. He followed three people and Catalina. She became Instagram-famous overnight and deleted her account.”

  In our world Primes were the most prominent of celebrities. There was an entire social network dedicated to the obsession—the Herald, where members posted speculation, rumors, and fan fic. Alessandro Sagredo, being young, unmarried, and devastatingly handsome, was Prime groupie magnet, and Catalina hated attention of any sort. She had good reasons for it. I would’ve given anything to make it easier on her, but all magic came with a price and my sister had drawn the short stick.

  “You need distance,” Catalina declared. “It will wear off with time and distance.”

  Alessandro hung his head, his longish brown hair falling over his face. “Per l’amor del cielo !”

  I turned to Rogan. “What did he say?”

  “No clue.”

  “I’m not under the influence of your magic. I’m not climbing the walls to get to you. I’m just here to invite you to go for a quick drive.”

  A long pause ensued.

  Alessandro tilted his head and gazed at the window. Modern-day Romeo in luxury jeans next to his one-hundred-and-seventy-thousand-dollar steed.

  Silence stretched.

  “Is there going to be an answer?” Rogan asked me.

  “No.”

  “She’s just going to leave him standing there?”

  “No, I meant that the answer will be no.” I smiled at him. “Let’s go. This is hard enough for Catalina as is, and we’re not helping.”

  “I hate that window,” Rogan said, as we got into his car.

  Across the street, a heavy crate rose a few inches off the ground.

  “Don’t you dare,” I told him. The memory of the last time we had an argument at that window was still fresh. Rogan was a Prime Telekinetic and he didn’t like fighting with me from the street. He’d stacked half of the contents of his motor pool against the wall of our warehouse, so he could get to the window and talk to me face-to-face. “Seriously, this won’t help.”

  The crate landed back on the pavement. Rogan drove out of the parking lot. “Poor count.”

  I glanced at him. “What do you mean?”

  “Alessandro is a count. Conte di Sagredo. They date back to the twelfth century.”

  “Don’t tell Catalina,” I said.

  My sister was self-conscious enough around regular people. Carrying on a conversation with someone who came from an old noble family would cause a complete shutdown. She would obsess over every word trying to make sure she didn’t say something embarrassing or draw attention to herself.

  It was enough that Alessandro was handsome, a Prime, and a verified teen heartthrob. Throwing a title in there would only make things worse.

  The long road veered gently between rugged hills rising from the green cushion of ashe junipers and live oaks. We were climbing our way northwest, into Texas Hill Country. The ground looked dry, with big limestone boulders thrusting through the thin layer of topsoil. After the humidity of Houston, looking out of the car window made me thirsty.

  “Why here?” I asked.

  “She says the hills remind her of home,” he said.

  “Where is home?”

  “Spain. Basque country, near Navarre, in the mountains. I’ve been there. It’s not a perfect match, but it’s dry and rugged in places, like here.”

  The road turned, and as Rogan smoothly took the curve, I saw the house. It crowned the hill, a beautiful Mediterranean mansion, its adobe walls interrupted by tall gleaming windows. We kept turning and the house kept going and going . . .

  “What if she doesn’t like me?”

  “She will like you. I love you and that’s all that really matters. But my mother will like you.”

  The road brought us to the apex of the hill, to a stone wall topped by a red clay roof. A sturdy metal gate guarded the entrance. It swung open at our approach and the Range Rover smoothly rolled down the long driveway, past the landscaped lawn to another arched entrance. We passed through it to the courtyard with a beautiful fountain in its center. Rogan brought the car to a stop.

  “That’s a giant house,” I said.

  “Mountain Rose. Twenty-two thousand square feet. Ten bedrooms. Twelve bathrooms. Two swimming pools. Tennis court, gardens, the works.” Rogan grimaced. “I once asked my mother why she needed a house that large, and she said, ‘For the grandchildren.’”

  “You don’t have any siblings, do you?”

  “No.” He moved his hand, indicating the length of the house. “One bedroom for her, one for us—that leaves eight bedrooms’ worth of grandchildren, all on our shoulders.”

  “Great.” It wasn’t my shoulders I was worried about, but if I told him that, it would take him another ten minutes to get all of the funny innuendo out of his system.

  We sat for a long moment. I didn’t want to get out.

  “Chicken?” he asked.

