Rune laughed and gave her a one-armed hug. “I’m sorry, pipsqueak. I know you’re having a challenging week.”
Tricks readjusted her finger aim and pointed at Rune. “Yeah, well, don’t make me come find you either.” She charged away, tiny heels clicking down the hall.
“Looking rather shell-shocked there, lover,” Dragos said to Pia with a lazy smile. He strolled across the room to kiss her. “Tricks tends to have that effect on people.”
“I guess.” Pia’s smile was uncertain.
“When she’s in her manic phase, she’s a little like trying crack for the first time,” Rune said. He blinked at them, his face bland. “Not that I would know what that feels like.”
“Right,” Dragos said in a brisk voice. “I have things to do, Tiago to talk to, a beheading to plan.” He looked at her. “You good?”
She smiled at him again with more surety. “Yes.”
“Good.” He paused. “Thank you for what you did in the teleconference.”
“You’re welcome.”
He looked at Rune and Graydon. “She gets to do what she wants. Got it?”
Graydon looked at his feet with a long-suffering expression and rubbed the back of his neck. Rune pursed his lips and said, “Dragos, that might call for . . . a lot of tactical consideration. Don’t you think it would be wiser to restrict her movements?”
“Why are they talking about her in the third person while she’s standing right here in the room?” she said in a resentful mutter. Hot gold eyes met hers. Was it her imagination or did his lips tighten with some kind of suppressed emotion? Then he turned to give Rune a machete smile.
“Fuck you,” Dragos told him. “I’m not the boss of her.”
He strode out. The conference room seemed to darken and expand at the absence of his nuclear presence. Then Pia stood, looking up at her two huge, stony-faced guards. Oh boy.
“Ms. Giovanni,” Rune said in a smooth voice, as he stared at a point beyond her left shoulder. “For your convenience and pleasure Dragos has sent for a personal shopper to attend to you today. The shopper should be arriving any minute now.”
Pia stared at the gryphon. She turned away, pulled out the chair at the end of the conference table and sank into it. She flattened her hands across the polished surface. Clothing rustled as someone shifted behind her.
Okay. She nodded. Okay.
“Would you both please have a seat?” she asked.
After a moment, Rune took the seat at her right and sprawled long limbs out. Graydon took the seat at her left. The two men exchanged a look. She bet they were wondering what she was going to do next. She was kind of wondering that herself.
Her fingernails had gotten ragged. She rubbed at the uneven edge of her right index finger. Never enough time in a day.
“So,” she said in a quiet voice as she looked at her hands, “is this passive-aggressive smarmy attitude working for you, slick? Because I’ve got to tell you, it’s not working for me. In the last week and a half or so, I’ve been blackmailed, chased, threatened, in a car wreck that would have turned me into hamburger if it hadn’t been for your boss, kidnapped, beaten up and chased again. I was in a showdown with a Goblin army and the Fae King and forty or fifty of his favorite guys, and what life I had has been destroyed.”
She heard Rune suck in a breath. She said, “I’m not finished yet. I’m also stuffed to the eyeballs with autocratic macho behavior since Dragos is all over that one. Just so you understand when I say I’m running low on patience right now. I get you guys don’t want to be babysitting me. You’ve made it loud and clear. I don’t want it either, but it is what it is. So can we do this easy, or do we have to do it hard? I’m trying to be nice, but I don’t have any problem at all with doing it hard if that’s really what you want.”
She looked up at the two men. Graydon had put his elbows on the table. He was watching her. For the first time she noticed he had nice slate gray eyes. She didn’t see acceptance in his craggy face but at least it was no longer outright rejection.
Rune had folded his arms across his chest and narrowed his gaze on her.
“Slick,” Graydon said. “She got you with that one, my man.”
“Fuck you,” Rune said.
“Believe it or not,” Graydon told her, “he’s the diplomatic one of the bunch. Dragos sends him out to do all sorts of smarmy passive-aggressive shit.”
Rune leaned forward and planted his elbows on the table. “Shut up, asshole.”
