Dragon Bound

Page 24

Then we would stay in the Other land? she asked, as she became interested in spite of herself.
Correct. From the air, it’s like following a specific airstream. The passageway the Goblin brought us through was somewhat unusual, he explained. There was a break in the land but it was an old one worn down by time. It was barely visible even to my eyes.
Somewhere along the way the sun changed and became paler. The canyon shrank until it was a mere ravine tangled with underbrush. The quality of air changed as well. They had crossed over.
Can you tell where we are? she asked. She had forgotten her fear in the fascination of watching the land scroll by underneath.
North of where we were before. I’m more familiar with the landscape along the coast. I’ll know more when we hit the Atlantic. He gave the equivalent of a mental shrug. I’m more interested in finding out when we are and how much time has passed while we were in the Other land.
She had forgotten about that. She watched the landscape change as Dragos winged east. After about a half an hour or so, the blue line of the ocean appeared ahead of them. He wheeled to fly north alongside the land’s edge, climbing in altitude until the air felt thin to her. The cities and towns they flew over looked like a child’s toys.
There, he said. She looked up to see him nod to their left. That’s Virginia Beach. We’ve got a good couple hours’ flight ahead of us.
Oh, right. She drooped at the thought. And here I am without my magazines or paperback novel, and no money for an in-flight movie.
They fell silent. After a while, watching the coastline pass by between her dangling feet became so commonplace it was boring. She inspected the cut on her palm, which had sealed sometime during Dragos’s healing.
The scab already looked a week old. She picked at it without much interest, then turned her attention to the long, curved, black talons that surrounded her. She rubbed one, then tapped at it with a fingernail. It gleamed like obsidian and was no doubt harder than diamonds.
After that there was nothing left to do but kick her feet and obsess over the debacle that her life had become.
After everything, now she was headed back to New York in the grasp of the very creature she had been running away from. With whom, by the way, she had also had fantastic, mind-blowing sex.
That was a head bender all on its own, without considering all the many other disasters that had occurred. She peered up at Dragos and looked away again fast.
The memories of what they had done together were so intense she lost her breath every time she thought of them. Yet they seemed surreal at the same time, almost like they had happened to someone else. And she couldn’t quite connect the man who had been her lover with this splendid exotic creature who carried her with such care as he flew.
She propped her elbows on a talon and buried her face in her hands. Images from the last few days flashed across her inner eye. The confrontation with the Elves. Dragos getting shot. The car crash. The Goblin stronghold, the beating. The beautiful dream of her mother. The standoff on the plain.
She didn’t know what to make of all of it. She wanted that dark room to hide in until she figured everything out. Like in maybe ten years or so.
And it was really not good that she had come to the Fae King’s attention for sure this time. Front and center. He couldn’t know everything that had happened between her and Dragos. But they had escaped together. Now the Fae King had to have some questions about whether she had anything significant to do with Dragos’s transformation, questions he would want to have answered along with all the questions he might have had from before.
Way to stay under the radar and avoid scrutiny, dingbat. If he might have known something and been interested in her before, he sure as hell did now. She had no doubt she’d just shot right up to the Fae King’s Ten Most Wanted list. For all she knew they would be posting pictures of her in post offices and police stations and faxing them to the FBI.
She could always have plastic surgery and run away to live off the grid in a remote Mexican village. If she could collect the stuff from her three remaining caches and get out of town again. That wouldn’t stop magical detection, though. Dragos had already warned her he would find her if she tried to run.
What did that make her? She didn’t know. Was she his prisoner when they got back to New York? Was he serious about considering her his property now or had that been a joke? He had a strange sense of humor sometimes, so it was hard to tell.
Just tell me what I want to know and I’ll let you go. Ha. She rolled her eyes. She couldn’t believe she fell for that one.
She did believe he had forgiven her for the theft. She supposed that was a miracle all on its own, since not that long ago she had been convinced he was going to tear her to pieces. And she had promised him she wouldn’t try to escape. She had meant it at the time.
