“Don’t you go sneaking around again, okay?” Santana chided. “If you want to do something loco like that again, you come to one of us and you tell us. Nine times out of ten, we’ll come along for the ride, and we’ll make sure you don’t cause yourself a whole bunch of trouble. Wade might not be game for the rule-breaking stuff, but you’ve always got me or Tatyana to provide some hefty backup. Astrid, too, if she’s in the right mood. There’s a rebellious streak in that girl that is a glorious thing when it comes out.”
“Okay, no more sneaking,” I promised. “I’ve done things on my own for so long that I’m not used to having people I can call on for help.”
She smiled. “I know, mi cuate. That’s why I’m here to keep telling you.”
I chuckled, glancing at Santana. She continued to surprise me. Out of everyone in the SDC, she was the most interesting person I’d come across. With the Catemaco legacy at her disposal, she could’ve easily breezed through magical life, and yet she’d chosen a harder path. She’d come here to carve her own way in this world. I admired that—I admired defiance in people. Plus, she was much more powerful than she’d previously let on. I couldn’t remember much of what had happened when the spell got out of hand, but I knew she’d done something immense. I could feel the after-effects of it still pulsing through me.
I’m lucky to have someone like you by my side, Santana. The voice of reason for when I go over the line. Glad you came with me.
“Well then, now I owe you a favor,” I said. “It’s the least I can do after all the crap I’ve put you through.”
“Honestly, I’m just glad we’re both in one piece. No favors needed.”
“Come on, there’s got to be some way I can make up for the almost-cracked vertebrae. Name it!” I flashed her a grin.
“Seriously, we’re cool. I’m not in the habit of taking favors. It’s not the way we do things where I come from. We just help where we need to, and don’t ask for anything in return.”
I pulled a sad face. “Please let me make it up to you, Santana. I feel like a prize twonk for dragging you into this.”
“Twonk?” She chuckled.
“Yeah, a twonk. Now let me do something for you. There’s got to be something you want. Laundry? Chocolates? Cleaning?”
She paused for a moment. “Now that you mention it… no, never mind. It’s not important.”
“No! Go on, tell me what you were going to say. There’s no favor too big.”
She eyed me cautiously. “I do have a tiny idea in mind.”
“Do tell.”
“I’m a pretty patient girl, but this impasse with Raffe is driving me nutty,” she replied shyly. “I wouldn’t mind knowing how he really feels about me, if you’d be happy working your Empath wizardry on him. An experiment of sorts.”
I burst out laughing. “I’m in! It would be my pleasure.”
“Do you mean it?”
“One-hundred percent,” I replied. “To be honest, I thought you were going to ask me to do your laundry. This is so much better. What did you have in mind? A slinky red dress—see if his eyes pop out? Or an accidental smooch with GI Joe, see if steam starts coming out of Raffe’s ears?”
Santana grinned. “Always glad to see you’re on my wavelength, Harley Merlin, though I was thinking swimsuits.”
I frowned. “Now I’m confused.”
“Did Wade not show you the pool when he gave you the guided tour of this place?” A smirk tugged at her lips.
“No… Wade Crowley did not tell me there was a pool. Sly bastard!”
“Come on, I’ve got a spare suit you can borrow. We can see if Tatyana and Astrid want to come with us,” she said, smiling. “Although, it might be a bit counterproductive if Tatyana comes along. I love her with all my heart, but you can practically hear the jaws hitting the floor whenever she goes to the pool.”
As luck would have it, when we knocked on Tatyana’s door, both Astrid and Tatyana answered with face masks and fluffy bathrobes on. “Not tonight, I’m afraid. I’m cleansing away the free radicals and plumping my skin with a cocktail of peptides,” Tatyana explained, half-sarcastically. “My mom is worried about me getting wrinkles in the American heat, so she sent an entire crate of sheet masks from Korea. Useful, yet slightly insulting. I think that encapsulates my mother perfectly.”
Astrid nodded eagerly. “If you thought magic was confusing, you should check out the ingredients in one of these things. There’s stuff in this that I’ve never even heard of! Did you know you could put bee venom on your face?”
I chuckled. “You know what, I didn’t.”
“Well, you can!”
“And that’s why we’re going to have to decline.” Tatyana sighed apologetically. “If any of these products touch pool water, I fear I may spontaneously combust. Did you want to borrow a suit, Harley? I’ve got a whole rack you can choose from.”
