He had a strange, intent expression on his face as he listened to her. His eyes were open and accepting in a way she didn’t think she had experienced from anyone else before.

“I don’t know what love means,” he said. “But you belong somewhere. You belong here with me. I will keep you safe. And I think you might be more Wyr than you realize.”

She frowned. “What do you mean?”

“You’re stronger since we were in the Other land. I can sense it in you.” His eyes narrowed. “Haven’t you noticed?”

“Well, yes, now that you mention it.” She gave a half laugh. “I mean, I’ve been kind of too busy to process everything that’s happened, but I do still feel like I did over there—I don’t know, more alive. My hearing, eyesight, everything is . . . more.”

“You weren’t sure that you could heal me,” he said, as he had earlier. “And maybe you couldn’t a couple of weeks ago. Remember, I said it can make some half-breeds that way when they get immersed in magic from the Other land. Sometimes the magic triggers a reaction and they’re able to come fully into their Wyr nature.”

She gripped fistfuls of his T-shirt. Could what he was telling her be true?

He covered her hands with his, watching her. “How long has it been since you last tried to shift?”

“Years ago,” she whispered. Her eyes went unfocused as she thought back. “After puberty. It was before my mom died. I think I was sixteen. We tried every six months or so. Once I was an adult, medically speaking, we decided there wasn’t any more point in putting either of us through it anymore. She was fine; she loved me no matter what. But I kept getting too disappointed when I couldn’t change.”

He touched her nose. “Sixteen is a very young age to give up. Most Wyr have life spans much longer than humans, even mortal Wyr, and they mature at a later age.”

She hardly dared to breathe. “I don’t know what to think.”

“I can’t make you any promises,” he told her. “But over time I’ve helped a lot of Wyrkind through a difficult first change. If you want to try again and you trust me, I’ll do everything I can to help you.”

THIRTEEN

She threw her arms around him, hugging him hard. Then she pulled away and paced in a circle, her mind racing. She flung herself at him and hugged him again. He laughed and gripped her by the hips to hold her in one place.

“Did you hear me when I said I can’t make any promises?” he demanded.

“Yes, of course I did,” she said, distracted. She focused on him, her face grave. If it worked, she would be hunted for the rest of her life. But the way her life was spiraling out of control, she was going to be hunted anyway.

“All right, then.” He paused. “Think about it. Let me know what you decide.”

She nodded. He kissed her, stroking her cheek. Then he strode over to the door and opened it. Clusters of talking people in the hall sprang to attention.

“Who needs to be here?” he asked. Most scattered like buckshot. A few of his sentinels, including Rune and Graydon, remained. Pia wiped her face on her sleeves in a vain effort to make herself more presentable.

Cuelebre Enterprises’ PR faerie slipped around Dragos and into the conference room while he talked to the others. Beaming, she bounced over to Pia. “Hi! Oh wow, am I pleased to meet you.”

Taken aback, Pia took the little hand the faerie stuck under her nose. “Hi, thank you. You’re Thistle Periwinkle, right?”

“Oh please,” the faerie groaned. “That’s my stupid TV name. Don’t call me that. Call me Tricks; everybody else does.”

“Okay . . . Tricks. I’m Pia.” She smiled. Much as she had never cared for the faerie in television appearances, it was hard not to smile at this compact package of ebullience.

“Listen, I know we don’t have much time.” Tricks waved her hands. “I’m busy, you’re busy, everybody’s busy. I’ve got a lot I want to say to you, though.”

“All right,” Pia told her. “Hit me with it.”

“First, I’m so sorry about what my uncle Urien did to you guys. I hate him, he killed my family, and we’re going to cut off his head, and then I have to be Queen, but before that happens let’s do lunch, okay?”

Pia felt like the faerie had just jumped on her head and started tap-dancing on it. She said, “Are you serious?”

“As a heart attack,” Tricks told her. “And I wanted to say you did an awesome job with Mr. and Mrs. I-Keep-My-Dignity-Stuck-Up-My-Ass. Really awesome job.”

Pia burst out laughing. “You’re talking about the Elves.”