She wondered if she was going to keep that promise. Life had turned so unpredictable she wasn’t willing to bet on anyone or anything at this point, least of all herself.
All she knew for sure was that she still faced a dangerous and uncertain future.
And that she was . . . lonely again. Worse than ever before.
ELEVEN
She fell into a cramped, fitful doze, propping her head on one arm as she leaned against a curved claw. Come to think of it, it was quite a bit like trying to nap in an airplane seat. The change in their altitude woke her up. She straightened with a wince and looked around. New York lay spread out all around her. The panoramic splash of lights in the deepening dusk stabbed at her eyes. She winced and rubbed her face in an attempt to wake up.
Dragos banked and wheeled in a great circle. They were headed for one of the tallest skyscrapers. She groaned as her stomach lurched. Then they dropped onto the launchpad on the roof of Cuelebre Tower.
She looked around, dazed, and tried to stand without staggering when Dragos set her on her feet. The roof was a huge expanse of space, more than adequate for handling someone of Dragos’s size with room for the takeoffs and landings of other creatures at the same time.
A group of people stood waiting by a set of double doors. In front of them a tawny-haired man stood with feet planted apart and arms crossed. A feral-looking beautiful woman stood beside him, hands on her hips. A Native American–looking man stood a little apart from the others in a black sleeveless leather vest and black jeans, with black hair cut short with shaved whirls of pattern throughout it and tattooed, muscular arms.
Every last one of them bristled with weapons. They all stood six feet tall or over. None of them looked like someone she would be comfortable running into in a back alley.
The air behind her shimmered with Power. She looked over her shoulder as Dragos changed, every ounce of the dragon’s force and energy compacted into the tall, muscular shape of the man. By some trick of the magic in the change, he still wore his battered grimy jeans and boots and nothing else. She looked from his bare chest up into that blade-cut face and raptor’s eyes and lost her breath all over again.
He took her by the arm and strode with her to the group waiting by the doors. Her face heated as curious, unfriendly eyes assessed her.
“’Bout time you showed up,” said the tawny-haired man. He jerked his chin toward the Native American. “I sent to South America for Tiago and some of the cavalry. You all right?”
“I’m fine,” said Dragos. Two of the men held the doors open. Dragos ignored the open elevator doors and took the stairs. She had no choice but to trot along by his side. The others followed. “Conference in ten minutes. Is the room ready?”
What room? Her room? Pia looked at him sidelong as they hit the landing for the penthouse floor.
“All set,” said the tawny man just behind her. Most of the rest had broken away from them to go to the conference room.
They swept down a large hallway, turned and went down another. The halls had luxurious marbled floors. Original works of art hung placed on recession-lit walls. She craned her neck. Wait—was that a painting by Chagall?
Dragos stopped in front of a blond wood door. He pushed it open and walked her inside. The tawny male and two others stayed in the hall by the door.
Pia looked around. She got a blurred impression of a room that was larger than a small house. Her filthy sneakers sank into plush white carpet. A freestanding fireplace and sunken living area with pale leather couches and armchairs was at one end. A black wrought-iron framed bed the size of a boat was at the other end, piled with pillows and quilts. An immense plasma flat-screen hung on one wall, and a wet bar was tucked into an alcove. Another wall was nothing but floor-to-ceiling plate-glass windows with French doors. Open doors led off to walk-in closets and a bathroom.
He turned her around to face him and tilted up her chin. She looked up at him, round-eyed and wary. “I know how tired you are,” he said in a quiet voice. “I want you to stay here, take a hot bath and rest. Everything you should need is here, clothes, drinks, and I’m going to have a hot meal sent up for you. All right?”
In some ways this present landscape was more alien than the Other land had been. The tangled mess inside of her got even more snarled. She was half afraid of him again, but at the same time she didn’t want him to leave. She bit her lips, clenched her fists to keep from reaching out to him or appearing too high-maintenance. She gave him a jerky nod.
