Storm's Heart

TWO

Motel 6 wasn’t so bad. In fact it was kind of cute in a polyester sort of way.

Sure, it wasn’t the Regent, or the Renaissance, or the Ritz-Carlton. But the desk attendant had been cheerfully disinterested when Niniane had checked in, the prices were affordable and, most important, they had smoking rooms. Score.

On the one hand, there wasn’t any room service or those darling little liquor bottles in a small refrigerator. On the other hand, there weren’t any assassination attempts or a pending coronation. Hmm. Niniane wondered if they offered a twelve-month lease.

She limped into the room. She pulled her new sunglasses down her nose and took a long, careful look over the rim at the surrounding scene. The warm afternoon sun toasted the asphalt of the motel parking lot, and a fitful wind swirled dirt and exhaust fumes into a toxic soup. The motel was located near some interstate exit, along with several fast-food restaurants, gas stations, and a Walgreens. The sound of traffic was a constant in the background, but it shouldn’t be too disruptive once she had the door closed.

She couldn’t see or hear anything unusual in the motel’s immediate vicinity, and her sight and hearing, along with her sensitivity to magic, were inhumanly acute. She wasn’t up to a more strenuous inspection. A visual scan from the doorway would have to be good enough.

After she shut the door and put on the security chain, the first thing she did was kick off her stylish four-inch heels. Ah, thank you, god of feet. She set her sunglasses on the TV. The double room was either painted or wallpapered beige. It had bright bedspreads patterned with an insistent orange, a window covered with short heavy curtains that hung over a long thin wall air-conditioner unit, and a plain table and chair that were pushed against the wall. She dropped her shopping bags on the nearest bed, limped to the air conditioner and turned it on full blast.

Life had sure gone to hell since Dragos had killed her uncle. Oh, Urien had to die, without a doubt. She was glad he was dead. She just wished it could have happened in a couple of decades or so. This business about her becoming the Dark Fae Queen? She was so not in the mood.

She dumped out the contents of the shopping bags. The items chronicled a long, busy day.

She’d had a lot to do once she had killed her second cousin Geril and his two cohorts. First item on her agenda was to run away. The second item was to get stuff and keep running. She had walked into a twenty-four-hour pharmacy, bought bandages, a pair of sweatpants, sunglasses and a T-shirt, changed in their bathroom and walked out.

Sunglasses at midnight. Huh. Idiot.

Those had gone into her first shopping bag until daybreak. Then she stole a car and drove in aimless circles while she tried to think past the frozen tundra in her head. She stopped at a superstore and bought more stuff, left the stolen car in the parking lot and got a cab, took the cab to the airport where she got another cab, and here she was.

Her path had been so random, so erratic, made up as it was by stress-induced on-the-spot decisions, that she defied anybody to figure out where “here” was. Hell, even she didn’t know where “here” was, just that she was still somewhere in the greater Chicago area. Neither ride had been long enough to get her anywhere else, more’s the pity. She hadn’t wanted to imprint herself too deeply in the memory of either cab driver, so she had tried to keep both trips as normal as possible. She could always steal a car again and drive away from the area, but first she needed a few hours to recuperate while she considered what her next moves should be. At the moment she was too awash with conflicting impulses, pain and exhaustion to be sure of anything.

One shopping bag held her crumpled red halter dress and the matching evening bag that carried a compact powder, a lipstick, her wallet and two small stiletto knives. She kept the tips touched with poison and had a variety of places she could wear or carry them, in the side pocket of a purse, strapped to her arms, or underneath her dress and strapped to her thighs.

Good thing the red color of the dress hid the bloodstains, or she might have occasioned more attention at the pharmacy. She set that bag aside. Another bag held an unopened bottle of vodka, a bag of Cheetos, three packs of Marlboro reds and a lighter.

Say hello to tonight’s hot date. Why did she always want to smoke when she was stressed? She sighed and set it all on the bedside table near the head of the second bed.

