Lord's Fall

  “Do not ask me for that favor right now,” he growled at the Djinn.

  “Are you sure?” asked Soren, with a bladelike smile. “It is a small favor, after all, quickly asked and granted, and then you will be debt free once more.”

  Dragos gritted his teeth at the bait the Djinn so adroitly dangled in front of him. He snapped, “Ask.”

  “Last year, my son Khalil told me the details of the Oracle’s prophecy,” Soren said. “He and I agreed that it posed some interesting questions.”

  Dragos’s expression shuttered. He turned away from the Djinn’s intensely curious gaze and stood with his hands on his hips, watching the New York skyline. “Careful, Soren. You get just one answer.”

  The Djinn walked over to stand by his side. “The prophecy talked about you along with the other primal Powers, not just as a beast but as Beast.” Soren asked softly, “Why did you never cast a God Machine into the world?”

  Dragos remained silent for a long time as he looked out over his city. New York was such a magnificent teeming brawl. As solitary as he was by nature, he still loved living right here, squarely immersed in the middle of all this rich, messy life.

  He said, “I never felt the need.”

  EIGHTEEN

  The next morning, the Sentinel Games resumed.

  Pia was incredulous when she heard the news. Her head was under her pillow—her own pillow in her very own bed, rapture, joy, joy—and Dragos had just lifted up a corner of it to whisper good-bye to her. She grunted and lifted her head to peer at him, her rapture rudely interrupted.

  He was showered, shaved and dressed in black jeans and a black T-shirt, and he looked so tired. He never looked tired. Their bedside clock read 6:42 A.M. She hooked her fingers into a belt loop of his jeans.

  “Really?” she whined. “Nooo. I mean, really? Why?”

  “Because when shit happens, it doesn’t take a day off,” he said. He sat on the edge of the bed and rubbed her back. “The relentless pace of the Games is as much a part of the weeding process as anything else. If someone doesn’t like that, it’s better that they back out now before they run into real trouble as a sentinel, trouble that won’t slow down or go easy on them just because they’re having a bad day.”

  Heh, yeah, she got that, but she didn’t have to like it. “They didn’t almost die,” she whispered. “You did.”

  He bent his head and played with her fingers. She looked at the short black curl of his eyelashes against his cheeks, loving him so much that it twisted her into a pretzel. He said quietly, “That’s all the more reason for me to be present.”

  She took in a quick breath, and suddenly she was wide-awake.

  Because the problem is that people do talk.

  As the Wyr had returned to New York throughout the night, word of Dragos’s fall would have gotten around. It must have been clear to everyone that he had been critically injured. Not only did the Wyr demesne need to see proof that he was all right, but so did the other demesnes and countries throughout the world.

  Hell, for that matter, so did Wall Street investors.

  Remorse twinged. She sat up and said, “I’m sorry.”

  He gave her a hard hug. “Don’t be,” he said. “It’s been a hellish goddamn week. After the Games are over tomorrow, you and I are spending the weekend in bed. In the meantime, you should eat and rest.”

  She smiled, a wry twist of the lips. “See you later.”

  He gave her a swift kiss and left.

  An hour and fifteen minutes later, she had showered and dressed in jeans and a sweater. She had also put on makeup and eaten so many buckwheat pancakes that her stomach was full to bursting.

  When she called for a driver, Eva and Hugh appeared. At her look of surprise, Eva gave her a small grin and told her, “Imma just keep turning up now like a bad penny.”

  Penny.

  Pia doubled over and laughed uproariously, while the other two watched her with puzzled expressions. “I’ll explain it someday,” Pia told them. She cocked her head and smiled at Hugh. “It’s good to see you. Are you here for the reason I hope you are?”

  He returned her smile, his plain bony features creased with good humor. “Got my hat in hand and I’m looking for a job, if you’ll have me.”

  “I’m delighted to have you,” she told him. Not only did she genuinely like Hugh, but he and Eva already knew how to work together. It was a good start.

  Eva told her, “This kind of gig was too big a change of pace for the others, but no surprise there. Johnny’s been waiting to have a word with you, though, if you can spare him a few minutes.”

  “All right,” she said, resigned. “I need to get to the Garden, but I can take a few minutes right now.”

  “He’s downstairs,” Eva said. “I told him to grab a coffee at Starbucks.” At her questioning look, the other woman added telepathically, He don’t know nuthin’ about nuthin’, Tink, but he’s got questions.

  She nodded grimly and rode the elevator with Hugh and Eva down to the ground floor. Once they stepped into the Tower’s main lobby, Eva said to Hugh, “Get a car and meet us out front.”

  “You got it,” Hugh said. He disappeared, winding through the crowd at a deceptively sleepy pace.

  Pia and Eva walked into Starbucks where Johnny sat at the window counter with an empty coffee cup in front of him. He hunched over his computer game. He looked up as Eva tapped him on the shoulder, then he switched off the game and shoved it into his back pocket as he stood.

  Pia clasped her hands behind her back, twisting her fingers together hard as she gave him a smile. “Hey there,” she said. “Thanks for everything you did on the trip. I’ll want to tell the others in person later, myself, but for now, would you pass on my thanks to them too?”

