He nodded his head toward her shoes and raised his eyebrows.
She looked at them too. Oh no. Her thigh muscles were much too overused for her to feel like she could balance on anything higher than the ground and even that was in question. “I can’t.”
“You’re not walking around barefoot. Not in a bar and certainly not in the parking lot. There’s bound to be broken glass around.” Taking care to keep the material of the T-shirt pinned against the back of her legs, he picked her up in his arms.
“Whatever.” She made a point to sound irritable, even as she nestled close, rested her head on his shoulder and let her aching body go lax.
He paused. “Faerie.”
She opened her eyes and discovered him frowning down at her. “What?”
“We walk out of here a partnership. Don’t let anyone try to persuade you otherwise. I am not letting you go.”
She gave him a hesitant nod.
He looked severe, like he wanted to say more. Instead he gave her a swift hard kiss. Then he strode out with her in his arms.
Just as she had suspected, the only people in the bar were Aryal and Rune. They had evacuated everybody else, including Duncan and Cameron. The place looked abandoned and had a forlorn air. Half-empty glasses, and bowls of peanuts and popcorn still littered the tables. Aryal stood behind the bar, a bottle of tequila in front of her along with a shot glass that she spun in circles. Rune stood throwing darts in quick sharp movements at a board across the room. As they appeared, Aryal reached behind her and switched the music off, and silence crashed down over them all.
Niniane met Aryal’s gaze. The harpy looked grim. Was that censure in her face? Niniane shrank back against Tiago’s chest and went a little numb. She couldn’t recall ever seeing Aryal look at her that way before. Was what they had done so awful?
Tiago took her to a barstool near Aryal and eased her onto it. He kissed her temple. Stay right here.
She set her shoes on the bar and swiveled to face him. His expression gave no clue about what he was thinking. She asked, Why?
I have something I need to do.
Then Tiago pivoted on one heel and launched at Rune, who had just thrown his last dart and was in the process of turning around. Tiago tackled the other sentinel. They slammed into a table, close to five hundred pounds of solid Wyr muscle, and the table collapsed. Rune heaved, trying to dislodge Tiago, but Tiago was heavier and had him pinned in a headlock. Tiago’s teeth were bared, his face feral with rage.
Oh shit. Niniane made a sound and rocked forward. Aryal grabbed her by the shoulder and held her in place. She struggled to shift the hold that pinned her, but the harpy’s long-fingered hand felt like steel. “Let me go!” she said.
“Don’t be stupid,” Aryal said. The harpy’s voice was as hard as her hand. “You know better.”
She did, actually. Getting between two fighting Wyr was suicidal unless you were much bigger and stronger than they were. Dragos was the only one she knew who could survive tearing two fighting sentinels apart. She subsided as she stared at the males who struggled in silence. Aryal let go of her and took a long pull from the tequila bottle.
Tiago might never have managed to get Rune pinned if he had telegraphed his intention. He tightened his arm around Rune’s neck and forced the First’s body to arch backward in a painful bow.
You and I have been friends for longer than most modern nations have existed, he whispered in the First’s head. Which is why I’m not going to snap your neck right now. But if you ever try to come between me and Niniane again, I WILL END YOU.
Rune sucked air as he struggled to ease the pressure on his windpipe. Goddammit, T-bird, he said. I love that faerie as much as any of us, but I couldn’t watch and do nothing while she becomes your Titanic.
You crossed a line, Tiago hissed. I choose her, I want her, and I am taking her.
I was trying to save your fucking life! Rune tried to wedge his fingers underneath Tiago’s forearm.
You were trying to control me, Tiago growled. It’s your choice. We can either come out of this as friends or we can come out as enemies, but you will not try to control me again. Understand?
Rune grunted, Yes.
Tiago let him go and sprang backward as Rune flipped to his feet with a snarl, his golden lion’s eyes flashing, and whirled to face Tiago.
One of these days, Tiago said. You’re going to find your mate. And maybe she’ll be Wyr but maybe she won’t. Then you will understand just what you almost did to me.
