Dragon Bound

FOURTEEN

Pia and Tricks said good-bye to Dragos and left his offices. In the hall, Graydon and Rune were talking to Tiago. Tricks ignored the trio as she sailed past them. Tiago glared after her. The handsome laughing man Pia had glimpsed so briefly was once again supplanted by the hatchet-faced assassin. Pia matched the faerie’s shorter stride and kept her expression scrupulously neutral.

Tricks took her down to Manhattan Cat, the restaurant on the ground floor. “It’s owned by a Wyr-fox, Lyssa Renard,” the faerie said as they walked across the crowded lobby. “Lyssa’s a bit of a snobby bitch but she does know her food.”

“I’ve heard of the restaurant,” Pia said. She caught a glimpse of Rune and Graydon keeping pace a few feet away, their eyes constantly roving over the crowd. “It’s gotten some decent reviews.”

“You’re a vegetarian, right?” Tricks pushed the restaurant door open. “Of course, there’s a lot of dead animal and fish on the menu, but there are also some good salads and a few tofu dishes I like. Best of all, they stock this 2004 Piesporter that makes me crazy. You like white wine?”

“Absolutely.”

“A girl after my own heart.” Tricks turned as the hostess, a dark, slender young Wyr-cat with slanted eyes, approached with menus and a smile. “Hi, Elise, I’m sorry we’re late.”

“No problem, Tricks,” said the hostess.

The restaurant’s decor was simple and sleek, featuring dark wood, white linen tablecloths and fresh flowers. Every table was filled, and while one or two people called out a greeting to Tricks, most of the occupants paid no attention to them. The sounds of conversation and cutlery accompanied them as the Wyr-cat led them to a small private room at the back that was, Tricks explained, on permanent reserve for Cuelebre executives.

There were three tables in the empty room. After letting Pia precede them, Tricks stopped in the doorway. She said to Elise, “We’ll have two orders of the tofu stir-fry, a bottle of the Piesporter and no men allowed.” This was thrown at the two gryphons who were hard on their heels. Elise nodded with a smile and slipped away.

“Aw, Tricks, come on,” said Graydon.

“No,” said the faerie. “You know this room. You know there’s only one way in or out. And you know she’s with me. Deal with it.”

Tricks slammed the door in their faces. Pia started to laugh. “There’s nowhere for them to sit out there,” she said.

“I know. I’m still mad at them. Besides, these walls are soundproofed. You know, supersensitive Wyr hearing, corporate secrets, confidential business lunches and all that.” Tricks grinned. “That means you and I get to have some girl talk.”

Pia wasn’t under any illusions about what she had witnessed. The faerie’s utterly fearless confidence around the Wyr sentinels was based on two hundred years of residence with them. They were dangerous, powerful men and Pia was going to have to carve out her own way with them. Still, it was heartening to see they had a soft side.

Lunch came quickly. The waiter propped the door open as he served them. Just outside Rune leaned against a partition opposite the door. He sucked a tooth and regarded them with narrowed eyes until the waiter left and shut the door behind them.

Some impulse had Pia say, “They’re worried about you. It’s clear they’re going to miss you when you leave.”

Tricks’s grin slipped. “I’m going to miss them too.”

Was that a wet glitter in those pretty, overlarge, gray Fae eyes? Pia looked away as she took a seat. “I’m sorry,” she said. “That was pretty personal. I didn’t have any right to say anything.”

Tricks slipped into a chair beside her. “It’s okay. You’re right.” Pia’s gaze slid sideways. She watched as the faerie flexed delicate hands and looked at them. “They’re such good guys, Pia. Even that crabby mountain Tiago. Every last one of them would take a rain of bullets for you.”

“Well,” Pia said in a gentle voice, “they might take a rain of bullets for you.”

“Oh no.” Tricks looked at her, eyes wide. “I mean, yes, they would take them for me. Without question. But they would take them for you too, just because Dragos wants you safe.”

Damn, the faerie’s sadness was making her own eyes prickle with tears. “I think I know some of what you’re going through right now,” Pia said. “Not the impending Queen stuff. That’s way out of my stratosphere. But the other stuff.”

“You mean the end of life as you know it?”

“Yeah, that.”

Tricks gave a sudden giggle. “How’d we get so downtrodden? We haven’t even finished our first glasses of wine.” She picked up her glass and clicked it against Pia’s. “Salut, new friend.”

