On his right side, the mother of the teenage boy heaved herself into the aisle seat and glared at him. He said, “It was just a hundred dollars, and just the aisle seat.”
“Don’t talk to my boy again,” Mom told him.
Jesus. He let his head fall back against the seat with a thunk. He had to fly nine fucking hours like this. It was a goddamn pressure cooker.
Something was bound to explode. If something didn’t let up soon, he thought it might be him.
The flight attendants did their show-and-tell while the plane taxied into position and accelerated down the runway, lifting into the air with a mechanical roar. Cranky Mom on his right played Sudoku with a pencil. On his left, Aryal finished flipping through her magazine and dropped it onto her lap. He glanced sideways at it. Somehow she had found the time to buy a copy of Rolling Stone.
Aryal mimicked his position, crossing her arms and tucking her elbows tight against her side, while she leaned as far away from him as she could get, hunching against the interior wall of the plane and glowering out the window.
The relief at the inches of space she managed to put between their torsos was marginal compared to the upsurge of irritation Quentin felt. She had no fucking tact. None whatsoever. Her body language screamed that she would do almost anything to get away from him—anything except deplane.
Besides, she could lean sideways all she liked, but the seats were so goddamn miniscule, their thighs still touched. He looked down at the length of her legs alongside his. Her bone structure and musculature were slimmer than his, undeniably feminine while also strong and athletic.
He had watched her bouts at the Games. Hell, of course he had. Like most of the contestants, he DVRed the bouts so that he could go through them again, analyzing each fighter’s strengths and weakness. He had pored over Aryal’s fights time and time again. It was only smart to study his enemy in an effort to discover any weakness.
During the Games, the contestants had their own box. Once they had gotten far enough through the rounds that the contestants’ numbers were limited, the new contenders mingled with the five sentinels, exchanging sharp, assessing glances and friendly smiles. When he wasn’t competing, Quentin had lived in that box.
Aryal fought with power and confidence. When she struck, she was fast as a snake, and the one time she chose to change into her Wyr form, she rioted across the sands of the arena like a joyous minitornado.
The sight was so magnificent, Quentin was on his feet before he realized it, along with the rest of the stadium. She laughed as she fought, her face vivid and wild, talons out and flashing in the white-hot lights, and everything about her aligned.
She never once lost command of the placement of those huge, gray-to-black wings, and once when her opponent, a massive, thousand-plus-pound polar bear, lunged to strike at her, she leaped into an aerial cartwheel that carried her soaring over his head. As she had flown over him, she reached down in an almost leisurely movement, the talon of one finger extended, and raked a thin, teasing cut along his muscled back.
It was a blatantly gratuitous maneuver, but it was so precisely executed, and the smile on her face was filled with such feral gaiety, Quentin found himself shouting along with all the others. In that moment all thoughts of resentment were temporarily suspended for sheer love of the artistry she displayed with such abandon. She owned that fight from beginning to end.
When she put her opponent on the ground for the last time, Grym, who had been leaning against the box railing beside Quentin, straightened and threw a fist pump into the air, roaring, “MY GIRL!”
The sentinel’s ferocious glee had broken Quentin out of the moment. Remembering it now, he scowled, shifting position carefully in his tiny space in an effort to get more comfortable. He sensed Aryal’s body tense. When he looked at her, he saw that her gaze had cut sideways. She watched him out of the corner of her eye as he tried to get comfortable.
Unbidden and unwanted, Alex’s words echoed in his thoughts. You’re both sentinels for a reason, you know, and we need you.
Damn that pegasus.
Quentin was born a killer. He had the instincts of a predator. Despite that, he had never killed indiscriminately. His impulse to throttle Aryal was one thing, but the quiet intention to murder her was an entirely different thing. It was too far off even his screwed-up moral compass.
You can have all the right reasons in the world. They don’t mean shit, my friend, if what you do causes harm.
