“There’s my bad boy,” she whispered. God, he was breathtaking.
A strange melee played out in the meadow. It was like something out of a nightmare. Gryphons attacked Fae while horses screamed and plunged in terror. She thought she saw a winged, demonic-looking creature rip out the throat of a Fae. There was a huge dark bird that caused thunder with the beat of its massive wings. Lightning flashed out of its eyes, but maybe by that point she was beginning to hallucinate.
Graydon bent over her. “Oh fuck, no,” he whispered. He grabbed for her crumbled shirt and pressed it around the crossbow bolt sticking from her chest. “Hold on, honey.”
She touched his hand. “I’m okay,” she tried to tell him. “Everything’s going to be all right now.”
She didn’t think she managed to get the words out because he wiped his cheek on his shoulder and shouted, “Dragos!”
Then Dragos fell to his knees beside her, and her world turned right again. His face was ashen, his eyes stark. He added pressure to the wound at her chest and laid a hand against her cheek.
“Pia.” He spoke like the words were ripped out of him. “Don’t you dare leave me. I swear to God, I will follow you into hell if I have to and drag you back by the hair.”
One corner of her mouth lifted. She put her hand over his on her cheek. She said, “You say the most god-awful things.”
She was tired so she rested her eyes for a minute.
Afterward she remembered a series of images, like pearls on a string.
She opened her eyes to find that Graydon held her back against his chest, one arm across her shoulders, the other arm clamped low around her waist. They sat in a cage made of talons formed by Dragos’s two front feet. Rune stood over them, looking through the talons. “Hold her just like that,” he said with his face grim. “Don’t let her get jostled.”
“I got her,” Graydon said. “Let’s go.”
They were acting so dramatic, like it was life or death or something. So much for being big tough warriors. They were worse than a bunch of high school girls.
She faded out as Dragos launched.
The next thing she knew Dragos was the one holding her. She could have carried a brimming wineglass and not spilled a drop as he raced up a flight of stairs. “I don’t care!” he roared. “Get any goddamn doctor fast as you can. Steal one from Monroe if you have to. One of you fly to New York and get our Wyr healer!”
She tried to focus her blurry gaze. Is this Urien’s house again? I’m awake, I’m asleep, I’m awake, I’m asleep. I’m in the house, I’m out. Now I’m in again. This is getting ridiculous.
And she faded out.
Then things got really strange.
She was immersed in the dragon’s Power. He had consumed her. With every breath, he worked her lungs. Her heartbeat faltered. The great engine of his heart took over the rhythm. Her Power started to fade, but he had her Name. He demanded she stay in her flesh. She drifted inside him, inextricably woven with his life force.
She thought she heard her mother say, He cannot hold you forever. You may come to me if you wish.
But there was somebody else with them, a bright, tiny, stubborn spark. He was just a new creation, but he already had his own opinions. Dragos held her life to her body, but her son’s Power pulsed inside her.
He was trying to heal her. She roused.
Oh no, sweet baby, she crooned. You’re too small for that.
The peanut begged to differ.
A warm glow of energy suffused her body, so like her mother’s healing Power, so like her own. For one moment everything was shining and well and right. Then, with infinite gentleness, the dragon laid his Power on that tiny spark of life that glowed too bright, too strong, and eased it back until it nestled into place.
Precious baby boy.
Her fingers crept an inch across a sheet. They were grasped by a much larger, more powerful hand that held on to her hard as she fell asleep.
TWENTY
When she woke up again for real she was in their bed at Cuelebre Tower. She gazed at the ceiling for an unmeasured time as the light changed. It was quiet. She was warm, clean and dry and pain free.
Dragos lay beside her, his arm around her. She looked at his sleeping face and saw something she had never seen before. He looked exhausted and worn, as if something inside of him had stretched too thin. She frowned. Had he gotten hurt in the battle?
She tried to raise her right arm to stroke his face but she couldn’t. She tugged at her arm, and all of a sudden Dragos rose up on his elbow. He put his hand on her arm to hold her down. “Sweetheart, don’t do that.”
