“How was your day?” she whispered.

“It went as expected,” he said. “Mostly. No one died. All of the sentinels went through to the next round, but then nobody believed anything different would occur. Graydon—” His gold eyes danced suddenly. “You know what a big motherfucker Graydon is. He turned into a gryphon, and then he just sat down and looked at his opponent, who forfeited. It was the fastest bout of the day.”

She giggled. Mostly she was relieved to be away from the Games, and they had deliberately arranged for her trip to occur on the same week. She knew it would tie her into wretched knots to watch people she cared about going through the bouts of combat, even though they chose to go through it, and the fighting was in a good cause.

But she didn’t think she could resist watching and fretting if she was in town. At least this way she occupied herself with something that really mattered, and Dragos would stay busy while she was gone.

She said, “I would have liked to have seen that.”

“I’m sure many, many people in the Tower are DVRing the Games. I’ll get somebody to edit that segment out for you.”

“Thank you.” She tilted her head. “And how did Quentin do?”

Dragos said simply, “He’s an elegant fighter. He put his opponent down quickly, and neither one got hurt. But it may not always go so neatly for him. The bouts will get messier and harder as the week progresses.”

She asked, “Was that the unexpected bit of the day?”

The laughter in his eyes died, and his face grew edged and dangerous. For a moment he looked like what he was, a natural-born killer, and she could see the dragon moving at the back of his gaze. Before she could say something the dragon eased back, and then there were other things in his expression, a frown of pain or regret, his mouth tightening in frustration or anger.

He said, “Rune and Carling were in the stands.”

She had wondered how Rune would feel about the week, and if he would watch the Games. She had never really bonded with Rune, other than to reach a place where they exchanged friendly banter and agreeable pleasantries. There hadn’t been time before he and Aryal left for Chicago to help investigate the assassination attempts against Niniane. Then they had traveled to Adriyel to witness Niniane’s coronation. After returning and only spending a week at home, Rune had left again to pay his debt to the Vampyre sorceress.

He had never come back to New York until now.

She asked gently, “Did you talk with him?”

Dragos shook his head, his face hard.

Such a stubborn, proud male. She stroked his inky, silken hair, the short strands flowing through her fingers like water. Even more gently, she asked, “Did you want to?”

His jaw set. “No.”

That was too complex an answer to be either a truth or a lie. It felt like neither, and both. She didn’t know how to help Dragos with this, other than to listen. She was just glad they were finally talking about it, at least a little. She had tried to broach the subject before a couple of times, only to run into a rare stone wall. “Were you angry when you saw them?”

His eyes flashed again. “Yes.”

She rubbed his chest soothingly. “Maybe somewhat hurt too, or regretful?”

“Those are useless emotions,” he growled between his teeth.

She nodded. Definitely hurt and regretful. “And I’m guessing jealous too.” She met those angry, dangerous gold eyes. “Carling took something of yours that you valued highly, and you’re never going to get it back, at least not in the same way.”

His expression went blank. For a long moment she waited as he stared into space, and she did not know where he went in the complex, serpentine pathways in his head. Then his gaze snapped to hers, and he was back with her again. He lifted a shoulder. “And I also understand,” he said, his voice deepening. “Because if I had to, I would leave everything for you too.”

They looked into each other’s eyes. Then they moved at the same time to hug each other tightly.

Dragos rolled her across him gently so that she lay on her back. He spread his hand over the slight rounded swell of her stomach, brought his head down and kissed her. She murmured, fingering his hair as a heavy, languid pleasure drenched her body.

Their mating frenzy had eased after a month or so, which had almost been a relief. The frenzy was still there if they reached for it, but now desire had grown deeper, richer. Dragos slid his hand under the hem of the bulky T-shirt, and she lifted her torso so that he could pull the shirt over her head.

He palmed her breast and kissed her again, his hand and mouth gentle, lingering. Without clothing the changes from her pregnancy were visible. Her abdomen swelled where before it had been flat, and her br**sts were growing fuller, the full pink, jutting ni**les more sensitive.