Pia picked up her glass. “Salut.”

Tricks knocked back her wine. “Now for the good stuff. Gossip! You need to know who is lying, cheating, backstabbing, revenge-seeking, who-done-who-wrong and who is just plain hard to get along with in this place. I’m here to give you the road map every girl should have before she starts working in this loony bin.”

Hungry, Pia forked some stir-fry into her mouth. She remarked, “It sounds like I need a flowchart.”

The faerie gasped. “Beauteous. I need a pen.”

Pia watched her pat the pockets of her silk suit, then trot to the door to flag down a passing waitress. Tricks returned triumphant. She started to scribble on the white tablecloth, drawing circles and arrows between names as she chattered. They finished their lunch. The waiter came and left with their plates. More wine flowed.

Sometime later Pia rubbed her nose. She looked at her empty wineglass, then at the empty bottles on the neighboring table. She squinted at her new best friend, who listed to one side in her chair. “What is your name again?”

The faerie snickered. “It’s gotta be on this chart. I’m sure I wrote it down somewhere.”

Pia looked over the dense black scribbles that covered the tablecloth. “We were going to talk about something. Weren’t we?”

“Sure we were. You’re going to take over my PR job.”

“Okay.” She nodded. It was the perfect solution. Of course it was.

But wait. There was something she needed to remember about that. Doubts, other considerations, deadly good reasons why she shouldn’t accept. There was something. . . .

Something that twinkled in the air, a feminine Power so light and delicate and effervescent she only just noticed it, after hours of sitting saturated in its presence.

Her best friend was writing something down. T-r-i-c-k-s. The faerie drew hearts and flowers around the word as she hummed to herself.

“Tricks,” said Pia.

Tricks looked up from the doodling, tongue between her teeth.

Pia put one elbow on the table, her chin in her hand, and smiled at the other woman. “Is your Power by any chance related to charm or charisma?”

Tricks scratched the tip of one ear. “So what if it is?”

“I don’t think I should say yes to anything you ask me while we’re in the same room together and I’m drunk, that’s all,” Pia said.

One of Tricks’s eyelids lowered to half-mast, a crafty, unrepentant look. Then the faerie grinned, and sunshine and happiness burst into the room. “Oh, pfft!” she said.

The afternoon descended into early evening. Dragos, Kristoff and Tiago watched the evening news in Dragos’s office. Kristoff stood with an arm wrapped around his middle, one hand covering the back of his neck. Tiago stood with his feet planted apart, arms crossed. Barbed-wire tattoos flexed as his biceps clenched.

Dragos sat at his desk. He tapped his steepled fingers against his mouth as he watched Cuelebre Enterprises get bitch-slapped on national television.

Two beautiful people were on the screen. One was a human female reporter. The other was the Dark Fae King.

For the first time in many decades, Dragos looked on the face of his enemy. Urien had typical Dark Fae coloring and features, with overlarge gray eyes, high cheekbones, white skin and black hair that fell to his shoulders. His hair was pulled back, revealing elegant, long pointed ears.

“. . . of course, scrapping the project is quite a financial blow to the people of this community and to the state of Illinois,” said Urien, with a charming, regretful smile. “And not only for potential jobs that have been lost. We lost a valuable source of clean and economical power that would have been produced by a new electric-generating nuclear power plant, and we have Cuelebre Enterprises to thank for that. As you know, the nation faces the challenge of reducing our carbon emissions. The only way we can achieve lower emissions is by developing energy efficiencies and clean technologies, such as wind and solar power. Nuclear energy has got to be part of that mix. . . .”

Dragos punched the mute. He looked at Tiago and his miserable assistant.

Tiago said, “Urien looks good for a dead man.”

“Too good,” Dragos growled.

“I can’t believe what a fucking hypocrite he is,” Kristoff said bitterly. “He’s talking about clean energy and lower emissions when he’s still blowing up mountaintops and he has one of the most polluting companies on the planet. You know our DOE contact, Peter Hines, rejected the RYVN grant application like we asked. He got fired today. And Urien’s media blitz hit earlier this afternoon. Stocks are down in six of our companies.”

“The ones headquartered in Illinois,” said Dragos.

“Yup.”

