I’ve already told you more than once, faerie. I’m not leaving you. He spoke as if he had heard every word she’d said to him and was continuing the conversation. His mental voice was slurred, and his eyes refused to focus. Some day you’ll believe it.
She sobbed out a laugh and held him closer. I think some day just might be today, Tiago. I think it might be today.
He slipped again into unconsciousness. Carling sounded confident when she said the danger had past, but Niniane could not relax until she had torn open his blood-soaked shirt and seen for herself the shiny scar from the sword wound. It was about three inches long and looked almost silver against the dark tanned skin of his muscled abdomen. She put her fingers to it. There would be another at his back where the blade had passed through his body.
A sober-looking Hefeydd and three other Dark Fae soldiers came with a stretcher improvised from blankets and two poles. Under her anxious supervision they eased Tiago onto it. She kept one hand on Tiago’s shoulder as they carried him back to camp. Aryal and Rune kept a watchful pace alongside. The stretcher-bearers took Tiago to her tent without being asked. She directed them to lay him on her bed, and they did so gently.
“Please heat some water so I can bathe him,” she said, her attention on Tiago.
“Yes, ma’am.” Hefeydd lingered, and she looked up. The Dark Fae male’s brow was creased. He said, “If it pleases you, your highness, we want to help. May we do anything else for you?”
She tried to think. “He’ll be hungry when he wakes up. He needs a lot of meat.”
“With your permission, a few of us will go hunting.”
She nodded. She frowned. “You were the one Arethusa gave the packet to.”
Hefeydd bowed. “Yes, ma’am.”
Her gaze narrowed on him. “Why were you so cautious about giving it to Tiago?” What had Hefeydd known but not said?
The soldier’s eyes reddened. “None of us believed the Commander’s death was an accident, and I did not think anyone had the ability to slip up behind her without her knowing. Her killer had to be someone she trusted and, therefore, was most likely someone I knew too.”
She closed her eyes and nodded again, and he backed out of the space.
Rune had entered with them, carrying Tiago’s swords. He set them on the ground beside the bed, then knelt alongside her and helped her cut away Tiago’s bloody clothes. Without looking up from the task, she asked, “How’s Cam?”
There was a pause. Then Rune turned to put his hands on her shoulders. He squeezed her gently as he said, “I’m sorry, sweetheart. She didn’t make it.”
It was too much to hear, on top of everything else. She rocked and keened quietly, and Rune hugged her tight. After a few minutes, she said, “Naida?”
“She’s dead too,” Rune told her. “The gun fired and exploded simultaneously.”
“It’s my fault. Those were my guns. I brought them with me.”
“Stop it.” Rune’s voice was calm and firm. He stroked her hair as she leaned against him. “Naida had gone over the edge. Cameron saved your life. She did a brave, good thing and died like a warrior. Don’t try to take that from her.”
She bit her lips. After a moment she was able to nod. She said, Thank you for getting Carling to act.
I had to. It was T-bird. He pressed a kiss to her forehead.
She lifted her head to look at him. Rune, be careful. Carling isn’t quite sane.
Yeah, I figure. He smiled, his gaze serene. “Don’t worry, pip-squeak. You know how the song goes. ‘Every little thing is gonna be all right.’”
Trust Rune to quote Bob Marley. She would not have expected she would be able to smile back, but she did. She glanced back down to Tiago’s stretched-out form, and her smile was replaced with rage. “We are done with diplomacy. I want you to scour the camp. I don’t give a shit if it offends anybody or not. Use force if you have to. Durin and Naida mentioned someone named Ryle. Find him, and find out how much he knows. No one is exempt, not Aubrey, not Kellen. Nobody.”
“Bitchin’,” he said. His smile widened, and his amber lion’s eyes flared with a predator’s gleam. “Sounds like my kind of party.”
“Niniane,” Tiago said as he opened his eyes.
