Page 5 of My Master
“Spoiler,” he mumbled. “I wanted to see that movie and now you ruined it for me.” He tried to make his tone sound light, but she could tell that something was bothering him.
Do it,she thought,tell him now!“Uhm—Antonio?”
“Yeah?”
“How would you feel if we started a family together?”
At this, he tensed up. “A family?” he asked as if this were a foreign concept to him.
“Yeah,” she continued. “Like if we had kids? How would you feel?”
“Is this about that movie you watched? Is it making you emotional and stuff?”
Esmeralda swallowed. “Partly…”
“If we ever had a kid, it’d make me happy; preferably if we had a girl.”
Esmeralda brightened up. Maybe shecouldtell him soon after all. “Why a girl?” She asked, poking him in the side. He lifted her chin up with his forefinger and looked her in the eyes, suddenly serious and intense.
“Because I’d want her to be just like you.”
Esmeralda felt as though she couldn’t breathe. Her pulse jumped in her throat and her heart skipped. She was breathless when she spoke. “What if,” she asked, “our baby came out just like you?”
He tensed. “That won’t happen. It can’t happen…I won’t let it.”
She was confused now. Why wouldn’t he want their kid to be like him? He obviously saw something wrong with himself; this was obviously about Damien. Why wouldn’t he let her help him? Why wouldn’t he let her in? she wondered. “Antonio Santiago, you are a good person.” She held his face between her hands, and tried as best as she could to send huge waves of love into his mind, to let him know how she felt, without giving away the news about the pregnancy. Not yet. “Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.”
He pushed her hands away and shook his head, his eyes closing, and his thick curls falling against his forehead. “Ezzy, stop,” he pleaded. “Don’t even try and convince me that I’m good—”
“But you are!”
This time, he gripped her shoulders and squeezed, tightly. Esmeralda tried not to wince. He raised his voice to a shout. “Don’t sit there and act like you know! You have no idea what’s it’s like!You have no idea!”
Esmeralda fought back tears. “Then help me understand! What’s wrong with you? Talk to me! Why do you see yourself as a monster?”
Antonio pushed her back, lightly, and stood up and walked away without another word, leaving Esmeralda alone. When he was gone, she buried her hands in her face and let her shoulders shake. They still stung from where he had dug his nails in earlier. She let herself cry because she didn’t know what to do. She didn’t know how to help Antonio, and god knew how badly she wanted too.
Esmeralda let herself cry until she fell asleep, alone.
4
Isis looked down at her trembling hands. They had been that way for a while now, and why wouldn’t they be? She was about to stare the devil in the face and, hopefully, kill him once and for all. She failed the first time, but she was given a second opportunity and she took it, which eventually had led to her escape.
She was waiting at that same café, in the same seat where she had last seen him across the street. She knew he’d come. He wouldn’t pass up the chance to talk to her, especially when she had gone through such extremes to get a message to him.
Isis shuddered.
Luckily the blood underneath her nails had washed away easily and the memory wasn’t haunting. She didn’t usually kill, not anymore, but she had decided that the best way to get the message tohimwas to use one of his ancient methods on one of his new minions that she had caught following her. A simple gesture of the blade and the head split from the body easily; sent on a silver platter with a note.Café, 11:00 o’clock.
He had to come, and when he did…
“Isis.” The way he said her name, like a soft whisper, almost a caress, sent icy shivers down her shoulder blades.
She looked up, and there he was. Standing behind the chair in front of her clad in a long black trench coat, belted at the waist. His hands were in his pockets and he was smiling down at her with his yellow eyes, his short dark hair was combed neatly to the side. He looked elegant, as he always had.
She balled her hand into a fist. “Caesareon,”
“Long time no see.” He smiled, revealing his white fangs, as he took a seat across from her and undid the scarf that wound around his neck. “How long has it been?”