The third bag held a first aid kit, extra bandages, toiletries and underwear. The last bag had jeans, flip-flop sandals, a pair of shorts and a couple of tops.

She sat on the edge of the bed and inspected the blisters on her heels. Should have changed into the flip-flops as soon as she bought them. Should have bought the flip-flops at the first store and the sunglasses later, but all she could think after the attack was, oh gods, I can’t be recognized.

Shoulda, woulda, coulda. They were the Three Stooges of regret. All they were good for was saying whoop-whoop-whoop and smacking each other over the head.

She gritted her teeth. She had slapped a temporary bandage on herself when she had changed in the pharmacy bathroom, but she needed to clean and bandage her knife wound properly.

She showered first. It was harder and more exhausting than she had counted on. Afterward she sat on the toilet and hissed as she blotted the knife wound with fresh cotton pads. She poked it to see if there were any cloth fibers from her dress or any other kind of dirt still in the wound. Gray stars bloomed in front of her eyes. Damn, that hurt. A deep puncture, it kept seeping a slow, steady stream of crimson.

She put antibacterial goop on it, doubled up on the padding and taped it in place as best she could. She smeared more goop on the blisters on her heels and put Hello Kitty Band-Aids on them. Then she put on her new underwear. Teeny-tiny little camo boxer shorty-shorts that rode low on the hips.

The next bit wasn’t so easy. She grunted as she worked her way as carefully as she could into a sports bra. Structurally she may not be very big, but her perky pair of puppies made her a C-cup. Shoulda bought a bra with a front clasp, but today hadn’t been a shining example of her best thinking. Whoop-whoop-whoop, smack. After she managed to get the bra on, she eased on a matching camo spaghetti strap T-shirt that stopped above her pierced navel.

Then she put her hair in pigtails. Because it was layered to fall in an outward flipping bob, the pigtails stood up on her head like twin black starbursts. She pouted at herself in the mirror, wrinkled her nose and said, “Sowwy.”

Didn’t she look cute? Looking cute and helpless could get you a long way sometimes. It had gotten her out of a whole lot of trouble in the past. You never know. The way things were going, she might need to rely on it again.

And now it was past time for that hot date. She limped to the bed and eased her sore, bruised body onto it, lit a cigarette and flipped on the TV. She tore open the bag of Cheetos and popped a bright orange puff into her mouth.

Then what was playing on the television registered in her tired brain.

She stared. Put the cigarette in the ashtray. Picked up the vodka bottle, opened it and took a stiff drink.

That was the first time she saw the cell phone video footage of the attack in the alleyway, where she had kicked the crap out of her second cousin Geril’s dead body.

It wasn’t going to be the last time. Not by a long shot.

Tiago believed in giving credit where credit was due. The little shit had tried like hell to avoid being tracked down.

By the time he had reached Chicago, the SUV Rune had requisitioned was waiting for him, along with a detailed list of supplies, including cash, a couple changes of clothes, a laptop and an assortment of his preferred types of weapons. Tiago picked up the vehicle in Lakeview from their Wyr contact, Tucker, who had already stashed the supplies in a large duffle bag in the backseat.

Tucker was, like his Wyr badger nature, a short, powerful, stocky and antisocial male. He did well living in relative isolation outside the social structure of the Wyr demesne. The badger was content with a job that had sporadic, often strange duties and irregular hours, as long as he could live within walking distance of his beloved Wrigley Field.

Although Tiago hadn’t thought to ask for one, there was also a cell phone tucked into a side pocket of the heavy canvas duffle bag. He discovered it when it rang as he climbed into the driver’s seat.

He clicked it on. “What.”

Dragos said, “Preliminary autopsy report is in on the three dead Dark Fae males.”

Tiago’s eyebrows rose. “That was fast.”

“With the next ruler of the Dark Fae demesne missing, the authorities put a rush on the job,” Dragos said. “All the Dark Fae males died of the same kind of poison T—Niniane favors on her stilettos.”

Tiago adjusted the seat and pulled into traffic. He grunted, “At least she kept her weapons poisoned when she left New York. Good for her.”

