Dragon Bound(71)

All his sentinels were present with the exception of the two gryphons Bayne and Constantine, who stood guard at Pia’s door. Rune took a seat by the fourth gryphon, Graydon, and tilted his chair back. Tiago leaned against the far wall, a dark brooding presence. Aryal sprawled and tapped her fingers on the table. She never quite managed a motionless state unless she was hunting prey. The gargoyle Grym angled his chair so he could watch Aryal.

Tricks, the faerie known as Thistle Periwinkle, Cuelebre’s head of PR, sat with her arms and legs crossed at the other end of the table. Her lavender cloud of hair, sporting a four-hundred-dollar haircut, was disheveled. She jiggled one tiny foot and chain-smoked.

Dragos, like Tiago, didn’t take a seat. Instead he went to lean back against the oak counter at the head of the room. He kicked one foot over the other and folded his arms, tucked his chin in and brooded at the floor.

He didn’t like how he felt. He didn’t like it one fucking bit. He felt jittery and restless at leaving Pia alone. The feeling increased with every step he took away from her and with every minute that trickled by. She had looked very lost and alone standing in the middle of that big empty room.

He didn’t like how she had looked at him either, like he was an unpredictable puzzle she couldn’t decipher. Or a bomb that might go off in her face. She had looked at him with uncertainty, distrust. With something very close to fear again.

She had pulled away from him.

It was unacceptable. But before he could go and take care of whatever was brewing in her head, he had to do this first.

He lifted his gaze and looked around the occupants in the room. They were all watching him and waiting.

“Hey, Tricks,” he said to the chain-smoking faerie. “Your uncle Urien says hi.”

Tricks started swearing, her urchinlike features contorted. She stabbed a half-smoked cigarette out in the ashtray. “What did the bastard do this time?”

Rune said, “Everybody knows what happened up to the point when you called from South Carolina. We’ve been dealing with the Elven fallout. They’ve invoked a trade and business embargo with anything to do with Cuelebre Enterprises, along with all other known Wyr businesses. They also swore they escorted you and the woman to the Elven border. They’re insisting on knowing what happened to her.”

“You mean, aside from housing the criminal in a penthouse suite and hiring a private chef for her? Yeah, we’re talking cruel and unusual punishment,” Aryal whispered to Grym, but Dragos’s sharp hearing caught it anyway. He chose to ignore it for now.

“They did escort us to the border. That’s true as far as it goes,” he said. He told them the rest, omitting what happened in private between him and Pia, and glossing over anything to do with her secrets. Pia was his mystery. No one else’s. He intended to solve her all by himself.

The mood in the room turned ugly as he described the confrontation on the Other land plain.

When he finished, Tiago stirred. In his thunderbird form, he was as big as any of the gryphons. “So, it’s war. About damn time,” he said. Dark satisfaction gleamed from obsidian eyes.

Dragos nodded. “It’s war. We don’t stop now until Urien is dead.” He looked at Tricks. “That means you get to be the Dark Fae Queen at last.”

“Oh God no,” the faerie groaned. “I fucking hate the Dark Fae Court.”

“Well, suck it up, Tricks. You’ve run from this long enough. And this time Urien’s pushed me too far.”

Over two hundred years ago, humankind time, Urien had taken the Dark Fae crown in a bloody coup. Urien had slaughtered his brother, the King, the King’s wife and anyone else who had any direct claim to the throne, except he managed to miss one small person, their eldest daughter, Tricks.

At just seventeen years old, Tricks had been considered little more than a baby at the time when she had managed to escape. She had run straight to Dragos, the one entity she felt sure could stand up to her uncle without any fear, and had asked for sanctuary. She had been with him ever since.

“It’s been a fun game of Fuck You, hasn’t it? We managed to keep it going for quite a while, but you know it had to end sometime,” he said to her. She gave him a miserable nod.

“Okay, here’s what we’re going to do,” he said. “Tiago, send some of the troops you brought back with you to scour that Goblin stronghold. They know what to do to anyone stupid enough to still be there.”

Tiago smiled. “You got it.”

“Aryal,” he continued, “investigate the Elven connection. I want to know who might have leaked information to Urien.” The harpy gave him a nod. He turned his attention to the gargoyle. “Grym, I want you to work with Tricks to plot the layout of the Dark Fae palace and grounds for possible plans of attack. I’ve got a few ideas, but I also want to know what you come up with. Tricks, I know you’re going to get really busy, but I would appreciate it if you managed to hire a replacement for yourself before you go, or at least come up with a short list of suggestions. We’re going to need a new PR person.”