He was in her bed, in her tent. Someone had removed his clothing and bathed him. He broke into a sweat as he remembered the star of agony in his abdomen that had grown to fill his body with burning gold. He started to rise. Suddenly Niniane was there, kneeling beside him. She laid a hand to his cheek. “I’m here. No, please don’t get up.”
He looked at her hungrily. She was clean and dressed in a robe. The thin cuts at her neck were not covered, but her wrists were wrapped in bandages. Her face was drawn and pale, her lovely eyes haunted.
In his mind, he saw her bound and kneeling, her neck exposed and bleeding. One slice away from death.
His mouth opened as the breath left his lungs. He snatched at her and dragged her down. She grunted as he clenched his arms around her. He growled, “Every time I let you out of my sight, something bad happens.”
She put her head on his shoulder, her small body flowing to align with his and accommodate his tense hold. He put a hand to the back of her head and turned his face into her fragrant hair. She whispered, “Everything’s all right now.”
She pressed her lips against the bare skin of his shoulder. She was safe and alive, and she was with him. He dragged her underneath the bedcovers and curled his body protectively around her. His mind raced. “The shackles.”
She stirred. “Aryal has both sets of chains, and the key,” she told him, muffled against his skin. “She swears she’ll find a way to destroy them. She’s saying ‘my Precious’ a lot and talking about dropping them into a volcano.”
He took a deep breath and let it out. “Naida,” he said. “Cam.”
She swallowed hard and shook her head.
He rubbed his cheek in her soft hair as he listened to the sounds of the camp. People were talking and moving around quietly. Enough time had passed, then, for calm to return. “How long have I been out?”
“Almost thirty-six hours. You almost died,” she whispered. “It was really close, really bad.” He stroked her back, soothing her, and they held each other in silence for a while. Then she stirred. “There’s food,” she told him. “Venison stew and pan bread.”
Hunger was a sharp, insistent ache, but his need for answers was sharper. He said, “Tell me everything, starting with when I left.”
She did. Since she had learned things after the fact, she was able to add more to the story than what had just happened to her. Aryal and Rune had split off to keep an eye on Aubrey and Kellen, the most dangerous suspects. In the meantime, Durin received Tiago’s order to get the troops ready to ride out. While Tiago collected food and water for the journey personally, and saddled his and Niniane’s horses, Durin passed his orders on and went directly to find Naida.
“Everything Naida and Durin did from that point on was in escalating reaction,” she told him. “Right up to the end, when Naida realized Aubrey would never agree with what she did or forgive her. Then she had nothing left to lose, and I think she just unraveled. Just imagine, a couple of weeks ago she believed Aubrey would be crowned and she would be Queen.”
He growled, “Do you believe Aubrey?”
She tilted back her head and stroked his face. “Everybody believes Aubrey, Tiago. He has been beside himself. He has offered his resignation as Chancellor and asked to be taken into custody. And you know what? I finally learned where Duncan’s talents lie.”
He lifted his head to frown at her. “What?”
“Duncan, the Vampyre,” she said. “It turns out in 1890 or so, he founded what has become one of San Francisco’s premiere law firms. He’s expert at questioning witnesses and suspects, and especially at cross-examination, although after everything that happened, people were more than happy to cooperate. Between his skill, and Aryal and Rune’s truthsense, they’re confident everyb
ody else in the camp—including Aubrey—is innocent. One of Aubrey and Naida’s attendants, a man named Ryle, was involved only peripherally. Naida had sent him to get Aubrey out of the camp quietly, but she hadn’t told him why. Geril and Durin were her two accomplices. She must have done quite a number on them to play on their greed and ambition. She all but promised to get Durin appointed as Commander, right in front of me.”
“So it’s really over,” he said.
She nodded. Her eyes filled with tears. “The sad thing is, Arethusa and Cameron didn’t have to die. If we had achieved more trust and openness—if we had all just worked together better, they would still be alive—”
“Hush, you can’t think that way,” he said. “All we can do is work with the information we have at any given time.”
The tears spilled over. “I know, but I liked Cam so much and she was so happy to come.”
