Storm's Heart (3 page)

He glowered, thrown off balance by his own intense, unwelcome reaction. Rein it in, stud. Under the reek of smoke he could smell feminine perfume and—was that the scent of blood?

“Oh, you shouldn’ta done that,” Niniane said. Large upside-down Fae eyes tried to focus on him. “Breaking and entering. That’s against the law.” She sniggered.

Tiago took refuge from his strange feelings in the much more familiar emotion of aggression. “What are you doing?” he demanded. “What do you mean ‘go back to New York’? Do I smell blood?”

“I can only answer one question at a time, you know,” she said. With remarkable dignity, considering. “I am hanging my head over to hear the wind blow. I never did get that bit in the lyrics. Who hears the wind blow when they hang their head over? Hang their head over what? What does that even mean? Do you know?”

He had no idea what she was babbling about. Something about the stupid song she had been trying to sing. He pushed the door shut with a foot and strode over to stub out the smoldering cigarette. “This is disgusting,” he snapped. “Why haven’t you called? We’ve been worried sick about you.”

“Whoa,” she said. She looked up—or down, as it were—at Tiago’s crotch, which had stopped right in front of her. He was one scary, mean-looking oversized barbarian, in black jeans, black boots and black leather vest. He bristled with weapons and anger, and muscles bulged everywhere. His crotch sported a significant bulge too. A very significant bulge. She licked her lips. She might be drunk, but she wasn’t dead. She wouldn’t be forgetting this sight in a hurry.

Obsidian eyes glittered. “Tricks, what the hell? Seriously.”

“I’m gonna be Queen, you know,” she said. “You gotta stop calling me Tricks. It makes me sound like a circus clown. And I don’t think I’ll be a highness for long, so you should practice calling me your majesty.” She hiccupped and waved a hand in the air. “You may begin.”

“I notice how you’re ignoring the important part of what I said,” Tiago told her. He squatted and suddenly his upside-down face was in front of hers. “So I’ll repeat: what the hell?”

She tried to track where that mouthwatering bulge in his crotch had gone, couldn’t and focused instead on his face. Brown skin, strong hawkish features and a sensually shaped mouth that more often than not looked like it could cut through concrete. She had always thought he was a proud, aloof man with the longest legs and the sexiest moves she had ever seen. He walked everywhere with a quick ground-eating, lean-hipped stride.

She asked, “Has anybody ever told you, you look a lot like Dwayne Johnson?”

He scowled. “Who the hell is Dwayne Johnson?”

He tried to take the vodka bottle away from her. She clung to it.

“You know, The Rock? Hot, sexy football player–wrestling guy turned movie actor? Only . . . you’re a whole lot meaner.” She concentrated very hard, tongue between her teeth, and touched the tip of her forefinger to his scowl. The vodka bottle bumped his nose. He jerked his head out of the way.

His eyes narrowed on her. Was that male interest in his dark, glittering gaze? She didn’t trust her powers of observation at the moment.

“Hot se—” he stopped dead. When he spoke again, his normal growl had dropped to a husky murmur. “You’re comparing me to a movie actor? Fuck yeah, of course I’m a whole lot meaner.”

Huh. Wasn’t he the cock of the walk?

“Whatever, don’t let it go to your head,” she said with scorn. “You’re not as sexy as I think you are.” She squinted. Wait. That hadn’t come out right. She tried to sort it all out in her vodka-befuddled head. It didn’t help that he gave her a swift white grin that scrambled her brain even further.

All too soon that grin disappeared. Then Dr. Death was back and scowling again.

Ooh. Sexy. No, scary. No, sexy. Oh phooey.

He grabbed her hand. He could feel how delicately formed the bones were. He could crush her so easily. Any one of those Dark Fae males could have snapped her neck effortlessly if they had gotten her in the right hold. He took care to keep his touch gentle, even as he said, “Goddammit, faerie, you’d better start answering some questions.”

“Or what?” She pointed the remote at him and pushed the mute button. “
Pleh
. I’m gonna get someone to make me a magical mute that really works.”