He shifted again as his admittedly dysfunctional conscience nagged him. He had thought he had the right reasons last year, and then he’d ended up causing so much harm. This time, hell, he didn’t even have any right reasons. She just drove him crazy.
So quietly that only he could hear her, she hissed out of the corner of her mouth, “Stop moving.”
In a quick, neat move, he took the magazine from her lap before she had a chance to react. Her whole body twitched as she made an aborted move as if she would snatch it back before she could stop herself. He flipped through the pages without really looking at them while she glared at him. On his other side, Mom tucked away her Sudoku book, slipped a circular foam airplane pillow out of a canvas bag and anchored it around her neck, then settled back in her seat for a snooze.
He was saturated with Aryal’s scent, drowning in her presence, and there wasn’t any escape for eight and a half more hours. Thank God her flight had washed away that irritating hint of arousal. Honestly, he couldn’t figure out what she and Grym saw in each other. They didn’t match in the slightest.
“It’s going to be a long month for you, isn’t it?” he muttered.
The look on her face turned heartfelt. “Gods, yes.”
Everything about her goaded him. Unable to stop himself, he said, “I just can’t figure you and Grym out. You’re so mismatched. Other than you, he seems so sane.”
For a moment an amused smile hovered on her lips. “That’s because you’re an idiot.”
He stared at her mouth. The anger that had been simmering all day had to come out somehow. He switched to telepathy. So what did you see earlier this morning when you spied on me at my bedroom window?
Her eyebrows shot up, her amusement vaporizing. That’s what set you off this morning, isn’t it?
He turned to look at her full on, his expression burning. What did you see?
Something complicated flashed across her angular, upswept features. Funny, he wouldn’t have tagged her as complex. Then there it was again, a hint of arousal in her scent. It was invasive, filling his lungs as he involuntarily took a deep breath. Unwanted. Delicious. A muscle in her narrow jaw flexed, and she looked furious.
Comprehension dawned. He laughed, low and angrily. He said, It’s not you and Grym at all, is it? You into chicks?
Once he’d said it, he couldn’t strip the image from his imagination. Aryal, bending over another woman, perhaps a petite one like the brunette hooker, one of her long, lean hands palming a breast while they kissed.
Fury at his own unruly imagination battled with his body’s reaction. His unruly cock began to stiffen.
Aryal’s gaze flashed. She said very softly between her teeth, “I’ve had a few chicks in my time. They’re tasty little morsels, like soft, pink hors d’oeuvres. You got a problem with that, asshole?”
FUCK. The shock of her words bolted through him, and a new image blazed in his mind. Aryal, crouched between a woman’s thighs, her dark head nestled at the woman’s pelvis.
His stirring cock turned into a raging hard-on. His entire body stiffened, rebelling against it, as his own scent filled the air. The ridiculousness of it didn’t escape him. There they sat, hazardously trapped and betraying themselves by reeking of their own cravings, while the passengers around them napped, oblivious to it all.
Then that internal whip that constantly drove him pushed him to whisper, “You and me. We’re going to have this out when we get to Prague.”
Aryal gave him a slow, dangerous smile. “You kn
ow we will.”
FIVE
Aryal couldn’t sleep but she pretended to, hunched in her corner again as far away from Quentin as she could get, eyes closed and face turned to the shuttered window.
She was deeply disturbed by their exchange.
Oh, not the verbal part. The pheromone part.
What exactly had caused Quentin’s electric blue eyes to dilate, and his own arousal to scent the air? Was it the idea of a little girl-on-girl action? If so, he was in the company of millions of other males across the planet.
But something about his own reaction made his whole body tighten in protest. He didn’t like whatever had turned him on, and Aryal didn’t think he was the kind of guy to be bothered by the thought of two women making love.
Had it been her own traitorous response to remembering his admittedly fantastic body? Yeah, that might have pissed him off. It kinda pissed her off. And there was nowhere to go to get away from each other, except to the lavatory.
