Caro’s fiancé is good-enough looking, if overly groomed for my tastes. Matteo’s handsome features appear cast from bronze, cold and unyielding. His dark button-down and slacks are perfectly tailored to his bodybuilder physique, and so devoid of wrinkles, magic must be involved. His custom-made Italian leather loafers probably cost more than my yearly salary.
Lucky for me, I still have access to my family’s money, if not their power. I work my ass off in New York because I want to, not because I need the money. If I can’t be the best at enchanted fashion design, then damn it, I’ll be the best with fabric.
I move further into the ballroom. Caro sees me first.
“Cat! You’re here!” She pulls me in for a hug, and Crystal joins in. The scent of their perfume threatens to overwhelm me and I sniffle. Or maybe it’s not the perfume, maybe it’s just how much I’ve missed them. Caro’s only a year older than I am, and Crystal is two years younger than me. When we were kids, we were the tightest group of brujitas you ever saw. Despite our differences, it’s been hard to be away from them for so long. It’s like missing a part of myself.
Caro waves me over to her fiancé. “Cat, come meet Matteo.”
I wait for Crystal to point out that I’ve already met Matteo multiple times, that everyone knows everyone else on Isla Bruja. It’s our dynamic, Crystal saying the blunt things Caro and I are thinking but would never say aloud. But when I look at Crys, she’s just got a wide, sappy grin on her face, like she’s never been happier than she is at this very moment.
I narrow my eyes. This is entirely unlike Crystal, who is, according to our grandmother, una malcriada. Aka, she’s never happy.
The cameras move in as I approach Matteo.
He reaches out a hand to shake mine. “Nice to meet you, Catalina. I’ve heard so much about you.”
All my internal alarms flare to life. My magic prickles my skin in goosebumps, but I keep a smile fixed to my face and shake Matteo’s hand.
The second our hands clasp, I activate an area of my power I haven’t used in five years. It’s weak, but it works.
I feel an opening sensation in the center of my chest, like petals unfurling from a bud. The feeling spreads to my mind as my psychic walls part. I am a radar. A sponge. An antenna, attuned to the hopes and dreams of the person my attention falls upon.
I am an empath. And I am ready to feel what Matteo is feeling.
This marriage isn’t based on love, and I don’t expect Matteo to care about wedded bliss or anything like that. I figure he’ll be thinking about making an advantageous match with my sister, or about the ceremony going off without a hitch.
Instead, I feel…
Greed.
The purest, darkest, most intense wanting I’ve ever sensed from another being.
I’ve worked with clients who wanted things before. Money, power, fame, attention. I’m used to those things in our society.
This blows all of them out of the water.
I squeeze Matteo’s hand just a little tighter as we shake, and I’m hit with a clearer image of exactly what he wants.
Not just the union of two powerful witch families, but the takeover.
And then, a visual of exactly what he wants from Caro.
Demon spawn.
I fight to hold in a gasp. There is a motherfucking demon wearing Matteo’s face, and he wants to beget diablitos on my sister.
I snatch my hand away and plaster a fake-ass smile on my face. “Great to meet you, Matteo!”
It’s absolutely the kind of thing Crystal would’ve called me out on if she weren’t…I don’t know, in a trance? Under a spell?
Madre del Mar, they’re all under this demon’s spell.
Except for me. And my magic is a flickering flame compared to the inferno it used to be.
Compared to what I’d need it to be to fight an actual demonio.
Something moves in the corner of my eye and I whirl around. Two of the cameras have snuck up behind me. They’re barely three feet away. My fingers curl into claws as I call forth my defensive telekinetic magic. It’s an old habit, one I never kicked. Not during all the years I lived in New York, and not even after my magic abandoned me. I feel it now, pulsing in my hands. Much fainter than it used to be, but there, ready to protect me.