“Oh, buck up, Kris,” Tiago said, impatient. “Did you think Urien would take losing his pet project lying down? Of course he was going to strike back. At least you’ve got the satisfaction of knowing you really pissed him off. Usually he has nothing to do with human media.”

Kris chewed a nail. “I know what’s going to happen next. RYVN is going to reapply for that grant with Hines’s replacement. After this, public sentiment will be on their side.”

“They’ll get that grant over my dead body,” Dragos snapped. “I said do what it takes to tear the RYVN partnership apart and I meant it.” He surged to his feet and slapped his hands on the desk. Tiago was silent and Kris looked at his feet while Dragos battled his rage. After a moment he continued, with a semblance of calm, “Get ahold of Hines, offer him a job. He’s a bureaucrat—he must be able to do something we like.”

Kris said, “Maybe he can join our Washington lobbyist team.”

“Go.” Kris fled. Dragos turned his hot gaze onto Tiago. “And for God’s sake, will you go find that slippery mother-fucker so I can tear him to shreds?”

“Working on it,” said Tiago. “He can run from me but he cannot hide forever. We’ll get him, Dragos.”

He glared as his sentinel strode out. Locating Urien wasn’t happening fast enough. He snarled down at his desk and made himself lift up his hands and get a grip on his temper. I’ve got to stop tearing the furniture up. There’s too goddamn much to do. No time for another repair and remodel.

His thoughts shifted to Pia. He glanced out the window and frowned at the early-evening light. He left the office and jogged the stairs up to a silent penthouse. He strode through the rooms. They echoed with emptiness.

He didn’t like it. His frown turned into a scowl. But what else had he expected? Did he think Pia would be here waiting for him whenever he decided to look this way—like an employee or a servant? Fuck.

Rune, he said telepathically.

Rune replied, They’re still at lunch.

Still at lunch? Dragos reversed direction and headed toward the elevator. Minutes later he entered Manhattan Cat and made his way across the restaurant to the executive room.

Rune and Graydon stood on either side of the closed door. Graydon bounced on his feet. Rune leaned against the wall with arms and ankles crossed. Dragos put his hands on his hips and looked at them.

Rune said, “Tofu stir-fry lunch at one thirty. Four bottles of wine. Waiter took in a tray of chocolate desserts and a bottle of cognac about forty-five minutes ago. Last time the door opened, they were singing ‘I Will Survive.’ ”

“What’s that?” Dragos said.

Graydon grinned. “It’s a seventies hit by Gloria Gaynor. I think they were singing it as a kind of ‘female bonding over bad ex-boyfriends’ type of thing.”

His head jerked up. He had one of the most startling and unwelcome thoughts of the last century.

Am I a boyfriend?

He growled and jerked the door open.

Pia and Tricks were on their hands and knees on the floor, snickering in fits and snorts. The tables and chairs were shoved against the wall. Pia was folding a white table cloth that was covered with black writing.

“Give me a minute,” Pia was saying. “I swear I just saw it. If you fold the flowchart just right—look, the names match up. All of those people slept together too.”

Tricks giggled. “How did you notice? That’s like something out of National Treasure or The Da Vinci Code. We need to get some weird antique glasses with special lenses and maybe we’ll see something else. Wait. Here we go.” She let out a long, loud burp.

Pia counted through the burp. “. . . two ten thousand, three ten thousand, four—oop, you win.” She stared at the little faerie in awe. “Where did you put all that air?”

“It’s a gift,” Tricks said.

Dragos’s bad mood burst like a soap bubble, and he grinned. Pia’s blonde ponytail had loosened and slid over one ear. Tricks had kicked off her sandals and rolled her designer silk pants to the knees. She looked like a refugee from Pucci’s on Fifth Avenue. He leaned against the door and waited to see which one would notice him first.

Pia did. She sat back on her heels as surprise and delight lit up her face. “Hi.”

Surprise and delight, a gift-wrapped present all for him. He smiled at her. “You’re drunk on your ass.”

In inebriated slow motion, Tricks noticed him and the two gryphons at his back. She shrieked and spread her arms over the tablecloth. “Nobody can see this!”

Rune slid around Dragos, his head angled in curiosity. “Why, what is it, state secrets?”

“Pretty much!” Tricks started to wad up the cloth. Rune grabbed a corner and tugged. She threw herself on top of it. “NOOO.”

