“I don’t know about that, but it means a lot to me that you said it.”
She caught sight of Tiago out of the corner of her eye. He was smiling at her.
She said to him, “Thank you.”
“For what?” said Tiago. He sprawled in his chair, his long legs stretched out and crossed at the ankles, his elbows rested on the chair’s arms, his fingers steepled.
“You’ve been nothing but supportive today in all the right ways,” she said.
“It’s a complicated day,” he said. “I’m trying to help.” His words were neutral, but his Power stroked her cheek with a smoky tenderness.
“That means a lot to me,” she said. She straightened her aching back and turned her attention to Aubrey, who had followed their exchange with close attention. She told Aubrey, “I have an agenda for this talk. First, I promised I would tell you why I know Dragos and the Wyr were not behind the second attack. Second, you need to know—Tiago is coming with me to Adriyel to stay.”
The Chancellor’s expression flared. “That’s unacceptable.”
“Is it now?” Tiago said. He tilted his head and regarded the Dark Fae male with a lazy predatory gaze. “Tough shit.”
Tiago made an interesting discovery that day, as he guarded Niniane through two very different groups of people. She sure did an awful lot of talking. She spoke to every last person—yeah, there’s no way that would always be possible—but somehow none of what she said ended up being blah-fucking-blah. She spoke to people with real warmth about matters that directly affected them, and they responded to her.
To him there was always something interesting to what she did, whether it was what she actually said, or how she wrinkled her nose and widened her eyes when she was feeling mischievous, or whenever she might get a particularly evil glint in her eyes. Sometimes he just watched her cute little ass as she walked, and he lost himself in remembrance of what had happened, in fantasy for the lovemaking to come.
He came to realize that all of her shoes were fuck-me shoes. Those little pretty froufrou strappy things she slipped on her feet could be categorized as weapons of mass destruction, because they obliterated the male mind. They elongated and defined those delicate, slender legs of hers. He would swear they caused her to walk in such a way that her hips swayed with a sexy little wriggle that had every male focusing on her like they were German pointers and she was the game they had just flushed out of the foliage.
She would be good on the throne, he decided with a sense of pride. She needed seasoning and confidence, and she had wavered once or twice at certain junctures, but all the raw materials were there, along with the not-inconsiderable added bonus that people fell in love with her wherever she went.
So he was content to stroll behind the little faerie and learn more about her. He catalogued potential threats, memorized faces, and noticed weaknesses in the layout of the property, such as the places where he would launch an attack or how he might break into the house. There wasn’t a lot on that end; the place was well constructed and defended. But there were a few things he would change.
He also made a note of personalities and problems. He had been used to command for a very long time. Most people had tells, a twitch or nervous habit, or a manner of speaking, or a scent they gave off. Scents were interesting tags or identifiers, because they were an involuntary response to stimuli. It was an extremely rare entity that had no tells whatsoever. Often Carling or Dragos could manage it. Certainly the Elven High Lord could pull it off, but the Elven Lord’s consort was more intriguing to Tiago, for she could pull it off with much more frequency than anybody else he had met.
Take the bug, for instance. He was pretty sure that nervous little man had a drug addiction of some sort. He had a scent that was too chemical but with no underlying layers to indicate he was taking something for an illness. Tiago was pretty laissezfaire about drug addictions—whatever a person chose to do was their own business—except when it came to people in positions of some importance or authority. An addiction meant impaired judgment and a weakness to exploit. Someone could be bribed or blackmailed, or hell, they might just fuck up. The bug smelled of fear. He was afraid he was going to get caught and removed from his position. He was right.
Another person of interest to Tiago was the guard captain, whose attitude toward Niniane held a veiled antagonism. Tiago had roused to urge her silently to step back toward him, while he assessed the man. Tiago continued to watch the captain without seeming to for several minutes after Niniane had moved away, watching the man’s expressions and how he interacted with the people around him. If he were to make a guess, it looked like the captain had a problem with women in authority. It didn’t appear that his veiled antagonism was directed at Niniane in particular. It was nothing personal—and the man was going to have to go, just as fast as Tiago could have a word with Arethusa to make it happen.
Naida, now. There was an interesting chick. Tiago was entertained by how a tea service and a tray of munchies could turn into some kind of subtle push for power or position. The kind of maneuvering for position he was used to tended to involve heavy artillery, a fight to get to high ground and his troops laying down covering fire. He watched and waited as his faerie assessed the situation, mulled it over and then sent the other woman away. Naida’s posture and expression had been quite correct and compliant, but she couldn’t hide her flare of scent aggression that filled the air as she walked out of the room. Naida couldn’t be fired like the other two, but he thought he could learn a lot by keeping an eye on her.
The Chancellor was a different matter altogether. His face, scent and posture spoke of alarm, not aggression. Tiago took a plate, filled it and handed it to Niniane, who accepted it after a hesitation and a flare of surprise in her gorgeous eyes. He took another plate—there were three, he noticed, which was perfect, although not exactly what Naida had originally intended—and he piled that one higher then relaxed back in his chair and watched the Chancellor with cold killer’s eyes. Tiago decided he enjoyed armchair warfare. It was so comfortable, and there were pastries.
Aubrey’s face tightened as he suppressed some kind of strong emotion. It was a complicated scent Tiago couldn’t yet decipher. The Chancellor turned to Niniane. “I apologize for my outburst, your highness,” he said. “You said you had an agenda.”
The guy was smooth, Tiago would grant him that. Maybe it was sincere and maybe it wasn’t. Time would tell.
He could almost see his faerie give a mental oh-screw-it shrug. She slipped off her shoes, tucked her feet underneath her and selected one of the pastries Tiago had given her. The one she selected had chocolate in it, and the box of chocolates he had given her had already disappeared. He made a mental note.
Niniane took a bite of the pastry and set it on her plate, her face thoughtful. Tiago shifted his plate to cover the growing bulge in his crotch as he watched her lick powdered sugar off her fingers. Thinking and licking just became his two new favorite things to watch her do. What was going on behind that sweet pixie face of hers? Was she thinking through A and B to reach C or D, or was she jumping out of the logical alphabet again? He couldn’t wait to see her when she was really conniving.
When she spoke next, it was to tell the Chancellor about her line of thinking about the Wyr, seasoned as it was by the intimacy of long familiarity, along with the conversation she’d had with Aryal. “So you see, it is nonsensical to believe the Wyr were behind the attack,” she said.
“I see,” Aubrey said. “Thank you for taking the time to explain it to me. When you explain everything that way, it does seem obvious that Dragos and the Wyr government were not involved, except in an accidental way as Tiago defended you.”