She started to pull his wallet out of the back pocket, and he grabbed her hand. Spoilsport. She sighed, opening her fingers, and he patted her as he let her go. “I’m taking the bags out to the car,” he told her. “Be right back.”
He walked out, and just like that she lost what little control she’d had over her life. She tobogganed right out of the fun bit of the drunk and plunged into the snowdrift labeled the sorry stage.
He came back and scooped her into his arms. He was such a mean barbarian, and he was being so careful with her, so gentle and nice. And she couldn’t let herself rely on him. She couldn’t let herself totally rely on anyone ever again.
THREE
Tiago tried to figure out how he could have wrecked his life so completely in just a day. One day. Twenty-four hours. Yesterday he had been merely irritated with cooling his heels in New York and doing unimportant stuff that could have been handled by someone—almost anyone—else.
Tonight in Chicago, he had lost all sense of irritation and had become downright desperate.
He paced in the parking lot of another motel, a Red Roof Inn, as he called Dragos, who answered on the first ring. Tiago said, “Got her.”
The dragon let loose a long exhale. “Good.”
“She was wounded. She’s okay, but she needs to see a doctor soon.” He explained what happened, or at least what he had found and what he had surmised, while his long stride ate up the distance of the parking lot.
Glowing streetlamps were surrounded with blurred yellow halos. A light rain had started to fall, miniscule silver meteors streaking through the illumination. Tendrils of fog rose from the sun-warmed asphalt. The tendrils twisted and curled around his steel-toed boots as though he stood in a Gorgon’s nest of transparent snakes.
He stood several feet away from the building and scanned it and the surrounding area with a hypervigilant gaze. The motel building had a couple of floors, rows of identical doors stacked on top of each other. He had secured a ground-floor room that opened directly onto the parking lot, so they could leave in a hurry if they had to. It was late enough that the motel was quiet, and the cars that dotted the parking lot were cool to the touch. He pivoted at the curb to start another lap.
“What do you need?” Dragos asked.
“You should send a cleanup crew to the Motel 6 where she was hiding. Oh, and she said she left a stolen car in a Wal-Mart parking lot. She said she wiped her prints off the steering wheel and car door handle, but she admits she’s been pretty rattled since the attack and hasn’t been thinking very clearly. The car needs to be cleaned and returned to its owner.”
“I’ll get Tucker on it. Hold on.”
He waited while Dragos relayed orders. Then Tiago said, “Dragos, you’ve got to help me get a handle on her before there’s a murder-suicide here. She’s bawling her eyes out. I’m here to tell you, there’s nothing worse to be around than a forlorn faerie.”
Dragos coughed. “Oh-kay. Hold on.”
Tiago’s sharp ears caught Pia in the background, saying, “You’re all Neanderthals, what else did you expect? What, me talk to him? Oh no—” The phone must have exchanged hands. Pia sighed, “Hello, Tiago. I’m so glad you found her. What’s going on?”
Another female. He nodded. Smart. Speaking in rapid sentences, he filled her in. “You’ve got to help me get her to stop crying,” he demanded.
“You just told me she’s drunk,” Pia said. “Don’t you think she’ll stop as she sobers up?”
“That’s not soon enough,” he growled.
“Have you tried talking to her?” Pia asked.
He pulled the phone away from his ear to give it a quick glare. Was that sarcasm in her voice? He said, “Of course I have. I came all this way to help her, and she keeps insisting I go away. She didn’t even want me to look at her wound. What the fuck is that about?”
There was a long pause on the other end of the line. Pia said, “You want me to deal with this in a five-minute conversation.”
He told her in a grim voice, “Does it have to take that long? I’m just looking for a way to survive the night.”
He glanced at the door to their motel room, which he had left cracked open a few inches. He could still hear her crying. The worst of it was how quiet she tried to be, sneaking sobs into her pillow. She probably thought she was hiding it from him. Argh. He wanted to stab something in his ears.