Tricks blinked and wrinkled her freckled nose. “Of course. You want a job?”

“What?”

“I need to hire someone to take over my PR job, with the upcoming assassination and taking the throne and all, and I think you’d be great. Oh, never mind; we don’t have time to talk about that right now. We’ll talk about that over lunch.” The faerie looked over her shoulder. She made a V with the first and second fingers of both hands and waved them like President Nixon. “Two more things real quick. One, just so you know, not everybody’s happy about you being here. A lot of folks are great, I mean, you know, in a Wyr kind of way, but there are also some people that I think are nasty-dangerous characters. Not that I’m talking about anything specific, just . . . There are a lot of predators that work here. That means there are some pretty hot heads and sometimes things blow up without much warning, so you just want to watch out for yourself.”

“Predators, hot heads,” Pia said, watching the faerie in fascination. “Right. I think I do want to have lunch with you.”

“Of course you do!” Tricks said. She lowered her voice in a whisper. “And last but not least. Dragos? Oh my God, he’s so gone on you!” She giggled. “I’ve lived at the Wyr Court for two hundred years and I’ve never seen him this way. Everybody’s freaked because nobody’s seen him this way, not even folks who are way older than me. So, you know, he’s a man and a dragon and all that, and I know that means he’s got communication issues, but hoo, honey, he’s so hot he smokes without ever having to light up, if you know what I mean, so . . . way to be, my mama!” The faerie giggled again and held her hand out for a fist bump. “Okay, that’s what I wanted to say.” She beamed at Pia. “Lunch today, one o’clock, got it?”

“Got it,” Pia said in a dazed voice as she fist-bumped the little hand held out to her. Dragos, gone on her? Really gone on her? Not just having a sexual fling? Not just having a possessive fit?

Oh God, I hope so. Don’t I? Do I? She chewed her lip.

“Gotta go.” Tricks winked at her and bounced out just as Dragos, Rune and Graydon stepped back in. The faerie tapped Rune on the arm. “Be sure to have Pia at my office at one o’clock, hear?”

“Do I look like a social secretary?” Rune said.

Tricks’s eyes narrowed and the happy good humor she had shown Pia vanished as if it had never existed. She pointed at her own face. “Do I look like I care right now? I have a million and one things to do before I go, so don’t give me any grief.”

Rune laughed and gave her a one-armed hug. “I’m sorry, pipsqueak. I know you’re having a challenging week.”

Tricks readjusted her finger aim and pointed at Rune. “Yeah, well, don’t make me come find you either.” She charged away, tiny heels clicking down the hall.

“Looking rather shell-shocked there, lover,” Dragos said to Pia with a lazy smile. He strolled across the room to kiss her. “Tricks tends to have that effect on people.”

“I guess.” Pia’s smile was uncertain.

“When she’s in her manic phase, she’s a little like trying crack for the first time,” Rune said. He blinked at them, his face bland. “Not that I would know what that feels like.”

“Right,” Dragos said in a brisk voice. “I have things to do, Tiago to talk to, a beheading to plan.” He looked at her. “You good?”

She smiled at him again with more surety. “Yes.”

“Good.” He paused. “Thank you for what you did in the teleconference.”

“You’re welcome.”

He looked at Rune and Graydon. “She gets to do what she wants. Got it?”

Graydon looked at his feet with a long-suffering expression and rubbed the back of his neck. Rune pursed his lips and said, “Dragos, that might call for . . . a lot of tactical consideration. Don’t you think it would be wiser to restrict her movements?”

“Why are they talking about her in the third person while she’s standing right here in the room?” she said in a resentful mutter. Hot gold eyes met hers. Was it her imagination or did his lips tighten with some kind of suppressed emotion? Then he turned to give Rune a machete smile.

“Fuck you,” Dragos told him. “I’m not the boss of her.”

He strode out. The conference room seemed to darken and expand at the absence of his nuclear presence. Then Pia stood, looking up at her two huge, stony-faced guards. Oh boy.