  People lied every day, sometimes a dozen times a day, often for the best of reasons, but every time they bent the truth, my magic warned me. So I had long ago made it a point to lie as little as possible, and to Rogan not at all. He couldn’t lie to me, and we had to come to this relationship as equals. “Yes.”

  “It will be fine.” He reached over and kissed me. It was a quick kiss, meant to reassure, but about half a second into it, Rogan changed his mind. His hand caught my hair. He tasted like sandalwood, mint, and Connor. I sank into it and kissed him back. There was nothing like kissing Rogan. All my worries vanished and it was me and him, his taste, his smell, his touch . . .

  We broke the kiss. His blue eyes turned darker. He looked like he was going to go in for seconds.

  We couldn’t just stay in the car making out. Arrosa Rogan was a Prime. She lived in a mansion with Prime-level security, which meant our kissing was likely splashed in horrifyingly HD detail on the internal security screens.

  I opened my door. He grinned at me and we got out of the car.

  The inside of the house was as impressive as the outside. The walls, covered with delicate swirls of beige and cream plaster, swept up to tall ceilings. The floor was travertine, laid in large slabs rather than typical tiles. The furniture had the same timeless quality as the pieces in Rogan’s house, but where his furnishings were solid and almost plain, with a lot of square angles, the couches and chairs here were more ornate. There was something undeniably feminine about it.

  Nobody came to greet us. Odd. Was this a power play of some kind? Was she putting me in my place by making me wait? All my nervousness came right back.

  Rogan strode to the kitchen and opened the huge fridge. I almost called to him to stop but caught myself. To me it was a mansion. To him it was his mother’s house, and like any kid returning home, he made a beeline for the fridge. I did the same thing when I walked through the door into the warehouse this morning.

  “Would you like a drink?”

  “What are my choices?”

  “Sparkling water, iced tea, juice . . .”

  “Tea. Thank you.”

  The kitchen was vast, with dark brown cabinets and beautiful granite countertops. State-of-the-art appliances waited to be used. The cooktop looked like something out of a kitchen competition show.

  Rogan poured us two tall glasses of tea. I slid my butt onto a stool at the other end of the island and he pushed one glass toward me. I picked it up and drank.

  Eight bedrooms’ worth of grandchildren. Right.

  I always wondered why
Rogan was the only child. Primes warred with each other like medieval city states, and most Prime families took pains to ensure an heir and a spare. There was no spare. There was only Rogan. I’ve been meaning to ask him why but kept forgetting, and right now didn’t seem to be the best time.

  A mechanical whisper made me turn. A woman in a motorized wheelchair rolled into the kitchen. She was middle-aged and beautiful, with dark hair touched by grey, bottomless dark eyes, and bronze skin.

  Oh.

  Rogan walked over to her, leaned, and kissed her on the cheek. “Hi, Mom.”

  She smiled at him. They looked so alike.

  “There is smoked brisket in the fridge,” she said.

  “I saw.”

  Arrosa turned to me. “Hello, dear.”

  “Hi.” I remembered to get off the chair, took a few steps forward, and stopped, not sure what to do with myself.

  “She’s nervous, because you’re scary,” Rogan told her.

  You traitor. I would remember this.

  My future mother-in-law leaned her head back and laughed.

  We sat under the roof of a balcony on the second floor. Rogan had gone inside to make tea for his mother. The rain finally came, and the air felt crisp and cold.

  “He didn’t tell you about the chair, did he?” Arrosa asked.

  “No.”

  She smiled. “Silly boy. It happened when he was three years old. His father was a target of an assassination. He was supposed to have been alone in a hotel room in New York, but I went with him. I’d had a bad feeling about that trip. He and I survived, which was all that mattered.”

  She got hurt trying to protect her husband. “I’m so sorry.”

  “I’m used to it. And my magic makes matters a lot easier. Are you cold?”

  “I’m okay.”

  “You look cold. Here.”

  The big wooden chest on the side of the outdoor sofa opened and a blanket floated to me. Like Connor, Arrosa was a Prime Telekinetic.

  “Thank you.” I tucked the blanket around myself.

  “Most men in Will’s position would have divorced me. Connor was our only child. It was a risk to rely on only one heir to carry the line forward. But Will loved me very much and here we are.”