Darkangel, Christine Pope [ebook reader screen .txt] 📗

“Grandmother,” he supplied at once.

A direct relation, then. Interesting. Probably I should have known that, but trying to keep track of all the twigs and branches in my own family tree was work enough without delving into those of the other clans. Aunt Rachel reveled in that sort of thing, and kept detailed lists and charts. Handy, I supposed, when so many in a clan were related to one another in some way.

Not that witches and warlocks couldn’t marry outside their clans, of course. It was good to bring in fresh blood — or else I wouldn’t have Alex Trujillo standing in front of me right now — but there were still a lot of third and fourth cousins married to one another even so. And now that I thought about it, I seemed to recall a McAllister marrying into the de la Paz clan a few generations back, so Alex and I still might be related, if only tangentially.

But I knew I was letting my thoughts wander so I wouldn’t have to think about the task at hand. This would be a lot easier if we could both share a drink or two first and get a little tipsy, let our guards down a bit. Custom dictated, however, that we go into this clear-headed and wide-eyed. Otherwise, our reactions could be clouded by the alcohol, and that wouldn’t do at all.

“So she’s okay with this?” I asked. Probably not all that tactful, but I couldn’t think of anything else to say.

A lift of the shoulders. Nice, broad shoulders. Although our conversation was limping along, I couldn’t help wishing this encounter might have a different conclusion. He really was awfully good-looking….

“Of course,” he said immediately. “It’s a big deal, to be the consort of the prima. Even from a clan — ” He broke off then, as if he’d just realized he was about to stick one of those size-twelve Converse high-tops right in his mouth.

“Even from a piddly little clan like the McAllisters that lives in the middle of nowhere, right?”

“I didn’t mean that.”

I was pretty sure he did. I let it go, though. Kissing a next-to-perfect stranger was hard enough without getting into an argument beforehand. “It’s okay,” I said. “I know we’re not much compared to the de la Pazes. But we like it that way.”

Alex nodded. “It is pretty cool up here. I’ve never been to Jerome before.” His dark eyes fastened on mine, and he moved a few steps closer. A new warmth in his expression made an excited little shiver go down my spine, even though I knew this wasn’t going to end the way he wanted it to. “I think I could get used to it here.”

Another step, and another, and then he was standing right in front of me. He smelled good, too, of some citrusy aftershave or cologne, something fresh and clean.

“You could?” I managed.

“Yes,” he replied, then reached up and took my face in his hands, fingers warm and strong against my cheeks. He pressed his lips against mine, and…

…and nothing.

I’d known that was what would happen, but even so a sharp wave of disappointment washed over me. It didn’t matter that he was gorgeous and smelled good and seemed more or less friendly. Whatever it was — whatever that spark was that should flare into a raging fire once a prima kissed her intended consort — well, it just wasn’t there. He wasn’t the one.

For a second or two he continued to kiss me, as if he thought I was on a delayed-reaction fuse or something. But he could kiss me for the next ten years, and it wouldn’t make a speck of difference.

Gently as I could, I pulled away. I didn’t say anything at first. Then, “I’m sorry, Alex.”

His dark brows pulled down as he frowned, but then he gave a philosophical lift of the shoulders and stepped back a little. “My abuela warned me that this wasn’t a sure thing.”

I forced a chuckle. “Oh, she did?”

“Angela, you’re sort of legendary. Forty-three candidates — forty-four now, I guess — and not one suited you?”

“It’s not as if I have a choice — ”

“Oh, I know.” To my surprise, he bent down and kissed me again, only this time on the cheek. “It’s sort of like buying a lottery ticket for us candidates, I guess. We all know the odds aren’t very good, but we all hope that we might be the one.” He grinned, a flash of white teeth, and said, “Hasta luego, Angela.” Then he went out the door that led to the hall, and from there to the front door.

Well, technically, it was the back door, as our house was a two-story apartment above my aunt’s store, and so the private entrance was off the alley and not the main street, but still. Either way, he was gone. Adios, number forty-four.

