Trust Rune to quote Bob Marley. She would not have expected she would be able to smile back, but she did. She glanced back down to Tiago’s stretched-out form, and her smile was replaced with rage. “We are done with diplomacy. I want you to scour the camp. I don’t give a shit if it offends anybody or not. Use force if you have to. Durin and Naida mentioned someone named Ryle. Find him, and find out how much he knows. No one is exempt, not Aubrey, not Kellen. Nobody.”
“Bitchin’,” he said. His smile widened, and his amber lion’s eyes flared with a predator’s gleam. “Sounds like my kind of party.”
“Niniane,” Tiago said as he opened his eyes.
He was in her bed, in her tent. Someone had removed his clothing and bathed him. He broke into a sweat as he remembered the star of agony in his abdomen that had grown to fill his body with burning gold. He started to rise. Suddenly Niniane was there, kneeling beside him. She laid a hand to his cheek. “I’m here. No, please don’t get up.”
He looked at her hungrily. She was clean and dressed in a robe. The thin cuts at her neck were not covered, but her wrists were wrapped in bandages. Her face was drawn and pale, her lovely eyes haunted.
In his mind, he saw her bound and kneeling, her neck exposed and bleeding. One slice away from death.
His mouth opened as the breath left his lungs. He snatched at her and dragged her down. She grunted as he clenched his arms around her. He growled, “Every time I let you out of my sight, something bad happens.”
She put her head on his shoulder, her small body flowing to align with his and accommodate his tense hold. He put a hand to the back of her head and turned his face into her fragrant hair. She whispered, “Everything’s all right now.”
She pressed her lips against the bare skin of his shoulder. She was safe and alive, and she was with him. He dragged her underneath the bedcovers and curled his body protectively around her. His mind raced. “The shackles.”
She stirred. “Aryal has both sets of chains, and the key,” she told him, muffled against his skin. “She swears she’ll find a way to destroy them. She’s saying ‘my Precious’ a lot and talking about dropping them into a volcano.”
He took a deep breath and let it out. “Naida,” he said. “Cam.”
She swallowed hard and shook her head.
He rubbed his cheek in her soft hair as he listened to the sounds of the camp. People were talking and moving around quietly. Enough time had passed, then, for calm to return. “How long have I been out?”
“Almost thirty-six hours. You almost died,” she whispered. “It was really close, really bad.” He stroked her back, soothing her, and they held each other in silence for a while. Then she stirred. “There’s food,” she told him. “Venison stew and pan bread.”
Hunger was a sharp, insistent ache, but his need for answers was sharper. He said, “Tell me everything, starting with when I left.”
She did. Since she had learned things after the fact, she was able to add more to the story than what had just happened to her. Aryal and Rune had split off to keep an eye on Aubrey and Kellen, the most dangerous suspects. In the meantime, Durin received Tiago’s order to get the troops ready to ride out. While Tiago collected food and water for the journey personally, and saddled his and Niniane’s horses, Durin passed his orders on and went directly to find Naida.
“Everything Naida and Durin did from that point on was in escalating reaction,” she told him. “Right up to the end, when Naida realized Aubrey would never agree with what she did or forgive her. Then she had nothing left to lose, and I think she just unraveled. Just imagine, a couple of weeks ago she believed Aubrey would be crowned and she would be Queen.”
He growled, “Do you believe Aubrey?”
She tilted back her head and stroked his face. “Everybody believes Aubrey, Tiago. He has been beside himself. He has offered his resignation as Chancellor and asked to be taken into custody. And you know what? I finally learned where Duncan’s talents lie.”
He lifted his head to frown at her. “What?”
“Duncan, the Vampyre,” she said. “It turns out in 1890 or so, he founded what has become one of San Francisco’s premiere law firms. He’s expert at questioning witnesses and suspects, and especially at cross-examination, although after everything that happened, people were more than happy to cooperate. Between his skill, and Aryal and Rune’s truthsense, they’re confident everybody else in the camp—including Aubrey—is innocent. One of Aubrey and Naida’s attendants, a man named Ryle, was involved only peripherally. Naida had sent him to get Aubrey out of the camp quietly, but she hadn’t told him why. Geril and Durin were her two accomplices. She must have done quite a number on them to play on their greed and ambition. She all but promised to get Durin appointed as Commander, right in front of me.”
“So it’s really over,” he said.
She nodded. Her eyes filled with tears. “The sad thing is, Arethusa and Cameron didn’t have to die. If we had achieved more trust and openness—if we had all just worked together better, they would still be alive—”
“Hush, you can’t think that way,” he said. “All we can do is work with the information we have at any given time.”
The tears spilled over. “I know, but I liked Cam so much and she was so happy to come.”
“I know,” he whispered. He framed her face in his hands and kissed her damp eyelids, the tip of her nose, her mouth. “I wish I could take the pain away.”
“I don’t,” she said. “She deserves to be mourned.”
That may be so, but his faerie had suffered too much and he had had more than enough. If anybody so much as looked at her funny, he was going to come down hard on them with both sizefourteen steel-toed boots. Then he would consider seriously the merits of evisceration.
He kissed her again, gently, and she kissed him back. Then soothing became searching. She wound her arms around his neck, and he growled low in his throat and moved to cover her body. “Wait,” she murmured. “Don’t you want to eat first? You must be starving.”
“It has quite a high priority rating,” he muttered. He rested his weight on one elbow and ran his hand down the side of her body, looking for a way to open her robe. “It’s next on my to-do list, but you’re the first thing.”
The most important, the most urgent thing.
There was a belt at her waist. It was tied. He untied it and pulled her robe open.
She was naked underneath, and he swallowed as he stared as her gorgeous pink-tipped breasts, that narrow waist, the impudent little gold navel ring and the silken tuft of private hair at the sweet, graceful arch of her pelvis.
He put his forehead down between her breasts and swallowed hard. She was his life. It was as simple as that and he had almost lost her.
Niniane slipped her hands under his chin and gently urged his head up. Her face softened as she took in the harsh set of his face, his full glittering eyes. He shook his head. His throat had closed up, and anyway, he had no words.
“It’s all right,” she whispered. She stroked his face, his shoulders. She reached into the shadowed space between them, took hold of his erection and guided him between her legs. She pulled her knees up and cradled his long torso as he came inside her, came home.
Then the words came, and the force of his feelings shoved them out of his mouth.
“I need those chains back,” he said. “I’m going to shackle you to me. We’ll destroy the key. We’re never going to be more than two feet apart again.”
“Okay, we’ll do that,” she murmured. “I promise.”
“Don’t humor me,” he snapped. He pushed all the way inside. Then he rocked his hips, moving slow and gentle as he remained buried to the hilt. He felt huge and hot and he stretched her wide, and he found just the right spot to hit. With every thrust he ground hard against her pelvis, as he dug in as deep as he possibly could.