Not Your Destiny: Chapter 24

Marked
Book 1: Not Your Destiny

Chapter 24

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Ángel drifts through the hour after midnight, enjoying the peace and quiet on his own for a while. The ache of lying on the ground finally gets to him, and he pushes to his feet, brushes the grass from his clothes, and walks inside.

Luca sits on the counter in the kitchen again, raises one hand in silent greeting before going back to whatever he’s typing on his phone. When Ángel stands there, he glances up, saying, “Sam and Max went to bed, and so did Hayley and Tanner. They’re sharing one of the guest rooms. Zita and Danny finally got their miscreants to actually sleep after midnight, and they gave up and locked the door to their suite. There’s a pile of kids in one of the other guest rooms, so I hope you weren’t planning on sleeping there. I think your grandmother and mine claimed a guest room; they’re still talking in the living room. Tony’s upstairs with Gabi watching movies, at least as far as I know. I’m probably heading out in a half hour, partly because my cousins took over my room and there’s nowhere for me to sleep.”

That was a lot of information, and a lot more than Ángel can handle at this hour. “Short version is check a guest room before sleeping in it, Tony and Gabi are hiding, and Abuela’s in the living room?” he asks.

“Mm,” Luca agrees, nodding at his phone.

Ángel gets himself a large glass of water, carries it into the living room. Abuela looks up as soon as he enters, a woman of similar age looking over as well. They sit turned toward each other on the couch, and Abuela motions for him to join them.

Ángel doesn’t want to sit awkwardly between them, so he drags one of the other chairs closer and sits there.

“Ángel, mijo, this is Sofia. She is your Luca’s grandmother,” Abuela says. “I haven’t seen her in years, not since I was a girl. She is older than me, but you would never know.”

“Flatterer,” Sofia says with a smile. She leans forward, touches Ángel’s knee as her nostrils flare. She inhales, then sits back, a small smile tilting her lips. “I have heard of you.”

“Oh.” Ángel really has no idea what to do with that statement. “Luca talks a lot.”

“He’s not the only one.” Sofia clasps her hands, pressing them together like praying for a moment, before she drops them to her lap. “They are all like my own grandchildren. My sister, God rest her soul, was grandmother to the Mollicones.”

Oh. Oh, wait.

Ángel leans forward. “Your sister was the Bonita that Abuela knew.”

“She was.” Abuela pushes herself slowly to her feet, and Ángel joins her, moving into the hug as soon as Abuela gestures. He kisses the top of her head, murmurs happy new year in response to hers.

“I think it is late for these old bones,” Abuela says. She nudges Ángel toward the couch. “Keep my old friend company for a time. Sofia, I will see you when you decide it’s time for sleep. Good night.”

Ángel sits on the edge of the couch. “She wants me to talk to you,” he says quietly, watching his abuela head for the stairs.

Sofia pats the back of the couch. “Be comfortable, Ángel. I’m not planning to scold you. Verita and I haven’t spoken in a long time, and I am the only one left of my generation that was close to Bonita. And who is close to Zita, now. So certain things fall to me.” She lifts her hands, shrugs in shallow motion. “They could fall to Zita, but she has her own ways. What we talk about can stay between us.”

Ángel’s mouth opens. Closes. “Okay,” he says slowly. “What?”

“We are not Clan,” Sofia says quietly, and she sits back, as if that’s some grand revelation.

It’s just late enough that it’s frustrating. That her words add an edge back to the nice floating sensation that Ángel had after the night. He raises his hand to his lips, lowers it slowly. “I know,” he says slowly. “That seems to be a sore point.”

Sofia sniffs, makes a dismissive gesture. “Clan do not understand. They think we are lesser. That we are something to be looked down upon because we are proteiforme—changeable—but only into one form. They do not respect those of singular lineage.”

“That’s it?” Ángel shakes his head. It seems ridiculous, but he remembers reading that the Clan were proud of their forms. That the more forms a person had, the higher the power. The greater the Talent. That rank depended upon forms. “So you only have one form you can take. All of you.”