A kind of desperation came over his harsh features. He snatched the vodka bottle from her and took a swig. She watched with acute interest as shock shot across his face. He gagged and spat the mouthful out on the carpet. He glared at the bottle. “Bubble gum–flavored vodka?
Bubble gum
?”

“What? It’s good.” She reached for the bottle.

He held it out of her reach. “No way.”

She scowled. “That’s my dinner. You give it back.”

“Oh no, young lady. You’ve had more than enough.”

Only a gazillion-thousand-year-old Wyr could get away with calling a two-hundred-year-old faerie “young lady.” Holy cow, he was one devastatingly good-looking barbarian, upside down or not. But so preachy! She remembered the vodka. She reached for it again.

He stood, grabbed the ashtray and strode for the bathroom. She could just barely see what happened in the corner of the bathroom mirror as he turned the bottle upside down in the sink. There went the rest of her hot date.

“Screw you,” she called after him. There was a thought. She scoped out his lean, tight ass with interest. Bow chica wow wow.

Tiago ignored her and dumped the ashtray in the bathroom trash. He paused, looking down in the trashcan. If anything, he looked even angrier than he had before. He looked fit to murder somebody. The strong, proud bones of his face clenched like a fist.

Her eyelids closed in a slow blink as she tried to process. If he was that mad at her, she should give some serious thought to running. And she would too, just as soon as she found her feet again.

A shiver rippled down her spine. She rolled onto her side, tucked her knees against her chest and wrapped her arms around them. She didn’t want him that mad at her. She didn’t want anybody that mad at her.

Tiago walked back to the bed. She could have sworn she heard a rumble of thunder in the distance. He squatted by the bed and rubbed her shoulder with a giant calloused hand. “Where are you hurt, faerie?”

His gentleness was so unexpected, coming as it did from such a wrathful clenched-fist face, that it almost did her in. Her eyes filled with tears. She gestured to her side.

Icy shock ran over his skin, followed by a blast of heat. Tiago didn’t know where to put his rage. That bastard Fae hadn’t punched her in the alley. He had
knifed
her.

“Let me have a look.” He tried to raise her T-shirt.

She resisted. “I already cleaned and bandaged it.”

He exploded. “Goddammit, woman! I said let me have a fucking look!”

Her eyes went wide and she froze. The force of his anger was palpable. It beat against her skin. Thunder rolled, this time closer. It was almost overhead.

She had heard the stories about Tiago. The thunder and lightning came when he really lost it. Cautiously she uncurled. She made herself lie passive as she stared up at him. Sometimes with dominant Wyr warriors the best thing you could do was stay quiet and get out of their way—or in this case, acquiesce. Sooner or later their rampaging always ground to a halt, and then they could listen to reason again.

He put one knee on the bed and leaned his weight on it as he lifted up her T-shirt. The bandage covered her ribs under her left breast. She winced as he peeled back the bandage to look at what was underneath.

“Do you know how irritating you are?” she said. “Because if you don’t, I’ve got time.”

“This looks deep,” he said in a quiet voice. Lightning flashed outside. Thunder exploded with a boom. She jumped and shivered. He put his hand briefly against her narrow waist. “
Shh
now, be easy. The dressing is soaked. I’ll change the bandage.”

She knuckled her eyes. Damn it. She hadn’t slept in two days. She was starting to come down from the singing part of the drunk. He was acting far too serious and concerned, a storm was brewing outside, and all the fun was packing its bags and ditching the party. She tried to hold on to it.

“You know, technology in the twenty-first century is pretty cool,” she told him. “I’m going to DVR my own meltdown and email it to my therapist.”

He didn’t so much as crack a smile.

She drooped. She uncurled as he urged her to lie flat. He removed the soiled bandage, and with a careful, velvet-light touch he cleaned the wound and covered it with cotton padding again. At one point he bent down close to her skin and sniffed the wound. Okay, so that looked a little weird, but she knew what he was doing; he was checking with his Wyr sense of smell to see if he could detect poison. He caught her eye afterward and gave her a tight, quick smile that was probably meant to be reassuring, but he didn’t speak. He seemed busy with his own internal issues. Lightning struck the parking lot. Her shivering deepened. That was just downright sexy. No, spooky. No, sexy. DAMN IT!