After their exchange, Quentin eased out of his seat and disappeared.
At first she thought that was where he had gone. Maybe he had decided to give himself a hand, so to speak, and ease off some of that tension. She pictured him in the tiny cubicle, looking at himself in the lavatory mirror, his jeans unzipped while he palmed his erect penis just as he had earlier that morning in his bedroom. Her whole body clenched tight.
Goddammit.
But her mind didn’t stop there. Oh no. She had to put herself in the scene too.
Standing right behind him, unzipping his jeans. Reaching in the opening to pull out his cock. His skin would be hot silk over that hard, engorged muscle, the broad tip damp.
There was no denying that he was a beautiful, beautiful man.
Where would his hands be while she was doing all this to him? What was he doing?
She thought of the handcuffs on the brunette, and the leather strip he had given the woman to bite. He would want to take control. He was that kind of guy. Huh-uh, this was her fantasy. She took control. So his hands were pulled overhead, and he was handcuffed to a railing.
He was furious with her, because he was always furious with her, and she couldn’t really imagine him any other way. And his penis was stiff as a board.
She could do anything she wanted to him.
She massaged that heavy, thick work of art in her hands, watching him in the mirror over his shoulder as his long, rippling abdominal muscles tightened. If he tasted anywhere near as good as he looked, she could feast on him for days.
Her breath shortened, and her hands fisted. Part of her was horrified at what she was imagining.
Oh, not the sex fantasy part. The Quentin part.
She jerked her thoughts away from the image and cast about to focus on something else, anything else. Something excruciatingly boring. She thought of the paperwork piled up on her desk. She was already behind, and spending two weeks to a month away was only going to make it worse. Nobody was going to write those reports for her. It would all be waiting for her when she got back.
She wondered if there was anyone she could coax, coerce or blackmail into doing them while she was gone. Off the top of her head, she couldn’t think of anyone. With her and Quentin out of the picture, none of the sentinels back in New York would have the time, nor, after this morning’s little stunt, would any of them have the inclination to help her out. Those reports were her karma.
Her sharp hearing picked up muted laughter from the nearby galley. A couple of the people laughing were feminine, and one was unmistakably Quentin. He wasn’t doing anything interesting in the lavatory. He was flirting with the flight attendants.
The last of her lingering arousal soured into irritation. She twitched a shoulder, more annoyed with herself than with anything else. The longer he flirted with them, the longer he stayed away. They could have him.
Eventually Quentin came back and eased into his seat. Aryal kept her eyes closed. She sensed that he was looking at her. The touch of his gaze was almost physical, and the skin along her cheek tingled.
He shifted, a slight creak of leather boots and the brush of denim. She knew without looking that he was bending closer. She could feel the heat of his body, and her muscles tightened, twitching with the desire to smash her fist into his face.
Back off. Back off.
He whispered, “I know you’re not sleeping.”
The warm, moist breath from his words licked along her cheek in an invisible caress. It was intimate and sensual. It felt good.
Her body was a gun, and the desire for violence vibrated like a finger on the trigger. Just one good punch. One well-placed punch with the full weight of her body behind it would do a lot of damage to that sexy, treacherous face of his.
But it wouldn’t be just one good punch. It would be a match to dry kindling, and there were too many innocent, vulnerable people surrounding them in quarters that were much too tight. She was going to have to wait.
She held still, not breathing. He hesitated then eased back into his seat. Then the hours scrolled by slowly, flowing over the plane’s wings into the past, and they didn’t speak again for the rest of the interminable flight.
Eight o’clock in the morning in Prague was as bleak as New York had been, the temperatures hovering just above freezing. The skies were overcast, gray streaked with pale light, and as the plane dropped in altitude and prepared to land, Aryal could see a light snow sprinkled on terra-cotta-colored rooftops and in fields surrounded by dense hedges and stone walls.
