“I’ll wait for Liam to get back and join you later,” Dragos told her.
She nodded and padded over to kiss Graydon on the cheek. “Goodnight, Gray.”
A rush of affection hit him. Pia had only come into their lives a year and a half ago, but now he couldn’t imagine life without her.
“Goodnight, cupcake,” he replied, patting her back.
Both men watched her disappear down the hall. She closed the door to their master suite and a few moments later, Graydon heard a faint, distinct sound of water running.
Only then did Dragos move. He strolled to the bar located at one end of the spacious living room, sloshed brandy into two snifters and returned to hand one of the glasses to Graydon.
“Step out onto the balcony with me,” Dragos said. “I could use some fresh air.”
Graydon blew out a breath. “Sure.”
Outside, the wind was knifelike, but both Wyr males generated enough body heat that the cold felt refreshing. Dragos lifted his face and took a deep breath, the line of his wide shoulders easing.
Graydon couldn’t join him in relaxing. The vision pushed along the edges of his awareness, seeking to take over his mind again. His muscles tightened against the instinctive urge to shift and launch into the night.
Dragos took a mouthful of his brandy. “What’s on your mind?”
Walking to the edge of the balcony, Graydon looked down at the incandescent ribbon of traffic below. “I told you once, a long time ago, that I might have to take a leave of absence. Do you remember?”
His question wasn’t just a conversational prompt. Over the summer, Dragos had sustained a traumatic brain injury that had resulted in odd gaps in his memory.
Dragos joined him at the balcony. Graydon was a big guy, the largest of the sentinels, but even he had to look up a few inches as he glanced at the new pale scar that slashed down the other male’s temple.
None of the Wyr lord’s incisive intelligence or aggressive personality had been affected by his injury. After a few tense days of suffering total post-traumatic amnesia, he had recalled the most vital parts of his life—his mate and family, and those in his closest circle.
Even so, Pia and his seven sentinels kept a sharp watch at public events, so they could help fill in any unexpected blanks Dragos might encounter. In the months that had followed the accident, Dragos had collected countless history books and read through corporate files obsessively in order to recover as much as he possibly could, as quickly as possible.
Graydon thought of all the secrets the Cuelebres were keeping. Pia’s Wyr form. Her new pregnancy. Dragos’s accident, and the fact that he might have recovered most of his memory, but he hadn’t regained all of it.
So far, they’d been damn lucky that none of their secrets had come out.
At least as far as he knew. Blowing out a breath, he rubbed the back of his head and let the thought go. No sense in getting himself riled up until he had reason to.
At Graydon’s question, Dragos’s dark, sleek brows had drawn together. The expression in his fierce gold gaze grew intent.
“Yes, I remember,” he said. “You had talked about taking a leave of absence—what, nearly two hundred years ago?”
“That’s right. Two hundred years, almost to the day.” With a quick flick of his wrist, Graydon tossed back the contents of his brandy glass. The liquor was smooth on his tongue, warm like liquid sunshine, and fiery on the way down. He welcomed the burn.
Dragos’s gaze turned uncomfortably sharp. “I also remember you’d said that if you ever needed to ask for the leave of absence, you might not be able to tell me why. Is that still the case?”
“Yeah. And you promised I could have the time if and when I needed it.” Graydon met the other male’s gaze. “I need to hold you to that promise now.”
Dragos’s frown deepened. He turned to face Graydon fully, and Graydon braced his wide shoulders in response. To get the full focus of the Lord of the Wyr’s attention could sometimes be an unsettling experience.
“I don’t like it,” growled the dragon. “It smells like trouble. Like you’re in trouble. Tell me what’s going on.”
Slowly, he replied, “I can’t. I made a promise, too, and it’s not my secret to tell.”
The moment stretched tight, straining the air between them.
“What if I say no?” Fierce, gold eyes burned as hot as lava.
