“You were with me,” he said. “What happened?”
She shrugged. “Reality intruded, I guess. I’m sorry.”
“Niniane,” he said in a calm voice. He fell silent, studying her face.
Hearing him call her by her real name tugged again at that spot deep inside of her, that place that was more private and vulnerable than even the place where his hand still rested.
“Would you please give me some privacy?” she asked, forming the words with some difficulty. “I need a few moments alone.”
For a moment she thought he was going to refuse and push at her boundaries again, but something about her trembling mouth and unsteady voice must have made him pull back. He gave her a small smile and pressed a kiss to her forehead. “I’ll go make more coffee,” he said. “Then we’ll talk. All right?”
She nodded and turned her face away as he pulled off the bed and walked out of the room. He left the bedroom door cracked and strode into the small kitchen to go through the mindless motions of starting a new pot of coffee. The suite was beginning to feel too confining to him. Maybe if she was up for it, he could sneak them out of the hotel and they could go for a drive along Lake Michigan while they talked. He could use a blast of cold, sharp air in his face.
He braced his hands on the countertop and shook his head. Back in the bedroom he had almost said to her, “Niniane, we’re going to become lovers, so we’ve got time. That’s all the reality you need to know.”
Somehow he had managed to stop himself from saying it, because in that moment there had been something breakable in her expression and some instinct had held him back, for her sake.
Not for his sake. He knew in his bones what he had almost said to her was the truth. She prevaricated and tried to push him away, but he would have her in the end.
He would have her. He wouldn’t stop or rest until he did.
The edge of the countertop cracked under his hands. He frowned, and for the first time he acknowledged that he wasn’t acting as rationally, or nearly as calmly, as was normal for him.
Not rational. Not calm.
Obsessed with her. Unable to let go.
She was a long-lost goddamn faerie princess like something straight out of a hybrid Disney/horror flick. She would soon be Queen of the Dark Fae, an Elder Race well known for its relentlessly Byzantine politics. She was a constant pain in his ass.
She couldn’t fight worth a damn without cheating (well, okay, maybe he didn’t have so much of a problem with that). All her pretty designer clothes were named strange things. What was a shrug or a gladiator stiletto or a Vera Wang? What the fuck was wrong with calling clothes what they really were, like dresses or shirts or pants or shoes, anyway?
And he was old, very old and not just middle-aged old, and set in his ways. He was self-contained, well-used to the autonomy of command, comfortable in the violent roaming of his life, satisfied with army life, a predator, a warlord that liked pounding the shit out of things, and a Wyr sentinel.
This fixation he had developed for her was beyond insane. It was incomprehensible, a recipe for a perfect storm disaster.
He rubbed his face hard with both hands. First things first. Rune and Aryal would be here within the next twenty-four hours. While they investigated the rogue Wyr in yesterday’s attack, they could help with bodyguard detail. Their presence would dilute this impossible, intense one-on-one craziness he had going on with Niniane. Then things would calm down.
From the direction of the bedroom came a thump and a muffled cry. He lifted his head and called out sharply, “What happened, did you fall?”
There was no reply. His stride turned into a lunge. He slammed the bedroom door open with a flattened hand, his sharp gaze darting around.
The room was empty, as was the adjoining bathroom. The silence in the suite roared in his ears. The bedside lamp was on the floor. There was a strange wild scent in the room, a sense of an immense expenditure of Power, a wild upsurge in energy that was already fading.
The bottom of his stomach dropped away. Unbelievably, she was gone again, but this time it was not of her own choosing.
“Oh shit,” he whispered. “Niniane.”
SEVEN
She had lain on the bed staring at the ceiling for long moments after Tiago left the room. Without the vitality of his presence stimulating and supporting her, the lethargy from the cleansing spell stole through her body again. At first she wasn’t sure if she could get her shaky limbs to support her.
