The Unseen Read online

  Aryal might have a point, but her confrontational style left a lot to be desired.

  “I think that’s enough for the moment,” Pia interjected, as she stood back from the doorway to gesture them inside. Flying was intense physical work. She knew from experience that Aryal would be starving. “Why don’t you both come inside and dry off? I’ll make some hot drinks and pull a snack together, and then we can talk.”

  “That sounds good!” Niniane exclaimed. Her teeth were beginning to chatter. “D-doesn’t that sound good, Aryal?” Her gaze shifted away from the angry harpy to the hallway behind Pia, and a glimmer of real pleasure lightened her tense features. “Dragos, hi! Wow…did you get a dog?”

  “No, I did not,” Dragos said. “We rescued it earlier this evening. Pia’s right. You can explain what’s going on after you come in and dry off.”

  “Okay! Shall I use one of the guest bathrooms on the left?” With a leery sidelong look at Aryal, Niniane dashed up the stairs.

  “Screw you, faerie,” Aryal muttered angrily. “I’m calling Tiago.”

  When she pulled her cell phone out of her jeans pocket, Dragos executed one of those maneuvers that demonstrated how fast he really was. Reaching around Pia, he plucked the cell phone out of Aryal’s hand. “Go dry off,” he ordered. “Calm down.”

  The harpy glared at him, looking as mad as a wet cat. “You’re not the boss of me anymore. Remember, you quit that job. Give me back my fucking phone.”

  Smooth as a shark cruising in shallow water, Dragos glided past Pia. As he did so, he flattened one hand on her chest and pushed her behind him, carefully. His powerful body had turned seamless with aggression, and the tiny hairs at the back of Pia’s neck rose in instinctive response.

  He said, his voice soft, “Make me.”

  Shadowing his heels, Skeeter growled at Aryal.

  “Cut it out!” Pia ordered. She’d been talking to the dog, but when both Dragos and Aryal paused to look at her, she decided to take advantage. Pointing at them both. “You predators have the worst tempers of anybody I’ve ever met.”

  Actually, Aryal had the worst temper of anybody she’d ever met—harpies were famous for their tumultuous, often violent temperaments—but Dragos wasn’t known for his sunny demeanor either.

  “Make him give me back my fucking phone, Pia,” Aryal said, her expression obdurate.

  “You can have your fucking phone back when Dragos says you can,” Pia told her. “Niniane is clearly struggling with something. Remember that you love her, give her a break, and when she feels safe enough to talk about it, she will. Now, my baby is asleep upstairs, and I want him to stay that way. You can either come in and behave yourself, and have something to eat, or you can head back to New York right now.”

  As she spoke a glimmer of sanity crept into Aryal’s stormy gaze. “Uh… I guess I’ll have something to eat.”

  “You know where the kitchen is.” Pia stepped to one side. As Aryal shouldered past them, Pia looked at Dragos. Somewhere in the middle of her little speech, his own anger had eased. He looked at her with his eyelids half closed, a small smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. She shrugged impatiently. “What?”

  “I love it when you get dictatorial,” he murmured. Hooking one arm around her waist, he pulled her close for a deep kiss.

  Holy gods, he was impossible to resist when he decided to turn on the sexy. Melting against him, she hooked one arm around his neck as he slipped the tip of his tongue—just the tip—between her lips. He made a nearly inaudible sound of frustration.

  If she didn’t put on the brakes now, she didn’t know if she could stop. Pulling back, she searched his face. What’s going on with you? she asked telepathically. You seem unusually grouchy this evening.

  Reluctant humor gleamed in his hot gold gaze. Don’t mind me. I’m just feeling cockblocked. By this time of night, I had expected us to be on round two of sex. This would have been the slow round, with my head between your legs. The one where I don’t stop, no matter how you might scream or beg.

  Oh wow, she said stupidly. A wave of heat washed over her, like smoke from the dragon’s breath curling around her body, and an empty hunger liquified between her legs. That sounds amazing.

  The heat in his scrutiny intensified until it sizzled the air. He slipped one hand between her thighs to cup her. You okay there, lover?

  He was never one for sweet talk or endearments, except, occasionally, that one. She tried to clear her throat, and it came out a whine. I—I’m not sure I am.