“The fucker who filmed the footage is cooperating with police,” Dragos said. “He’s claiming he didn’t see anybody else in the vicinity when she took off down the street.”

“I want to know where he lives,” said Tiago. He drove fast and aggressively as he glared at the other vehicles on the road.

“Later. Check out the airport. Security footage shows someone that looks like it could have been her climbing out of a cab.”

Dragos hung up without saying good-bye. Tiago turned off the phone and tossed it into the passenger’s seat.

When Urien had assumed control of the Dark Fae government, Niniane had taken sanctuary with Dragos in 1809. While young, she had already reached her adult size. She was small and delicate even for one of the Fae. She had a mere fraction of the strength the Wyrs had. She also had her uncle Urien, one of the nastiest and most Powerful men in the world, who had been determined to see her dead.

The Wyr sentinels had proceeded to teach her every dirty trick they could think of in order to help keep her alive, which was how she had gotten her nickname. Nothing was off-limits, or so Tiago had heard. He had been busy elsewhere, helping to keep the peace in Missouri when the Osage signed the Treaty of Fort Clark and ceded their land to the U.S. government.

Everything added up. She had left the hotel with three males, and three males were dead. She had either been taken from the site of the attack, or she was on the run. Logic said she had gotten away and was on the run.

But if so, why hadn’t she called New York for backup? She was family. Any of them would gladly have rushed to help her, but she still hadn’t tried to call anybody, and she hadn’t replied to any of the phone messages left on her cell.

Tiago planned on asking her that very question when he caught up with her. She might be hell to track down, but he was old and steeped in Power and most of his talents were concentrated on the hunt. There wasn’t anything on this Earth he couldn’t track once he put his mind to the task. He recovered lost scent trails, made intuitive leaps no one else would think of and shit, more often than not, luck just fell his way. It might take him a while, but in the end he always brought down his prey.

His prey, in the end, appeared to be holed up in a motel room off the I-294 Tri-State Tollway.

He paused for a moment outside a door and listened. Her scent was all around on the surrounding sidewalk, but it was close to midnight and he didn’t want to knock on the wrong door by mistake.

He heard her inside. She was singing in a clear, sweet voice. His eyebrows rose.

“‘Down in the valley, the valley so low, hang your head over, and hear the wind blow . . . ’ ” The singing stopped. He heard her mumble, “Can’t remember what comes next, something, something . . .”

He grinned as he relaxed and leaned against the doorpost. If she was singing and talking to herself, she wasn’t dead in a ditch. It was all good.

She said, “Oh, that’s right . . . No, wait, that’s another song. Crap, I’m too drunk.”

That sounded like his cue. He knocked.

Silence. He imagined there was a startled quality to it.

He knocked again. “Tricks, it’s Tiago. Open up.”

She said with the slow incredulity of the inebriated, “Is that you, Dr. Death? There isn’t anybody named Tricks here.”

Dr. Death? He rolled his eyes. “Come on, Niniane. Open the door.”

“Wait, I’m in hiding. Don’t use that name either.”

He put his hands on his hips. “Then what the hell do you want me to call you?”

“Nothing. Thank you for stopping by and go away. I’m okay. Everything’s okay. It’s all taken care of now. Just don’t watch any TV for a while, okay? You can go back to New York, or wherever it is you lair when you’re not killing things.”

He scowled. No, thank you and don’t watch any TV? What the hell did she mean by that? He muttered, “I do not live in a lair.”

He settled his shoulder against the heavy metal door that was constructed to meet fire-safety codes and keep thieves out. After pushing with a steady increase of pressure, the lock and chain broke.

Cigarette smoke billowed as the door opened. He coughed, waved a hand in front of his face and stared at the scene inside.