Finally she managed to find the strength to push herself to an upright position. She thought about trying to change into more public attire, but that sounded like more than she could handle, let alone trying to deal with Elder politics. She should send messages out to everyone that she needed at least another day to recuperate.
Like Tiago said, let the world wait for you. Pleh. She wondered how he would like it if she applied that to him. But no, she already knew how he would like it—Mr. Bulldozer would push through every objection she might make, so she supposed they were going to have that talk he wanted to have. Then maybe she could lie down and watch old movies on the TCM channel. She could eat the box of chocolates he had given her in between naps and pretend for a little while that the outside world didn’t exist.
When she thought she could stand without falling down, she pushed to her feet with a pained grunt.
That was when the cyclone entered the room.
From one step to the next she was standing in the middle of a maelstrom of energy. She threw a hand over her eyes, staring through her fingers, as a man formed in front of her. Long raven-black hair whipped around an elegant, spare, pale inhuman face. Narrowed crystalline diamond eyes showed through the strands. The rest of his body solidified. He was as tall as Tiago, but he had a lean, graceful frame that matched his face. He wore a linen tunic and trousers that, while simple, seemed foreign. When he saw her, one corner of his mouth lifted in a triumphant smile.
It was a smile that looked all too much like it might say gotcha.
She backed up sharply, bumped into the bedside table and knocked over a lamp. She sucked in a breath to scream. The male grabbed her, moving so fast. He clapped a hand over her mouth while wrapping the other around her waist. He held her in a steely grip. She squealed and clawed at the back of his hand.
The howling windstorm rose again, and this time the world fell away as the cyclone swallowed her whole.
Terror rampaged through her mind. The only thing solid or stable was the creature that held her prisoner against a hard, lean-muscled body. Then the world began to reappear around her: walls, ceiling, furniture, and a floor beneath her feet.
She didn’t wait to look around or get oriented. As soon as those steely arms loosened and she had enough freedom of movement, she pushed away from him, pivoted and punched her kidnapper in the face as hard as she could.
She threw the punch right-handed, from her dominant side, which also was her uninjured side. She got lucky. She felt the male’s nose crunch as his head snapped back.
Those strange diamond eyes flared. She panted and staggered back a couple of steps, hand pressed again to her wounded side. Champagne-colored liquid trickled from one fine-etched nostril. The crooked break in his nose straightened back into place as she watched.
“You’re Gumby Man,” she said in awe, and with not a little resentment. Did all his other body parts straighten into place like that when he got injured? How could you fight and win against a creature that wouldn’t stay broke when you broke him?
He didn’t bother to reply. He wiped his face with the back of one hand as he regarded her with a lazy malevolence.
“I should have warned you to take care,” a woman said from behind her. “The Dark Fae heir apparent is small and cute, but like a Tasmanian devil, she can be vicious when cornered.”
Niniane knew that voice. It was one of the most beautiful voices in the world, and also one of the deadliest. Eyes widening, she turned to face Carling Severan, Councillo
r of the Elder tribunal, sorceress and Vampyre Queen.
The speaker was as beautiful as her voice, with a heartbreaking, life-threatening loveliness. Clad in a classic black Chanel suit and about average height for a modern woman, Carling Severan was slender with an exquisite bone structure. She had a patrician Nefertiti-like neck, long almond-shaped dark eyes, shining black hair that fell in a heavy curtain to her waist, high cheekbones, smooth luminous skin the color of honey and a treacherously sensual mouth. She had been ancient when Rome was born, but she still bore the face and figure of a thirty-year-old woman.
The Vampyre Queen was one of the oldest recorded surviving Nightkind, if not the oldest. Even at rest her Power filled the room, until Carling did something either to rein it in or camouflage it somehow, so that it receded like a tide flowing away from shore and she resembled a simple ordinary, beautiful human woman.
She was a poisonous king cobra that masqueraded as an innocent, bright green garden snake.
That was so not right.
“Councillor,” Niniane whispered, through numb lips.