“I know,” he whispered. He framed her face in his hands and kissed her damp eyelids, the tip of her nose, her mouth. “I wish I could take the pain away.”
“I don’t,” she said. “She deserves to be mourned.”
That may be so, but his faerie had suffered too much and he had had more than enough. If anybody so much as looked at her funny, he was going to come down hard on them with both sizefourteen steel-toed boots. Then he would consider seriously the merits of evisceration.
He kissed her again, gently, and she kissed him back. Then soothing became searching. She wound her arms around his neck, and he growled low in his throat and moved to cover her body. “Wait,” she murmured. “Don’t you want to eat first? You must be starving.”
“It has quite a high priority rating,” he muttered. He rested his weight on one elbow and ran his hand down the side of her body, looking for a way to open her robe. “It’s next on my to-do list, but you’re the first thing.”
The most important, the most urgent thing.
There was a belt at her waist. It was tied. He untied it and pulled her robe open.
She was naked underneath, and he swallowed as he stared as her gorgeous pink-tipped breasts, that narrow waist, the impudent little gold navel ring and the silken tuft of private hair at the sweet, graceful arch of her pelvis.
He put his forehead down between her breasts and swallowed hard. She was his life. It was as simple as that and he had almost lost her.
Niniane slipped her hands under his chin and gently urged his head up. Her face softened as she took in the harsh set of his face, his full glittering eyes. He shook his head. His throat had closed up, and anyway, he had no words.
“It’s all right,” she whispered. She stroked his face, his shoulders. She reached into the shadowed space between them, took hold of his erection and guided him between her legs. She pulled her knees up and cradled his long torso as he came inside her, came home.
Then the words came, and the force of his feelings shoved them out of his mouth.
“I need those chains back,” he said. “I’m going to shackle you to me. We’ll destroy the key. We’re never going to be more than two feet apart again.”
“Okay, we’ll do that,” she murmured. “I promise.”
“Don’t humor me,” he snapped. He pushed all the way inside. Then he rocked his hips, moving slow and gentle as he remained buried to the hilt. He felt huge and hot and he stretched her wide, and he found just the right spot to hit. With every thrust he ground hard against her pelvis, as he dug in as deep as he possibly could.
“I’m not,” she gasped. “I almost lost you too.”
She flung back her head, her eyes closed. Her emotions were too naked, the pleasure too intense. She dug her nails into his flexing back.
He slid a muscled arm underneath her, his hand at the nape of her neck, and he clamped her to him so tight she could hardly breathe. “Look at me.”
Her eyes opened and she looked. His hard-edged features were raw, but his eyes had cleared, and they were…
Steady. Adamant. Bedrock.
“You will never lose me, faerie,” he said point-blank into her upturned face. “I love you too much.”
Then he pushed his pelvis against her one last time in a slow, hard, voluptuous grind, and the explosion of pleasure was so intense it seared her soul as he destroyed her again. God, she adored him. He was such a walking, talking holocaust of a man.
They ate and slept, and made love again. Then laughter came back early the next morning, and they agreed it might be time to face the world again. They dressed and left the tent together, and while he clenched if she stepped too far away from him and she turned to look too often for the reassuring sight of his tall black-clad figure, they managed well enough.
While Tiago had been unconscious, she had written a letter of condolence to Cameron’s family. Two troops had taken the letter along with Cameron’s body back to Chicago. After healing Tiago, Carling disappeared into her tent and did not reemerge. When Niniane gave the word they were ready to break camp and resume travel, there were four, not three, wrapped and cloaked vampires who appeared the next morning. Niniane noticed that Rune glanced at Carling’s cloaked figure often as she rode astride her black Arabian stallion, his eyes narrowed in a speculative look. But more often than not, his expression was closed and remote. She and the others respected his unspoken desire and left him alone.