“Alrighty,” Pia said. “Gray and I have been discussing Niniane today since she’s been on all our minds. Did you know she barely escaped with her life when Urien led the coup that slaughtered her family?”
Tiago stopped pacing. His hand tightened on the cell phone. “I knew Urien had killed her family and she had escaped, but I don’t know the details.”
“She was seventeen years old,” Pia said. “Seventeen. Did you know she saw the bodies of her twin brothers, and she watched Urien’s men as they gutted her mother?”
His stomach clenched. Her mother, gutted before her eyes. He wondered how old her brothers had been. How they had been killed. He had to clear the gravel out of his throat before he could reply. “No,” he said. “I didn’t.”
“So, here’s my five minute fix,” Pia said, her voice soft. “Niniane is under a lot of stress. When she was just a child, a family member, maybe even someone she had cared about and trusted once, slaughtered everyone she loved. Now she’s survived an assassination attempt from yet another family member, and somehow she’s got to find the courage to go back into that palace where she lost everything in the world that mattered to her. So if you tried talking to her in the tone of voice you just used with me, Tiago, I suggest you come back to New York. Any one of the other sentinels would be glad to come take your place. They love her.”
He sucked in a sharp breath. Way to stick a knife in when he wasn’t looking. He stopped pacing and stood rigid. He listened to the roar of denial that had erupted inside when Pia mentioned him being replaced. Fuck if he was going to let that happen.
“Are you still there?”
“I’m here. Hold on,” he growled. He fought his temper, won the struggle for self-control and kept his voice as soft and even as hers. “Nobody else is coming out. I’ve got her, and I will look after her.”
“The right way,” Pia said.
“The right way,” he replied. He sent a grim smile into the halogen-lamp-lit night. “Pia, you’re a bitch. Thank you.”
In the background, Dragos said, “Hey.”
“Ease off, big guy,” Pia said, half muffled. “It was a compliment. At least I think it was.” Her voice came back fully. “Anything else, Tiago?”
He turned to look at the motel door again. “No.”
“Please call if there’s anything we can do.”
“You know I will.” He hung up and pocketed the cell.
Moments later he eased into the room, and shut and locked the door. It was silent inside. Too silent. Was she holding her breath? He stretched his neck to ease tense muscles. Way to screw things up, Dr. Death.
His predator Wyr eyes adjusted quickly to the more intense darkness inside. The room had a king-sized bed, a bland beige decor echoed in motel rooms across the country and no smoking. He had requested that specifically. Niniane was curled under the covers of the bed, her small form scooted to the side closest to the wall, as near to the edge of the bed as she could be without falling off. It was almost like she was wishing she could get as far away from him as possible.
He shook his head and indulged in a little mental ass-kicking. Then he walked over to the bed. He removed his most obtrusive weapons, put them on the bedside table and made sure his Glock was close at hand. All the while he listened.
Yeah, shit. She was definitely holding her breath.
He sighed and eased onto the bed on top of the covers. She was lying on her good side, favoring her left with the knife wound.
She asked, “Did you call ho—New York?”
“Yeah. I talked briefly to Dragos and Pia.”
Her head t
urned slightly toward him. “I like Pia. We didn’t have very long to get to know each other, but I’m already going to miss her.”
“She likes you too,” he said. He carefully curled around her small, tense body and wrapped an arm around her. She started breathing again. It sounded choppy and uneven. He laid his head on his bent arm and hugged her back against him.
She whispered, “Don’t be nice to me.”
“Why not?” he asked, confused. Didn’t Pia just tell him to be nicer? He tucked his nose in her hair. She had taken out those ridiculous pigtails, and her hair was downy soft and loose. She smelled like cigarettes, herbal shampoo and the unique feminine scent that was all hers, all Tricks. Niniane. Whatever. Niniane was a pretty name, he realized. It suited her.
“When you’re nice, it makes it harder.”
He thought of her tearful good-bye several days ago and the round of fierce hugs she had given everybody, himself included, before she left for the airport. He thought of the seventeen-year-old who had lost everything in the world that had mattered to her, and of the many obstacles in 1809 that one small, hunted Fae girl must have faced in getting safely from Adriyel to sanctuary in the Wyr demesne in New York.