The illusion of innocuousness vaporized as the Vampyre walked over to her with a swift, fluid, inhuman grace that was as terrifying as everything else was about her. Carling stopped just in front of Niniane, dropped a slender hand onto her shoulder and looked at the male creature. “That will be all for now, Khalil.”
The male creature’s nostrils flared. He said, “I have paid in full one of the three favors I owe you.”
Niniane could still hear the wildness of the cyclone in his deep voice. She shivered, and the unbreakable hold on her shoulder tightened. The Councillor said, “You have indeed. Until the next time, Djinn.”
A howling wind rose and died. Niniane looked down again and cupped her eyes to protect them from the whipping ends of her hair. That was when she noticed a bright yellow band of sunlight from a nearby window that slanted across both of her legs and also those of the Vampyre’s. Niniane stared. Carling wore no shoes, and her slender, beautiful honey-colored feet were limned in light. Such contact with direct sunlight would have reduced a lesser Vampyre to ash within seconds. Niniane’s shivering increased. Even for a creature that many regarded as unnatural, Carling was unnatural.
The Councillor said, “This is where you may ask whether I am a good witch or a bad witch.”
Niniane looked up, into that gorgeous, ancient smiling gaze. She said as steadily as she could, “I’m not sure I would want to hear your reply.”
Carling said, “It is a wise little heir. I heard you had been injured. I can smell the blood from your wound, and a Demonkind prince is not the most beneficent of taxis. Sit.”
Carling’s hand on Niniane’s shoulder compelled her toward an armchair and supported her as her shaky legs threatened to give out. Grateful to ease into the support of the chair, she sank down, although she was far from relaxing.
Carling flowed into a nearby armchair. By the simple act of sitting she turned it into a throne. Niniane watched her sidelong, envious of the other woman’s imperial grace even as she kept her wary dial turned on high, the needle squarely pointed to emergency red. She had interacted in a cordial fashion with the Councillor several times over the years but always in a public, formal setting. Although not Wyr, Carling was every inch a predator, and Niniane would do well to remember it.
Strictly speaking, Carling was no longer Queen of the Nightkind. In an unprecedented move, she had formally abdicated when she became Councillor of the Elder tribunal. Carling had taken advantage of a legal loophole that had existed when the U.S. Elder tribunal had been created in the 1790s, which had barred any Elder ruler from holding office but had neglected to forbid such a position from former rulers. At Carling’s abdication, her progeny Julian Regillus had become Nightkind King. While the legal loophole had since been closed, it was long accepted that Regillus acted upon his progenitor’s orders and that Carling remained the de facto ruler of the Nightkind while also holding the power of her seat on the Elder tribunal.
Niniane became aware that they were not alone in the room when Carling gestured and an attendant, a blonde, pale, pretty woman with downcast eyes, left silently. Niniane looked around. She noted the similarities this hotel suite shared with the one she and Tiago occupied. She also noted the changes that had been made in furniture and decor, such as the exquisite damask silk draped over the coffee table and the antique inlaidmahogany chest that had been set against one wall. The television console and hotel paintings had been removed, making the room feel larger, more spacious and alien.
She kept her breathing unhurried and her hands folded together in her lap as she absorbed the silent message written in the space all around her, that she was now within Vampyre territory.
She said, “Having a Demonkind prince indebted to one must be quite a rarity. It seems an extravagant use of a Powerful favor to use him just to transport me up a single flight of hotel stairs.”
“Your Wyr was being obstructive and disrespectful,” said Carling. The Vampyre’s expression turned into an exquisite ice sculpture. “He needed to be taught a lesson.”
Niniane’s hands tightened on each other as she fought an upsurge in anger. Her Wyr. It was almost as if Carling had called Tiago “her pet.” A part of her noted Carling’s subtle, inexplicable smile. Curious. She wondered what that smile meant, even as she said with a careful lack of emphasis, “I would like to believe that no one intends disrespect, Councillor.”