She bit her lip and refused to smile.
Rune looked at her. “Okay, Ms. Giovanni, let’s try a do-over. See how it goes.”
“Call me Pia.”
He nodded. “Just so you know, though, you do anything to betray Dragos and I’ll disembowel you myself.”
She rounded her eyes. “Wow, slick, that makes us practically BFFs, huh?”
Graydon exploded. After a moment, Rune grinned too. “All right, Pia,” he said. “What would you like to do today?”
She considered him. “We already know I’m meeting Tricks for lunch. What do you think I should do?”
That must have been the right thing to say, because both men relaxed.
“Well, now that you ask,” he said, “safest thing would be for you to hang out in the penthouse.” She sighed. He went on, “But I can see how that wouldn’t appeal. Next best thing, stay in the Tower. We’ll follow orders and take you out if you really want to go, but I don’t think that’s a good idea right now, and to be blunt, I don’t think Dragos does either.”
She turned thoughtful. Dragos’s brief struggle with something had not just been her imagination. He had reined in his own impulses and opinions to allow her at least some freedom of choice.
Rune continued, “Also, sometime today I’d like to go to the gym and run through some safety pointers with you.”
She refocused on him and nodded. “Okay. I’ve taken classes that should help with that.”
“I know about them classes. Cardio Kickboxing,” said Graydon. “Turbo Dance. I watch the infomercials.”
“You’re not helping, Gilligan,” Rune said.
She smiled. “How about this? If you don’t mind, I would like a tour of the Tower.” They both nodded. “I would also kill for a Starbucks soy vanilla latte if that isn’t too much trouble. There’s got to be a coffee shop close by. And I have to have new tennis shoes. Mine got trashed. I’ve got about twelve hundred dollars in my savings account if I can just get at it. Then, maybe after Tricks and I have lunch, we can hit the gym.”
Rune dug in his pocket and pulled out a card. He put it on the table and pushed it to her without a word.
She stared. And stared.
An American Express Black Centurion card. With her name on it.
A half-dozen emotions shuttled through her at high speed, starting with offense. Was he trying to pay for her, like she was some kind of whore? Was this to keep her widdle self entertained while he was busy, until he got tired of her and decided to get rid of her? She gripped shaking hands together and took deep, measured breaths until she found some self-control.
As she calmed she remembered what Tricks had said. Dragos was a man and a dragon, which meant he had communication issues.
Amusement was the last emotion to shuttle in to the station. It braked hard and stayed. Dragos wasn’t treating her like a whore. He was trying to give her a treat.
The gryphons were watching her with their game faces on.
“That card is so wrong I don’t even want to talk about it. It’s kind of fun to look at, but it’s wrong.” Moving as though the card might explode on her, she put one finger on a corner and pushed it back to Rune. “Look, all I want is a couple hundred dollars of my own money, a latte and new shoes. Okay?”
Rune smiled a real smile this time as both he and Graydon relaxed further. “How about I loan you some money until we can get you access to your bank account? There’s a Starbucks on the ground floor, along with some other shops, a CVS and a decent
restaurant.”
“Okay, thanks.”
Just then a slender dark-haired man burst chattering into the conference room. He was the personal shopper, a Wyr-mink named Stanford. “Hi, girlfriend, it’s nice to meetcha. Look at what I got for yoo-hoo. A black Dolce & Gabbana satin robe, ooh, it’s going to look so stunning with your hair and coloring.” He put a Saks Fifth Avenue box in front of her, opened it and, with a dramatic flick of his wrist, shook out the robe. “Go ahead and feel it, honey. It’s divine.”
Pia listened to the Wyr’s incessant chatter. She looked at the robe. From Saks. She pressed fingers to the skin over her right eyebrow, where a headache was beginning to throb. She asked, “Hi there, nice to meet you too. Stanford, how much did that cost?”
The shopper stared at her as if she had sprouted horns. “Cost?”
“And why did you get it for me? I have a fine robe already.”