“We are Lince.” The word rolls off her tongue, musical and sweet. When Ángel frowns, Sofia repeats it for him again. “Lince,” she says. “We are from the north, in the foothills of the mountains. Family is important to us; there aren’t many of our line, and most of us are here, aside from those few who remain in Italy and a few in Germany and Austria, and those who have scattered.”

“How do you not die out?” Ángel blurts. “You can’t intermarry; that’s not safe.”

“We don’t,” Sofia assures him with a soft laugh. “We have our ways, Ángel. Our family expands by our will.” She gestures across the couch at him.

Ángel touches his hand to his chest, and she nods. He shakes his head. “I’m not Lince,” he says firmly. “I’m a Mage.”

“Mm.” She shrugs. “You say that as if it matters.” Sofia swings her legs down from the couch, stands slowly. She’s even tinier than Abuela, but she’s strong as she leans over to hug Ángel, her face close to his ear. “You are family, Ángel. Whether Mage or not, you are family.”

Talent doesn’t work like that. You can’t just adopt someone, say they’re family, and make them a part of your Lineage.

But you can breed with them—if people are into that—and the children might be Lince.

“You weren’t born a Mollicone,” he says quickly, and Sofia turns back from the bottom of the stairs, smiling slightly, pride in her expression.

“I was not born a Mollicone or a Bianchi, but I am Lince now, yes,” she says. “Good night, Ángel. Find your place, and sleep.”

He stays there on the couch, mind reeling because this is new information, and he has absolutely no idea what to do with it.

Lince.

He rolls the word on his tongue, whispers it aloud. “Lince.”

Ángel pulls his phone out, opens the documents he’d started online for his notes, and adds in “Lince” as a new header. Then he switches to a browser and types it in.

It brings up a district in Peru, an Italian armored car, and a Spanish tank.

It also brings up an entry for the lynx, including the eurasian lynx. That one seems promising, and Ángel clicks through.

A moment later he locks his phone, shoves it in his pocket and stalks into the kitchen. Luca looks over at him eyes wide, and slides off the counter.

“What?”

Ángel jabs him in the chest. “You’re a cat.”

Luca’s fingers twist around Ángel’s wrist, hard enough to move him, then gentling as he turns Ángel’s wrist between them, the ink showing clearly.

Luca presses against the ink with his thumb. “Yeah,” Luca says softly. “I’m a cat. But I’m not your cat.” He lets go of Ángel’s wrist, pats his cheek with one hand. “It’s late, Ángel. Go find a bedroom and get some sleep. I’m sure Gabi will let you use her couch.”

“She’s a cat,” Ángel whispers, and Luca pulls him in, wrapping his arms around Ángel’s shoulders, rubbing his cheek against his hair. Ángel lets Luca hold him, lets him nuzzle for a long time, and takes comfort in it. “You’re all cats.”

“Lince,” Luca whispers. He cradles Ángel’s chin when he steps back. “Go get some rest, Ángel. The world will be clearer in the morning.”

Well, shit.

The soulmark is generic. Broad. Ángel stares at his wrist, at the large cat staring back at him. It’s Lince. Definitely. His soulmark is a part of this large family, one of these shapeshifters who hate magic. But the mark doesn’t give him the smallest clue who it is.

He feels like he’s gotten all the information he wanted tonight, and it hasn’t actually helped him at all.

He climbs the stairs slowly, follows the noise to Gabi’s room. He knocks before nudging the door open, spots Tony sitting on the couch with the TV on, while Gabi dozes. There are a half dozen or so people in sleeping bags on the floor; when Tony stands, Gabi stretches out and he covers her with a blanket.

Tony presses a finger to his lips, ushers Ángel into the hall. “Our aunt and uncle took the bed,” he murmurs. “This whole place is full right now.”

“And half the people left.” It reminds Ángel that he heard a car and a knock earlier, and he thinks about asking, but it’s probably not important. “I can go back downstairs, sleep in the living room.”

Tony gives him a dark look. “Why? Someone’s going to wake up a disgusting hour and start moving around, and you won’t get to sleep.”

“Like you. Putting breakfast out,” Ángel points out, and Tony makes a face.

“Probably not as early as usual tomorrow, but do you really want to take that risk?” Tony motions for Ángel to follow. “Come on.”