  “Sure, I’ll tell them,” Johnny said. It saddened her that he seemed ill at ease and uncertain. “Look, about that night? You know, when the shit hit the fan, and we were at the passageway where the Elves were fighting.”

  “I know which night you’re talking about,” she said quietly as she tensed.

  He met her gaze shyly. “There for a while, I passed out, so I’m not sure what happened, but I know two things. I know I took a mean sumbitch wound. I even remember thinking, damn, I’m not gonna get over this one. Then when I woke up, you and Evie were there. Now I’ve got no scar. I’ve got nothing but the memory of that sword going in, and—” He blinked rapidly as he looked from one to the other. “I don’t know what you guys did or how you did it, but I wanted to say thank you.”

  Pia’s face softened. She touched him on the shoulder. “We did what anybody would have done,” she told him gently, as she chose her words with care. She’d gotten used to dancing around telling the whole truth. “We poured all the healing juice we could into you.”

  “That’s just it,” he said. “None of our healing potions were used.”

  She and Eva looked at each other. “I had healing potion in my pack,” Pia said. That wasn’t a lie either. She did carry a few, just in case.

  “There’s Hugh with the car,” said Eva. “We gotta go, sport.”

  Eva and Johnny looked at each other. Moving as one, they stepped into a fierce hug. “It’s not gonna be the same without you,” he said, muffled.

  “’Course it won’t.” She thumped him on the back. “You kids gonna have to worship my bitch-goddess self from afar.”

  He laughed, his arms loosening. “See you around, bitch.”

  “You know it.” Eva slapped him on the cheek, an affectionate tap, and turned to Pia. “Ready, Tink.”

  She blew out a breath. “Let’s go.”

  As they walked outside to the Cadillac idling at the curb, Eva said telepathically, See, like I told you. He’s confused and he don’t really know anything.

  Pia didn’t reply as s
he climbed into the backseat.

  No, Johnny didn’t know anything, she thought. But he knew enough to wonder about what really happened, and to question her story. Healing potion couldn’t have healed him so completely, not that bad of a wound, and not without leaving a scar.

  And people talk.

  She told Hugh and Eva to wait outside, then she walked into the Cuelebre supersuite at the Madison Square Arena. Dragos stood at the window that looked out over the arena. He had his head bent over a file while Kris talked to him. Both men turned as the door opened, and Dragos’s eyebrows shot up in surprise. They lowered again immediately.

  “What,” he growled, “are you doing here?”

  “I’m doing the same thing you are, so don’t give me any lip about it,” she said calmly. As he assessed her with a narrowed gaze, she walked over to kiss him. Then she looked out over the arena.

  A smile hovered at the edges of his hard mouth as he bent his head again to read his file, and she could tell that he was really pleased. He murmured, “It’s that whole partnership thing again, isn’t it?”

  “Yes,” she said. She braced herself. “Dragos, in the spirit of partnership, we need to talk about something.”

  He lowered the file and brought his head up with a frown. “What’d I do this time?”

  She shook her head at him. “Nothing. It’s what I did.”

  “Kris,” Dragos said without looking around at his assistant.

  “Yeah, I got it,” Kris said. “Go work somewhere else for a while.”

  As soon as the younger man left, Dragos threw his file on a chair and turned to her. “What happened?”

  She told him about Johnny’s injury and how she had healed him. When she had finished, she said, “He doesn’t know what happened, but he’s really puzzled.”

  “Ah,” said Dragos. “That’s the other healing you were talking about.”

  “What? When?”

  The corners of his lips twitched. He told her, “When you stuck your elbow in my mouth.”

  She rubbed her temples. It wasn’t even ten o’clock in the morning, and already a pressure headache was beginning to build behind her eyes.

  “The thing is,” she said, “Johnny’s bound to talk about what happened. In fact, I’m sure he already has to his unit, and who could blame him? Then there’s what happened to you out on the battlefield, when, as you say, I stuck my elbow in your mouth. You were clearly down and not getting up on your own. People have got to know that I did something to heal you. And Dragos, you may not have noticed this, but I certainly have—people are starting to resent the fact that I haven’t revealed my Wyr side.”

  His amusement had vaporized, leaving him taut with tension. He said, “Where are you going with all of this?”

  She threw out her hand in a gesture of frustration. “I’m wondering if we should just throw my Wyr side out there and let the world know. I’ve thought before that this whole issue is like watching a slow-building train wreck—”

  “No,” he said. His gold eyes flared with incandescence. “We should not.”

  “I’m not sure that we’re going to have any choice about it,” she said.

  “We have a choice, and I say no.” His hands came down on her shoulders and he gripped her hard. “In fact,” he said between his teeth, “I really want to forbid this. I want you to notice that I haven’t.”

  She softened and rubbed his forearms. “I notice it, Dragos, and I’m very glad of it.”

  He studied her grimly, clearing thinking hard. “Speculation is not knowledge,” he said. “Just like Johnny is confused about what happened to him, people cannot be sure about what happened in the valley. They don’t know if you fed me healing potion, or if you threw a healing spell. Most of them were too far away. The only ones who were close by to see anything in detail are the sentinels.”