  “Hey, you guys mind if I eat this bacon in the fridge?” Aryal shouted.

  The hand between her thighs clenched into a fist. Dragos made that nearly inaudible noise again, a frustrated growl so quiet it was just a vibration. Pulling away, Pia clapped both hands over her mouth and snorted with laughter.

  Aryal strode into the hall, carrying the Tupperware container. She shook the container at them. “Bacon?”

  Still hanging out at Dragos’s heels, Skeeter barked. Dragos closed his eyes. He looked like he was in real pain. “S-sure.” Pia tried to keep her voice from wobbling. “Go right ahead.”

  “Awesome. There’s also some kind of casserole thingy. I had a bite. It’s delish.”

  Pia waved her hand. “You might as well.”

  “Thanks.” The harpy wandered back into the kitchen.

  “And there goes the breakfast part of the agenda,” Dragos muttered, making her laugh harder.

  Sensing movement at the top of the stairs, she sobered. Niniane came down. She was drier, not quite so manic, but the strange cloak still dampened her energy. “Are you okay, honey?”

  “I’m pregnant.” Niniane dropped the cloaking and burst into tears. Suddenly Pia could sense it and smell it in her changed scent.

  Dragos said, “Oh shit.”

  Niniane wailed louder.

  A while later, they sat at the kitchen table. Niniane’s story had come out punctuated with great honking sobs.

  She had been drinking a lot lately.

  (“Because, why not?”)

  The pressure of being the Dark Fae Queen was unrelenting. She spent a lot of time thinking about what could’ve or might’ve been.

  (“The old coulda, woulda, shoulda,” she said with a sad hiccup.)

  Then, one night, she’d stopped blocking the possibility of a pregnancy.

  (“I was drunk, there was no excuse, and I dropped the birth control spell for a night. It was like poking holes in a condom. Let’s see what happens, I thought. Probably nothing’s going to happen in a single night. I mean, I know Wyr males have mighty, irresistible sperm, but Tiago would have been blocking things on his end too. Right? I just… I felt so tired. That’s not an excuse. I’m not making an excuse. I’m just saying that I’m tired of pretending to be single, even though everybody and their grandmother knows Tiago and I are lovers. But to the Dark Fae, having a Wyr for a lover is like having a dirty secret. To them it’s a perversion, it isn’t something we’re supposed to talk about, and I was tired of everything and everyone. And when I reached for Tiago that night, I wanted to pretend and forget.”)

  Pia sat with her arm around the smaller woman’s shoulders, listening to the outpouring of pain. Dragos sat at one end of the kitchen table, turned sideways in his chair, arms folded and frowning into space. Skeeter lay with his head on Dragos’s shoe.

  Aryal’s belligerence had completely disappeared. At one point she left the room quietly and was gone for several minutes. When she returned, she leaned against the doorway at the edge of the room.

  Niniane rested her head on her forearms, refusing to look anybody in the eye. “So the way I see it, I can have an abortion and go back to Adriyel like nothing’s happened,” she said dully. “Or I can have the baby in secret, give it up and go back to Adriyel like nothing’s happened.”

  Covering her mouth with one hand, Pia met Dragos’s gaze then closed her eyes. The pain involved in those two choices was terrible to contemplate.

  “
Or I can have the baby openly, declare it my heir, and make it a target for assassination attempts its entire life, because the Dark Fae are xenophobic, racist shits, and gods forbid that a half-breed of any kind lay claim to their precious shitty throne.” Niniane took an unsteady breath. “Or I can abdicate and have the baby…and still make it a target for assassination attempts its entire life, because it will have a legitimate claim to the throne, and gods forbid that would ever happen. And I don’t know how to tell Tiago. I did not behave well that night, and it’s easy to tell someone you love about something you’re proud of. It’s lot harder to tell them something you’re ashamed of.”

  Aryal stirred. “That’s okay, you don’t have to tell him. I already did.”

  Niniane’s head shot up. “You what?”

  The harpy looked unrepentant. “I went upstairs, borrowed Eva’s cell phone, and called Tiago. He’s going to be here in the next half hour. He’s really mad, but he might calm down some by the time he gets here.”

  “I can’t even look at you right now!” Niniane exclaimed.

