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 f**king 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.”