“My hand’s caught on something,” she mumbled. She looked up at him with sleepy anxiety. “What’s wrong? You look so sad. Are you hurt?”
He smiled down at her, gold eyes alight, and the careworn look vanished. “I did not get hurt, other than in my heart.”
“Somebody shot you in the heart!” She tried to jerk her hand up.
“Pia love, stop. Look at your arm.” She turned and followed the direction of his pointing finger. “You have an IV drip. You keep trying to pull it out in your sleep, so we had your hand tied down. We didn’t want you to hurt yourself.”
“Oh.” Feeling foolish, she subsided. She turned back to him. “Somebody shot you in the heart!”
“Yes.” He kissed her nose. “You did, metaphorically speaking.” He kissed her mouth, his caressing lips infinitely gentle. “You were dying, you little shit. Your heart shut down and your lungs stopped working. I had to take over for a while. Then our son decided to help and almost burned himself out healing you. It scared centuries off my life.”
He nuzzled at her, his eyelids closed. She breathed him in, rubbed her cheek against his and let his presence soothe the jagged edges inside.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. A tear slid out of a corner of her eye and soaked her hair, followed by another. “I’m so sorry for everything.”
“Stop that.” He cupped her face and wiped the tears away. “It’s not your fault. I flew your doctor back from Cancún and had quite a talk with her. First I found out what an IUD was and how it could have endangered both you and the pregnancy. I understand why you panicked and why you were afraid I had forced the pregnancy on you.”
“I should have known better.”
“How could you? We’ve been together for less than a week and under far less than ideal circumstances. But of course I didn’t mean to make you pregnant. You’ve ruined me.” His voice and face were rueful. He stroked her hair. “I had no idea my control had slipped to that extent.”
Her gaze clung to him as her free hand slid to cover her abdomen in a protective gesture that was fast becoming habitual. Something tentative and fragile in her expression seemed to catch his attention. The dark slash of his eyebrows contracted. He covered her hand with his, lacing his fingers with hers.
“The pregnancy is a total shock,” he told her. “Connecting with our son when he healed you—he’s one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen. I can’t begin to describe my reaction to him. I’ve never felt these feelings before.”
“That’s actually a pretty good way to describe it,” she whispered. “Me either. I’m terrified.”
He kissed her, his lips moving slow and easy as he savored her. “I have no idea how to act around small new creatures. But I’m glad.”
“I am too,” she whispered. Her eyes glittered with easy moisture as she smiled at him. Then her gaze turned inward and grew haunted. “I killed five people.”
His eyes narrowed. “How do you figure?”
“It’s my fault the man in the truck got shot—”
He tapped her lips. “That one’s easy. He’s not dead. It was touch and go at first, but they say he’s going to pull through just fine.”
“Thank God,” she said, sighing.
“There were, however, four dead guards around Urien’s house that we’ve been mighty curious about. Was that you?” He searched her fa
ce. His fingers couldn’t seem to stop stroking her cheekbones, her jaw, her throat.
She grimaced and nodded.
He showed her his teeth. “I am so damn proud of you. You stepped it up when you had to. You did what needed to be done and got yourself away.”
“Yeah, well, you’re a bloodthirsty monster. Who cares what you think,” she muttered. She drifted for a few minutes and he let her be, stroking her hair. She roused enough to say, “To be honest, I was feeling bad about not feeling bad. Except for the guy in the truck. Him I just felt bad about.”
“That’s stupid and convoluted. You are going to stop it right now,” he ordered.
She gave a ghost of a giggle. “There you go again, giving orders. His Majesty is starting to feel better. Oh, speaking of majesties.” Her eyes opened very wide. “Urien actually thought he was going to be the boss of me.”
“Which was one of the things that finally got him killed.” His eyes crinkled. “Imagine that.”
She slept for a while with the easy exhaustion of a convalescent. She woke up once to say with sudden urgency, “Don’t go anywhere.”