Dragos ignored them. He squatted in front of Pia and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear with a gentle hand. Her pale skin was flushed, and her sparkling eyes couldn’t quite focus. “You’re going to be sick as a dog in the morning.”

“We just thought . . .” she said. The sentence trailed off. She stared at him in astonishment. “You are the handsomest man I’ve ever seen. I would tell you that if I were sober too.” Then she gave him a sloppy grin as she shook her head. Her ponytail slid farther. “No, I wouldn’t. I’d be too self-conscious.”

His fury and frustration from earlier slid into the past as if it had never existed, an alchemical transmutation brought on by this tipsy enchantress. Laughing out loud, he slid his hands under her elbows and lifted her with care to her feet. “What else are you drunk enough to tell me?”

She leaned forward and staggered, as she confided in a whisper, “You’re the sexiest guy I’ve ever seen too. You know, your long, scaly, reptilian tail really is bigger than anybody else’s. Not that I’ve been with very many guys. Or was comparison shopping or anything.” She hiccuped and watched him worriedly as he guffawed. “Have I just gone over a conversational cliff?”

“Pretty much,” he said. He put an arm around her and guided her around Rune and Tricks as they wrestled over the tablecloth. “That’s okay, lover. I’m here to catch you. So, how many guys have you been with?”

She held up two fingers and looked at them with one eye closed. “One of them doesn’t count anymore, ’cause he’s dead.” She poked herself in the cheek with both fingers. “I can’t feel my face. How was your day?”

“Fine,” he said. He captured her hand, folded down one finger and pressed a kiss against her remaining index finger as he led her out of the restaurant. “It was good.”

The next afternoon Pia changed into workout clothes along with her new shoes. She wound her hair up and bound it in a tight queue at the nape of her neck.

Her memory of the night before was fuzzy. She remembered talking and flirting, feeling brilliant and beautiful and witty, while Dragos teased her, his dark face creased with laughter. She remembered falling into bed, shrieking and kicking at him as he tickled her unmercifully. She remembered falling asleep, wrapped around him, his hands fisted in the waterfall of her hair.

She had been alone in the bed when a hangover had finally hammered her into consciousnesses late the next morning. She had rolled away from the windows with a moan to discover a vial resting on his pillow. It tinkled with magic. A note was tied to the neck. It said, Drink me.

That potion had saved her life. She hoped someone had been kind enough to get one for Tricks as well. Even with the potion’s help, it had been some time before she could face putting anything else into her stomach. Now after a light lunch, which she had eaten with caution, she, Rune and Graydon were finally going to the gym as originally planned.

She opened the door. The two gryphons in the hall broke off their conversation. Their expressions were entirely too bland. She frowned. “Did I do or say something yesterday that I should apologize for?”

“Not you, cupcake,” said Graydon. “But apparently a lot of other people in the Tower have. Rune thinks we should rename it Melrose Place. I think Peyton Place has a more classic feel to it, don’t you?”

“Oh no,” she said. “You got the tablecloth away from Tricks.”

Rune grinned. “Not before the little shit bit me.”

They took the stairs. Perhaps twenty people were in the gym. Some worked on equipment and others sparred with each other in the two large workout areas. One area had hard-used but well-kept hardwood floors and the other area was covered with tumbling mats.

Rune commandeered the space covered with tumbling mats while Graydon went into the locker room and changed. Then Rune went to change too. As he came back out he beckoned her and Graydon to the center of the mat. Both men wore tight tanks and black cotton pants. They seemed bigger than ever as she stood between them, totaling five hundred pounds of solid Wyr muscle.

Those that Rune had displaced loitered at the edge of the area, watching. Pia took deep breaths, trying to dispel the jitters that had taken over her stomach, all too aware of the curious, not entirely friendly stares directed their way. She balanced on the balls of her feet, shook out her arms and legs and stretched her neck.

Rune said, “Okay, we’re going to run through a few basic self-defense techniques. Pia, the main takeaway is we’re the bodyguards and we know best. You’ve got to do what we tell you, when we tell you to do it. If I tell you to duck, you damn well better duck. If Gray tells you to drop to the ground, you plant your face. The toughest thing is that an attack will most likely happen without warning so following orders without hesitation or argument is absolutely essential.”