He thought of the recent assassination attempt and how she still intended to go live with the Dark Fae, some of whom might still want to kill her, and all because it was far better to have a good person in power than to risk having another Urien take the throne.
He wanted to rip Urien to pieces all over again.
Her hand kept jerking. He raised his head. After a moment he realized she was plucking at the edges of the bedspread. He wrapped his hand with care around hers, stilling the nervous movement. Her fingers felt small, delicate and cold. She tried to pull away from his touch, but he wouldn’t let go.
“How drunk are you now?” he asked.
“I don’t know.” She sniffed. “I can feel my feet again. My side hurts. Not very, I think.”
She had to be exhausted. He hated that she was in pain. He wanted to offer her medication, but he wasn’t sure what might be safe after she’d downed so much vodka. He told her, “Everything’s going to be okay.”
Her head moved slightly. “’Course it will.”
He didn’t know how she managed to make the perky statement sound so awful. He sighed. “You get some rest now.”
She nodded. “Okay.”
“We can talk more on the way to New York,” he told her.
She lifted her head. “What?”
“I said I’m taking you back to New York.” He kept his voice patient since she was obviously still inebriated. “And we can talk more on the way.”
She sighed. “Tiago, I’m not going back.”
“Of course you are,” he said. “Your apartment in the Tower is secure, and we can set up a reliable security detail for you while the attack on you is investigated. Don’t worry. I’ll take care of everything.”
He tried to think if there was something else he should say, but he wasn’t Dr. Phil. He was Dr. Death, and he thought he had covered all the important bits. He held her a long time. Funny. He was doing it for her, but it felt pretty damn good to him too. She was curvy and soft, and no bigger than a minute. She fit perfectly in the curl of his body as he spooned with her.
Finally her stiff body went lax and her breathing deepened. She was asleep. He eased away from her, one careful move at a time. She never stirred when he stood.
He picked up the duffle he had set against one wall earlier. It held a toiletry kit and a couple changes of clothing in his size, along with a lightweight laptop in a protective case and extra weapons. He slipped into the bathroom and eased the door shut before he turned on the light.
He stripped and showered. After washing and rinsing, he braced his hands on the shower wall and leaned on them. He stood with his head down as hot water cascaded over his neck and shoulders. The wet heat felt good after his flight from New York, and it soaked into well-used muscles. Water dripped off his nose and chin. What a day.
He should do the smart thing. He should listen to what Pia had said, and call New York to have one of the other sentinels come take his place.
He should go with his troops to their next assignment.
He wasn’t going to do the smart thing.
He was going to do the only thing he could. He was going to stay and make everything okay for Niniane. Because he had promised her that it would be okay. And because he didn’t seem to be able to make any other choice.
He turned off the tap when the hot water started to run lukewarm. After toweling dry, he slipped on a clean pair of black fatigues and a black T-shirt. He switched off the light before he opened the door. He waited a moment for his night sight to return then slipped into the room, placing the duffle back against the wall.
He paused to check for her breathing, expecting the same deep, even rhythm of sleep.
Except there was no breathing, no sense of another living presence.
He flipped on the light.
The room was empty. She was gone. So were her shopping bags. So were the keys to the SUV.
So was his Glock.
Fury erupted. “Goddamn you, Tricks!”
Tiago couldn’t have tortured her with any greater efficacy if he had tried.
Coming after her all the way to Chicago to make sure she was okay. Being all mean and barbaric and sexy.
She could handle that. She had lived with and been vastly entertained by it for two hundred years. All of Dragos’s sentinels were mean and barbaric and sexy. Even that weird harpybitch Aryal, who she might have a teensy girl crush on. You know, in a totally hetero kind of way.
But then Tiago had turned nice. She hadn’t known he had a nice speed. She had thought he had only two speeds, the killing speed and full stop.