Disembarking was an excruciating process. They were on a Boeing 757 and Aryal guessed the plane had carried over two hundred and fifty passengers. When it came Quentin’s turn, he slipped into the aisle and gestured for her to precede him.
Even though they were still surrounded by other people, she couldn’t bring herself to put her back to him. “That’s all right,” she said. “You go ahead. I’ll be off in a minute.”
Watching her with a narrowed gaze, he inclined his head and moved forward when the line allowed. She waited until he was ten people ahead of her then slipped into line too.
They kept their distance from each other as they went through customs. Entering the Czech Republic was a longer, more involved process than leaving the States had been. Along with their passports, they had to provide documentation of their sentinel status, declare their weapons and purpose, submit their packs to a thorough check, and then wait for the Czech customs officers to make phone calls and independently verify their presence.
Aryal’s temper was shredded by the time they were finished. She was tired, bitchy and starving, and her right fist was still stuffed full of that one good punch that she had not yet thrown. That fist kept asking her, When? When? She didn’t know, other than that it needed to be outside of the airport, and preferably out of Prague itself.
If she were on vacation, she would have enjoyed playing tourist, touring Prague Castle and Old Town and drinking Czech beer, but Prague was just a leg on their journey. The crossover passageway to Numenlaur was located a couple of hours’ drive away from the city, deep in the heart of the dense Bohemian Forest.
On her own, Aryal would shapeshift and fly the distance, but she didn’t have the capacity to carry someone as large and heavy as Quentin for any kind of distance. Hands on her hips, she studied her enemy. He looked as tired and as irritable as she felt.
She said abruptly, “We need a hot meal, and we need to rent a car. We should pack some supplies in case we run into any issues with hunting for food, and right now I can hardly stand to look at you.”
Quentin’s lean features wore a sour look as he contemplated her. “Go rent a car and get something to eat,” he said. “I’ll get supplies. I know a good camping store, and there are Tesco grocery stores dotted throughout Prague. We’re both predators, so I know you need a lot of protein too. Meet me in two hours southwest of here, at the junction of highways E48 and E50. We’ll need to take E50 for the first half of the journey to the Forest.”
She cocked her head. “You’ve been here before.”
“I’ve toured Europe,” he said, his tone short.
“Fine,” she said, relieved he had come up with a solution that meant she could get a break from him. After all, working in partnership didn’t mean they had to be joined at the hip. “Two hours.”
He pointed at her. “Then we talk.”
Oh yay. Her fist was ready for that conversation. She gave him a tight smile, flipped him off and strode away. After a quick look around the airport, she bought some Czech koruny, the local currency, as the Republic hadn’t yet converted to the euro. Then she located the car rental companies and rented a Peugeot 207 Affaire from Europcar, which was supposed to be a van, but by American standards was just a hatchback. While at the rental counter she bought a map, and after consulting it, she drove through the narrow European streets until she had found the highway junction Quentin mentioned.
She stayed on local streets and cruised around, studying the area. A heavily industrial section lay spread out near the highway junction with what looked like warehouses, many of which were boarded up and had the appearance of long neglect. The gray day and half-melted snow didn’t help matters. The whole scene looked dismal and bleak, and utterly deserted.
Deep in thought, she went on the hunt for some hot food.
By then the local time was almost eleven o’clock. She found an old, crooked pub with dark, worn wooden tables and benches. The pub had just opened for the day’s business, and she ordered a huge meal of a double helping of pork, potatoes and bread dumplings, and cooked cabbage, and she washed it all down with a beer from a local brewery. As both a predator and a large avian Wyr, she needed a lot of calories and she ate like a trucker. The hot food steadied her and sharpened her thinking.
Afterward she ordered three donutlike pastries called koláe, much to the fascination of her taciturn server. When she was finally through with eating, she ordered a second beer and nursed it between her hands, staring out a dirt-streaked window as she contemplated the upcoming “talk” with Quentin.