Thea Harrison - Dragon Bound

Dragos led the way to the floor below. Pia had to trot to keep up. Rune and Graydon fell in behind them. She looked around, taking in as much as she could while on the move. She felt adrift. She didn’t know the layout of the penthouse, and she couldn’t get a feel for this floor’s layout in the route they took. They did pass a massive gym with aerobic equipment, weights and a weapons training area. She stared through the windows at four Wyr engaged in a sword-training exercise and almost ran into a wall. Dragos’s hand shot out and corrected her course.

His presence was a battering ram that cleared their path. People gave way as they approached, greeting him with a variety of nods, bows and other gestures of respect. She avoided focusing on any one of the sea of unfamiliar faces and curious gazes.

They arrived at an executive conference room, as richly appointed and built on the same massive scale as everything else. A couple of people were already present. Cuelebre Enterprises’ PR faerie, Thistle Periwinkle, stood in a formal pose, hands clasped at her waist. She was dressed in a pale blue silk pantsuit and gladiator-style sandals. Standing no more than five feet tall, she looked even more diminutive when she was surrounded by oversized Wyr. The faerie faced one wall and was speaking Elvish. The teleconference had already begun.

Dragos took Pia by the hand and strode forward. Looking curiously at Pia, the faerie backed out of the way. Dragos turned to face the large flat-screen on the opposite wall. Rune and Graydon assumed places behind them.

Three tall, slender Elves filled the screen. They stood in a sunlit office much like the conference room. Ferion stood to the right. A gracious Elven woman with long black hair and a starlit gaze was on the left. The Elf in the middle had the same ageless beauty as the others, but the Power in his eyes was palpable even through the distance of the teleconference.

They all wore cold expressions as they regarded Dragos. The Elven High Lord’s gaze glittered. Dragos appeared unimpressed, his body stance aggressive. His face had turned dangerous, and his eyes flat and wicked.

Alrighty. Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea.

The Elven High Lord looked at her, and spring came to his winter-cold elegant face. “We see that Ferion did not exaggerate,” he said in a deep, musical voice. He inclined his head to her. “My lady. It is our very great pleasure to meet you. I am Calondir and this is my consort, the lady Beluviel.”

A fine trembling took up residence under her skin. The sense of exposure was back, and this time it was all but unbearable. In a whole long string of bad ideas, doing this teleconference in front of witnesses came close to topping the cake. Dragos’s fingers tightened on hers to the point of pain.

She took a deep breath. It was too late to back out now. Might as well see what she could make out of yet another screwup. “I’m honored to meet you,” she said. “Please forgive me. I don’t have any formal Court training.”

The Elven woman smiled at her. “Such things count as nothing compared to a good heart.”

Dragos said, “You wanted to see if she was all right. She is. We’re done.”

“Wait. We wish to hear that from her,” Calondir said icily. The Elven High Lord looked at Pia. “Lady, are you well?”

She glanced at Dragos’s stone-cold profile and then back at the Elves. She said on impulse, “I am being treated with extraordinary graciousness, my lord. While I did not want to, I actually did commit a crime. Dragos has heard the circumstances of what happened and what compelled me. He’s chosen to forgive me. I would respectfully ask that you consider doing the same for him. No harm has come to you from his actions. But a great deal of harm has come to him from mine, which I very much regret.”

Something stirred through the conference room, a sigh of movement. Dragos turned to look at her. The High Lord regarded her for a long, grave moment. “We will think on your words,” he said at last. “If the Great Beast is capable of grace, perhaps we can do no less.”

Feeling awkward, she bowed to the Elven High Lord. “Thank you. I appreciate it.”

“In the meantime, we would ask that you come and visit us,” Beluviel said. Her smiling eyes were warm. “Your presence would bring us much pleasure. We would speak with you of . . . well, of things from long ago.”

Pia translated that to mean Beluviel had known, and loved, her mother. Her eyes misted and she nodded.

Dragos stepped forward and pulled her behind him. The gesture was unmistakably possessive. Even from her limited view behind his shoulder, she could tell that the Elves had stiffened. “Stop that. What’s the matter with you!” she whispered to him. He was going to unravel all the good she tried to do for him. She shoved at his arm. It was like trying to move a boulder. He twisted to glare at her. She leaned sideways to look around him and she promised the Elves, “I’ll talk to him.”

The Elven High Lord raised his eyebrows. Ferion’s face was the picture of offense. Beluviel looked startled. The Elven woman had just begun to smile when the screen went blank.

Dragos rounded on her. He looked furious. “You are not going to visit with the Elves!”

“Did I say I was going to visit the Elves?” she snapped. “I was being polite! You might look that word up sometime in a dictionary!”

He glared around. “Out.”

The room emptied. Thistle gave Pia a gleeful ear-to-ear grin, eyes sparkling. The faerie held her hand up to her cheek, thumb and pinkie out, mimicking a phone. “We’ll talk,” she mouthed as she bounced out the door.

Pia tugged hard. Dragos refused to let go of her arm. She sighed and put a hand over her eyes as her shoulders sagged. She muttered to herself, “How did I get here and what the hell am I doing.”

Beside her, Dragos took several deep breaths. She could feel the air around him burning with Power. He was very angry with her, maybe for the first time since the beach. He dropped her arm and began to pace around her.

“The Elves know more about you than I do,” he snarled in her ear as he passed by. “Unacceptable. They know who your mother was. Also unacceptable. They want you to come live with them. They’re enemies of mine.”

The exposure, the constant stress, the uncertainties of her present situation, all became too much. “All I wanted was to try to help you!” she burst out. She threw her arms over her head and burst into tears.

He started to swear, a steady stream of vitriol. His hands came onto her shoulders. She jerked away and turned her back to him. His arms came around her from behind. He pulled her against him, curving around her, and put his head down next to hers. “Shh,” he said, still sounding angry. “Stop now. Calm down.”

She sobbed harder and hunched her shoulders, resisting his hold.

His body clenched. He said, “Pia, please don’t pull away from me.” He sounded strained.

It caught her attention so that she let him turn her around. He leaned back against the conference table, pulled her arms down and held her tight. She leaned her body against him and rested her head on his shoulder.

“I wasn’t supposed to tell anybody anything about me,” she said. The tears streamed down her face and soaked his T-shirt. “I was supposed to live my life in secret. But I didn’t want to be alone. All I told was one damn secret and it keeps snowballing on me. First Keith, then you, then the Elves, then Goblins, then the Fae King, then more Elves again, and all the people in this room watching, and you just keep digging and digging at me and you won’t stop until I feel like I’m going to scream.”

He rested his cheek against her head and rubbed her back. “I am cursed with a terminal case of curiosity,” he said. “I am jealous, selfish, acquisitive, territorial and possessive. I have a terrible temper, and I know I can be a cruel son of a bitch.” He cocked his head. “I used to eat people, you know.”