Ángel follows, trailing after Tony on the way up the stairs. He realizes that he has no idea where his bag is, but somehow when he walks into Tony’s suite, it’s right there, sitting on the couch.

“Luca moved it earlier when someone decided to take over the guest room you’d claimed,” Tony says. He heads to the closet, pulls down two pillows and a blanket. “He figured I’d rather have you crash in here than Maritsa and Cleto, and he’s right. Emerson’s bag is in the closet in the other guest room. You can deal with leaving things here after everyone’s gone.”

Ángel picks up his bag, pulls out a pair of sleep pants, and just watches as Tony moves around. “Why didn’t you end up with half your family asleep on your floor?”

“Seniority,” Tony says. “Same reason Zita’s just got Danny and the kids in her space. There isn’t much we get to claim, but territory is part of it.”

Territory. Because they’re cats.

A low laugh bubbles up at the sudden bright image of Tony grooming himself in the middle of the floor, watching to make sure no one else comes near.

Both eyebrows go up, and Tony watches him. “You okay?”

“Fine.” Ángel sinks onto the couch, pulls the blanket over his lap and holds onto it. He glances at Tony, wonders just how well Lince can hear and smell and what Tony’s thinking right now. Ángel feels like his heart’s going rabbit fast as he shoves the blanket onto the arm of the couch. “Not really ready to sleep, yet, though.”

“You realize, I’m translating that as Tony put a movie on and I’ll fall asleep five minutes in, which is what it meant when Gabi said it.” His tone is dry, but Tony still grabs the remote, drops onto the couch next to Ángel and turns the TV on. He flips through streaming services, finds a dark comedy. “This work?”

That was… easier than Ángel expected. He exhales slowly, nods. “Yeah. Yeah, that works. I just. I should—”

Tony hits pause, stands up and leaves the remote on the couch. “I’m going into my bedroom to get changed. Come on in when you’re ready—the bathroom’s off my room, if you want to brush your teeth.”

Get changed. Brush teeth. Yeah, Ángel should do all of that.

As soon as the door between the two rooms closes, Ángel digs out his sleep pants and an old t-shirt and changes. He shoves his shoes off to one side with his bag, finds his toothbrush and realizes he completely forgot toothpaste.

He knocks on the door, holding the toothbrush up to cover the fact that Tony startled him by being so quick to open it. “Can I get some toothpaste?”

They brush side by side in Tony’s bathroom, and when they’re done, Tony leaves Ángel to do what he needs to do. By the time Ángel gets back to the living room, Tony sits in the middle of the couch, the remote in his left hand, his other arm lying across the back of the couch.

Ángel’s chest goes tight as he settles in on that side, leans back to feel Tony’s arm behind his shoulders. It’s hot behind his back, the rest of the room chilled from the night air earlier.

“Grab the blanket,” Tony says, and when Ángel does, Tony helps arrange it across both of them.

Now he’s warm and comfortable and Ángel sinks down, curling closer to Tony as the movie starts. When Tony’s hand drops to settle onto Ángel’s shoulder, Ángel makes a small, pleased noise, and burrows closer, head tilted close to Tony.

Tony presses his nose to Ángel’s temple, inhales.

Ángel wonders what he smells like, if it’s good or just something neutral. He could ask, but at the same time, he isn’t sure he wants to know. It’s good enough that Tony’s not moving, staying close after the cautious breath.

The movie plays, and Ángel finds that place again inside his head where he can let go of the tension and float. His eyes close, the sound of the movie washing over him. “Not sure I’m gonna make it through the movie,” he admits.

Tony’s laugh rumbles against him. “It’s fine. If you sleep, you sleep. You need to get some so your head’s clear when we go to the garage.”

“It’s Sunday,” Ángel protests, and Tony nods.

“Yeah. It’s Sunday. We’re going to work on Helga.”

Oh. Oh right, that. Ángel pats Tony’s chest, sighs out more of the tension from his shoulders. “You’re a good guy,” Ángel murmurs. “You just don’t want anyone to know.”

“You keep thinking that.” Tony’s hand covers Ángel’s, keeps it still against his chest.

Ángel’s fine with that. Perfectly fine.

His hand curls against Tony’s shirt, and Ángel lets himself slide into sleep.

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