Lord's Fall (26 page)

She nodded slowly.
That’s true, I’m not. But even though I do know things are going to get ugly, I’m still not going to stay behind.

He pushed air out of his bared teeth as frustration clawed at him. He growled, “This decision does not make sense to me. You are going to hate it.”

“That’s also true,” she said quietly. “I will. But you would not stay behind while I crossed over to an Other land, would you?”

He glared at her. “The two scenarios do not compare.”

She rubbed the back of her neck. “In a way they don’t, but in a way they do too.” She gave him a level look and said in an even softer tone of voice that nevertheless held an edge of inflexible steel. “As Eva said, you’re Powerful as shit and older than dirt, but I will not stay behind when there may be any risk to you. That’s not going to happen, Dragos. I’m pretty easygoing most of the time, and there aren’t very many lines I feel the need to draw, but this is one of them. I know you’re going to be in the thick of things, and I will be on hand if you need healing. I may also get involved if any of the sentinels are critically injured, or if there is anything I can do for Beluviel. She was kind, and that matters a lot to me. Other than that, I have no grand agenda nor do I have an ax to grind. I will be sensible, and I will keep my guards around me, and I am going. End of discussion.”

“End of discussion?” he said, staring at her. He was fairly certain he had never heard anyone say such a thing to him before.

One corner of her mouth lifted. “Yup.”

He bent over her until they were nose to nose. “Do not think for one minute that I have forgotten how you ordered me out of the room earlier,” he whispered.

“Actually I had kind of forgotten about that.” Her gaze widened. “I did, didn’t I?”

“Yes, you did.” He slid his own hand to the back of her neck, gripping her gently. “Do you know what I thought?”

She shook her head, staring at him mesmerized. “Huh-uh.”

He growled, “I thought it was sexy as hell.”

Her lovely, triangular features lit up. Surreptitiously she slipped her fingers into the edge of his black fatigues at his waist, and she tugged at the material gently. “I don’t suppose we could put off this whole war thing until we got ten or twelve hours in the sack, could we? We could send a note to Gaeleval and ask him to take a day off.”

Invisible fire danced along his skin. He bent to brush her lips with his. “If we had any chance of that succeeding, I would be all for it.”

“It’s been much too long,” she whimpered.

He swallowed the tiny sound she made as the fire reached his brain. Before Pia, he had gone centuries between taking lovers, and he had never felt the lack. The women meant nothing. He had never remembered their names, and now he couldn’t remember their faces.

He mouthed against her pouting lips, “We still haven’t added manacles to any of the bedrooms. That’s going to be the first thing we take care of when we get back home.”

“Yeah, okay,” she muttered, as her body trembled. He slipped an arm around her waist, holding her against him. Her head fell back and she looked at him with glazed, unfocused eyes. “Dragos?”

“Yes,” he murmured. They were surrounded by people, but there was nobody else, anywhere, nobody at all.

“We’re going to get married, right?”

He would have smiled at how dazed she looked, except he knew exactly how she felt. What they generated together was blinding. She was not only the most precious person in the universe to him, but she was also the most powerful. “I can’t believe you framed that as a question.”

She tried to scowl at him. “I was using the question as a conversation starter.”

He licked at her lower lip. “And?”

She didn’t sound like she could breathe right. “And I wanted to know if we were going to go on a honeymoon too. We haven’t even gone on a date yet.”

He lifted his head. Actually, he hadn’t thought much beyond the big diamond ring and a lavish public display where the whole world watched as he claimed her. “Of course we are going on a honeymoon,” he said. “What kind do you want?”

She heaved a big sigh. “No bodyguards,” she said dreamily. “No urgent business calls, and no sentinels. No housecleaners or staff of any kind—and certainly that means no Stanford, even though he’ll claim to be heartbroken, of course. If you think he wouldn’t dream of intruding on our honeymoon, think again. He would insist that I need a dresser, and I’m not talking about a piece of furniture.”

She surprised him into snorting. He was loving the sound of a honeymoon more and more as she talked. “I’ll swear there’ll be no one but us,” he promised. “Along with the peanut, of course, because he won’t be born by then. We’ll have our honeymoon as soon as I get the sentinels settled into place.”

