Лорел Гамильтон - Rafael

“She wanted me to promise I would not kill our son.”

“Did she ask you to let him kill you?” I asked.

“No, she asked me to offer third blood instead of death.”

“And that offer has made you seem weak,” Benito said.

“Has she told Hector?” Micah asked.

Rafael shook his head. “Her husband is the only father Hector has ever known, and she wishes to keep it that way.”

“So, she tells you, so that you don’t want to hurt him, but she doesn’t tell him, so he still wants to kill you?” I asked.

“She is trying to get inside your head, Rafael. If she truly meant you to treat the boy as a father should, then she would tell him you are his father,” Benito said.

“I’m with Benito on this one,” I said.

“Even I think it’s a trick to mess with your head before the fight, and I just learned about it,” Nathaniel said.

“Suelita is a mother terrified for her child, she will do and say anything,” Claudia insisted.

“Does Hector look like his mother?” Micah asked.

“Why does that matter?” Rafael asked.

“Because he looks nothing like you.”

“Not all children look like their parents,” Rafael said.

“Does your son from your marriage look like you?” I asked.

“I have not seen my ex-wife or my son in so long I am not certain I would recognize him.” He couldn’t hide the pain in his face when he said it.

“I’m sorry, Rafael,” I said.

“If Hector’s mother is lying, then she’s trying to set you up for her son, so he can kill you and take your throne,” Micah said.

“And if she is telling the truth?”

“Then she is telling the truth to set you up for her son, so he can kill you and take your throne.”

“You repeated yourself,” Rafael said.

“No, I didn’t. I just pointed out that if it’s a lie, or if it’s the truth, the result that Hector’s mother is hoping for is the same, you dead and her son alive.”

“Wise, as always, Micah.” He said it, but not like it would change anything.

“You told me in the showers that you wanted me to seduce Hector if you die; are you seriously saying you’d want your lover to sleep with your son? That’s a little too . . . I don’t know . . . creepy.”

“I didn’t mean to tell you. I know it will make it harder for you to sleep with him.”

I grabbed his arm and made him look at me. “Win the fight tonight and I sleep with only you.”

He looked past me to Micah and Nathaniel. “Never just me, Anita.”

I wanted to shake him so badly that I had to let go and step back. “You know what I meant, Rafael. Hector’s mom is screwing with your head before the fight, and you’re letting her do it.”

“You may be right, but I cannot ignore that he could be mine, that I could have more than one son.”

“You asked me to come watch you fight tonight; well, I won’t come just to watch you give up and die.”

“I am not giving up,” he said.

“It sure sounds like it.”

“You and I have fought together too long to lie to each other, Rafael,” Micah said.

“What does that mean?” Rafael sounded angry now.

“We both know that if you don’t believe you can win, then it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy. If you go in there tonight thinking that you don’t want to hurt Hector, while he’s trying to kill you, then you have lost before the fight begins.”

“You don’t have children; you don’t understand what it’s like to have one and never be allowed to see him. To think I might have had a child that I watched grow up, that means something to me.”

“Suelita knows how much it would mean to you,” Claudia said.

“She has never forgiven you for not marrying her all those years ago,” Benito said.

“She was not in love with me.”

“She wanted to be queen, Rafael. She loves power and status,” Benito said.

“How do you know that?”

“Because I keep track of the women that I think may be a problem.”

“What did you think she would do?”

“You are right on the timing; I thought she would claim her baby was yours years ago, but then she married someone else, so I figured the baby must be his.”

“Why didn’t you tell me you thought Hector was mine?”

“If Suelita could have proven Hector was yours, she’d have offered a paternity test when he was a baby, but she didn’t, because she knew the test would come back with a different father.”

“She said she didn’t want to trap me into a loveless marriage.”

“That sounds like bullshit,” Benito said.

“How dare you?”

“You pay me to keep you safe; well, part of that is looking at the women you date.”

“Suelita never hurt me.”

“Well, she’s trying to kill you now,” Claudia said.

“Enough!” Rafael yelled it, and both Benito and Claudia stopped arguing with him. He turned to me. “First I remind you of the Master of Beasts and his tortures and now this. If I were not walking the sands tonight, I would not try for sex with you, but time is running out, Gatito Negra.” It was Spanish for black kitten and the honor name the local wererats had given me, acknowledging that I was small, but a predator that might eat them. For Rafael and me it had become his nickname for me. It rolled off his tongue sounding sexy and endearing like a lover’s pet name should be. Just that sped my pulse, caught my breath in my throat and turned it shallow. I hadn’t realized that he’d conditioned me so that just him saying the name a certain way was a turn-on. You never know what seemingly innocent things will become foreplay.

Micah hugged me and it was almost startingly, as if I’d been paying too much attention to Rafael. I hugged him back and don’t know what I would have said, because he spoke first. “You can use our room.”

I held him tighter, memorizing the feel of him in my arms; the delicate strength of him always felt so right. I touched his curls with one hand and hugged him tighter with the other. “No, we’ll use a guest room.”

He drew back enough to meet my eyes. “Are you sure?”

I nodded. I didn’t say out loud that I didn’t want the scent of anyone on our sheets but the three of us. If Rafael had been someone that any of us was in love with, that would be different, but he wasn’t one of our sweeties, so no.

I kissed him, and Nathaniel was there hugging both of us. Micah extracted himself and let us have a moment alone. Nathaniel smiled down at me, mischief shining in his lavender eyes. I knew that he was about to say something we might regret, or I might, but he didn’t say it out loud, just looked deep into my eyes, and I suddenly knew what he was visualizing about Rafael and me and . . . him.

I laughed and pulled out of the hug. “You are incorrigible and that visual will stay with me.”

“I meant for it to, and you still love me?” He meant it, but there was still that small part of him that wasn’t as confident as he appeared. It was that part that asked, even if the tone was teasing.

“I am deeply, passionately, madly in love with you still and always.”

“Still and always,” he said softly, and kissed me as gently as his voice sounded. I leaned into his body, my hands on either side of his shoulders as if I could hold on forever. I trailed my fingers through the thick straightness of his hair. I could run my hands through his hair and not mess it up. Micah’s curls didn’t recover from rough treatment.

“I love you,” he said.

“I love you more,” I said.

Micah came up beside us, putting an arm around each of our waists. “I love you most.”

“I love you mostest,” Nathaniel said, and kissed us each in turn. Then it was time to go with Rafael and find a guest room. Rafael’s hand was warm in mine, but it seemed weird to leave the other men behind in the hallway to go with him. I had other lovers who made me feel less conflicted about being with them, and I finally realized that Rafael was the only one who never interacted with anyone else in our poly group. Maybe there was more than one reason that I’d offered him to sleep with some of the women in our polycule? Of course, Nathaniel’s visual had let me know that he had felt left out when offers of doing threesomes with Rafael had been offered to our group. It’s not that I forgot he was bisexual; it was just that I knew Rafael was so terribly heterosexual, and yes, I could now admit all the way in the front of my head that Nathaniel wasn’t the only man in my life who would have taken a swing at Rafael if it was offered.