Sudden anger burned. “I am not a problem,” she announced. She finished painting her little toe. “I am a ‘tactical consideration.’ ”

Dragos dropped his hand to her shoulder. He squeezed her. She glanced sideways at him. He smiled at her. He said to Rune, “The Elven High Lord can go f**k himself. You can quote me.”

“Ms. Giovanni,” Rune said. “Forgive me. I did not mean to imply that you are a problem. I meant to imply that the Elves are turning the subject of you into a problem.”

Chin resting on upraised knee, she looked at the gryphon. The apology seemed too easily offered, his handsome face too smooth.

I don’t think you meant that, slick. She looked at him hard and made sure he saw it.

But now was not the time to pick another confrontation. Instead, she said, “If they’re turning the subject of me into a problem, why don’t we just make it go away?” She turned to Dragos. “You could have the teleconference and let me be there.”

His white teeth showed a little too much as he enunciated, “I have no intention of pandering to that son of a bitch’s demands.”

She set aside the nail polish and put her hand over his. “Is this important?” she said to him. He looked at her from under the dark slash of his brows, gold eyes obdurate. She rubbed her thumb over the back of his hand. “Wouldn’t it be better if the Elves would just shut up and go away? Hey, what if they stopped throwing a fit at you walking across their backyard. It’s not like you ate their tulips or dug holes in their lawn. You didn’t piss on any trees when I wasn’t looking, did you?”

The thundercloud that had darkened his face broke apart. He laughed. “I would have if I’d thought of it.”

Rune grinned. A snort exploded out of Graydon, who covered his smile with a hand as big as a dinner plate.

She ducked her head and wiggled the cotton balls from between her toes. It wasn’t acceptance. But at least it was something.

While Dragos showered and dressed, Pia gave in to the urge that had been eating at her ever since Rune and Graydon entered the room, and she made the bed with quick efficiency. She felt better when it was done, less exposed, even though it was crystal clear that she and Dragos had shared that bed the night before. She kept her face averted from the gryphons’ covert stares while CNN continued in the background.

Dragos strode out in boots, fatigues and a black shirt that molded to his muscled torso. The symbolism of his attire didn’t escape her. He was still in a combative mood. She ducked past him to pick out a pair of sandals to wear. She chose black slipons with silver sequined straps and low heels. She mourned her tennis shoes. They had been a big splurge, custom-fitted, and she doubted the dried blood and filth could be cleaned from them enough so that she would feel comfortable wearing them again.

Dragos led the way to the floor below. Pia had to trot to keep up. Rune and Graydon fell in behind them. She looked around, taking in as much as she could while on the move. She felt adrift. She didn’t know the layout of the penthouse, and she couldn’t get a feel for this floor’s layout in the route they took. They did pass a massive gym with aerobic equipment, weights and a weapons training area. She stared through the windows at four Wyr engaged in a sword-training exercise and almost ran into a wall. Dragos’s hand shot out and corrected her course.

His presence was a battering ram that cleared their path. People gave way as they approached, greeting him with a variety of nods, bows and other gestures of respect. She avoided focusing on any one of the sea of unfamiliar faces and curious gazes.

They arrived at an executive conference room, as richly appointed and built on the same massive scale as everything else. A couple of people were already present. Cuelebre Enterprises’ PR faerie, Thistle Periwinkle, stood in a formal pose, hands clasped at her waist. She was dressed in a pale blue silk pantsuit and gladiator-style sandals. Standing no more than five feet tall, she looked even more diminutive when she was surrounded by oversized Wyr. The faerie faced one wall and was speaking Elvish. The teleconference had already begun.

Dragos took Pia by the hand and strode forward. Looking curiously at Pia, the faerie backed out of the way. Dragos turned to face the large flat-screen on the opposite wall. Rune and Graydon assumed places behind them.

Three tall, slender Elves filled the screen. They stood in a sunlit office much like the conference room. Ferion stood to the right. A gracious Elven woman with long black hair and a starlit gaze was on the left. The Elf in the middle had the same ageless beauty as the others, but the Power in his eyes was palpable even through the distance of the teleconference.

