had been right to be cautious, she thought, and felt a moment’s concern for what might have happened to Tybo and Valerian, but was already kicking into defensive mode. With no other weapon at hand, Ildaria grabbed the top of her towel, gave it a tug to unravel it and then swung it out as she rushed forward. She flung it over his head and around his face, jumping upward as she did. Ildaria landed on his back, driving him to the ground as she caught the other end of the towel and pulled back. It plastered the cloth to his face and around his neck, blinding and hopefully choking him at once.
“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. Not that this move would kill an immortal, but she could knock him out this way and then truss him up. Or—Oh God, if this was G.G., she could kill him with this choke hold, she thought suddenly, and started to ease her grip, but then shook her head and 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 head off 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 towel off 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 head with 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. Your father and I will be next door at your place, Joshua. Come see us when you—after you—later,” she said finally, and turned to 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 and her 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 watched the 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