“I love watching your body change,” he murmured as he kissed down her throat.

“What, you didn’t like how I looked before?” she said.

His head reared back. He glared at her in sharp incredulity.

She lowered one eyelid in a slow wink at him.

Laughter creased his features. She smiled as she stroked his face, glad she could lighten his mood for a little while. He was such a hard male, and sometimes that hardness bruised others, but sometimes it bruised him most of all.

He cupped her breast and took her nipple in his mouth, running his tongue around the soft, swollen peak and then flicking it with the tip of his tongue, so gentle and sensuous she melted for him, molding her body to his and crooking one leg to rub along the side of his with her naked thigh.

He knew how much she loved it when one of them was nude but the other remained fully clothed.

Once he caught her by surprise. He had dressed for a business function in a black suit that had been hand stitched by some foreign designer. She had chosen to have a lazy day and spent the afternoon reading, stretched out on one of the couches in the penthouse’s great room.

When he returned to the Tower, he was still wearing his sunglasses. The dark lens turned his brutal face into that of an impenetrable stranger’s. She smiled at him as he strode out of the elevator, her heart kicking at the sheer fluidity of power in his massive body as he moved across the floor.

As he neared she lifted her face, expecting him to kiss her before he went to their bedroom to change.

Instead he knelt on one knee, put his hand over her mouth and pushed her down on the pillows.

She froze and stared at him, her heart rate jettisoning into the stratosphere. Her book fell from nerveless fingers. The thud as it landed on the floor sounded a sharp report in the silent penthouse. He took his time looking at her sprawled body, her crumpled T-shirt and cotton shorts, and the light summer blanket tangled around her slender legs. He yanked the blanket off of her.

An insane arousal stabbed her. She fisted one hand in the lapel of his suit and grabbed hold of his thick wrist with the other. The tiniest of veins at his temple beat a hectic tempo, and oh my God, she had to be one twisted pervert, because when he took hold of her T-shirt by the neck and ripped it down the front, she groaned against his palm and almost came.

He tore her shorts away too with an almost leisurely ease, while his half-hidden expression grew darkly flushed with sexual intent. She lay sprawled on the couch, naked except for the simple white wisp of panties. His head turned. She knew he was looking down the length of her. He hooked his fingers into her panties.

Maybe he meant to slow down and tease her. But she let go of his lapel and gripped his penis as it strained against the expensive trousers. Then the muscles in his arm flexed, and her panties were nothing more than ruined shreds of silk.

He yanked open his trousers as she scooted around to face him, and he gripped her by the hips to lift her up to him. It arched her spine, a strange position, so that her shoulder blades pressed against the back of the couch. She hooked her heels on the edge of the cushions, but she was completely off balance, half suspended in air as he held her entire body weight in his grip. With an exhalation that was more like a whimper, she guided the thick head of his c**k into place. She was so wet, so wet.

He thrust in and in, an immense, slick invasion that didn’t stop until he was buried all the way inside. His shoulders were bowed, his white teeth clenched. His breathing sounded like bellows. He looked entirely urban and utterly barbaric at once.

Then he f**ked her. Hard, slow, rhythmically, steady as a piston. No foreplay, no kissing. She watched his dangerous, half-hidden face, moving her hips to match his rhythm until she sobbed and climaxed, and then he f**ked her some more, until he bowed over her and shook all over with his own spurting release. He never once said a word to her.

And she loved all of it.

It was good to love and trust someone so much you could just have sex sometimes, just mate for the sheer rutting pleasure of your bodies moving together in primitive sync.

Now in the dream, she thought back to that earlier time with a small, bittersweet smile. Now wasn’t one of those times.

She knew he was right there with her. They could talk on the phone afterward and both would remember the same things—how he suckled at her so gently, how she wound her arms around his neck and cradled his head—but there was still that dreamy, unreal edge to their lovemaking. It made her even hungrier for him in a way that had nothing to do with enchantments or beguilement, and it also made her a little sad.