The motel room was a pigsty. Shopping bags were piled on the bed nearest the door, with clothes and other items spilling out. Clothes tags littered the floor. Niniane lay on her back on the other bed, which was rumpled. She had kicked off the pillows, and they were on the floor too. She was dressed in some kind of porno version of camouflage, in very short shorts and a tiny stretchy T-shirt that left her narrow waist bare. Her head was hanging off the end of the bed. She held a bottle of vodka in one small hand. It was significantly low in liquid. She clutched a remote control in the other hand. A cigarette smoldered in a half-full ashtray and an open bag of Cheetos lay on the bed beside her.

Her compact, curvaceous body was laid out like some kind of offering to a pagan god. As someone who had once been a pagan god, he knew what he was talking about, and he definitely appreciated the view. As her head hung over the end of the bed, it accentuated the thrust of round luscious breasts that curved over a contrasting narrow waist. A gold ring glinted at her navel, just begging to be licked. Her graceful hip bones and the arc of her pelvis were outlined by shorts that Congress ought to make illegal. Slender, shapely bare legs tipped with toes painted a saucy pink completed the package, and his appreciative cock swelled to salute every visible succulent inch of her.

He glowered, thrown off balance by his own intense, unwelcome reaction. Rein it in, stud. Under the reek of smoke he could smell feminine perfume and—was that the scent of blood?

“Oh, you shouldn’ta done that,” Niniane said. Large upside-down Fae eyes tried to focus on him. “Breaking and entering. That’s against the law.” She sniggered.

Tiago took refuge from his strange feelings in the much more familiar emotion of aggression. “What are you doing?” he demanded. “What do you mean ‘go back to New York’? Do I smell blood?”

“I can only answer one question at a time, you know,” she said. With remarkable dignity, considering. “I am hanging my head over to hear the wind blow. I never did get that bit in the lyrics. Who hears the wind blow when they hang their head over? Hang their head over what? What does that even mean? Do you know?”

He had no idea what she was babbling about. Something about the stupid song she had been trying to sing. He pushed the door shut with a foot and strode over to stub out the smoldering cigarette. “This is disgusting,” he snapped. “Why haven’t you called? We’ve been worried sick about you.”

“Whoa,” she said. She looked up—or down, as it were—at Tiago’s crotch, which had stopped right in front of her. He was one scary, mean-looking oversized barbarian, in black jeans, black boots and black leather vest. He bristled with weapons and anger, and muscles bulged everywhere. His crotch sported a significant bulge too. A very significant bulge. She licked her lips. She might be drunk, but she wasn’t dead. She wouldn’t be forgetting this sight in a hurry.

Obsidian eyes glittered. “Tricks, what the hell? Seriously.”

“I’m gonna be Queen, you know,” she said. “You gotta stop calling me Tricks. It makes me sound like a circus clown. And I don’t think I’ll be a highness for long, so you should practice calling me your majesty.” She hiccupped and waved a hand in the air. “You may begin.”

“I notice how you’re ignoring the important part of what I said,” Tiago told her. He squatted and suddenly his upside-down face was in front of hers. “So I’ll repeat: what the hell?”

She tried to track where that mouthwatering bulge in his crotch had gone, couldn’t and focused instead on his face. Brown skin, strong hawkish features and a sensually shaped mouth that more often than not looked like it could cut through concrete. She had always thought he was a proud, aloof man with the longest legs and the sexiest moves she had ever seen. He walked everywhere with a quick ground-eating, lean-hipped stride.

She asked, “Has anybody ever told you, you look a lot like Dwayne Johnson?”

He scowled. “Who the hell is Dwayne Johnson?”

He tried to take the vodka bottle away from her. She clung to it.

“You know, The Rock? Hot, sexy football player–wrestling guy turned movie actor? Only . . . you’re a whole lot meaner.” She concentrated very hard, tongue between her teeth, and touched the tip of her forefinger to his scowl. The vodka bottle bumped his nose. He jerked his head out of the way.

His eyes narrowed on her. Was that male interest in his dark, glittering gaze? She didn’t trust her powers of observation at the moment.

“Hot se—” he stopped dead. When he spoke again, his normal growl had dropped to a husky murmur. “You’re comparing me to a movie actor? Fuck yeah, of course I’m a whole lot meaner.”