The warlord sentinel, being nice to her. It burned her skin as if he had poured acid all over her.
He had come up behind her in the dark. He curled that powerful muscled body of his around her, enclosing her, and made her feel safe and warm and cared for. He caressed her hand like he cared. It made her wild to get away from him.
What was he thinking? Returning to New York was out of question. She couldn’t go running back to the Wyr demesne just because things had gotten a little rough. That would be political suicide. She would look weak and unfit to rule, not just to the Dark Fae but to all the other demesnes as well.
He told her everything was going to be okay. Damn it.
How was everything going to be okay? For how long? For a few days or a few weeks, or for however long he might decide to help her out? Then what?
He would get on with his life, that’s what, and leave her a solitary monarch on the Dark Fae throne. Meanwhile she had a hundred second cousins. No doubt some of them were lawabiding citizens, but she would bet a good number of them were every bit as ambitious as Geril or her uncle Urien had been.
Stupid Wyr. Nothing was okay.
She couldn’t run away to New York. Now that she was no longer drunk or in shock, she knew she couldn’t run anywhere else either. All the news networks had been telling the same basic story by the end of the evening. Human police and Dark Fae authorities were collaborating on getting a major manhunt underway to find her.
She’d had her time-out and a chance to react, and now she had to go back to the Regent and meet up with the Dark Fae delegation. There wasn’t any other realistic option. When she had chosen to go public with her real identity, she had started down a path of no return.
The delegation was a traditional triad that was comprised of three of the most powerful officials of the Dark Fae government. The first was Chancellor Aubrey Riordan, who belonged somewhere on a distant branch of the Lorelle labyrinthine family tree. Aubrey had been old when Niniane had been born and had retired from public office about fifteen years before her family had been massacred. In the late 1950s Urien had brought Aubrey back into government.
Aubrey’s wife, Naida, had been absent from the grou
p that had met Niniane when she arrived in Chicago. Niniane had heard that Naida was quite a bit younger than her husband. Niniane was interested in meeting the other woman. She looked forward to having conversations with someone that weren’t quite so weighted with political considerations.
The second member of the delegation was Commander Arethusa Shiron, who was the current head of Dark Fae military forces. Arethusa was a cold-eyed, silent woman who intimated Niniane just by the force of her presence. The third was Justice Kellen Trevenan. Kellen was a rarity among the elder Dark Fae, for he was so old his hair had turned white.
All three members of the delegation, Aubrey, Arethusa and Kellen, were hardy survivors if nothing else. They had all lived through her father Rhian’s reign. Her father had been a progressive ruler who had embraced change and developing Dark Fae relationships with not only the long-standing American Indian population but the fast-growing number of European settlers that spread across the continent after the American Revolution in the latter part of the eighteenth century.
Then the members of the delegation had weathered the coup that Urien had led against her father. Urien had been the leader of a conservative faction of Dark Fae that opposed Rhian’s open door policies toward the onslaught of new European arrivals.
To the best of Niniane’s knowledge, none of the three in the delegation had actually participated in the coup itself. They had witnessed Urien’s rise to power and the throne. They had not only lived through his segregationist rule, which had isolated Dark Fae society from the rest of the world, but they came to hold positions where they wielded considerable power. Now they were witness to yet another shift in the monarchy.
While she didn’t want to believe they could be involved in what had happened, the fact was, any of them could have been responsible for the attempt on her life, either by acting on their own or in collusion with another. Or they might have had nothing to do with it, and her cousin Geril and his accomplices had acted independently. Or the attack could have been instigated by someone else entirely.
It had been hard enough to face the delegation the first time when she had arrived in Chicago. The thought of facing them now made her gut clench and her palms sweat. The Dark Fae were known for subterfuge and silent political allegiances, and she had been gone for so long, she was a virtual stranger to it all. What she knew of her heritage read like a short encyclopedia entry colored with adolescent emotions and memories. It was an antiquated snapshot, two hundred years out of date, of a culture and a government that was thousands of years old and Byzantine in its convolutions.
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