Unsurprised, Graydon nodded. The dragon disliked constraints of any kind, even those of his own devising. “That would be unfortunate, because I would have to go anyway.”
“To keep that promise you made.”
“Yes.”
The pressure built, from the weight of Dragos’s attention and the vision that pushed at Graydon from within, until he thought his skin might split open.
Breathing evenly, he stiffened his spine. Holding one’s ground was not passivity. It took its own kind of strength. She had said that to him once, all those many years ago, and he had never forgotten it.
He would hold fast.
Muttering a curse, Dragos pivoted to scowl down at the traffic below. “I gave you my word, and I’ll keep it,” he said. “But now you have to promise me something in return.”
Releasing his pent-up breath on a soundless sigh, Graydon pinched the bridge of his nose with thumb and forefinger. “What’s that?”
Dragos stabbed him with a sharp look. “You’re my First. The other sentinels rely on you. Hell—Pia, Liam and I rely on you. More than that, you’re family.”
Unexpectedly touched, he ducked his head. “You’re mine too.”
“So,” Dragos said, “you go and take care of whatever you need to take care of, but you have to promise that you’ll tell me what’s going on the moment you can, and that you’ll come to me for help if you need it—and you must promise to come back.”
He understood exactly why Dragos pushed for that last part.
Wyr mated for life. Nobody fully understood the dynamic, which involved a complex combination of timing, circumstance, sex and personality.
A year and a half ago, Dragos had lost two of his sentinels, Rune and Tiago, because they had mated with women elsewhere. It had taken months to choose two new sentinels, and for the Wyr demesne to stabilize again from the change.
Graydon found he had room for a wry smile. If only Dragos knew how unlikely it was that he might run the risk of losing Graydon to mating.
“As soon as I can tell you anything, I promise I will. I’ll ask for help too, if it becomes appropriate.” He met Dragos’s gaze steadily. “As long as I am alive and able to do so, I’ll always come back. This is my home. I’ve made that commitment to you, and to here.”
And besides, she wouldn’t have me, anyway.
His jaw tightened. Like he had with the vision, he shoved the thought out of his head.
Managing to look curious, frustrated and mollified all at once, Dragos angled out his jaw. “Fine,” he said. “Go.”
Giving him a grateful nod, Graydon turned away.
A heavy hand fell on his shoulder, causing him to stop in his tracks. Dragos’s grip clenched, almost to the point of pain.
Normally, Dragos was not demonstrative with anyone other than Pia and Liam. Moved, Graydon angled his face away. After a moment, he reached up to grip the other man’s hand in return. Only then did Dragos’s hold ease and allow him to continue on his way.
He strode out of the penthouse, pausing only to collect the rifle. He could go to his apartment, grab his pack, and if the goddamn vision would only loosen up so that he could see to fly, he could be in the air inside of fifteen minutes.
In just a few hours, he could see her again. His world ground to a halt as he finally allowed himself to think of it.
He could see for himself how she was healing. Life’s cuts had wounded her deeply, but she had a stro
ng, unique spirit, forged most elegantly and tempered by adversity and time.
After everything they had endured, he had grown a bone deep, unshakable faith in her. She was true, her spirit clean, straight and strong. She knew how to stand her ground and hold steady, no matter what the odds.
That much had become clear as he had watched her covertly over the centuries, knowing he could only ever catch glimpses of her, because anything else, everything else between them, had become far too dangerous.
Even though the evening had grown late, the elevators and hallways in the Tower were crowded with late-night revelers and the personnel that had pulled third-shift security. Several times, people stopped Graydon, either to ask him questions or exchange pleasantries.
He gave each of them his unhurried attention, while inside him everything strained to be on the move. His head was beginning to pound from the effort of maintaining control, but he would not be ruled by either his visions or his desires.
She had taught him that kind of iron, ruthless self-control. Sometimes he had hated her for it, with a private, passionate insincerity that disturbed him profoundly.