  “Oh, come on, I did you a favor. You just said you didn’t know how to tell him. Problem solved. You’re welcome. You never should have kept him out of it to begin with.”

  “It wasn’t any of your business!”

  Aryal opened her eyes wide. “I’m standing right here, aren’t I? You made it my business when you asked me to fly you two hours north.”

  Niniane roared, “THAT’S NOT THE SAME THING, YOU JACKASS!”

  As the two broke into an impassioned argument, Pia pinched the bridge of her nose and closed her eyes. She said telepathically to Dragos, Does Aryal ever do anything she’s actually supposed to do?

  Right now, I’m having a tough time remembering anything.

  Remind me to never tell her anything in confidence.

  Aryal has her strengths. She’s a relentless investigator, and there is nobody more loyal, vicious, or creative thinking in a battle, but she’s a disaster when it comes to interpersonal matters. If you need to be reminded of that, then you’re in a lot more trouble than either of us can help. He pulled out Aryal’s cell phone, crushed it in one fist and set the mangled piece on the table.

  Aryal’s mouth dropped open in outrage. She snapped, “Oh, thanks so much for nothing, Dragos.”

  Dragos met Pia’s gaze. Why are we still awake?

  She bit her lips, because smiling was the exact wrong thing to do right then. Taking Niniane’s hand between hers, she said, “Aryal shouldn’t have done that, and when Tiago gets here, you and he will have a lot to discuss. I want you to know, I am your ally no matter what you decide to do. You’ve been under an unbelievable amount of stress for years. And if you and Tiago decide you want to come to Rhyacia…” She glanced at Dragos, who gave her a subtle nod. “We’ll welcome you with open arms. You’ll be safe, you’ll have time to decide whatever you need to do, and we’ll have your back no matter what. Nobody’s going to hurt anybody’s baby on our watch.”

  “Y-you promise?” Niniane looked from her to Dragos.

  Dragos shook his head. “Nobody.”

  Niniane’s face crumpled and deep sobs wracked her slender frame. Pia gathered her into her arms, while Aryal watched with her mouth turned down like she might cry too.

  Pia said telepathically to Dragos, And we’re taking Skeeter with us too.

  He rolled his eyes. Of course we are.

  Outside the storm grew worse. Lightning struck several times in quick succession. Ironically, a look of relief washed over Niniane’s exhausted face. “He’s almost here,” she said. “Wow, he really is mad.”

  “That’s our cue,” Dragos said to Pia. She stood when he did. He said to Aryal, “You—out.”

  She gave him an incredulous look. “What? Why me?”

  He said between his teeth, “Give. Them. Some. Privacy. You cretin.”

  “Fine, I’ll go home,” she snapped. “Thank you for everything you did, Aryal—said nobody.”

  “Oh my God,” Niniane cried. “Leave by the back door, before you can cause any more damage.”

  Dragos snapped his fingers at the dog. “Outside. Do your business.”

  Skeeter jumped to obey. As Aryal went out with them, she asked, “Are you sure he isn’t your dog?”

  “He is a rejected snack,” Dragos said.

  “But you’re good with him. Maybe he should be your dog.”

  Dragos snapped, “The only pets I kept were sentinels, and you were all pains in my ass.”

  Pia could not laugh. She couldn’t, not in the face of Niniane’s agonized anticipation. Gently, she asked, “Do you need someone to sit with you until Tiago gets here?”

  “No,” Niniane said, although she looked like she wanted to say otherwise. “That’s okay. I created this mess. It’s mine to fix. Tiago and I will figure things out.”

  Kissing her cheek, Pia said, “The guest room at the end of the hall is yours if you want it. If you’re going to leave, don’t leave without saying goodbye, okay? One way or another, let us know how things go.”

  “I will. Thank you for everything.” Niniane hugged her tight.

  Pia didn’t wait for Dragos. She wanted to be out of the way when Tiago arrived, so she headed for bed. Eva sat at the top of the stairs, elbows on her knees while she turned her cell phone over and over in her hands. She was a beautiful woman, with brown skin, bold, sensual features, and the muscled body of a fighter. Niall’s baby monitor lay on the floor beside her.

  Baby monitors. That was another thing they would have to rethink in Rhyacia.