She looked at him from between her eyelashes. “That means a quick, quiet wedding, you know,” she remarked casually. “There won’t be time to set up anything else.”

He frowned. “Wait a minute.”

“I love the idea,” she gushed. She threw her arms around his waist, hugging him tightly. “A quiet wedding and a quick getaway, and we’ll be all alone. Do you realize we haven’t even really been alone since we were kidnapped by Goblins, and we escaped and ran away? The only private time we get is when we close our bedroom door—and even then somebody may call or get in touch with you telepathically over some emergency or other.”

He had to admit, she had a point. He scowled. “I was planning on a big wedding.”

She gave him a coaxing smile. “I don’t know why. You don’t even like crowds, and you hate having your picture taken.”

Apparently she was full of good points tonight. “We’ll talk about this later. I can only give in so much, you know.”

“I know,” she said soothingly. “It’s so hard being you.”

“Well, it is,” Dragos admitted. He grinned as she laughed. “You pretty much got everything you wanted in this conversation, didn’t you?”

Her laughter died and she gave him a completely serious look. “I feel that is how every conversation should go.”

He wrapped her up in his arms, crushing her to him. In the periphery of his vision, he could tell many others in the clearing stared at them both, but they counted as nothing to him. “I will find you armor, and you will stay surrounded in the middle of the army.”

“Whatever you say,” she said meekly. “As long as you agree with me.” She laid her head on his shoulder.

What a sneaky tyrant she was turning into. Actually, she wasn’t all that sneaky. He was utterly enchanted with her bossiness.

Yes, for the first time in his existence, he was truly vulnerable. He cradled her close, savoring the weight and feel of her in his arms. He only lifted his head again when a stir passed through everyone in the area.

He turned to look and Pia did too, as Calondir exited his damaged home, along with a dozen Elven warriors. The High Lord was dressed in plate armor and armed with two crossed swords at his back.

He smiled at the sight. Who would have thought it? For once he and Calondir were going to fight on the same side.

While he had come to treasure the profound differences in nature between him and Pia, Dragos also would not be who and what he was if his blood didn’t quicken at the possibility of an upcoming battle.

Payback and death weren’t the dragon’s only companions. He was on intimate terms with chaos and strife too.

FOURTEEN

P
ia shivered and pulled her anorak closer around her torso as she watched Dragos stride over to Calondir. The chill wind felt much colder once he stepped away from her. He seemed to take away all the light and warmth with him.

The Elves around the High Lord bristled as Dragos approached. Their animosity had been entrenched for so many years that she didn’t see that changing anytime soon, current alliance or not. Nobody was going to walk away friends from this interaction, not with so many years of conflict between Dragos and the Elves. The best she could hope for was that they achieve a guarded peace.

At worst . . . well, she didn’t want to consider the worst.

She sensed someone coming up on her side and turned her head. Eva raised her eyebrows and held up a dirt-streaked crossbow. “Look at what one of the kids found. Does this look familiar to you, princess?”

Exasperated, she said, “Stop calling me princess.”

Eva scratched her nose. “You prefer Tinker Bell?”

“Just use my name, dammit!” She snatched at the crossbow.

Eva held on for a second while Pia tugged uselessly on it. Then the other woman let go, and she staggered back a step. “You know,” Eva said casually, and Pia tensed. She had learned to be wary of Eva’s ultracasual tone of voice. “If you were in my unit, I’d be all over your ass for losing your weapon, and I wouldn’t let up until I’d chewed off a good ten pounds or so of flesh.”

Pia scowled as her face turned warm. “Well, I’m not in your unit, and in case you don’t remember, I got grabbed and shoved around a lot in the dark. As I recall, you were the one who did most of the shoving.”

Eva slanted a look at her. “That make it okay? You gonna drop your weapon whenever you sneeze too? Maybe when somebody gives you the stinkeye?”

“The
stinkeye
?” she said, her embarrassment and annoyance successfully diverted. She covered her mouth to muffle her snort. People had died tonight. Laughter wasn’t appropriate. “All right, no matter how crowded, confused, dark or fiery it got, I should not have dropped my weapon.”

“That’s more like it. Sort of.” Eva punched her in the shoulder, and she staggered again. “Stick with me, Tink. I’ll get you sorted out.”