Graydon cleared his throat. He tapped her arm. She leaned over and he whispered, “I think the boss wants you to have something that’s more than a tiny scrap of pink that barely covers your ass. Don’t get me wrong. It’s a lovely ass.”
She jerked back and stared at the gryphon. “Excuse me?”
The huge man’s cheeks darkened. He raised a finger. “Not that I meant to say that or to notice or anything. Fuck. I mean, I get it about the card, but if I were you, I’d think about letting the boss give you a robe. You know, ’cause sometimes things happen and us guys are around without a whole lot of warning. And I don’t think he’s okay with us seeing you wrapped up in that cute little pink handkerchief.”
She ground her teeth. After a moment she said to Stanford, “Thank you for getting me the robe. It’s beautiful.”
The Wyr-mink beamed. “Atta girl, now we’re talking. Let’s get down to some serious shopping. You and me, honey. I’ll help you look like a queen!”
“Stanford,” she said, regarding the little man. “Do you get paid on commission or on an hourly basis?”
His nostrils pinched and he shook his head. “Oh, I don’t do commission, honey. Unh-unh.”
She turned to Rune. “Got any cash I can borrow right now?” He dug out his wallet and handed her a hundred-dollar bill. “Can I have the card back too?” He raised a tawny eyebrow and handed her the Centurion card.
She turned to Stanford and gave him the cash and the card. “I want two things, please. First, I want you to take the cash and buy me a pair of size seven New Balance running shoes, and bring them back here with the change. After you do that, I want you to take the card and stock up every food bank in New York.”
The little man paled. “Every food bank? In the city or in the state?”
Her mouth dropped open. “I didn’t think of that. Let’s do every one in the state. How soon can you be back with the shoes?”
“I’ll have them to you this afternoon,” Stanford said. His face had turned glum.
“Thank you.” She looked at Rune, tongue between her teeth. “He did say I get anything I want.”
The gryphon grinned. “He sure did, didn’t he?”
They stood as Stanford slunk away, and the two gryphons took her on a tour of the Tower as promised. They had relaxed enough to chat, which made everything more endurable. She got a feel for the general layout quickly enough.
The penthouse floor housed Dragos’s private quarters. The painting that had snagged her attention the night before was indeed a Chagall, and it sat across the hall from a Kandinsky. Aside from the bedroom suite they occupied last night, there were two other bedroom suites, one of which was draped in heavy construction plastic, undergoing repairs that were being done under the close supervision of security guards. The penthouse kitchen looked like something out of a professional cooking magazine. It was next to a dining room that could seat twelve large Wyr in comfort. There was an extensive library with two skylights, battered, comfortable leather furniture and over twenty thousand volumes on a wide variety of subjects. The library also had a glass case that housed the older, more fragile books.
The living room area was like their bedroom suite, with one wall comprising floor-to-ceiling windows interspersed with French doors. It had two fifty-inch plasma televisions at either end of the room, several sitting areas with sofas and chairs and a bar that was comparable in size to the one at Elfie’s. Only sentinels and selected kitchen, security and domestic staff had access to the penthouse floor.
The next floor down held the large communal areas for key personnel, like the executive dining room, the teleconference room, the gym and training area, Dragos’s personal offices and a large meeting hall. Below that were quarters for the sentinels and certain executives and Court officials and guests from other Elder demesnes.
Then the rest of the Tower was taken up by business offices—international corporate affairs, domestic, Wyrkind and Elder Races. Two floors were devoted to law offices. An entire law firm worked for Cuelebre Enterprises on anything from international corporate law to Elder-human relations, and matters that arose between the Elder communities such as the imposed Elven trade sanctions on the Wyrkind demesne. The law firm litigated matters in front of an Elder tribunal, which was composed of representatives from the seven demesnes, rather like the human United Nations, that heard and settled legal disputes.