I had no idea who number forty-five was going to be, but I had a feeling he couldn’t possibly be as cute as Alex Trujillo.

Aunt Rachel appeared a minute or so later, wooden spoon dangling from her hand. “No?” she asked, in weary but unsurprised tones.

“Nope,” I replied. It bothered me that it still hurt so much. By this point, shouldn’t I have gotten numb to the whole process?

But I hadn’t. Each time the hope would surge, even though my mind always told me the new candidate couldn’t be the one, because he wasn’t him.

Since she was my Aunt Rachel, she didn’t sigh. Maybe she allowed herself the smallest twitch of her mouth, or lowering of her eyebrows, but that was all. She gave tilted her head to one side, appearing to consider my expression. “There’s still time, Angela. No need to worry.”

“Who’s worried?” Before she could reply, I added, “I’m going upstairs. Unless you need me to help with dinner?” That was the last thing I felt like doing at the moment. Even so, I didn’t hesitate to ask, since that was what I was expected to do.

I’d gotten really good at doing that, what was expected of me.

My aunt shook her head. “No, sweetie, I’m fine. You take some time for yourself.”

I murmured a thank-you and fled upstairs. Most days my room felt like a refuge, a place I could go to escape the weight of all those expectations. Today, though, it felt more like a cage, even with the breathtaking view that looked out over my hillside town, perched on Cleopatra Hill, and down into the Verde Valley, past the red rocks of Sedona, and all the way to….

It was a clear, cool day in mid-October, with visibility of fifty miles and more. Much more, actually, as I could see Humphreys Peak in Flagstaff, nearly a hundred miles away. On days like this, it seemed as if I could almost reach out and touch it…if I were crazy enough to do such a thing. Flagstaff was forbidden territory.

Flagstaff was where the Wilcox clan held sway.

I didn’t have any time to think about the Wilcoxes, though, or their myriad sins, because right then my cell phone rang. For a second or two I considered ignoring it, even as I wished we were back in the summer’s monsoon season, when my cell phone tended to crap out any time we had a decent thunderstorm. At least when that happened I didn’t have to make a conscious decision to avoid looking at the caller ID so I could let it roll over into voicemail without feeling guilty.

But since I had a fairly good idea of who it was even without glancing at the display, and since I knew she’d only keep calling until I picked up, I decided to forestall the inevitable. After grabbing the phone, I went and settled on my bed. I knew this was probably going to take awhile.

“Hi, Sydney.”

No preamble, just a drawn-out, “Sooooooo?”

“So nothing,” I replied, and kicked off one, then the other of my cowboy boots. I might have been twenty-one, legally an adult and able to drink and vote, not to mention being the clan’s next prima, but Aunt Rachel would still give me hell if I put my boots on the expensive embroidered duvet cover she’d gotten me for my birthday last year.

A groan. “Not again!”

“Yes, again.” I wiggled my toes, and wished I’d grabbed a glass of water or iced tea from the kitchen before I came upstairs.

“Was he cute?”

“What difference does it make?”

“Was he?”

I knew she’d keep asking until I told her everything. “Yes, he was cute. But it doesn’t matter, because he wasn’t — ”

“Yeah, I know. The mystery man. The man of your dreams. The one beside whom all others pale. The — ”

“Okay, I get it.” Sometimes I really wished I’d never told Sydney about him. But weren’t you supposed to be able to tell your best friend everything?

She knew about me…knew about the McAllisters. Her family had lived in Cottonwood almost as long as the McAllisters had been in Jerome, and they were some of the few whom we trusted with our secrets. Long-timers around here, they knew about my clan, about its traditions…its powers. Well, its purported powers, anyway. There hadn’t been a public display for more than eighty years, not since the time Henry McAllister caught a recently laid-off miner attempting to steal the contents of his cash register. The miscreant was held upside down, suspended in midair, until the sheriff came to claim him. Spectacular, sure, but the clan elders made it clear that such exhibitions of power would not be tolerated.

Fly low and avoid the radar — that’s our motto. Attracting attention was not a good thing. And so,