Drywall dust floated in the air. It lent a hazy dreamlike quality to the strange scene. Rhoswen stood unmoving in the center of the hall. The Vampyre who had first attacked Tiago was frozen in the process of crawling back through the hole where he had slammed through the wall. Another Vampyre lay sprawled on the floor, his chest singed black. The third male Vampyre had not reappeared from the stairwell. Eight humans dotted the hallway, each one held stationary by Carling’s Power.
Five guns were still trained where Tiago had stood just moments before. He nudged her gently with the back of one hand and moved sideways with her until they stood several paces to the left.
Carling mirrored their shift down the hall in a loose-limbed prowl, her hands relaxed at her sides, an elegant and barbaric woman in bare feet and Chanel suit. She regarded Tiago with her head cocked, her lovely dark almond-shaped eyes bright with interest. Her earlier anger and its accompanying disfigurement of cruelty appeared to have vanished as if it had never existed. And, Niniane noted with a surge of baffled irritation, Carling looked even more radiant than ever.
“You would have sacrificed yourself for her,” Carling said. “Interesting.”
Niniane rolled her eyes. Carling was too strange. She gave up trying to figure out what made the old Vampyre tick. Instead she turned her worried attention to Tiago.
The slashes on his face were already healing. He was no longer the monstrous Wyr caught in midshift. His bones had settled into a more familiar shape, and the terrifying hot white blaze that had taken over his eyes had darkened again. But lightning still flickered at the back of his black gaze, the muscles in his arms were cut with rigidity and his Power felt razorsharp, held in readiness for battle.
He exhibited a roaring disinterest in conversing with Carling. He said in Niniane’s head, I want you to move toward the stairwell. Do it now while she has her people in stasis.
She took in a slow, deep breath and cast a leery glance down at the huge weapon she had pulled from his shoulder holster. It was a large-bore .50 Magnum Desert Eagle. It probably fit the width of Tiago’s hand quite comfortably. In her much smaller grip it looked and felt like the hand cannon it really was. She had fired large-bore handguns before. They always knocked her on her ass unless she braced herself back against something. She found the gun’s safety and clicked it on.
She said to Carling, “You created this mess. What are you going to do to fix it?”
“What, indeed.” Carling lifted an eyebrow, turned her head to the side and said, “Rhoswen, make sure the guns do not fire.”
The blonde Vampyre flowed into smooth motion as if she had never been frozen in time. She moved from human to human down the hall, taking their guns, ejecting clips and placing them on the floor.
Niniane never took her attention fully away from Tiago. She was already braced when he lowered his head and gave her a goaded look. He bared his teeth at her in a classic sign of Wyr aggression. She put her hand on his forearm. She could feel the current of tension jumping through his body like a live wire.
He was incredible. His outside appearance was scary enough. Inside, his Power was barely held in check by the uncertain leash of his temper. She had heard that he called the lightning when he lost his temper. She had not realized he contained the lightning. She felt like she had been given the merest glimpse into the vast unseen landscape that lay cloaked inside him.
Raw emotion flickered in his dangerous face, and her heart melted.
I know, I’m sorry it’s hard, she whispered gently in his head. She stroked the hot skin of his forearm with a light touch, then she slipped his gun back into its holster underneath his arm. I didn’t do what I was told again. But Tiago, I am supposed to become a monarch. I can’t take orders and I can’t just run.
If she had not been touching him, she might have missed the slight ragged edge to his indrawn breath. Her heart melted further.
Carling spoke another foreign word. Her Power pulsed in the unnatural stillness. Down the hall, humans jerked in surprise and cursed to find themselves disarmed. The Vampyre Tiago had thrown into the stairwell raced back into the hall and slowed to a stop, his gaze locked on his mistress. The lightning-struck Vampyre twitched and groaned as his rapid healing resumed.
A feral growl sounded behind Niniane. It came from the Vampyre climbing through the hole in the wall. His glowing red eyes focused on Tiago, his long fangs distended. Tiago swept Niniane behind him with one hand as he shifted to meet the threat.
Carling said in warning, “Cowan, stop.”
The Vampyre launched with a hiss at Tiago. Tiago flowed into a defensive posture, sword held en garde.
Carling blurred. She caught hold of the Vampyre by the back of his neck. Her beautiful face was winter-cold, dark eyes twin shards of ice. In a move so fast Niniane couldn’t track it, Carling tore the Vampyre’s head from his body. The Vampyre’s body fell to the floor. Carling looked down into the face she held between her hands. The Vampyre’s mouth worked, as if he would say something, to plead for his life or to scream. Then his head and body crumbled into dust. Carling brushed her fingers together. She murmured, “He was always such an impetuous child.”
Niniane stared at the small pile of dust on the floor that used to be a thinking, reasoning creature. She stuffed her fingers against her mouth. Tiago shifted, holstered his own gun, put a heavy arm tight around her shoulders and hauled her against his side. She leaned against him, rested her head on his chest and closed her eyes. She wanted to crawl into that hidden country inside of him.
A noise from the stairwell made her jump. She made a muffled noise against Tiago’s shirt and his hold tightened on her.
The Dark Fae Commander Arethusa stood in the stairwell doorway, along with Hughes and a couple of the hotel security staff. They stared at the wreckage in the hallway, at Niniane and Tiago, and at Carling.
Niniane cleared her throat. She forced herself to say in a calm voice, “Everything is fine now. Scott, the bill for repairs on this should go to the Elder tribunal.” If the tribunal had an issue with that, they could take it up with Carling. Elder politics tended to be hard on architecture and the general population. Niniane looked at Carling and silently challenged her to deny it. Carling curled a nostril, but as her Vampyres had been the ones to initiate an actual attack, she kept silent.
Hughes nodded and backed into the stairwell. His expression was a study in horrified dismay.
Niniane’s gaze met the Dark Fae Commander’s hard stare. Arethusa had the tall, lean build that was typical of most Dark Fae, but instead of giving her a willowy look, her leanness was coiled with long muscles that gave her a pantherlike grace. Her black hair was pulled into a tight queue at the base of her neck, and her large gray eyes and angular face were cold with censure as she regarded Tiago’s arm around Niniane’s shoulders.
The Commander said, “You meddle where you do not belong, sentinel. Release the Dark Fae heir now or face the consequences.”
Niniane’s temper spilled over. She straightened and stepped away from Tiago, her hands in fists. “That will be enough, Commander,” she snapped. Arethusa’s gaze swept up to her face. “Please inform Chancellor Aubrey and Justice Kellen that I will meet with the Dark Fae, along with Councillor Severan, in the penthouse in two hours.”
“Your highness—” began Arethusa, her gaze turning flinty.
Niniane said between her teeth, “I am not having a good week, Commander. It is not a good idea to try my patience right now because at the moment I don’t have any. That will be all.”
The Dark Fae Commander’s mouth tightened as her gaze flicked back to Tiago then to Carling, who lifted one slender eyebrow. After a moment Arethusa gave a curt nod and stepped back from the doorway.