“All right, I’m all done for now,” he said. His soft, even voice was somehow so much worse than his yelling voice. He taped the bandage in place. Then he looked at her, and the fury in his dark eyes stabbed her. “We know everything that matters.”

She rubbed the pointed tip of one ear, which was burning in embarrassment. “Apparently the whole world does,” she muttered. “I never even saw the guy with the cell phone.”

“That asshole is going to be lucky to live out the week if I have anything to say about it. I can’t fucking believe he didn’t call 911 soon as he realized someone was being attacked.” He took her hand and held it. “Now I want you to tell me, why didn’t you call, and why do you want me to go home?”

She pulled her hand away and tucked it against her chest. “Don’t be nice to me.”

“I’ll be whatever the hell I want to be,” he snapped. “Why didn’t you call?”

She muttered, “I’m supposed to do this on my own. No Wyr allowed.”

“That’s old news,” Tiago said. “Plans have changed.”

Just like that? Plans have changed? She scowled at him. “Hey, cowboy, remember what I said. I’m gonna be Queen. I don’t think you get to boss me around like that.”

He rubbed the back of his head and raised his eyebrows at her. “How are you going to stop me?”

“Screw you,” she said.

“You’ve said that already,” he pointed out. “I’m getting bored now.”

“Yeah, well, it’s the only thing I can think of at the moment,” she muttered. With a Herculean effort she managed to keep from looking at his crotch again.

“The game’s changed. Deal with it.”

Her gaze bounced around his dark saturnine features. The force of his presence was such that the tiny hairs on her arms rose. It cremated the numb state she had managed to achieve with the alcohol. He had the extreme physicality of an apex predator, his body tempered by years of fighting, the thick muscles corded with sinew and veins. His Power was a heavy, sulfurous force that pressed her into the mattress.

She struggled to sit up. Suddenly he was bending over her. He eased one huge arm underneath her shoulders to help her upright. She scowled and glared at him. “Look, you can’t stay, and that’s all there is to it. I’m all right. I handled everything.”

He snapped, “You have a knife wound between your ribs!”

“You should have a look at the other guys,” she told him.

Her words hit a stone wall. “We’re done discussing this,” he said. He walked over to the other bed. “What do you want to take with you?”

She pressed a hand to her side. “Get back over here so I can smack you.”

“Yeah, I’ll get right on that.”

“I mean it. Get your ass over here.” There she was, back to what was fast becoming her favorite subject.

“I’m so motivated to do that since it’s clearly in my best interest. I’m just going to assume you want all of this.” He stuffed things back into the bags.

His back was turned to her. She stared at his ass again. Really, it was the sexiest ass she had ever seen. First she got a close-up of his front, and now she got treated to the back view. Tight, taut and clothed in black like it had been gift wrapped just for her.

She patted him on the butt and told him, “Nice buns, cowboy.”

She started to pull his wallet out of the back pocket, and he grabbed her hand. Spoilsport. She sighed, opening her fingers, and he patted her as he let her go. “I’m taking the bags out to the car,” he told her. “Be right back.”

He walked out, and just like that she lost what little control she’d had over her life. She tobogganed right out of the fun bit of the drunk and plunged into the snowdrift labeled the sorry stage.

He came back and scooped her into his arms. He was such a mean barbarian, and he was being so careful with her, so gentle and nice. And she couldn’t let herself rely on him. She couldn’t let herself totally rely on anyone ever again.

THREE

T
iago tried to figure out how he could have wrecked his life so completely in just a day. One day. Twenty-four hours. Yesterday he had been merely irritated with cooling his heels in New York and doing unimportant stuff that could have been handled by someone—almost anyone—else.

Tonight in Chicago, he had lost all sense of irritation and had become downright desperate.