“Well, isn’t this too cute for fucking words,” said an all-too-familiar voice. “Apparently you two got a little girl-bonding time in. How does that saying go? It isn’t really cheating when there isn’t any penis.”

Both Pia and Eva turned to stare at Aryal, who stood a few feet away with her arms crossed, regarding them both with stormy gray eyes. The harpy wore her usual outfit of fighting leathers, but this time instead of holstered guns, she had two swords strapped to her back, along with long knives at her thighs. The harpy looked lean, muscled and all too eager for some kind of fight.

Aryal said to Pia, “You are the worst goddamn trouble magnet I have ever seen, and coming from a harpy, you know that’s actually saying something.”

Pia sighed and rubbed her eyes with thumb and forefinger. “Hello, Aryal.” Nice to see you too. Not.

When she dropped her hand again, the world had shifted. Eva had moved to stand slightly in front of her instead of at her side. Eva was staring at Aryal with a cold expression on her bold features.

“Are you that insolent when you talk to Dragos?” Eva said between her teeth. “Because you sure as hell shouldn’t be talking to his mate that way.”

Wait, what? Pia did a double take at Captain Psycho. Eva was
defending
her to Aryal, and talking about respect?

The harpy laughed. “What did you do?” Aryal said to Pia. “Flick your perky cheerleader ponytail at her too? You’re like some kind of insidious virus, but I thought you only infected people with the Y chromosome.”

“Hey, look at me,” Eva snapped. Fascinated, Pia did just that, her gaze bouncing back to Eva, whose hard, black eyes glittered in the torchlight. “I’m talking to you. She isn’t.”

Aryal smiled and said between her teeth, “Yeah, I think you may regret that.”

“Yeah, I don’t think so,” said Eva. “I hear Tinker Bell here can kick your ass, and she’s a nice person. I’m more like you. I’m not nice. Just think what she and I together could do to you.”

Aryal’s smile vanished. Oh-kay, that might not be a good sign.

“For God’s sake, both of you,” Pia hissed at both of them. “This isn’t the time or the place.”

Out of the corner of her eye, Pia saw both Johnny and Hugh circling closer. The two males were watching Eva alertly. When Pia looked around, Andrea, James and Miguel were not far behind.

Then the world changed again, as Quentin moved in, seemingly from nowhere. He shoved between Eva and Aryal, his body moving with liquid, lethal grace, and he didn’t stop moving until he came nose to nose with the harpy, who shifted to face him. They were within a couple of inches of each other in height and glared at each other, their tall, lean bodies combat tense.

Quentin said in a low, bitter voice, “Pia’s right, you demented bitch—this is not the time or the place for your made-up vendettas. Decent, innocent people have died here tonight, and their bodies aren’t even cold in the ground.”

“Don’t pull that guilt-making crap on me,” Aryal exclaimed. “Dead people are dead, and they don’t know shit. And what happens between me and your special friend is none of your business, jackass.”

“You think I don’t know how long and hard you’ve tried to investigate me?” Quentin growled. “You’ve been trying to pin something on me for over two years now. And what have you found? Exactly nothing. So quit taking your resentment of me out on Pia.”

Was
that
why Aryal didn’t like her? Pia and Eva looked at each other. Eva raised her eyebrows, asking her silently,
What the fuck? You know anything about this?

Pia shook her head and shrugged. For all she knew, it could be true.

The harpy’s nose wrinkled as she stared at Quentin, and she coughed. “Oh gods,” she said, staring at him with repugnance. “Are you a cat? You stink like a cat. That’s just bloody fucking great. Not only is Quentin Caeravorn part Wyr, but he stinks like a cat.” She threw up her hands. “Makes my whole fucking night to know this. If yet another Wyr with feline tendencies ends up as a sentinel, I’m going to slit somebody’s wrists.”

Quentin looked more out-of-control furious than Pia had ever seen him, his skin flushed dark and features clenched tight as a fist. Violence pulsed in the air. That was when the pegasus and all the gryphons arrived, even Rune, every tall male using his body like a battering ram to break the other two apart.

Graydon actually shoved Aryal by slapping the flat of his hands against her shoulders and making her stagger back a few paces. Normally he was so mild mannered and easygoing, Pia found it shocking to see him get violent. He demanded, “You realize what a line you’ve been walking this week, dipshit?”