Such, however, was not the case for Aubrey. With three bodies wrapped in herbs and carried in one wagon at the rear, it was a somber group, and Niniane set an easy pace. After they had ridden for most of the day, she caught Tiago’s eye and gestured with her chin toward the Dark Fae male. Tiago turned to look. Aubrey rode by himself. His cloak was wrapped tightly around him, his chiseled features bleak and withdrawn.
Tiago set his jaw and lowered his brows in a scowl, but after a moment he nodded. Niniane nudged her sweet-natured little mare forward. As she came up on Aubrey from one side, Tiago came up on the other.
The Dark Fae male’s head lifted. He looked from Niniane to Tiago and drew further in on himself. “Your highness,” he murmured. His voice was toneless.
“You must know this won’t do, Aubrey,” Niniane said. “I refuse your resignation. I need you too much.”
Aubrey stared sightlessly ahead. “After Geril and Naida, I no longer have the confidence that I can meet your need.”
“The last time I heard, it was not a crime to think well of people you know, especially those you care about,” remarked Tiago to no one in particular as he surveyed the surrounding landscape.
Aubrey gave him a quick glance but said nothing. They rode in silence for a time.
Niniane sighed. “I don’t know that I can afford to give you the choice. I know you need time to heal and mourn your wife, and I promise you will have that. But you must return to your position as Chancellor. If you won’t do it for me, do it for the Dark Fae.”
More silence. Then Aubrey said quietly, “I would do anything for you that I could—”
She interrupted him to stave off another rejection. “Good,” she said strongly. “I need you to get together with Kellen right away. The two of you have to come up with a short list of people you would recommend for appointment as Dark Fae Commander. And I don’t know how precisely you’re going to do this, but I want you to research the history of Urien’s finances since he took the crown.”
A spark of curiosity enlivened Aubrey’s dull gaze. “What do you need to know?”
She was too canny to let herself smile yet. She told him, “I want to know how much my family fortune was when Urien became King. It doesn’t have to be exact if the records aren’t precise. I’m just looking for a realistic estimate. You see, I was disturbed by the inequities in the numbers we reviewed. I think Urien benefited too much from isolating the Dark Fae all these years. I intend on taking only what was rightfully ours before my father died. Then I want to put the rest of Urien’s fortune to work in developing opportunities for our people. You want to help me spend that money wisely, don’t you?”
She g
lanced sidelong at him. Life had come back into Aubrey’s expression in the form of startled interest and intellectual speculation. Riding relaxed in his saddle on Aubrey’s other side, Tiago quirked an eyebrow at her.
Now it was time to smile. Maybe just a bit.
The road and the river meandered, moving apart and coming together again like quarreling lovers. On their third day the travelers started to come upon individual homes and villages. Wide-eyed Dark Fae came to stare in wonder at the group. They were a handsome people and rich in creativity, but while their homes and properties were well kept and sparked with flashes of Power, their relative poverty was also painfully apparent.
Tiago had a quiet but intense conniption when Niniane dismounted to walk and talk among them. Thunder rumbled in the distance, which concerned certain individuals in the group very much. Niniane turned to glare at him. He fought a private battle and the thunder subsided.
Word spread, and people began to appear on the road. They brought fresh-baked bread and cheese, water and wine for the group, and they gave Niniane presents of flowers, handembroidered linen, quilts, gorgeously worked silver jewelry, and incense and spices. They began to follow until they trailed for a quarter of a mile behind the group. On their last night at camp, snatches of singing and laughter came from bright campfires that dotted the countryside.
“I have never seen anything like it,” Kellen told Niniane over an excellent supper of hunter’s stew.
She shook her head as she met Tiago’s dark gaze over their own flickering yellow fire. “I don’t know what to say.”
“Then say nothing,” Kellen told her with a smile. “Just rule well.”
Then their last day of travel came. She recognized landmarks. There up ahead, she knew that twist in the road. Further up still, they passed underneath a bluff that one could scale and look out over the river that lay winking silver blue in the pale autumn sunlight. The road climbed in a low-grade incline for a time, and she knew exactly where they would crest the hill. Her heart began to pound. Her mouth dried and her hands shook.