He paced in the parking lot of another motel, a Red Roof Inn, as he called Dragos, who answered on the first ring. Tiago said, “Got her.”

The dragon let loose a long exhale. “Good.”

“She was wounded. She’s okay, but she needs to see a doctor soon.” He explained what happened, or at least what he had found and what he had surmised, while his long stride ate up the distance of the parking lot.

Glowing streetlamps were surrounded with blurred yellow halos. A light rain had started to fall, miniscule silver meteors streaking through the illumination. Tendrils of fog rose from the sun-warmed asphalt. The tendrils twisted and curled around his steel-toed boots as though he stood in a Gorgon’s nest of transparent snakes.

He stood several feet away from the building and scanned it and the surrounding area with a hypervigilant gaze. The motel building had a couple of floors, rows of identical doors stacked on top of each other. He had secured a ground-floor room that opened directly onto the parking lot, so they could leave in a hurry if they had to. It was late enough that the motel was quiet, and the cars that dotted the parking lot were cool to the touch. He pivoted at the curb to start another lap.

“What do you need?” Dragos asked.

“You should send a cleanup crew to the Motel 6 where she was hiding. Oh, and she said she left a stolen car in a Wal-Mart parking lot. She said she wiped her prints off the steering wheel and car door handle, but she admits she’s been pretty rattled since the attack and hasn’t been thinking very clearly. The car needs to be cleaned and returned to its owner.”

“I’ll get Tucker on it. Hold on.”

He waited while Dragos relayed orders. Then Tiago said, “Dragos, you’ve got to help me get a handle on her before there’s a murder-suicide here. She’s bawling her eyes out. I’m here to tell you, there’s nothing worse to be around than a forlorn faerie.”

Dragos coughed. “Oh-kay. Hold on.”

Tiago’s sharp ears caught Pia in the background, saying, “You’re all Neanderthals, what else did you expect? What,
me
talk to him? Oh no—” The phone must have exchanged hands. Pia sighed, “Hello, Tiago. I’m so glad you found her. What’s going on?”

Another female. He nodded. Smart. Speaking in rapid sentences, he filled her in. “You’ve got to help me get her to stop crying,” he demanded.

“You just told me she’s drunk,” Pia said. “Don’t you think she’ll stop as she sobers up?”

“That’s not soon enough,” he growled.

“Have you tried talking to her?” Pia asked.

He pulled the phone away from his ear to give it a quick glare. Was that sarcasm in her voice? He said, “Of course I have. I came all this way to help her, and she keeps insisting I go away. She didn’t even want me to look at her wound. What the fuck is that about?”

There was a long pause on the other end of the line. Pia said, “You want me to deal with this in a five-minute conversation.”

He told her in a grim voice, “Does it have to take that long? I’m just looking for a way to survive the night.”

He glanced at the door to their motel room, which he had left cracked open a few inches. He could still hear her crying. The worst of it was how quiet she tried to be, sneaking sobs into her pillow. She probably thought she was hiding it from him.
Argh.
He wanted to stab something in his ears.

“Alrighty,” Pia said. “Gray and I have been discussing Niniane today since she’s been on all our minds. Did you know she barely escaped with her life when Urien led the coup that slaughtered her family?”

Tiago stopped pacing. His hand tightened on the cell phone. “I knew Urien had killed her family and she had escaped, but I don’t know the details.”

“She was seventeen years old,” Pia said. “Seventeen. Did you know she saw the bodies of her twin brothers, and she watched Urien’s men as they gutted her mother?”

His stomach clenched. Her mother, gutted before her eyes. He wondered how old her brothers had been. How they had been killed. He had to clear the gravel out of his throat before he could reply. “No,” he said. “I didn’t.”

“So, here’s my five minute fix,” Pia said, her voice soft. “Niniane is under a lot of stress. When she was just a child, a family member, maybe even someone she had cared about and trusted once, slaughtered everyone she loved. Now she’s survived an assassination attempt from yet another family member, and somehow she’s got to find the courage to go back into that palace where she lost everything in the world that mattered to her. So if you tried talking to her in the tone of voice you just used with me, Tiago, I suggest you come back to New York. Any one of the other sentinels would be glad to come take your place.
They
love her.”