With a visible effort, Rune throttled back his aggressive instincts. When both males took a deep breath and straightened, a palpable sense of danger eased from the room. Niniane felt as if she had just run a marathon. She wiped her cheeks and turned back to the bar. She reached for Aryal’s tequila bottle.
Aryal shoved the bottle toward her without looking at her.
That stung. It stung badly.
Niniane took a few sips of tequila, and the fiery liquor flamed her throat. She said to the harpy, “What, you can’t look at me now?”
“I’m too angry to look at you right now,” said Aryal. She held her hand out for the bottle.
Niniane shoved it at her. Bitterness scalded her, along with a touch of fear. Rune and Aryal were supposed to be two of her and Tiago’s closest friends. How much worse would the rest of the world react?
She said in a quiet voice, “After everything we’ve been through and all the time we’ve spent together, I would have thought I had earned better.”
“I didn’t say it was fair,” said Aryal. “I just said I was angry.” The harpy tilted the bottle up to her mouth and took several swallows.
“Okay,” Niniane said. She put her hands to her face and rubbed, then dug her fingers into her scalp, trying to massage some life back into her tired brain. “Why?”
Aryal slammed the bottle onto the bar and glared at it. “I’m angry you chose the Dark Fae and you didn’t choose us. You didn’t have to tell God and everybody else who you were. Chances are your real identity would have died with Urien, because he sure as hell hadn’t spread the news around. You could have stayed in New York. You were happy with us.”
“We discussed this before I ever left,” Niniane said. She was so weary she could barely sit upright on the stool. “You know why I did it.”
“Yeah, but I don’t have to like it, do I?” Aryal said. “And you’re not Wyr, and I hate it when one of us mates with someone who isn’t Wyr. Let alone Tiago, good God. He’s more Wyr than most of us. So you’re not only leaving us, you’re taking one of our strongest with you. I hate it and there’s nothing I can do about it, and you know how I hate when there’s nothing I can do about something. That’s why I’m angry.”
Niniane felt slapped. “So it’s okay to like me as long as you don’t like me too much? I had no idea you were so bigoted.”
“Goddamn it,” the harpy said. “That’s not what I meant.” Aryal’s stormy gaze met hers. The harpy said in her head, What happens in twenty or thirty years if you decide you and Tiago aren’t working out? You’ll be able to walk away, but he will never let go of you.
That’s just it, Niniane said. That is bigotry.
Aryal made an angry chopping gesture with one hand. I’ve seen what can happen. You have too!
I’m not talking about what can happen to someone else in some other situation, Niniane said. I’m talking about me. The bottom line is, you don’t trust me to love him or look after him. You said it yourself. It’s because I’m not Wyr. I would never be good enough or right enough for him, would I?
Aryal glared at the tequila bottle and said nothing.
Niniane’s eyes glittered. When Tiago’s arm came around her shoulders, she turned and put her arms around his waist, resting her cheek against his warm bare skin. She couldn’t bear to look at either Aryal or Rune at the moment.
She knew her old life had ended and was coming to terms with that, but she never thought her old friendships might end as well.
<
br /> Maybe she was selfish to take what he offered. Her life wasn’t going to be any picnic. Maybe she should have tried harder to push him away. He had said he would go if she could tell him she didn’t want him and she could make him believe it. She hadn’t been strong enough.
She said to Aryal, I need him more than you do.
Niniane’s cheek felt wet. Tiago put a protective hand to her head and shielded her face from the other two. He bent to press his lips to her forehead. Whatever she and Aryal had said to each other had obviously been painful. He wanted to slam his fist into the harpy’s face.
He held on to the impulse by the skin of his teeth. He could just hear how that conversation would go. She would say, Tiago, you can’t fight all my battles for me. But he honestly didn’t know why the hell not.
He picked Niniane up and cradled her close. She held her shoes against her stomach and put her face in his neck. He turned to the door and paused. Without looking at either sentinel, he said, “Don’t come with us if you can’t accept us.”