Huh. Wasn’t he the cock of the walk?

“Whatever, don’t let it go to your head,” she said with scorn. “You’re not as sexy as I think you are.” She squinted. Wait. That hadn’t come out right. She tried to sort it all out in her vodka-befuddled head. It didn’t help that he gave her a swift white grin that scrambled her brain even further.

All too soon that grin disappeared. Then Dr. Death was back and scowling again.

Ooh. Sexy. No, scary. No, sexy. Oh phooey.

He grabbed her hand. He could feel how delicately formed the bones were. He could crush her so easily. Any one of those Dark Fae males could have snapped her neck effortlessly if they had gotten her in the right hold. He took care to keep his touch gentle, even as he said, “Goddammit, faerie, you’d better start answering some questions.”

“Or what?” She pointed the remote at him and pushed the mute button. “Pleh. I’m gonna get someone to make me a magical mute that really works.”

A kind of desperation came over his harsh features. He snatched the vodka bottle from her and took a swig. She watched with acute interest as shock shot across his face. He gagged and spat the mouthful out on the carpet. He glared at the bottle. “Bubble gum–flavored vodka? Bubble gum?”

“What? It’s good.” She reached for the bottle.

He held it out of her reach. “No way.”

She scowled. “That’s my dinner. You give it back.”

“Oh no, young lady. You’ve had more than enough.”

Only a gazillion-thousand-year-old Wyr could get away with calling a two-hundred-year-old faerie “young lady.” Holy cow, he was one devastatingly good-looking barbarian, upside down or not. But so preachy! She remembered the vodka. She reached for it again.

He stood, grabbed the ashtray and strode for the bathroom. She could just barely see what happened in the corner of the bathroom mirror as he turned the bottle upside down in the sink. There went the rest of her hot date.

“Screw you,” she called after him. There was a thought. She scoped out his lean, tight ass with interest. Bow chica wow wow.

Tiago ignored her and dumped the ashtray in the bathroom trash. He paused, looking down in the trashcan. If anything, he looked even angrier than he had before. He looked fit to murder somebody. The strong, proud bones of his face clenched like a fist.

Her eyelids closed in a slow blink as she tried to process. If he was that mad at her, she should give some serious thought to running. And she would too, just as soon as she found her feet again.

A shiver rippled down her spine. She rolled onto her side, tucked her knees against her chest and wrapped her arms around them. She didn’t want him that mad at her. She didn’t want anybody that mad at her.

Tiago walked back to the bed. She could have sworn she heard a rumble of thunder in the distance. He squatted by the bed and rubbed her shoulder with a giant calloused hand. “Where are you hurt, faerie?”

His gentleness was so unexpected, coming as it did from such a wrathful clenched-fist face, that it almost did her in. Her eyes filled with tears. She gestured to her side.

Icy shock ran over his skin, followed by a blast of heat. Tiago didn’t know where to put his rage. That bastard Fae hadn’t punched her in the alley. He had knifed her.

“Let me have a look.” He tried to raise her T-shirt.

She resisted. “I already cleaned and bandaged it.”

He exploded. “Goddammit, woman! I said let me have a fucking look!”

Her eyes went wide and she froze. The force of his anger was palpable. It beat against her skin. Thunder rolled, this time closer. It was almost overhead.

She had heard the stories about Tiago. The thunder and lightning came when he really lost it. Cautiously she uncurled. She made herself lie passive as she stared up at him. Sometimes with dominant Wyr warriors the best thing you could do was stay quiet and get out of their way—or in this case, acquiesce. Sooner or later their rampaging always ground to a halt, and then they could listen to reason again.

He put one knee on the bed and leaned his weight on it as he lifted up her T-shirt. The bandage covered her ribs under her left breast. She winced as he peeled back the bandage to look at what was underneath.

“Do you know how irritating you are?” she said. “Because if you don’t, I’ve got time.”