They all wore cold expressions as they regarded Dragos. The Elven High Lord’s gaze glittered. Dragos appeared unimpressed, his body stance aggressive. His face had turned dangerous, and his eyes flat and wicked.

Alrighty. Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea.

The Elven High Lord looked at her, and spring came to his winter-cold elegant face. “We see that Ferion did not exaggerate,” he said in a deep, musical voice. He inclined his head to her. “My lady. It is our very great pleasure to meet you. I am Calondir and this is my consort, the lady Beluviel.”

A fine trembling took up residence under her skin. The sense of exposure was back, and this time it was all but unbearable. In a whole long string of bad ideas, doing this teleconference in front of witnesses came close to topping the cake. Dragos’s fingers tightened on hers to the point of pain.

She took a deep breath. It was too late to back out now. Might as well see what she could make out of yet another screwup. “I’m honored to meet you,” she said. “Please forgive me. I don’t have any formal Court training.”

The Elven woman smiled at her. “Such things count as nothing compared to a good heart.”

Dragos said, “You wanted to see if she was all right. She is. We’re done.”

“Wait. We wish to hear that from her,” Calondir said icily. The Elven High Lord looked at Pia. “Lady, are you well?”

She glanced at Dragos’s stone-cold profile and then back at the Elves. She said on impulse, “I am being treated with extraordinary graciousness, my lord. While I did not want to, I actually did commit a crime. Dragos has heard the circumstances of what happened and what compelled me. He’s chosen to forgive me. I would respectfully ask that you consider doing the same for him. No harm has come to you from his actions. But a great deal of harm has come to him from mine, which I very much regret.”

Something stirred through the conference room, a sigh of movement. Dragos turned to look at her. The High Lord regarded her for a long, grave moment. “We will think on your words,” he said at last. “If the Great Beast is capable of grace, perhaps we can do no less.”

Feeling awkward, she bowed to the Elven High Lord. “Thank you. I appreciate it.”

“In the meantime, we would ask that you come and visit us,” Beluviel said. Her smiling eyes were warm. “Your presence would bring us much pleasure. We would speak with you of . . . well, of things from long ago.”

Pia translated that to mean Beluviel had known, and loved, her mother. Her eyes misted and she nodded.

Dragos stepped forward and pulled her behind him. The gesture was unmistakably possessive. Even from her limited view behind his shoulder, she could tell that the Elves had stiffened. “Stop that. What’s the matter with you!” she whispered to him. He was going to unravel all the good she tried to do for him. She shoved at his arm. It was like trying to move a boulder. He twisted to glare at her. She leaned sideways to look around him and she promised the Elves, “I’ll talk to him.”

The Elven High Lord raised his eyebrows. Ferion’s face was the picture of offense. Beluviel looked startled. The Elven woman had just begun to smile when the screen went blank.

Dragos rounded on her. He looked furious. “You are not going to visit with the Elves!”

“Did I say I was going to visit the Elves?” she snapped. “I was being polite! You might look that word up sometime in a dictionary!”

He glared around. “Out.”

The room emptied. Thistle gave Pia a gleeful ear-to-ear grin, eyes sparkling. The faerie held her hand up to her cheek, thumb and pinkie out, mimicking a phone. “We’ll talk,” she mouthed as she bounced out the door.

Pia tugged hard. Dragos refused to let go of her arm. She sighed and put a hand over her eyes as her shoulders sagged. She muttered to herself, “How did I get here and what the hell am I doing.”

Beside her, Dragos took several deep breaths. She could feel the air around him burning with Power. He was very angry with her, maybe for the first time since the beach. He dropped her arm and began to pace around her.

“The Elves know more about you than I do,” he snarled in her ear as he passed by. “Unacceptable. They know who your mother was. Also unacceptable. They want you to come live with them. They’re enemies of mine.”

The exposure, the constant stress, the uncertainties of her present situation, all became too much. “All I wanted was to try to help you!” she burst out. She threw her arms over her head and burst into tears.