He waited a moment to see if Niniane would contradict him. She slipped her arm around his neck and remained silent. He squeezed her tight and strode out.
Predawn was lightening the sky in the east. It revealed a sodden, bedraggled neighborhood that had been buffeted by the storm that had blown through in the night. Fast-food wrappers and plastic drinks containers were strewn across the parking lot. From the outside with the lights turned off, Big Red’s bar looked tired.
He heard the sounds of boot heels on gravel and turned. Rune and Aryal had stepped out of the building. They looked tired too but resolute. They walked toward him and Niniane. The gryphon’s tawny head topped Aryal’s tangled black hair by a couple of inches. Both sentinels moved their long, lean bodies with fluid athleticism. They scanned the surrounding scene with sharp eyes. They came to a stop, one on each side of him. Aryal reached out and touched Niniane’s hand. After a hesitation, Niniane clasped the harpy’s hand.
Rune had been right earlier. Wyr were not good at forgiveness, and they never forgot.
They were also hellishly bad at letting go.
Niniane’s exhaustion swallowed her whole. A formless fog filled her mind. She was vaguely aware that Tiago climbed into the back of a vehicle while still holding her. Rune said something to him, to which he replied, and then Rune shut the door. Other car doors opened and shut. Moments later Aryal started the vehicle, and she drove them through quiet gray-lit Chicago streets.
Then Niniane must have fallen asleep, or fallen into a state very like it. She dreamed of movement and quiet noises, but she only came awake when Tiago leaned over to lay her on a bed. She cracked open bleary eyes and looked around. They were in her penthouse room, back in the hotel from hell. She pushed into a sitting position, her exhaustion-smudged face filled with alarm.
His hatchet-hewn features softened as he bent over her. He said, “It’s all right. You’re fine, it’s safe.”
Had it been a long, vivid, incredibly beautiful dream? She blinked, looking around. She wore a voluminous black T-shirt. Tiago was armed and bare-chested, and dressed in black fatigue pants.
She was sore in the most private places of her body. She relaxed marginally. It had happened. It hadn’t been a dream.
“Are you going somewhere?” she mumbled.
“No,” he said. He kissed the sleepy soft pout of her mouth. “I’m just stepping into another room for a few minutes. I need to call New York and talk to Dragos.”
“All right.” Her eyelids felt like they weighed about ninety pounds each. They fell shut and she couldn’t pry them open again. Her head listed to the side. “I’ll wait here.”
He laughed, a soft exhalation of air. “I’m going to leave the door open, so I can keep an eye on you. I still haven’t calmed down from when the Djinn took you. Lie down, faerie. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
He put a hand on her shoulder and urged her down. She resisted for all of thirty seconds. Then she lay down and turned onto her side to hug a pillow as he tucked the bedcovers around her. She felt the brush of his fingers through her hair. He turned off the bedside lamp and walked into the bathroom. After a moment she heard him speaking in a quiet voice.
That was the last thing she remembered before she ran through a shadowed palace soaked in her brothers’ blood.
Tiago positioned himself in the bathroom so that he could see the top of Niniane’s black tousled head. He leaned against the bathroom counter and hit speed dial #1 on the iPhone he had stolen from Rune. He didn’t need to double-check the number. All the sentinels had Dragos as #1 on their cell phones.
“What now?” Dragos said as he answered the phone.
Tiago rotated his shoulders, working to loosen the muscles that had tightened after the fight with Rune. He told the dragon, “I quit.”
Silence on the other end of the connection.
“Niniane is my mate,” Tiago said.
He waited and listened to more silence.
He snapped, “You can’t tell me Rune didn’t find a way to get in touch with you in the last couple of hours.”
“I’m waiting to hear from you whether you’re still an ally or not,” said Dragos.
“Don’t be stupid,” Tiago said. “Of course we are.”
“All right. Keep her safe and stay in touch.” The phone clicked.
Tiago shook his head and laughed silently to himself. When all was said and done, Dragos was the most efficient predator of them all. And, after all, what else was there to say?