Niniane paused to let the multiple meanings of her statement settle into the silence of the room. The Vampyre sat across from her, exhibiting a patience that was as inhuman as the rest of her. Carling’s inexplicable smile widened as she said, “I am sure Dragos will miss having you as one of his diplomatic resources, although it must be said—you are not Dark Fae Queen yet.”
What did Carling mean by that? It was clearly a warning of some kind. Niniane couldn’t tell if the warning was a friendly one or not. Her tension increased. If she didn’t understand, then it was best to ignore it for the moment, at least in conversation. She said in apparent agreement, “There have already been a number of challenges, and I’m sure there are more to come. I am grateful that the warlord sentinel Tiago came to my aid when he did. You may not yet have heard that he was in time to stop another assassination attempt.”
Carling’s graceful eyelids lowered. For a moment the Vampyre maintained a perfect stillness, an incomparably beautiful woman set against a backdrop of ancient silk and mahogany. The tableau was so vivid and anachronistic that Niniane felt a ripple of disorientation, as if she stared upon a painting crafted by one of the European Old Masters or as if time itself had opened up to give her a glimpse into the distant past. Then the hotel air-conditioning came on. The cold air curled against her bare ankles like an invisible snake and dispelled the illusion.
Carling asked, “Another assassination attempt. When was this?”
Niniane could tell nothing from the Councillor’s face. For all she knew, Carling had already heard of the second attempt and merely wanted her to tell the story. She shifted in an attempt to become more comfortable, her wound and fatigued muscles aching, the return of stress making her head pound. “It happened early yesterday morning when I was returning to the hotel. It was another triad. None of them survived for questioning. I didn’t recognize them, although that doesn’t mean anything. I wasn’t close enough to get a good look.”
“Curious, when the Dark Fae need you so badly,” said Carling.
“What do you mean?” she asked.
The Vampyre lifted an elegant shoulder. “Ultimately the Dark Fae did not fare well under Urien’s rule. Elder historians will eventually concur on that point, although his isolationist policy did allow him a great deal of control over trade and business agreements. I’m sure his personal fortune has become quite extensive.”
“I’ll bet it has,” Niniane said between her teeth.
Carling continued, “But Urien closed off Dark Fae society at a critical
juncture in this country’s development. With the Dark Fae talent for metallurgy, they could have become a much more powerful and prosperous demesne than they are. I believe certain intelligent people among the Dark Fae will have realized this by now.”
Old fury surged at Carling’s words. Niniane pressed her lips together to keep it contained. She had raged at just such a fact many a time throughout the Industrial Revolution. “Despite the political rhetoric he spouted, Urien never did act in the Dark Fae’s best interests,” she growled. “He only acted in his own.”
“Indeed,” Carling said. “Urien was a metallurgist of some significant talent himself, and a Powerful sorcerer. I suspect you will find that while his fortune increased, the rest of Dark Fae society has grown stagnant economically and politically. As a people their numbers are too small for them to have thrived under such a separation from general trade and interaction with other societies, which is why they need you so badly. As heir, you will satisfy traditionalists like Justice Trevenan. You also have important ties with all the other Elder demesnes, which will appeal to the progressive-minded like Chancellor Riordan, and you have an unprecedented popularity with the general American population. You are a unique gift to the Dark Fae.”
She snorted, and it caused her side to twinge. “All of that sounds good in theory, Carling, but I have to tell you, right now I’m not feeling the love.”
The blonde Vampyre attendant entered the room again, carrying a tray. She set a wineglass filled with some kind of dark liquid on the table near Niniane’s chair and set a sealed bottle of chilled water beside it. Carefully skirting the line of sunshine on the carpet, the attendant set another wineglass near Carling’s chair, bowed her head to her mistress and backed out of the room.
Niniane’s brows contracted. She lifted her glass to sniff gingerly at the contents. Power was steeped into the rich, dark red liquid, which emitted a gentle radiance against her hand. Herbs floated on the surface. She smelled cinnamon and cloves.
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