He was dressed in cutoffs and stretched out on top of the covers, reading files, pillows piled at his back. He set them aside and gave her a steady look. “I’m not going anywhere, Pia. Not anywhere. And neither are you.”
His much-loved face was as immovable as a mountain. She nodded and relaxed. He did not pick up his reading again until she was sound asleep.
Almost dying can sure take it out of a body. The brief healing flare of Power from the peanut had taken care of essentials, but she had to do the rest on her own.
She had been unconscious for two days. Dragos had a present for her, an anti-nausea charm set in a two-carat diamond pendant necklace. The day after she woke up, when they were sure she could keep liquids and solid food down, the doctor had the IV drip removed.
She couldn’t concentrate on anything more substantive than magazines and TV shows, and she napped often. When she was awake, Dragos coaxed out of her every detail of what happened.
Then he shared the story of their pursuit, down to the final part when all the sentinels had taken to the air to search for the meadow she had described. With his keen raptor’s gaze, Bayne had caught the movement as Urien and his men had plunged down the incline toward her. They had still been a couple miles away and had hurtled forward with every ounce of speed they possessed.
Every ounce of Dragos’s formidable energy had been focused on taking Urien out before the Fae King had a chance to draw on his considerable Power and fight back. He hadn’t seen Pia get shot, but he had seen her bolt hit Urien high in the shoulder. It hadn’t been a killing shot, but it was enough to distract the Fae King for those few final seconds as Dragos and the sentinels dove down to the attack.
They had all seen her give Urien the finger. The sentinels made much of it as they sprawled on the couches with their feet up on the furniture, ate pizza, drank beer after beer and watched SOAPnet.
“I like that evil twin,” said Graydon, pointing his bottle at the flat-screen. “The other one’s too sickly sweet. Nobody’s that nice.”
“Fuck, no,” said Constantine comfortably. “But you gotta admit, that actress is smoking hot. You think they’re real?”
“Doubt it,” said Graydon. “They’re too globular.”
Constantine nodded. “I can handle globular.”
“Pun,” said Graydon. “Groan.”
Pia looked at them over the top of the Cosmopolitan she was thumbing through but refrained from comment. She supposed it could have been worse. At least they were more or less housebroken.
She was curled on one end of the couch, tucked under a light silk throw. After she had started to feel steadier, she had been able to convince Dragos to go take care of a backlog of things, but that only meant she had a steady, rotating stream of sentinels as visitors. She hadn’t had a moment to herself since the kidnapping.
When she complained to Graydon, he told her, “It’s just a precaution, cupcake. A few of Urien’s Fae are still being hunted down, and that Elven connection we were hunting for has disappeared. Damnedy damn it.” He snickered.
“I can’t believe he told you guys that,” she said. “I’d just twisted my ankle and was having a bad day. I wasn’t responsible for what came out of my mouth—or head.”
“You handled yourself like a pro,” he soothed.
“Yes, I did. I kicked ass,” she grumbled. “And anyway, I’m in the Tower penthouse. This place is locked up tighter than Fort Knox. Nobody’s hunting me anymore. I’m sure not going anywhere right now.”
“Yeah, but you gotta remember,” said the gryphon as he tapped her nose. “You scared the shit out of the boss. He’s not used to fear. If you don’t let him fuss, I think he might blow up. You scared the shit out of us too, by the way. Besides, you’re family now and we’re having fun. It’s like a vacation.” He winked.
Family. Wow.
“Okay,” she muttered. She tried not to wiggle for joy and pretended to still be grumpy, but she gave him an affectionate smile.
A depressed Tricks came to thank her for her part in killing Urien and to say good-bye. The faerie was leaving to be crowned Queen at the Dark Fae Court. She had had the lavender dye stripped from her hair and no longer wore it with a perky flip on the ends. It was its natural raven black. Pia was surprised to see how much it changed the faerie’s appearance and made her look more serious.
“Please God, come visit soon,” said Tricks. “Don’t abandon me to the Dark Fae Court. We’ll do lunch again.”