He sucked in a sharp breath. Way to stick a knife in when he wasn’t looking. He stopped pacing and stood rigid. He listened to the roar of denial that had erupted inside when Pia mentioned him being replaced. Fuck if he was going to let that happen.

“Are you still there?”

“I’m here. Hold on,” he growled. He fought his temper, won the struggle for self-control and kept his voice as soft and even as hers. “Nobody else is coming out. I’ve got her, and I will look after her.”

“The right way,” Pia said.

“The right way,” he replied. He sent a grim smile into the halogen-lamp-lit night. “Pia, you’re a bitch. Thank you.”

In the background, Dragos said, “Hey.”

“Ease off, big guy,” Pia said, half muffled. “It was a compliment. At least I think it was.” Her voice came back fully. “Anything else, Tiago?”

He turned to look at the motel door again. “No.”

“Please call if there’s anything we can do.”

“You know I will.” He hung up and pocketed the cell.

Moments later he eased into the room, and shut and locked the door. It was silent inside. Too silent. Was she holding her breath? He stretched his neck to ease tense muscles. Way to screw things up, Dr. Death.

His predator Wyr eyes adjusted quickly to the more intense darkness inside. The room had a king-sized bed, a bland beige decor echoed in motel rooms across the country and no smoking. He had requested that specifically. Niniane was curled under the covers of the bed, her small form scooted to the side closest to the wall, as near to the edge of the bed as she could be without falling off. It was almost like she was wishing she could get as far away from him as possible.

He shook his head and indulged in a little mental ass-kicking. Then he walked over to the bed. He removed his most obtrusive weapons, put them on the bedside table and made sure his Glock was close at hand. All the while he listened.

Yeah, shit. She was definitely holding her breath.

He sighed and eased onto the bed on top of the covers. She was lying on her good side, favoring her left with the knife wound.

She asked, “Did you call ho—New York?”

“Yeah. I talked briefly to Dragos and Pia.”

Her head turned slightly toward him. “I like Pia. We didn’t have very long to get to know each other, but I’m already going to miss her.”

“She likes you too,” he said. He carefully curled around her small, tense body and wrapped an arm around her. She started breathing again. It sounded choppy and uneven. He laid his head on his bent arm and hugged her back against him.

She whispered, “Don’t be nice to me.”

“Why not?” he asked, confused. Didn’t Pia just tell him to be nicer? He tucked his nose in her hair. She had taken out those ridiculous pigtails, and her hair was downy soft and loose. She smelled like cigarettes, herbal shampoo and the unique feminine scent that was all hers, all Tricks. Niniane. Whatever. Niniane was a pretty name, he realized. It suited her.

“When you’re nice, it makes it harder.”

He thought of her tearful good-bye several days ago and the round of fierce hugs she had given everybody, himself included, before she left for the airport. He thought of the seventeen-year-old who had lost everything in the world that had mattered to her, and of the many obstacles in 1809 that one small, hunted Fae girl must have faced in getting safely from Adriyel to sanctuary in the Wyr demesne in New York.

He thought of the recent assassination attempt and how she still intended to go live with the Dark Fae, some of whom might still want to kill her, and all because it was far better to have a good person in power than to risk having another Urien take the throne.

He wanted to rip Urien to pieces all over again.

Her hand kept jerking. He raised his head. After a moment he realized she was plucking at the edges of the bedspread. He wrapped his hand with care around hers, stilling the nervous movement. Her fingers felt small, delicate and cold. She tried to pull away from his touch, but he wouldn’t let go.

“How drunk are you now?” he asked.

“I don’t know.” She sniffed. “I can feel my feet again. My side hurts. Not very, I think.”

She had to be exhausted. He hated that she was in pain. He wanted to offer her medication, but he wasn’t sure what might be safe after she’d downed so much vodka. He told her, “Everything’s going to be okay.”