He splashed off at the bathroom sink, found and unwrapped a new toothbrush and brushed his teeth. He went to the side of the bed where he undressed and set his weapons within easy reach on the bedside table. He exulted in the exotic intimacy of joining her in bed as he slid nude between the covers.
That was when he discovered she had curled in a tight ball. He pushed up on one forearm to stare down at her. She was clammy, her breathing choppy, and she had both hands clamped over her mouth.
“Faerie,” he said in a sharp voice. His Power mantled in the room, seeking an enemy. He couldn’t sense any other Power or influence nearby. He gripped her shoulder. She made a strangled noise and exploded into a hellcat. She kicked and punched at him, her movements wild and uncontrolled. He threw one heavy thigh over her thrashing legs, and he gripped her wrists as gently as he could and pinned them on the pillows on either side of her head. “Wake up, Niniane.”
She hurtled into awareness, her heart slamming in her chest. For a nightmarish moment she couldn’t remember where she was or recognize the dark silhouette of the male pinning her down. A terrified, despairing noise broke out of her as she tried to buck off his weight. He shifted immediately, easing off of her but not letting go of her wrists. Then he said her name again, and it snapped her reality back into place.
She stopped struggling and said in a ragged voice, “I’m awake. Sorry.”
Tiago leaned on one elbow beside her and braced a hand on her ribs. He sounded as ragged as she did. “Fuck sorry. Just tell me what happened.”
How strange that he was here, warm and naked, one hip pressed insistently against hers. Greedy for the feel of his skin, she burrowed into his side and rubbed her toes along his calf. The crisp hairs on his leg tickled her bare foot. “I was having a nightmare about the night when Urien and his men killed my family. I used to have it all the time. Then it mostly went away. Now it’s come back again.”
He growled deep in his chest, the menacing sound vibrating against her cheek. He sounded frustrated. “I want to kill that son of a bitch all over again. And again and again.”
“It was just a dream,” she whispered.
“No, it isn’t, faerie. It’s a terrible memory of a crime committed against you and people you loved.”
“Yes.” The word came out on the barest thread of sound.
He propped a pillow against the headboard, settled back against it and pulled her into his arms. She settled against him with her head on h
is shoulder, one slender leg hitched over his hips, an arm draped over his chest. He radiated heat and strength, the forcefulness of his presence filling the room and scattering the last threads of the nightmare that clung to her like cobwebs.
He stroked the hair off her damp forehead. “Can you tell me about it?”
She lifted her slender shoulder in a halfhearted shrug. “I’d much rather it just went away.”
He cupped her shoulder, fingering the delicate bones underneath his shirt. “Maybe it will if you talk about it.”
So she did, her voice halting at first, as the words came hard. When she got to the part where she found the bodies of her twin brothers, tears streaked down her face. She described watching one of Urien’s soldiers as he murdered her mother with one efficient sword thrust, and Tiago rolled her onto her back and covered her with his body. His cheek rested against hers, and he covered her forehead with one huge palm. It was as if he was trying to hide her from the trauma of what had already happened. She rubbed his back.
“I never found out the details of what happened to my father, other than he and Urien fought, and Urien killed him,” she said. “My father had had a great deal of Power. I used to think nothing could touch him. Urien went after him personally and sent his soldiers to take care of the rest of us.”
Tiago kissed her cheek, her temple. “How did you get away?”
She laughed a little, hardly more than an exhalation of air. “I was misbehaving. I’d snuck out to meet a boy. He wasn’t acceptable, and I wasn’t supposed to be seeing him, and it was really just a typical stupid teenage prank. I spent most of the night with him trying to decide if I wanted to have sex or not. I decided not, and I slipped back into the palace, and that was when I heard something. It sounded like people running in the hall, only they sounded quiet and furtive. My brothers’ rooms were next to mine, so I went to check on them, discovered their bodies and ran to find help. Then I saw soldiers kill my mother, and I felt Power flare from Urien and my father’s battle, so I knew I had to run. I slipped out the way I had come in.”
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