She tugged at his shirt, and he obeyed her unspoken request, lifting away from her breast so that he could shrug out of it. She ran her hands over his wide, heavily muscled bronze chest as he unfastened his jeans. He rolled to his back to kick off his boots, then he shoved off the jeans, and my gods, there was so damn much of him, and he was all nude, all hers.

As he turned back to her, she put her arms around his neck to hug him tightly. She whispered, “If we climax, will it wake us up?”

“I don’t know,” he said. He flattened his big hands on her back and pressed her to him. “It could. Do you want to try?”

She twitched a shoulder. “We might as well find out. Otherwise we’ll just wonder until we try it.”

She felt him exhale in a silent laugh. “There’s a rousing endorsement for making love, if ever I heard one.”

She tapped her fingers against his bicep, the merest, gentle hint of one of her smacks. “You know what I meant,” she muttered.

“I know what you meant.”

He eased her onto her back again and came over her. The laughter died, and his expression turned serious. She parted her legs and guided his c**k as he kissed her, and there was another one of her very best-loved places, as he covered and penetrated her while she raised her legs and cradled him. Their bodies were perfectly aligned in a way that said this was home.

She adored it, adored him. He leaned his weight on elbows planted on either side of her head, and he lowered his head until they were nose to nose, staring deeply into each other’s eyes as their bodies flexed together gently.

But it was all just a little too dreamy.

Her eyes filled. She said, “I still miss you.”

He stroked her temple with the back of his fingers as he kissed her. His gold gaze filled with quiet pain. “I still miss you too,” he said.

FOUR

Rain pattered outside and left silver streaks against windowpanes when Pia woke early the next morning. She lay twisted in her bedsheets, staring around her lovely bedroom. She remembered the play of his long, clever fingers down the most sensitive places on her body and the sound of his hitched breathing as she tasted his skin, and her overheated body thrummed with frustration.

While the dream with Dragos had been wonderful for comfort’s sake, neither one of them had been able to climax as they made love. Not only had the dream experience felt too unreal, but she, for one, had not been able to relax enough while knowing that anyone could walk into her bedroom and wake her at any time. Whatever the reason, meeting in dreams might not be quite the solution they had hoped for.

After another quick shower, she dressed in jeans and a sweatshirt. Her iPhone buzzed. She snatched it off the bedside table and checked the screen. It was another text message from Dragos.

One week.

He had been confident he could create a dream spell for them to meet in, but they had agreed she would shorten her stay in Charleston if they ran into any issues. They might have managed to make a connection, but hell.

She rubbed the back of her neck, blew out a breath and texted back.

Yes.

Now it was time to see what they could accomplish in seven days. She could repair all the broken treaties while Dragos fixed the internal problems in his demesne. Then they could get back together before the Freaky Deaky came along to screw with them.

But no pressure, right?

Her muscles tightened with nerves. As Dragos’s mate, she had traveled with him and attended various functions, such as the world-famous winter solstice Masque at Cuelebre Tower, but this trip to South Carolina was her first time actually flying solo. She had worked hard and learned a lot over the last several months, but she still felt woefully inadequate for the task she had set herself.

Hell, she was woefully inadequate. There wasn’t a single thing that qualified her to act as the Lord of the Wyr’s mate, except that she was actually his mate.

When she confessed how nervous she was about the trip, Dragos hadn’t exactly been unsympathetic. But he had certainly been less than helpful. Once he finally conceded to her arguments and she accepted the Elves’ invitation to visit, the whole subject occupied the area of settled in his mind.

“You’re going to be great,” he said. “Don’t sweat it. Just be yourself.”

“You’re no help at all,” she mumbled into her pillow.

She sounded drugged. She felt drugged. She was lying on her stomach on the bed while he massaged her neck and shoulders, his powerful hands digging into her muscles with slow, sensuous care. Whenever he touched her, he moved his hands as if he savored every sensation, every curve and hollow of her body, and that was possibly even more intoxicating than the actual massage itself.