“Ms. Giovanni,” Rune said in a smooth voice, as he stared at a point beyond her left shoulder. “For your convenience and pleasure Dragos has sent for a personal shopper to attend to you today. The shopper should be arriving any minute now.”

Pia stared at the gryphon. She turned away, pulled out the chair at the end of the conference table and sank into it. She flattened her hands across the polished surface. Clothing rustled as someone shifted behind her.

Okay. She nodded. Okay.

“Would you both please have a seat?” she asked.

After a moment, Rune took the seat at her right and sprawled long limbs out. Graydon took the seat at her left. The two men exchanged a look. She bet they were wondering what she was going to do next. She was kind of wondering that herself.

Her fingernails had gotten ragged. She rubbed at the uneven edge of her right index finger. Never enough time in a day.

“So,” she said in a quiet voice as she looked at her hands, “is this passive-aggressive smarmy attitude working for you, slick? Because I’ve got to tell you, it’s not working for me. In the last week and a half or so, I’ve been blackmailed, chased, threatened, in a car wreck that would have turned me into hamburger if it hadn’t been for your boss, kidnapped, beaten up and chased again. I was in a showdown with a Goblin army and the Fae King and forty or fifty of his favorite guys, and what life I had has been destroyed.”

She heard Rune suck in a breath. She said, “I’m not finished yet. I’m also stuffed to the eyeballs with autocratic macho behavior since Dragos is all over that one. Just so you understand when I say I’m running low on patience right now. I get you guys don’t want to be babysitting me. You’ve made it loud and clear. I don’t want it either, but it is what it is. So can we do this easy, or do we have to do it hard? I’m trying to be nice, but I don’t have any problem at all with doing it hard if that’s really what you want.”

She looked up at the two men. Graydon had put his elbows on the table. He was watching her. For the first time she noticed he had nice slate gray eyes. She didn’t see acceptance in his craggy face but at least it was no longer outright rejection.

Rune had folded his arms across his chest and narrowed his gaze on her.

“Slick,” Graydon said. “She got you with that one, my man.”

“Fuck you,” Rune said.

“Believe it or not,” Graydon told her, “he’s the diplomatic one of the bunch. Dragos sends him out to do all sorts of smarmy passive-aggressive shit.”

Rune leaned forward and planted his elbows on the table. “Shut up, ass**le.”

She bit her lip and refused to smile.

Rune looked at her. “Okay, Ms. Giovanni, let’s try a do-over. See how it goes.”

“Call me Pia.”

He nodded. “Just so you know, though, you do anything to betray Dragos and I’ll disembowel you myself.”

She rounded her eyes. “Wow, slick, that makes us practically BFFs, huh?”

Graydon exploded. After a moment, Rune grinned too. “All right, Pia,” he said. “What would you like to do today?”

She considered him. “We already know I’m meeting Tricks for lunch. What do you think I should do?”

That must have been the right thing to say, because both men relaxed.

“Well, now that you ask,” he said, “safest thing would be for you to hang out in the penthouse.” She sighed. He went on, “But I can see how that wouldn’t appeal. Next best thing, stay in the Tower. We’ll follow orders and take you out if you really want to go, but I don’t think that’s a good idea right now, and to be blunt, I don’t think Dragos does either.”

She turned thoughtful. Dragos’s brief struggle with something had not just been her imagination. He had reined in his own impulses and opinions to allow her at least some freedom of choice.

Rune continued, “Also, sometime today I’d like to go to the gym and run through some safety pointers with you.”

She refocused on him and nodded. “Okay. I’ve taken classes that should help with that.”

“I know about them classes. Cardio Kickboxing,” said Graydon. “Turbo Dance. I watch the infomercials.”

“You’re not helping, Gilligan,” Rune said.

She smiled. “How about this? If you don’t mind, I would like a tour of the Tower.” They both nodded. “I would also kill for a Starbucks soy vanilla latte if that isn’t too much trouble. There’s got to be a coffee shop close by. And I have to have new tennis shoes. Mine got trashed. I’ve got about twelve hundred dollars in my savings account if I can just get at it. Then, maybe after Tricks and I have lunch, we can hit the gym.”