“In other words,” Graydon said, “if we tell you to duck, don’t stick your head up and look around and say, ‘Huh?’ That’s what your instinct may tell you to do, but if you’re saying ‘huh,’ it probably means you’re getting your head shot off.”

“Right,” she said, looking from one to the other. “No ‘huhs.’ ”

Rune said, “Gray, get behind Pia. You’re going to be her attacker. Pia, Gray is going to come up behind you and grab you like he’s going to drag you off. I want you to pay attention to how he gets hold of you and the position of your bodies. We’re going to work on ways you can break out of his hold, okay?”

“Okay,” she said.

Graydon moved behind her. For such a big man he was silent on his feet. She focused on the floor in front of her and continued to breathe deep as she sank into her training.

Stay firm but flexible, rooted but yielding.

She reached behind with her awareness and—there he was. She got a lock on him, stronger than she ever had on anyone before. She could hear him breathe, feel his weight shift with his intent. Her hearing, eyesight, her sense of everything in her surroundings was . . . more than it had ever been before.

He came up on her, inhumanly fast.

Flow like water.

She slid sideways, bending at the waist, and felt his hand graze along her arm. A twist, and she balanced on one foot, felt him extend, and that was her leverage.

Graydon landed on his back in an impact that shook the floor. Silence filled the gym as exercise machines slowed and stopped. Both gryphons stared at her.

Graydon swore, letting his head drop to the mat. “The hell’d you do? That weren’t no Turbo Dance move.”

Rune put his hands on his hips and started to laugh. “She smacked you down, is what she did.”

“I’m sorry, did I do that wrong?” she said, growing anxious as they continued to stare at her. “I didn’t follow orders, did I? Was I supposed to let him grab me?”

“No. No, I think you did that just fine,” said Rune. He offered a hand to Graydon and hoisted the other gryphon to his feet.

Graydon glared at her. “Okay. I was sleepwalking through that. My bad. You said you had classes, and we should have listened. But we’re gonna do that again, cupcake, and you’re not gonna get me by surprise this time.”

She nodded. “Okay.”

They assumed their former positions, and she balanced on the balls of her feet again, head tilted as she focused on the floor. This time, intrigued with her heightened senses, she locked on both Graydon and Rune. Their Power and physical energy made their positions easy to hold in her mind.

Graydon moved to the attack, his lethal body honed by countless centuries of combat. She flowed and slid away from him. This time he shifted with her, snaking one powerful arm out to wrap around her waist.

But she wasn’t there. She moved, counter to his point, sensing the force of energy he put into his arm and how he threw his body forward, and that was her leverage. The floor thundered as he hit the mat.

He pounded the mat with his fist. “Fuck me!”

Rune shouted in laughter.

Graydon flipped to his feet. It was a startling show of strength, agility and speed for such a large man, and she flinched back. He snarled at Rune, “Laugh it up, asshole. It’s your turn to try.”

“Quit being such a crybaby,” said Rune. He shifted around to Pia, the predator in him roused and full of smiling menace. “You good to go?”

Mainlining adrenaline, she lifted her shoulder in a quick, jerky shrug. “Give me what you got, slick.”

He lunged, using both cunning and speed, and she could tell he was really giving it to her, no holding back. She fell back in a graceful curve as he reached her, and the power in his momentum was her leverage. She hit the mat, and as she went backward she used her feet and one hand to propel him over her head. For one brief moment he was airborne. Then he slammed into the mat even as she completed her somersault and came up light on her feet.

Rune coughed hard, his expression frozen. Somebody whistled and shouted. Distracted, she looked toward the noise. Their audience was clapping.

“That was goddamn balletic!” Graydon roared. He pounded her on the shoulder and knocked her sideways. She grunted and stumbled, and he grabbed her. “Oh shit, cupcake, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that. Did I hurt you?”

He looked so concerned as he steadied her she didn’t have the heart to complain. She rubbed the spot where he had hit her, and he pushed her hand away to rotate her arm and probe her shoulder muscles with careful fingers.

“I’m fine,” she told him. “It’s good.”

Rune rolled to his feet. “Go get Bayne and Con,” he told one of their watchers, who took off running. He walked over to her, eyes narrowed. “What all have you studied?”