He started to swear, a steady stream of vitriol. His hands came onto her shoulders. She jerked away and turned her back to him. His arms came around her from behind. He pulled her against him, curving around her, and put his head down next to hers. “Shh,” he said, still sounding angry. “Stop now. Calm down.”

She sobbed harder and hunched her shoulders, resisting his hold.

His body clenched. He said, “Pia, please don’t pull away from me.” He sounded strained.

It caught her attention so that she let him turn her around. He leaned back against the conference table, pulled her arms down and held her tight. She leaned her body against him and rested her head on his shoulder.

“I wasn’t supposed to tell anybody anything about me,” she said. The tears streamed down her face and soaked his T-shirt. “I was supposed to live my life in secret. But I didn’t want to be alone. All I told was one damn secret and it keeps snowballing on me. First Keith, then you, then the Elves, then Goblins, then the Fae King, then more Elves again, and all the people in this room watching, and you just keep digging and digging at me and you won’t stop until I feel like I’m going to scream.”

He rested his cheek against her head and rubbed her back. “I am cursed with a terminal case of curiosity,” he said. “I am jealous, selfish, acquisitive, territorial and possessive. I have a terrible temper, and I know I can be a cruel son of a bitch.” He cocked his head. “I used to eat people, you know.”

If he meant to shock her out of crying, he succeeded. A snort burst out of her. “That’s awful,” she said. Her nose was clogged. “I mean it, that’s awful. It’s not funny. I’m not laughing.”

He sighed. “It was a long time ago. Thousands of years. Once I really was the beast the Elves call me.”

She closed her eyes, took a deep, shuddering breath and rubbed her fingers along the seam of his T-shirt. “What made you stop?”

“I had a conversation with somebody. It was an epiphany.” His voice was rueful. He rocked her. “From that point on I swore I would never eat something that could talk.”

“Hey, that’s kind of your version of turning vegetarian, isn’t it?” she said.

He laughed. “I guess maybe it is. All of that is a long, roundabout way of saying I’m sorry. I don’t always get the emotional nuances of a situation and I didn’t mean to make you cry.”

“It’s everything, it’s not just you.” She turned her head and put her face in his neck.

He held her closer. “I want you to trust me more than you trusted that dumbass boyfriend of yours.”

She sighed. “When are you going to let go of that? Ex-boyfriend. Ex. And anyway, he’s dead.”

“I want you to tell me what and who you are, not just because I want to know but because you want to tell me.”

“Why?” she whispered.

“Because you’re mine,” he snapped.

“I’m not just a possession, like you’d own a lamp.” She pulled back and glared at him. He just looked back at her, face hard and eyes unapologetic. She sighed. “I guess that’s the possessive and territorial bit, isn’t it? You know, I don’t want to fight with you.”

Like any efficient predator, he scented weakness and acted on it. “Then don’t,” he said. He gave her a coaxing smile. “Just give me everything I want.”

She groaned and let her head fall back. She stared at the ceiling. She had to grant him a lot of respect. At least he was all out there, nothing hidden. He was up front with who he was and what he wanted, and he wasn’t ashamed of a single bit of it. Not like her.

“I guess I’ve got a lot to think about,” she said.

Even as he enjoyed looking at the pure, clean line of her throat, he frowned. That wasn’t what he wanted to hear. He cupped the back of her head and pulled her upright so that he could look into her eyes. They were a drenched dark violet blue, bigger and more beautiful than ever. She gazed back at him, waiting to see what he would do next. That wasn’t what he wanted either.

There she was, inside of her skin, and she was more of a mystery to him than ever. It was driving him crazy. Curiosity gripped him, and without realizing he was taking a momentous step, he asked, “What do you want?”

Surprise lit her face. She tilted her head and smiled at him. Did she dare to have the kind of courage he had and just say what she wanted out loud? “I guess I want what a lot of people want. I want to feel safe,” she said, lifting one shoulder. “I want to have a say in my own life. I want to be loved. I don’t want to live this half life of not being either human or Wyr. I wish I were one thing or the other. I want to belong somewhere.”