The richness, the extravagance of the Tower, with goldveined Turkish marble flooring, gleaming frosted glass lights and polished brass fixtures, was a massive architectural proclamation of Cuelebre’s money and power. She thought of the Forbidden City, Versailles, temples to Egyptian gods. Not quite as tall as the 102-story Empire State Building, this building was no less a palace in a city that worshipped the god of commerce.
In the center of the Tower’s ground-floor lobby stood a third-century sculpture that rose over the heads of the pedestrians. An intact sister to the damaged Winged Victory of Samothrace housed at the Louvre, the sculpture depicted a beautiful, powerful goddess with a stern face. She was draped in flowing robes, with her great wings swept high into the air behind her. She held a sword in one hand, while the other cupped her mouth as she called a battle cry to unseen troops. The statue was from ancient Greece, but the inscription in the modern pedestal was Latin, and very simple.
REGNARE.
To reign.
She had reached overload by the time they reached the ground floor and was extra grateful to get her soy latte and that kick of caffeine. Graydon got a grande mocha, and Rune had a black iced coffee. The men ordered a dozen pastries and several sandwiches. Then they picked a corner table. While their manner was relaxed and casual, Rune and Graydon angled their chairs so that they could keep an eye on the rest of the Starbucks. They also could watch the general ground-floor traffic through the windows.
Pia kicked a foot as she drank her latte. She tried not to stare too much at how fast the mountain of food disappeared between the two men. She said, “People use words like ‘empire’ but it’s impossible to understand unless you get a chance to see all this in person.”
“Dragos is the one that did it,” said Rune as he demolished a piece of carrot cake. “About fifteen hundred years ago, he realized the Wyr had to come together and form our own society. It was the only way we could protect our own identity and interests as human societies and other Elder Races developed.”
“Yeah, that dragon’s one nasty motherfucker,” Graydon chuckled. “I don’t think anybody else could have done it. He united the immortals with the mortals, shoved his laws down our throats and kicked predator ass hard and long enough until we all started to behave. We had to or die. Those were some bloody years in the beginning.”
“It seems awfully feudal,” she said. She rubbed her finger around the rim of her coffee lid.
“It doesn’t just seem feudal,” Rune said. “It is feudal. I don’t think there’s any other way to run things. A lot of Wyr are peaceful creatures, like Stanford, who have no problem blending in with human society. A lot more need to know they’ll get the living shit kick
ed out of them if they don’t follow the rules. The world’s gotten too small for anything else.”
“That’s what you guys do, isn’t it? I mean, when you’re not babysitting.”
“Each of the four gryphons command Wyr forces that patrol a quadrant of the Wyr demesne,” said Graydon. “We’re sort of like police chiefs. But we’ve been pulled in occasionally for babysitting detail before.” He bumped her with his shoulder. “You’re not that special, toots.”
She sat back with a grin. “Thanks, I feel so much better now.”
Just then Rune’s wristwatch beeped. He pushed a button to silence it. “It’s your turn for lunch. Time to head up to Tricks’s office now,” he said as he stood up.
As they rode the elevator, the men chatted to each other with the ease of long friendship. Pia fell silent as she considered her upcoming lunch meeting with Tricks. She turned to face the mirrored back wall of the elevator car. Like her pink robe, her jeans were from Target and she had trimmed her own hair.
Tricks’s silk pantsuit had the classic lines of a famous designer, like Ralph Lauren or Dior, and her chic gladiator-style sandals probably cost as much as a good used car. And how crazy was it to go talk to the faerie about such a relentlessly famous public job? Even if the position were offered to her, she couldn’t take it. Funny, how she hadn’t noticed things like that before when she had been talking to Tricks. Self-conscious, she tugged at the waist of her jeans and smoothed back her hair as she tried to think of graceful ways to back out of the upcoming conversation.
She turned to face the front again along with the two gryphons as they neared the seventy-ninth floor. The doors slid open to reveal Tricks sprinting toward them, her small fists clenched and sweet pixie face transformed with fury. The faerie leaped around a corner and pressed back against the wall, her attention clearly focused on the hall behind her.