  “And Carling,” she said. “And Quentin, and Alex, and Eva—and don’t forget Hugh.”

  His dangerous gaze narrowed. “Eva.”

  “She won’t say a word,” Pia said hurriedly. “I believe that. She and Hugh came to work for me this morning. I only brought them up because they add to the total number of people who know something.”

  “Still, except for the gryphons, nobody knows anything for sure,” Dragos said. “And we should keep it that way. No, don’t interrupt me—listen: I hear what you’re saying. But in spite of everything that has happened, Pia, we’ve only seen a week go by, and you’re suggesting we do something that we cannot take back once it is done. We haven’t had time to consider all the consequences—especially for how it might affect the baby’s life once the news gets out.”

  She sucked in a breath, her gaze turning stricken. “I hadn’t even thought of that.”

  His fingers tightened. “People are going to speculate about you for the rest of your life. That’s part of who you are now. Let them speculate about this too. It does no harm for them to think that you might be able to throw unusually effective healing spells.”

  “Yes.” She sighed. He pulled her into his arms, and she rested her aching head on his chest. “Everything you said makes sense.”

  “Well, thank gods for that.” He kissed her forehead. “I took Taliesin’s Machine over the ocean last night and threw it in the water.”

  “What?” Her head snapped up so fast, she clipped him on the chin. “I thought you said you didn’t see it!”

  “Ouch!” He glowered at her and rubbed his chin. “You asked if I saw any prayer beads, and I hadn’t. The Machine had taken the form of a perfect diamond. It was fucking gorgeous, Pia, and it was almost the size of my fist. So I put it in my pocket and cloaked it, and then we had a shitload of things to do, and when I knew that you were home, safe in bed, I threw it away.”

  She chewed her lip, her forehead wrinkled. “I don’t suppose there was anything else to be done,” she said at last.

  “There wasn’t. It can’t be destroyed, and it was far too dangerous for us to hold on to. Eventually it will work its way back into the world. I just wanted you to know what I’d done.”

  She considered him for a long moment. Then she laid her head back on his chest. “You’re going to make such a splendid husband.”

  His arms closed around her again, possessively. “I am, which is a good thing, because I’m the only husband you’re ever going to get.”

  She closed her eyes, soaking up the sensation while she inhaled his masculine scent. “I can live with that.”

  The fighting in the arena that day was savage, and most of the contestants—except for Quentin again—got bloodied one way or another. Mostly Pia pretended to watch. She put on a good show, although more often than not her gaze rested on the Elven demesne’s box that remained empty. At the end of the day, there were fourteen contestants left, including all five of the original sentinels. Again, Pia could tell that Dragos was pleased.

  “They all want it,” he said. “They’re going to win through again.”

  She devoutly hoped that was a good thing, as she looked down on the top of Aryal’s head.

  The next day the rounds started early, and nobody could predict how long they would take. Pia joined Dragos at the window for the first half hour.

  After she had put in a public appearance, she fled to one of the other rooms where she signed cards and wrapped presents for Beluviel and Linwe, and she wrote a letter of condolence to Ferion, the new High Lord.

  Eva remained out by the window, and Dragos and Kris didn’t even bother to pretend to work. They took turns calling out the name of the winner to Pia at the end of each fight.

  Graydon.

  Bayne.

  Constantine.

  Aryal.

  Quentin.

  At that, Pia had to sit down because her damn legs had turned shaky. She put her elbows on the
table and her head in her hands. Quentin, who she knew disliked Dragos intensely. Aryal, who disliked her intensely.

  And the gods knew, along with everybody else, how much they hated each other.

  “What are we doing?” she whispered.

  The last two names were almost an anticlimax. Almost, except compared to some of the others, they were a goddamn relief. Grym, quiet but always present, always reliable. And Alexander Elysias, the pegasus, who by all accounts was a peaceful man. She had a feeling they were going to need that peacefulness in the upcoming days.

  She could hear the roar of the crowd through the sound system, and feel Dragos’s charged energy moments before he strode into the room. He looked at her. “It’s finally done. The Games are over. I’m going down to announce the new sentinels. Will you come?”

  She stood immediately. “Of course.”

  He held out his hand to her, and she walked over to take it.

  Somehow they would all have to figure out how to get along.

  What are we doing? she thought. Why, we are doing what we must.

  Dragos inclined his head to her.

  She mouthed at him, “And then we get a weekend off.”

  He grinned, and together they strode out to their people.

  NINETEEN

  A couple of months later, a very large young man said to Pia, “Mom, you’re just gonna have to trust me. I promise everything’s going to be all right.”

  She bit back a smile. Now, where had she heard those words before? Like father, like son. “I trust you, baby,” she told the young man as he lounged against the kitchen counter. “Of course everything’s going to be all right.”

  She was in the middle of pouring birthday cake batter into a pan in a bright, airy kitchen with plenty of windows for natural light and a butcher-block island.

  Then she stopped. Wait a minute. This wasn’t the kitchen at the penthouse. Where the hell was she this time?