Chapter 605: The Sixth Special One
Chapter 605: The Sixth Special One
She laughed. A real laugh. Not the throaty chuckle she used for press conferences or the polished giggle reserved for sponsor events. This was raw and a little ugly and completely genuine.
"You’re such an asshole."
"I’ve been told."
"By how many women, exactly?"
"At this point? I’ve lost count."
She turned in the water until she faced me, her knees on either side of my hips and her hands on my shoulders. Water sloshed over the edge of the tub. Neither of us cared. Her hair clung to her neck and collarbones in wet crimson ropes, and her eyes held that particular gleam that meant trouble.
"Tell me about them."
"Now?"
"Yes, now. I want to know what I’m getting into." She tilted her head. "Besides, Kuzmina already hates me. Might as well understand why."
I considered deflecting. Considered a joke or a redirect or any of the dozen escape routes my brain automatically mapped. But Reyna had stripped herself bare tonight in more ways than one. She’d earned honesty.
"Natalia was first. She hated me when we met. Thought I was a leech, a parasite, a worthless Zero pretending to be something I wasn’t. She was right about most of it." I traced circles on Reyna’s hip beneath the water. "We were forced together by circumstance. A Gate run that went wrong. She almost died. I saved her. Somehow that turned into her deciding she owned me, and I decided I was okay with being owned."
"Romantic."
"It really wasn’t. There was screaming involved. Threats. She tried to freeze my balls off at least twice before she admitted she loved me."
Reyna’s lips twitched. "I like her already."
"You’ll like her less when she’s actually freezing your blood."
"Maybe." She shrugged. Water droplets rolled down her shoulders. "Who else?"
"Emi. The healer. She’s sunshine in human form. Cries when I get hurt. Bakes when she’s stressed. Has this way of looking at me like I’m worth something even when I know I’m not." I paused. "She kissed me first. I was too stupid to see it coming."
"The sunshine type kissed you first?"
"Shocked me too."
"And?"
"Skylar. The phantom blade. She sees through every lie I tell and most of the truths. We kissed on a balcony during a party because she wanted to know if I was interesting." I smiled at the memory. "Apparently I passed."
"High standards."
"You have no idea."
"Keep going."
"Cel. Celeste Vance. The President’s sister. Cold as ice on the outside, but she punched me when I almost died because she was angry I’d scared her. That’s when I knew."
"Knew what?"
"That she’d burn the world for me if I asked." I met Reyna’s eyes. "I wouldn’t ask. But knowing she would is enough."
"And the fifth?"
"Akari. Chaos incarnate with a gambling addiction and a chain Aspect. She decided she wanted into my life and made the universe accept the terms. I’m still not entirely sure how it happened."
Reyna processed this information with the same analytical focus she brought to combat assessments. I watched her brain working behind her green eyes, categorizing and comparing and probably calculating threat levels for each woman I’d named.
"So," she said finally. "An ice queen, a sunshine healer, a phantom assassin, a political princess, and a chaos gremlin."
"That’s one way to describe them."
"And now me."
"And now you."
"The athlete. The weapon. The girl who didn’t know how to be a girl until tonight."
I reached up slowly, carefully, giving her time to pull away if she wanted—she didn’t—and tucked a wet strand of crimson hair behind her ear. My fingers lingered there, tracing the shell of it in a way that made goosebumps rise on her neck despite the heat of the bath water still clinging to us.
"The girl who showed me her secret garden and trusted me with her real name," I said, my voice dropping into something quieter, more intimate. "That’s who you are to me. Not the idol. Not the weapon. Just Reyna."
Her throat worked visibly as she swallowed hard, processing that. Her eyes shifted away from mine, tracking toward the fogged-over mirror mounted on the opposite wall, where our reflections were reduced to nothing more than indistinct blurs of color and shadow—formless shapes in pink and tan against white tile.
When she finally found her voice again, it had changed.
The confident purr of La Sirena was completely absent. What emerged instead was smaller than I’d ever heard from her, vulnerable in a way that felt almost dangerous to witness.
"I don’t know how to do this."
I frowned slightly, genuinely confused. "Do what?"
"This." She gestured vaguely between us, a helpless little motion that encompassed everything—the intimacy, the aftermath, the quiet conversation in a cooling bath. "Feelings. Sharing. Being... being one of six instead of the only one." She laughed then, but the sound came out all wrong—brittle and sharp-edged like broken glass, tinged with something close to panic. "My whole life, Satori, I’ve been told I was special. The prodigy. The investment. The family legacy wrapped up in a bow. Veronica built an empire so I could stand on top of it and shine. And now you’re telling me I’m going to be part of a group where everyone is special, where I’m not even the first or second or third priority, and I—" She broke off, shaking her head hard enough to send droplets flying. "I don’t know how to not compete. I don’t know how to be just another piece on the board."
"You don’t have to compete," I told her, meaning it.
"I always compete. It’s all I know how to do." Her voice cracked slightly on the last word. "It’s what I was made for."
I pulled her closer, eliminating what little distance remained between our bodies. Her full breasts pressed against my chest as I wrapped both arms around her back, holding her there in the water with me. Her heart hammered against my sternum—rabbit-quick and erratic with the kind of raw vulnerability she clearly wasn’t used to showing anyone, especially not a man she’d just given herself to.
"Then compete at being yourself," I said after a long moment of just holding her, letting her heartbeat slow marginally against mine.
"That’s what they all do, in their own ways. Natalia competes at being possessive—at proving she’s the most loyal, the most devoted, the one who’ll sacrifice anything. Emi competes at being kind—at being the heart that holds everyone together, the healer who fixes what breaks. Skylar competes at being mysterious—at being the ghost no one can pin down or fully understand. Cel competes at being cold—at maintaining that perfect ice princess façade while hiding the fire underneath. Akari competes at being chaotic—at throwing wrenches into every plan and making reality bend to her chaos."
I shifted enough to press my lips against her forehead in a lingering kiss, breathing in the scent of her shampoo mixed with chlorine and sex. "You compete at being Reyna. Not La Sirena. Not the crimson comet or Valoria’s darling or any of the other masks you wear for the cameras. Just Reyna. The girl who likes candy and hates losing and secretly watches magical girl shows when no one’s looking."