She groaned. “Okay, but next time let’s do without the Piesporter and cognac.”
Tricks gave her a sly one-sided smile. “We’ll see.”
Pia told her, “I’m going to miss you.”
The faerie threw her arms around her. “I’ll miss you too.”
Lunch sometime with the Dark Fae Queen. Invitations to visit with the Elven High Lord and Lady. How strange her life had become.
On impulse she asked, “Did you find somebody to take over your PR job?”
“No,” said Tricks. “There hasn’t been time. Why, do you want it?”
She lifted a shoulder, feeling self-conscious. “Maybe I’ll talk to Dragos about it. You know, when I’m up for it.”
“Whatever you decide, you keep that dragon twisted around your little finger,” the faerie advised with a giggle. “It’s his karma after so many centuries of being the center of everybody’s universe around here. It’ll do him a world of good.”
Another visitor came one afternoon. Pia looked up as Aryal threw her six-foot body onto a couch beside her. The harpy’s black hair was tangled again, which seemed to be its usual state. She wore low-rider jeans, a sleeveless leather vest and the requisite sentinel weapons.
Pia studied her as Aryal fidgeted. The harpy’s odd gaunt beauty had nothing to do with dieting, and while lanky, her body was sure cut. Pia looked at her arm muscles and rippling stomach, thinking of all the hard work it took to look like that. Not in this lifetime.
Aryal glared at General Hospital playing on the flat-screen and jiggled a foot. She picked up a Harper’s Bazaar, thumbed through a few pages and tossed it aside. Pia thought she heard the harpy mutter, “I’m no good at any of this girlfriend shit.”
She raised her eyebrows and wondered if she was supposed to say something.
Aryal looked at the TV. She said, “Can you believe it—first, the witch Adela sold you a binding oath, the next day she put a tracking spell on you for Dragos and this week she contracted with the Dark Fae to find you. You turned out to be quite the cash cow for her.”
She shook her head. “That’s pretty wrong. I never did feel quite right about her.”
The harpy continued, “We found her body in the Hudson River. Her throat had been slit. Apparently she contracted her services out one too many times. The forensic report is inconclusive, but we’re guessing the Dark Fae killed her. The estimated time of deat
h is shortly after you were kidnapped. It looks like the Dark Fae were trying to cover their tracks after taking you.”
“I see,” she said, her tone neutral. Maybe she should care that the witch had been murdered. Whatever Adela had done, Pia wasn’t sure that she had deserved to die for it. At the moment she couldn’t seem to muster much of a reaction.
Silence fell between them. Then Aryal’s strange stormy gray eyes met hers. “Bayne and I feel like shit about the kidnapping. But I’m not sorry about the rest of it.”
“I didn’t ask you to be. You’re entitled to your own opinion, and you were trying to protect Dragos in your own way. I respect that and there’s nothing more to be said.” Pia took the end of her cheerleader ponytail and flicked it at the harpy.
A feral grin spread across Aryal’s face. “Uh, listen, sometime when you’re feeling up to it, I’d like to have a round or two with you on the mat. For a while the gryphons couldn’t talk about anything else.”
“Sure, why not,” she told the sentinel. “The way things have been going, I had better keep up on my training.”
“Okay.” Aryal put her hands on her knees and started to push to her feet.
“Just one thing,” Pia said. The harpy paused and looked at her. Pia regarded her with a cold, steady gaze. “Try shoving me into a wall again and I’ll smack you down.”
Aryal’s grin turned into a scowl. She looked like she had just swallowed something sour, but after a moment she nodded.
Pia returned the nod and looked down at her magazine. It was a dismissal. The harpy took it as such, launched off the couch and disappeared.
Pia also had time to give Quentin a call. She went out onto the balcony on a sunny afternoon and closed the door for some privacy. Then she leaned against the new wall and looked out over the city as they talked.
It was quite an exchange. She had to fill Quentin in on all that had happened since her brief stay at his beach house. It was a lot to tell, including that she was now apparently Dragos’s mate and carrying his child.
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