“Wing Chun, jujitsu, some weaponry,” she said. “Basic stuff, sword and knife work. I can load and shoot a gun or crossbow. I’m not so good with a longbow.”

He studied her like she was a Rubik’s Cube he hadn’t quite figured out. “Dragos said you weren’t a fighter.”

“I’m not.” Graydon refused to be shooed away. She gave up trying to push him away and let him massage her shoulder muscles. “Not like you guys are. I wouldn’t choose a fight if I can avoid it, I don’t have a killer instinct and I don’t like the weaponry stuff.”

“Could you kill if you had to?”

“If I had no other choice,” she answered without hesitation. “I think I could do it to survive. But otherwise, all of my focus and training is on getting away.”

“Excellent. We can work with that. Which of the disciplines you’ve worked with do you like the best?”

She considered. “I’d have to say the Wing Chun. I like the principles of efficiency, practicality and economy of movement, and sensing the energy in your opponent’s movements. It’s elegant. I had a teacher once who told me the best kind of fighter was like haiku, very spare and simple, and the fight very short. Wing Chun seems to have something of that philosophy.”

He nodded. “What would you say is your strength?”

“That’s got to be speed. Let’s face it, if you guys were really out for blood and got your hands on me, I’d be toast.”

“Very good. And your weakness?”

She bent her head, rubbed at the back of her neck and confessed, “Following orders. I haven’t done any of this before. I’ll try my best, but if one of you yells duck, I could end up being that idiot that sticks up her head and says, ‘Huh?’ ”

“Well, that might not matter if you were slow enough to pin down,” said Graydon. “We’ve got to yell duck ’cause you might get all startled and hop out from underneath us if we try to tackle you, even if it’s for your own good.”

She winced at him.

The other two gryphons, Bayne and Constantine, had joined them while they talked, until Pia was surrounded by an enormous wall of solid muscle and close male attention. Rune said to them, “You guys have got to see this. Pia, you up for more?”

“What do you mean, am I up for more?” She snorted and tossed her head. “I haven’t yet broken a sweat, slick.”

“Them’s fightin’ words, cupcake,” said Graydon with glee. He cracked his knuckles.

Bayne and Constantine took turns at trying to tackle her. Each gryphon hit the mat. They had better luck when they went after her in pairs. Pia’s tank top grew damp with sweat. Not only were they formidable warriors with centuries of experience, they were motivated, fast learners. Very soon she had to ratchet up her effort.

She shifted into high gear, knowing she needed to learn even more from them than they did from her. All her focus was on the four Wyr who were intent on bringing her down. While they laughed and did a lot of joking, she knew now that what they were all working on was no mere exercise class but could be a matter of life or death.

Dragos had enjoyed a completely captivating evening with Pia. This morning he had held her soft sleeping form and watched the sun rise, and he had discovered another strange new experience, a feeling of absolute contentment and peace in the quiet, a certain knowledge that all was right with his world.

That was all in the past. His mood since had turned foul.

The Goblin stronghold had been abandoned. There had been no one to question. The enchanted shackles had vanished without a trace. Urien’s media blitz had been pretaped. He had been long gone by the time they got someone to investigate the interview site, and nobody could pinpoint the whereabouts of the bastard. Those investigating the trail from Pia’s ex-boyfriend and his bookie had come up against a dead end. And the stock value from the companies in Illinois continued to tumble.

There was also the not-so-small consideration that if the Fae King had been able to conjure a spell that had found his hoard, then the location was compromised. Didn’t matter if the charm had only worked once and Pia was the only one who knew of the hoard’s present location. Urien could make another charm, couldn’t he? And maybe Pia was the only one right now who could navigate through Dragos’s locks and wards, but once something had been breached it was just a matter of time until someone else found a way to do it again.

There was also no telling what else a finding charm of that strength would work on. He thought about warning his Elder allies about what had happened, but if he did that he would have to admit to his own vulnerability. He wasn’t willing to go that far just yet.

On top of all that, the Chinese water torture had started as soon as he strode into his office.

The New York mayor was demanding to talk to him. No one else would do. His constituents were insisting they come to an agreement on noise control so that last week never happened again. Drip.

The governor of Illinois called personally to talk about his persecution of the RYVN partnership. Drip.