“Mind if I borrow one, too?” Santana asked. “Yours are way better than mine.”
“Of course.”
Twenty minutes later, I walked out of Tatyana’s room in a sultry black two-piece. It hugged me in all the right places, but it had so many ties and cut-outs in it that it’d taken me fifteen of those twenty minutes to get in the damn thing. She’d given me a bathrobe, too, for the road. I wrapped it around me as we walked down the hall.
Santana had borrowed a stunning, deep red bikini that looked insanely good against the olive tone of her skin, like she’d just walked out of the cover of Sports Illustrated. To be honest, all of this borrowing and lending of clothes was a little new and strange to me, considering I’d never really had any close female friends before. I had no idea how to react. Might as well get used to it. Tatyana’s closet is all Devil Wears Prada. She offered, and I love it.
With towels under our arms, we set off to find Raffe’s room. Santana was wearing a robe over her bikini, too, just for the sake of wandering around the coven. In the living quarters, it was pretty much anything goes, and nobody would’ve batted an eyelid if we’d been strutting our stuff, but there was a cunning plan afoot. A plan that required mystique and subtlety.
A few minutes later, we arrived outside his room. Santana shot me a conspiratorial look before loosening the belt of her robe and knocking on the door. Raffe answered shortly afterward, rubbing his eyes and flattening his hair down. Clearly, he’d been napping, and boy was he about to get the surprise of his life. I stifled a laugh as he gaped at Santana, his eyes bulging out of his head as he noticed the red bikini, visible beneath the open lapels of the robe. I didn’t need my Empath abilities for this one.
“Sorry, did we wake you?” Santana asked innocently.
“It is… kind of late,” he stammered.
“We were just heading down to the pool for an evening swim and wondered if you wanted to come with?”
He gulped audibly. “It’s a bit cold, isn’t it?”
“The pool is inside, Raffe. It doesn’t matter if it’s cold.” She chuckled, making a subtle show of closing her robe again. “Come on, why don’t you join us? Harley’s never been to the pool before. I figured it’d be nice if a group of us went.”
His eyes flashed red for a moment. “I’m supposed to be meeting Alton in half an hour.”
Santana sighed. “Oh well… maybe next time, then?”
Reaching toward the edges of his emotions, I struggled to make any sense of them. Raffe was always a bit of a puzzle to me, his emotions all jumbled and confusing. There were threads of disappointment and a burst of something that made me blush suddenly—that had appeared when his eyes had flashed red. He was totally smitten with Santana, I could feel that, but a dark undercurrent of anger and bitterness rippled beneath, combining with peaks of admiration and complete shock.
Raffe looked to me with a hint of pleading in his eyes. “I’m sorry, both of you. Tonight’s just not a good night for me.” He knew I was reading him, and he knew that I knew. A desperation flowed toward me, hinting at his desire to put an end to the conversation as quickly as possible—out of sheer embarrassment for the mix of emotions that swirled within him. Some were totally unmentionable, but they didn’t seem to fit Raffe’s character. He’d never have let his feelings stray so intensely to the saucy side of things, not when he clearly admired her for more than her physique. You dark horse, Raffe.
“Like I said, maybe another time?” Santana replied coyly.
“Yeah, sure, of course. Another time.”
“Good luck with Alton. Shout if you need us for anything,” she said.
He nodded so hard I thought his head might fall off. “Absolutely. Sorry again. I’ve got to go—I’ve got some… uh… things to get in order before I go to Alton’s office.”
“Goodnight, Raffe.”
“Goodnight, Santana… and Harley. Goodnight, Harley.”
“’Night, Raffe,” I replied, feeling a little sorry for him. His emotions were all over the place. It’s like there’s two of you—a good you and a bad you. A split personality kind of gig. Not for the first time, I wondered what was going on inside him. Nobody seemed to want to tell me, and I was all out of guesses.
Laughing, we turned around and headed for the pool.
“I’ll let you know what I felt when we get there,” I told her. “That might be more private than the hallway.”
“Okay, okay.” Santana’s cheeks were pink, and her smile was wide. I had a feeling she already knew the outcome.
Heading through the courtyard of magnolia trees, we ambled north, through the usual network of halls and corridors. I was expecting a long walk, but five minutes later, we arrived outside a large set of golden double doors. A pair of mermaid tails took the place of ordinary handles while two large statues of Poseidon flanked the entrance. Santana heaved one of the doors open, and we both ducked through.