“Joshua? Did you find her?”
Ildaria froze and twisted on the man’s back to stare toward the door to the hall as Mary Guiscard entered and came to a startled halt. “Oh. Angelina dear. Uh . . .” Her gaze slid from a naked Ildaria to the man she was perched on, and then a smile began to curl her lips and she said with amusement, “I see my son found you.”
“Your son?” Ildaria echoed with confusion, peering down at the man she was presently trying to choke the life out of. Notthat this move would kill an immortal, but she could knock him out this way and then truss him up. Or—Oh God, if this wasG.G., she could kill him with this choke hold, she thought suddenly, and started to ease her grip, but then shook her headand glanced to Mary to say, “But this man is bald.”
“Yes. Well, his hair will grow back, dear,” Mary assured her, and then added in a gentle voice, “If you don’t take his headoff with that towel.”
Ildaria released the towel at once and scrambled off the man’s back. But it wasn’t until he rolled over and pulled the toweloff his head that she saw that it was indeed G.G.
“Oh, my God,” she breathed as she took in his flushed face and completely hairless head. “G.G.?”
“He isn’t G.G. anymore. The Green Giant is dead, long live Joshua,” his mother pointed out happily and Ildaria shook her headwith dismay.
“I can see that,” she said faintly and then asked G.G. entreatingly, “Madre de Dios, what have you done? Where is your beautiful hair?”
G.G. turned to scowl at his mother at that, but she just smiled brightly, and said, “Well, I’ll leave you two to it. Yourfather and I will be next door at your place, Joshua. Come see us when you—after you—later,” she said finally, and turnedto hurry from the room.
Ildaria watched her leave and then shifted her attention back to G.G. as he got up off the floor. Her gaze traveled over him in the fine new suit and shoes and then up to his head again.
“It will grow back,” he rumbled, looking uncomfortable under her stare.
“Si,” she agreed.
“I was going to leave an inch or so of hair where the Mohawk used to be, but it just looked silly so I shaved it all off,but—” He paused, frowning at her expression, and ran a hand self-consciously over his bald head. “You don’t like it?”
“Do you?” she asked cautiously.
He shrugged uncomfortably. “I thought it was time I stopped looking like a mortal child, and more like an immortal man.”
Ildaria scowled as she recognized Juan’s description of him as a mortal child, but then the last of his words sank in andher eyes shot to his. The blue eyes he had inherited from his mother were now shot through with silver.
“G.G.?” she breathed, moving closer. “You are . . . ?”
“Immortal,” he finished for her when she didn’t say the word.
“How? When?” she said, reaching out to touch his face and urge him to lower it so she could better see his eyes. She watchedthe silver shimmer and swim through the blue and thought she had never seen anything so beautiful.
“Mother turned me last night at the Enforcer house. I wanted to surprise you,” he explained. “It was apparently pretty quick as turns go. I woke up a couple hours ago, and then I shaved and showered and we went to buy this suit and shoes, and—I bought you flowers too. They’re in the kitchen. I wanted to . . . impress you.”
“I am impressed,” she assured him solemnly.
“So . . .” He tilted his head. “You like me better this way?”
Ildaria frowned, and then said honestly, “I think you look beautiful, but you were beautiful the other way too.” She pausedto bite her lip, and then admitted, “But I miss your hair. And your laugh lines.”
He smiled wryly. “I can grow the hair back, but there’s nothing I can do about the laugh lines. They’re gone I’m afraid. Actually,it was kind of weird waking up, looking in the mirror and finding a much younger version of myself looking back.”
Ildaria grinned, but then alarm covered her face. “Your tattoos!”
G.G. shook his head. “All gone.”
“Si,” she sighed. Ildaria had known that would happen if he ever turned. The nanos removed piercings, tattoos, and anythingthat didn’t match up with the blueprint of a mortal body at peak condition. Tattoos and piercings hadn’t been on that blueprint.It wasn’t unexpected, it just made her sad. She had loved his tattoos.
Lifting her head, she raised her eyebrows and said, “You vowed you would not turn. You loathed the very idea. What made youchange your mind?”
“I found there was something else I loathed more,” he confessed with a wry twist to his lips.
Ildaria’s eyes narrowed as she recalled Mary saying G.G. did not like to share his toys. Finally, she asked, “What?”
“The idea of you with Juan after I died,” he said, his voice grim. “I’d go through hell and back to make sure that didn’thappen.”
Ildaria’s eyebrows rose and she pulled back when he reached for her. Perching her fists on her hips, she glowered at him andsaid, “So, you would not turn to be with me, but you will turn to make sure no one else is?”
G.G. pursed his lips briefly, and then grimaced. “Well, when you put it like that, it sounds kind of fucked up, doesn’t it?”
“Si,” Ildaria said coldly. “Loco.”
Sighing, he slid his arms around her and tugged her stiff body close. “But now that I’ve been turned, you’re kind of stuckwith me. Forever.”
“Hmm,” Ildaria said, unimpressed.
“And while I may be loco, I love you,” he pointed out, bending his head to press a kiss to her neck.
Ildaria fought the shiver that wanted to slide down her neck, trying to remain unresponsive but it was next to impossiblewhen he touched her and that new life mate magic kicked in.
“I love your body too,”