Her head moved slightly. “’Course it will.”

He didn’t know how she managed to make the perky statement sound so awful. He sighed. “You get some rest now.”

She nodded. “Okay.”

“We can talk more on the way to New York,” he told her.

She lifted her head. “What?”

“I said I’m taking you back to New York.” He kept his voice patient since she was obviously still inebriated. “And we can talk more on the way.”

She sighed. “Tiago, I’m not going back.”

“Of course you are,” he said. “Your apartment in the Tower is secure, and we can set up a reliable security detail for you while the attack on you is investigated. Don’t worry. I’ll take care of everything.”

He tried to think if there was something else he should say, but he wasn’t Dr. Phil. He was Dr. Death, and he thought he had covered all the important bits. He held her a long time. Funny. He was doing it for her, but it felt pretty damn good to him too. She was curvy and soft, and no bigger than a minute. She fit perfectly in the curl of his body as he spooned with her.

Finally her stiff body went lax and her breathing deepened. She was asleep. He eased away from her, one careful move at a time. She never stirred when he stood.

He picked up the duffle he had set against one wall earlier. It held a toiletry kit and a couple changes of clothing in his size, along with a lightweight laptop in a protective case and extra weapons. He slipped into the bathroom and eased the door shut before he turned on the light.

He stripped and showered. After washing and rinsing, he braced his hands on the shower wall and leaned on them. He stood with his head down as hot water cascaded over his neck and shoulders. The wet heat felt good after his flight from New York, and it soaked into well-used muscles. Water dripped off his nose and chin. What a day.

He should do the smart thing. He should listen to what Pia had said, and call New York to have one of the other sentinels come take his place.

He should go with his troops to their next assignment.

He wasn’t going to do the smart thing.

He was going to do the only thing he could. He was going to stay and make everything okay for Niniane. Because he had promised her that it would be okay. And because he didn’t seem to be able to make any other choice.

He turned off the tap when the hot water started to run lukewarm. After toweling dry, he slipped on a clean pair of black fatigues and a black T-shirt. He switched off the light before he opened the door. He waited a moment for his night sight to return then slipped into the room, placing the duffle back against the wall.

He paused to check for her breathing, expecting the same deep, even rhythm of sleep.

Except there was no breathing, no sense of another living presence.

He flipped on the light.

The room was empty. She was gone. So were her shopping bags. So were the keys to the SUV.

So was his Glock.

Fury erupted.
“Goddamn you, Tricks!”

T
iago couldn’t have tortured her with any greater efficacy if he had tried.

Coming after her all the way to Chicago to make sure she was okay. Being all mean and barbaric and sexy.

She could handle that. She had lived with and been vastly entertained by it for two hundred years. All of Dragos’s sentinels were mean and barbaric and sexy. Even that weird harpybitch Aryal, who she might have a teensy girl crush on. You know, in a totally hetero kind of way.

But then Tiago had turned nice. She hadn’t known he had a nice speed. She had thought he had only two speeds, the killing speed and full stop.

The warlord sentinel, being nice to her. It burned her skin as if he had poured acid all over her.

He had come up behind her in the dark. He curled that powerful muscled body of his around her, enclosing her, and made her feel safe and warm and cared for. He caressed her hand like he cared. It made her wild to get away from him.

What was he thinking? Returning to New York was out of question. She couldn’t go running back to the Wyr demesne just because things had gotten a little rough. That would be political suicide. She would look weak and unfit to rule, not just to the Dark Fae but to all the other demesnes as well.

He told her everything was going to be okay. Damn it.

How was everything going to be okay? For how long? For a few days or a few weeks, or for however long he might decide to help her out? Then what?

He would get on with his life, that’s what, and leave her a solitary monarch on the Dark Fae throne. Meanwhile she had a hundred second cousins. No doubt some of them were lawabiding citizens, but she would bet a good number of them were every bit as ambitious as Geril or her uncle Urien had been.