The Elder tribunal had issued a summons to him to discuss his “act of aggression” in Elven demesne, and allegations of an Other land Fae mass murder. Apparently they had decided to ignore the fact that he didn’t answer summons from anyone, ever. Drip.

A personal courier had already arrived from the Elven High Lord, with a written invitation for Pia to visit with them at the summer solstice. Just Pia, nobody else. Certainly not him. The High Lord would be pleased to lift the trade embargo with the Wyrkind as soon as he received her acceptance. In writing. Drip fucking drip.

Then there were the endless business decisions on everything else. His administrative assistants and management teams were excellent. Everything that reached his office really did need his direct attention. As a norm, he enjoyed working with all the international ventures pursued by Cuelebre Enterprises. It was like playing several games of chess at once. But today it felt like wearing tight clothes over abraded skin. He wanted to tear it all off of him and claw at the walls.

He paced. He couldn’t stop thinking about Pia. There she was, front and center, no matter what else he tried to turn his mind to. He didn’t want to be working on all this shit. Business was boring. Who gave a flying fuck if stocks in the six Illinois companies tanked for a while? It’s not like he needed the money. All of the entities clamoring for attention were like a pack of yapping Chihuahuas nipping at his heels. The thought of finding another secret location and moving all his treasure was a serious pain in his ass.

And why couldn’t someone just FedEx him Urien’s head?

He planted his hands on the window and leaned on them as he stared out over his city. When he had asked her last night if she was interested in Tricks’s PR job, caution had stolen the sparkle from her beautiful gaze like a thief.

She had said, I’ll have to think about it. Again. Just like she had yesterday when she’d told him, I guess I’ve got a lot to think about.

What the fuck did she have so much to think about?

She looked at him with desire in those gorgeous midnight-colored eyes. He would swear when she hugged him it was with sincere affection. She was generous and giving and held nothing back physically. He could make himself crazy at just the thought of how tight she felt when he was inside her, how gorgeous she was when she climaxed. He hardened as he remembered the sounds she made when they made love.

He was astonished at how easy she was to talk to, how much he wanted to talk to her, and fighting with her was the best fun he’d ever had. He had seen her just hours ago, goddammit, and he couldn’t wait to fight with her again, to talk with her and hear what ridiculous thing she said next, to cuddle and laugh with her, to pin her down and drive into her again until there was nothing left inside of him, nothing left inside of her except his name.

She was his. Why couldn’t she admit it?

Whenever they got to that point, whenever he thought he had a good grip on her, it felt like the beguilement dream when she had turned into smoke and melted through his fingers.

Those protection spells in her mind. That’s where she disappeared to. She pulled back into that elegant citadel. He couldn’t get at her unless he smashed through the barrier and broke her mind.

He scowled. Somehow he would figure out a way to get inside that citadel. He would have her. So help him, if it took the rest of his considerable life, he would have all of her.

Anything else was unacceptable.

Determined to try to shake it off and focus on something useful, he opened his door and strode out of his office to see if Kris had an update for him.

Nobody was in the outer offices. That was when he noticed the uproar. His pace increased as he stalked down the hall. He rounded a corner.

People had collected in the hall outside the gym. They were staring in the windows. As he approached a shout went up, and people inside cheered and clapped.

He brushed people out of the way as he entered the gym, caught sight of Graydon and Bayne at the edge of the tumbling mats. The gryphons stood with their arms crossed. They were watching something on the floor and laughing.

As Dragos approached, Graydon caught sight of him over the onlookers’ heads and grinned. “Hey, boss. Thanks for the new toy.”

Dragos demanded, “What are you talking about?”

Graydon told him, “We’re playing pin the herbivore. None of us can figure what the hell she is, but damn, she’s fast. So far Team Gryphon is two for ten. Get her greased up and I bet we couldn’t pin her at all.”

He reached the edge of the mat and looked down.

Constantine was crouched, arms out, intent on the struggle that played out in front of him. “Get her—get her—”

Rune and Pia were in a tangle of limbs on the mat. Rune’s powerful body strained as he fought to cover hers. Pia’s smaller form twisted and flowed underneath him, her face fierce and reddened. They were both panting and slick with sweat. Pale, slender muscles flexed as she avoided his grasp. The gryphon swore as he shifted with her, into a position that was reminiscent of the very one Dragos had used yesterday morning when he had taken her from behind.

The dragon detonated.