Once he finally reached the privacy of his apartment, he flipped on the lights. All of the sentinels had apartments in the Tower, although some, like Quentin and Aryal, only chose to use them sometimes.
Graydon was different. He chose to live full time in his Tower apartment. To a man of his simple tastes, it was more than luxurious and met all of his needs. While it was only a one bedroom, it had been built with such spacious dimensions, even someone his size could sprawl out and feel comfortable.
Floor-to-ceiling windows in the living room and bedroom gave him a panoramic view of the New York skyline, and he had a private balcony where he could enjoy quiet dinners or launch for a quick flight to clear his head after work.
A giant Jacuzzi tub in the bathroom could soak away most aches and pains after a brutal day at work, and a professional decorator had made sure the furniture was good and the colors didn’t suck.
He had laundry service, housekeeping service, and the Tower cafeteria kept his fridge fully stocked with excellent cooked meals, freshly made, whole grain sandwiches stuffed with meats and cheese, and his favorite kind of beer.
It was a fine enough place, a good enough place, most of the time.
“This is my home,” he whispered through clenched teeth. He could hear the desperation in his own voice. “This is where I belong. I will keep all of my promises. I will hold true.”
Right now the apartment felt like a cage. He thought about smashing his fist into the plate-glass window, just to see it shatter and to feel the wild wind rush in.
He closed his eyes. Swiftly like a predator, the vision of his death struck. This time it would not be denied.
The white ground, black rocks, and red drops of his heart’s blood growing on the ground like blooming roses. He lost himself in the sensation of liquid warmth flowing between his fingers.
When he could finally see again, he found himself kneeling on the floor, shoulders hunched. That damned scene hung like an albatross around his neck, until he almost wished it would go ahead and happen, just so that he could get it the fuck over with.
He had carried that albatross for almost two hundred damn years—exactly from the moment when he had responded to a damsel in distress and had embroiled himself in another man’s curse.
And wasn’t that too much to swallow as a coinkydink.
It was all connected. He knew it.
Stiffly, he forced himself to his feet, walked to a cupboard and pulled out a bottle of Johnnie Walker Blue. After taking several deep pulls from the bottle, he scrolled quickly through the contacts on his phone until he found the right one.
He punched the call button.
Despite the late hour, the person on the other line answered almost immediately. “Hello?”
The feminine voice sounded cautious and guarded. In the background, he could hear sounds of Elven music, quick moving and passionate.
“Linwe,” he said. He didn’t bother to introduce himself. Linwe knew very well who had called her, even if she refused to say his name aloud.
Over the connection, he heard quick, light footsteps, and the music faded. His mind constructed an image from the sounds. She was walking out of the great hall in the Elven home.
“What do you want?” Linwe asked.
He drank scotch. “She doesn’t answer my phone calls or texts.”
“She doesn’t answer anybody’s phone calls or texts.” The young Elven woman kept her voice low. “She doesn’t carry her phone anymore, not since . . . not since what happened in March.”
He held his phone tightly. “How is she?”
“She’s recovering, like everybody else in the Elven demesne. Look, I shouldn’t talk to you about her, or tell you things. It doesn’t feel right. You need to stop calling me.”
“You’re right,” he said. “I do need to stop.”
When he closed his eyes, he saw the colors. White, and black, and red like roses. Those colors looked a lot like destiny.
“It’s nothing personal,” Linwe said, her voice softened. “You saved her life. All of us are grateful to you for what you did.”
“Tell her I’m coming,” Graydon said, keeping his voice as soft as Linwe’s. Soft, courteous and inexorable. “I’ll be there by morning. She and I have things to discuss.”
And a demon to exorcise once and for all.
Her indrawn breath was audible. “I absolutely will not. She’s gone to bed, and I’m going soon too. Graydon, you can’t come into the Elven demesne without permission.”
“Fine,” he said. “Just whatever you do, don’t tell Ferion.”