“This looks deep,” he said in a quiet voice. Lightning flashed outside. Thunder exploded with a boom. She jumped and shivered. He put his hand briefly against her narrow waist. “Shh now, be easy. The dressing is soaked. I’ll change the bandage.”

She knuckled her eyes. Damn it. She hadn’t slept in two days. She was starting to come down from the singing part of the drunk. He was acting far too serious and concerned, a storm was brewing outside, and all the fun was packing its bags and ditching the party. She tried to hold on to it.

“You know, technology in the twenty-first century is pretty cool,” she told him. “I’m going to DVR my own meltdown and email it to my therapist.”

He didn’t so much as crack a smile.

She drooped. She uncurled as he urged her to lie flat. He removed the soiled bandage, and with a careful, velvet-light touch he cleaned the wound and covered it with cotton padding again. At one point he bent down close to her skin and sniffed the wound. Okay, so that looked a little weird, but she knew what he was doing; he was checking with his Wyr sense of smell to see if he could detect poison. He caught her eye afterward and gave her a tight, quick smile that was probably meant to be reassuring, but he didn’t speak. He seemed busy with his own internal issues. Lightning struck the parking lot. Her shivering deepened. That was just downright sexy. No, spooky. No, sexy. DAMN IT!

“All right, I’m all done for now,” he said. His soft, even voice was somehow so much worse than his yelling voice. He taped the bandage in place. Then he looked at her, and the fury in his dark eyes stabbed her. “We know everything that matters.”

She rubbed the pointed tip of one ear, which was burning in embarrassment. “Apparently the whole world does,” she muttered. “I never even saw the guy with the cell phone.”

“That asshole is going to be lucky to live out the week if I have anything to say about it. I can’t fucking believe he didn’t call 911 soon as he realized someone was being attacked.” He took her hand and held it. “Now I want you to tell me, why didn’t you call, and why do you want me to go home?”

She pulled her hand away and tucked it against her chest. “Don’t be nice to me.”

“I’ll be whatever the hell I want to be,” he snapped. “Why didn’t you call?”

She muttered, “I’m supposed to do this on my own. No Wyr allowed.”

“That’s old news,” Tiago said. “Plans have changed.”

Just like that? Plans have changed? She scowled at him. “Hey, cowboy, remember what I said. I’m gonna be Queen. I don’t think you get to boss me around like that.”

He rubbed the back of his head and raised his eyebrows at her. “How are you going to stop me?”

“Screw you,” she said.

“You’ve said that already,” he pointed out. “I’m getting bored now.”

“Yeah, well, it’s the only thing I can think of at the moment,” she muttered. With a Herculean effort she managed to keep from looking at his crotch again.

“The game’s changed. Deal with it.”

Her gaze bounced around his dark saturnine features. The force of his presence was such that the tiny hairs on her arms rose. It cremated the numb state she had managed to achieve with the alcohol. He had the extreme physicality of an apex predator, his body tempered by years of fighting, the thick muscles corded with sinew and veins. His Power was a heavy, sulfurous force that pressed her into the mattress.

She struggled to sit up. Suddenly he was bending over her. He eased one huge arm underneath her shoulders to help her upright. She scowled and glared at him. “Look, you can’t stay, and that’s all there is to it. I’m all right. I handled everything.”

He snapped, “You have a knife wound between your ribs!”

“You should have a look at the other guys,” she told him.

Her words hit a stone wall. “We’re done discussing this,” he said. He walked over to the other bed. “What do you want to take with you?”

She pressed a hand to her side. “Get back over here so I can smack you.”

“Yeah, I’ll get right on that.”

“I mean it. Get your ass over here.” There she was, back to what was fast becoming her favorite subject.

“I’m so motivated to do that since it’s clearly in my best interest. I’m just going to assume you want all of this.” He stuffed things back into the bags.

His back was turned to her. She stared at his ass again. Really, it was the sexiest ass she had ever seen. First she got a close-up of his front, and now she got treated to the back view. Tight, taut and clothed in black like it had been gift wrapped just for her.

She patted him on the butt and told him, “Nice buns, cowboy.”

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.