He put a hand at the back of her neck, a heavy, warm weight, his face tightening. He said, as if she had argued, “I’ve been talking with Rune as we approached the city. We’ve been gone a week. I’ve got to brief them on what happened.”
“There must be a million things you’ve got to do,” she said. She pulled out of his hold, crossed her arms around her middle and stepped away from him. “I can’t imagine.”
He stood with his hand suspended in midair, frowning at her. She caught a glimpse of the hallway where the tawny male who must be Rune stood, along with two other great hulking males. All three were staring at Dragos as if they didn’t recognize him.
He turned on his heel and strode out. He said, “Bayne, Con, stay here. Get her anything she wants.”
“Right,” said one of the men. He exchanged a glance with the other man. “Anything she wants.”
Dragos disappeared with Rune, leaving her alone in the great gorgeous barn of a room with two men at the door.
Armed guards. Guess she had one question answered. She was a prisoner.
One of them took hold of the door handle and nodded to her, his weather-beaten face expressionless. “We’ll knock when your meal comes,” he told her. “Do you need anything right now?”
“No, thank you,” she said from a dry throat. “I’m fine.”
Her guard shut the door and left her alone.
She turned in a circle, taking everything in. The empty room was draped in shadows that deepened with the onset of dusk. The strange penthouse luxury seemed colder and hollower without the vitality of Dragos’s presence. She rubbed her arms and shivered.
She slipped off her disgusting sneakers and put them on the tiled floor just inside a bathroom that was bigger than the whole of her apartment. Then she padded over to the alcove that hid the wet bar.
Though small, it was stocked with a wide assortment of liquor, all top of the line, of course. She paused, distracted by the collection. She had always wanted to try a glass of Johnnie Walker Blue. There was a coffee machine on the counter and a sink. Underneath the counter was a half-sized refrigerator. She checked the contents. Bottles of Evian water and Perrier, beer and lager, various juices, white wine and champagne.
She took out two bottles of water. She gulped down the Evian. Then with her thirst somewhat assuaged, she opened the Perrier and drank that more slowly.
The fireplace was a real one, not gas. It was immaculate and laid with a neat stack of wood, ready to start. A box of long matches sat by a TV remote on the coffee table in front of two of the couches. She gave in to temptation and lit the fire. The yellow flicker of the flames helped to dispel some of the room’s chill emptiness.
Next she crept into a walk-in closet and dressing room. One side was filled with male clothes. The other side was filled with her clothes.
From her apartment.
She pushed through the hangers and opened up the dresser drawers. Her underwear, socks, T-shirts and shorts, all immaculate, all pressed and folded.
She held up a small neat bundle that was a pair of white panties. Some stranger had washed her underwear—and ironed it?
The same was true for the clothes on the hangers. Her shoes were no longer in a pile but polished and stored in order. Her small cedar jewelry chest was on one of the dressers. She opened it and grew teary at the sight of her mother’s antique necklace. She stroked the necklace, then shut the chest with care and leaned against the dresser.
This was both creepy and . . . thoughtful. Finding familiar things was comforting at the same time as it scared her half to death.
When had he given the order to collect her things? Had it been at the beach house when he called Rune? He had said he had told Rune to get a vegetarian cook. When had he decided to move her things into his room?
She grabbed a T-shirt, sports bra and panties and a pair of flannel boxer shorts. She went into the bathroom. She could spend a week having a vacation just in the bathroom alone. There was a bathtub the size of a small pool with steps and bench seats, and there were unopened bottles of Chanelscented bubble bath. Her toiletries and makeup were laid out on the marble counter by the sink. New bottles of the shampoo and conditioner brand she liked were in the shower stall.
Someone had apparently thought of everything, every last freaking thing, except for asking her opinion about any of it. What a gilded cage.
Even though Dragos had urged her to take a hot bath, she felt too vulnerable and unsettled to relax. Just as she had at the beach house, she locked the bathroom door before she stripped.