He hung up, turned off his phone and went to stuff things into a backpack. Weapons, clothes, basic toiletries, cash and credit cards, and a couple sandwiches for the road. When he was finished, he jogged up the stairwell to the roof, shapeshifted into his gryphon form and launched.
Usually the city of New York shone with panoramic brilliance, but the snowfall had grown thicker and obscured much of its brightness. As he flew through the keen sharp night, his obligations to the Tower fell from his shoulders, and in the silent, solitary space that remained, other images came in.
Only those images weren’t of the future, but of the past.
From two hundred years ago, when it had all begun.
TWO
London, December 1815
Nerves knotted Bel’s stomach. Even though Ferion had promised to attend her at the masque, she couldn’t find him anywhere.
At least, she noted, the Great Beast had not yet arrived. His absence might be the only bright spot in what was rapidly turning into a tense, wretched evening.
Flanked on either side by two attendants, she forced herself to take the path at a leisurely seeming stroll, while she searched the laughing crowd.
Blast Ferion. She shouldn’t have taken him at his word.
Instead, she should have insisted he accompany her directly from their rented house in Grosvenor Square. But she had wanted so much to trust him. She had wanted to believe he had finally gotten through the worst.
As she searched for her stepson, huge snowflakes wafted through the air, each one sparkling with magic. No matter what the weather was like throughout the rest of England, for the last several years on winter solstice, snow always fell in the Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens.
The enchantment was courtesy of the Daoine Sidhe King and his formidable wizard knights. The most mysterious and Powerful of all the Fae, the Daoine Sidhe were split into two distinct peoples—the Light Court, or the Seelie Fae, ruled by Queen Isabeau, and the Dark Court, or the Unseelie Fae, ruled by Oberon. Tonight, the gardens were closed to the public, as the King hosted his annual Masque of the Gods.
Eerie, fantastical ice sculptures decorated the p
aths, glittering from the light of white witch lights floating a few inches above the ground.
A Sidhe knight prowled along the path, dressed in black. Bel thought he might be Ashe, or Thorn, but she couldn’t tell for sure. His face was obscured by a harlequin’s mask, his long, dark hair bound back in a queue.
Black velvet bows and crystals adorned the trees, while invisible musicians played a sharp, tinkling music. Open flame from gigantic braziers lent a dash of heat and a feral quality to the scene.
Smiling jugglers performed for the crowd, and magicians pulled party favors made of paste and paint from behind onlookers’ ears. Occasionally, a delighted scream pierced the air as a magician revealed the gleam of a real jewel nestled in a painted robin’s egg.
The refreshments were equally fantastical, served by Dark Court attendants dressed in spotless white, intricately embroidered uniforms.
Baked cockatrices, a classic medieval dish created from half pig, half rooster, and cooked with saffron and ginger and gilded with edible gold, steamed in the chill night air. Strange, delicate meringue structures, sprinkled with sugar, tilted and swirled on glass plates. Savory jellies of lamb, lavender and lemon had been set in molds shaped like roses, the dishes interspersed with bowls of cherries, oranges, nuts, and sausages. A cocktail of brandy and champagne bubbled in ice fountains.
Everybody who was anybody traveled from all over the world and swathed themselves in wool, furs and jewels to attend the King’s masque.
Eventually, Bel knew, the fashion would change. It always did. Some other spectacle would become de rigueur, but in this age and place, Oberon and his strange, elegant Dark Court held sway. Despite the history of enmity between the two Courts, even the Seelie Queen Isabeau put in an appearance for a short while.
In order to attend without squandering months on travel, those who lived in faroff lands, such as the Elves in the South Carolina demesne, often bargained for transportation from the Djinn, to which the Djinn comfortably agreed.
Quick transportation was an easy task for the Djinn to perform, and in return they collected a fortune in favors. The winged Wyr smiled in pity at such pedestrian arrangements, and generally almost everyone found a way to feel superior.