  As Pia picked up the monitor and sat beside her, Eva gave her an apologetic glance. “I had no idea that harpy meant to do evil when she borrowed my phone.”

  “Of course, you didn’t.” Pia watched Eva flip the phone between her long fingers. The action woke the home screen up, and she caught a glimpse of a familiar, young Elven woman with blue-tipped hair and a mischievous smile. She recognized the woman straight away. It was Linwe, one of Beluviel’s most devoted Elven attendants.

  A lightbulb went off. Oh. Ooooohhh. Maybe Eva had a crush on Linwe.

  Keeping her tone casual, she asked, “Remember when we traveled down to Charleston to the Elven demesne? I was pregnant with Liam and I had to pee every five minutes.”

  “How could I forget?” Eva scratched her jaw, smiling. “I hated your guts back then.”

  “You got over it.” She leaned affectionately against Eva’s arm. “That was back when we first met Linwe, wasn’t it? Wasn’t she part of the escort that took us into Beluviel’s Wood?”

  Eva stopped spinning her phone, covered the screen with one palm, and looked at Pia sidelong. “Might have been.”

  At the time, Eva had been head of the security detail charged with protecting Pia on her first diplomatic trip to another demesne. Pia said, even more casually, “You know Linwe went to Rhyacia with Bel, right?”

  “Yeah. So?”

  She shrugged. “Maybe you should ask her out when we get there.”

  The skin of Eva’s cheeks darkened as she laughed a little under her breath. “Ask her out to what, go see a movie? Rhyacia isn’t really a place to go dating right now.”

  Pia was sure she had hit a nerve. She pressed, “There are plenty of things you could do. You could ask her to go for a hike, or to go hunting…” Not that Pia could ever think something as horrible as hunting down and killing another creature could be a date, but this wasn’t about her. “The lake where we’re building the city is huge. Dragos flew me over it once. There are several beautiful beaches. You could ask her out on a picnic and go swimming.”

  She’d halfway expected Eva to grin and say hubba hubba, or something else about enjoying a hot woman in a bikini. Instead, Eva frowned down at her hands. “I’m not sure it’s a good idea to get involved with someone who has such different loyalties.”

  Oooooohh. Maybe there was more going on than just a simple crush.

  “Oh, come on,” Pia said after a momen
t. “Look at Niniane and Tiago. Rune and Carling. Graydon and Beluviel. Hell, look at me and Dragos. People from different races, different Wyr natures, and different demesnes make relationships work all the time. Besides, you’d just be asking her out on a date. There would be plenty of time to figure out anything else if things turned serious.”

  And it would be no bad thing for Eva to consider dating someone like Linwe, who had already demonstrated the capacity for deep loyalty and commitment. When Wyr mated, they did so for life, which could be a dangerous proposition, especially if that Wyr mated with someone of a different race. Now was not an appropriate time to bring that up, but Pia made the observation, and she approved.

  “It might be a moot point anyway,” Eva said. “I haven’t asked her to do anything.”

  “No, you haven’t, but you should. Because if you don’t ask, you know the answer is no. If you do ask, the answer just might be yes.” Dragos appeared at the foot of the stairs, Skeeter at his heels, and Pia stood. “That’s my cue. Thanks for watching Niall.”

  “No problem.” Eva stood too and kissed her cheek. “See you in the morning.”

  Dragos nodded at Eva as he passed her on the steps. When he reached Pia, he said levelly, “We don’t have a doghouse.”

  “Oh for God’s sake,” she exploded. “Scrub that thought from your mind. Skeeter is a house pet. We’re not putting him in a doghouse.”

  “This whole situation is very wrong.” He gave her the same kind of fierce frown that had once frightened most of the inhabitants of Cuelebre Tower. Hell, it had once frightened her.

  As they talked, Skeeter sat. The adoring expression in the dog’s eyes as he watched Dragos made a weird feeling flutter like a butterfly around in her chest. “That’s okay, honey,” she crooned, patting Dragos’s arm. “You’ll adjust. For tonight, he’s sleeping with us.”

  “Oh no.” Total rejection flashed across his face. “No.”

  “On the floor,” she added quickly.

  “Why do you insist on tormenting me like this?” he demanded.